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Pursuing the glory of God through Christ-centered worship, biblical community, and disciple-making among all nations.
Where the Streets Have No Name
“I wanna run, I want to hide
I wanna tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I wanna reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name
I wanna feel sunlight on my face
I see the dust-cloud
Disappear without a trace
I wanna take shelter
From the poison rain
Where the streets have no name”
So begins U2’s 1987 song, “Where the Streets Have No Name.” It’s unclear exactly what Bono meant by these words. But there’s at least the idea of wanting to get beyond ourselves to a place that’s beautiful and safe. He wants to “touch the flame” without being burned, to feel the warmth of the sun, and to find shelter from the “poison rain.”
Whatever else Bono might mean, these words illustrate a longing we all have, a longing to be in a place where we’re seen and secure, a place where we’re finally free and fully alive.
- S. Lewis, in his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” lays out what’s called the “argument from desire.”[1] He says that if we were made to commune with God in Paradise, just as Adam and Eve did in the beginning, then this desire will be in us. Have you noticed this longing in yourself?
We Were Made for God
God created the cosmos as the house where he’d live with humanity. After sin defiled the earth, God withdrew his presence from his people. But his original purpose was unchanged: God would restore his kingdom on the earth and bring his people back into his presence to live under his rule and blessing again.
At Mount Sinai, this restoration began to take shape. God told Israel that he was coming to live with his people again. But it would have to be on his terms.
What did God want? Why did God want it? And what does God want now? To these questions we now turn as we move into Exodus 25-27.
What Did God Want?
First, what did God want? Obedience, yes. But he also wanted fellowship. The Lord wanted conformity and communion. The Lord didn’t want to just tell his people what to do. He wanted to live with them. The Lord wanted a tabernacle (25:1-9, 26:1).
The tabernacle is massively important in the book of Exodus. The exodus from Egypt gets about two chapters, the Ten Commandments get two thirds of one chapter, but the tabernacle gets thirteen chapters (chs. 25-31, 35-40). The presence of God among his people is a priority in Exodus.
The building of the tabernacle isn’t an isolated event. It’s part of the larger story that starts in Genesis 1 and goes to Revelation 22. The tabernacle points us back to the Garden of Eden, where God lived with man, and forward to the New Heavens and New Earth, where he’ll live with man again.
The tabernacle was beautiful, especially compared to the dusty and dirty surroundings of the desert. The tabernacle was designed to be a place of majesty. It was a portable palace for the King. This is why God was intentional, careful, and deliberate in his design of the tabernacle (25:9, 40, 26:30, 27:8). God cared about every detail because it was the King’s house.
The Ark of the Covenant
The King’s house would be furnished with several items, each of which serving an important purpose. In 25:10-22, the Lord gives Moses instructions for the ark of the covenant, the most important of all the pieces of furniture.
It’s a simple box overlaid with gold that was around three and a half feet long and around two and a half feet wide and two and half feet high. It has feet to keep the base from touching the floor and two poles that stay in place at all times.
The ark is arguably the most sacred object in the Old Testament, but it often wasn’t used in the way God intended. The Israelites used it like a good luck charm to give them victory in battle (1 Sam. 4-6), and Uzzah is killed on the spot when he tries to prevent it from falling off a cart (2 Sam. 6).
But the ark wouldn’t be needed forever. Jeremiah says that there will come a day when the people will no longer say, “‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.” Rather, “Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall gather to it” (Jer. 3:16-17). There’s a day coming when the glory of the Lord that used to fill a box will fill all God’s people, who’ll all be a living and breathing ark.
Until then, the ark will hold the “testimony” (Ex. 25:16, 21) and will be covered by a “mercy seat” (v. 17). This “seat,” or lid, will have two cherubim facing one another with their wings stretched out over the top. This is where God will meet with Moses to speak with him (v. 22) and also where the blood will be sprinkled on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:14).
The Table and Lampstand
The next thing God instructs Moses to build is a table (Ex. 25:23-30). The table will hold the “bread of the Presence” (v. 30; Lev. 24:5-9). Once a week, twelve loaves of bread are placed on the table. They aren’t for God to eat, like the pagan nations around Israel would think, so they don’t have to be replaced daily, only weekly. It’s not that Yahweh has a slower metabolism than other gods. He doesn’t need food at all. As he says in Psalm 50:12, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.” God doesn’t need bread because the Creator doesn’t need the creation.
Next, in verses 31-40, Moses is given instructions for a lampstand. The lamp sits opposite the table and is lit each evening (30:7-8). The lampstand is in the shape of a tree, with branches and flowers and almond blossoms (vv. 32-33). It points us back to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, reminding us that God’s presence brings life and light to his people.
It also points us forward to something Jesus said about himself. During the Feast of Booths, when the Jews remembered how God sustained them in the wilderness, Jesus stood up and said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn. 8:12). Jesus says he’s the Menorah of the world. His light isn’t confined to a tent but lights up the cosmos.
If Jesus is the light of the world, then his followers must also be light: “You are the light of the world…Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:14-16). The lamp only shines if it has oil (Ex. 27:20-21). In the same way, our lives only shine if we’re filled with the oil of the Spirit.
The Curtains, Frame, and Veil
Chapter 26 outlines the instructions about the tabernacle itself, starting with the curtains (vv. 1-14), then the frames (vv. 15-30), and then the veil and curtain for the Holy Place (vv. 31-37).
There are a few things to note here. First, the fact that there are entrances into the courtyard, the holy place, and the most holy place means that there’s a way into God’s presence. But that didn’t mean anyone could just walk right in (40:35). The dilemma for Israel was that there was a “Do not enter” sign above the entrance. God lived with them but was separate from them.
Second, the presence of gold everywhere would’ve been stunning. Almost everything was covered in gold, from the furniture to the frames. The presence of gold points us back to the Garden where there was gold (2:11-12), and forward to the New Jerusalem, the “city of pure gold” (Rev. 21:18, 21). Gold, the most precious metal, points to the beauty of God.
Third, the colors of the curtains point us to Jesus. The curtains were made of white linen and blue, purple, and scarlet yarns (26:1). Many interpreters through the centuries saw the blue as symbolic of Jesus’ heavenly origin, the purple as symbolic of his royalty, the red as symbolic of his blood, and the white as symbolic of his purity and perfection.
The fact that the curtains all use the same colors reminds us that there’s still only one way into God’s presence. After Jesus’ flesh was opened on the cross, the curtain was opened in the temple (Mk. 15:38), opening the way into the Most Holy Place.
This is what the writer to the Hebrews is talking about when he says, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh…let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10:19-22).
Does the thought of walking into God’s presence scare you or excite you? If your heart has been cleansed by Jesus’ blood, you won’t fear going into the Most Holy Place, you’ll want to.
Why Did God Want It?
What God wanted was a tabernacle, a tent, to live in. But why did he want it? The tabernacle was designed to be a visual aid for spiritual realities.[2] The Lord wanted the tabernacle so that he, a holy God, could live with Israel, an unholy people.
Since the Fall, we’re all sinners and separated from God. Because of Israel’s sinfulness, there had to be distinctions between them and God in every possible way.
Every aspect of the tabernacle pointed to the holiness of God, whether the gold or colored curtains, the ark of the covenant or the lampstand.
All these elements also created a contrast between the Lord and his people. He is holy, they’re not. He’s beautiful, they’re not. He’s with them, but they can’t just walk into his presence.
The tabernacle was to display God’s holiness, but his holiness can’t be separated from his love (25:8, 22). In love, he made a way for his unholy people to come near to him. He gave Moses “the way” for this to happen. The pattern was revealed and provided by him. What God required, he also provided (12:35-36).
If sinners like us are going to come back to God, he must make the way and show us the way. The pagans never knew what to give their gods because they didn’t speak. But God told Moses exactly what to do so that he could live with his people.
The tabernacle revealed the holiness of God and sinfulness of Israel, but it also shows us something fundamental about what God is up to in the world. Through Israel, God was bringing his people back into his presence to live under his rule and blessing again.
One scholar says that “the tabernacle sums up the whole divine purpose in redemption.”[3] The Lord told Israel to build him a tent because he wanted to come alongside them, to identify with them in their circumstances. God wanted to go camping with Israel because they were his people and he was their God.
The Lord was married to them through the covenant they’d made, so now he was moving in! And his love was unconditional. Even while he was giving Moses these instructions on Mount Sinai, they were down on the ground rebelling and making the golden calf. He knew what they were doing, but in mercy he kept giving his word to Moses.
What Does God Want Now?
The Lord wanted a tabernacle because he wanted to live with his people. What does he want now? His purposes haven’t changed, from the Garden to Abraham to Israel, God wants to live with his people on the earth.
The tabernacle is a type of the Garden of Eden. But Israel, just like Adam and Eve, disobeyed God. Just as the Fall followed creation, so Israel “falls” after the Lord created them (Ex. 32). Israel, like Adam and Eve, doubted God’s goodness, disobeyed his word, and didn’t want God to be King over them.
God’s law and God’s tent were good gifts to them, but they couldn’t change anyone’s heart. God’s rules were perfect and God’s tent was beautiful, but they couldn’t save God’s people.
Only God could save his people, so in Jesus, God came to do what Adam and Israel could never do. In Jesus, John says, God “tabernacled with us” (Jn. 1:14). In Jesus, the transcendent One became the incarnate One. In the tabernacle, God was with his people, but his presence was out of sight. Jesus, however, is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15).
In Jesus, God took on the “tent” of human flesh, identifying with us, coming alongside us, even dying for us so that we could live with him again. In Jesus, God came to live with his people.
A New Tabernacle
But the story doesn’t end with Jesus. Everyone who comes to Jesus is united to Jesus and given the Holy Spirit. This means that followers of Jesus are now the new tabernacle or temple. Paul says it this way, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you. If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:16-17). And again, “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).
The church is the place where God lives with his people. The church is the new tabernacle, the beautiful place where God’s beauty is revealed.
By “place” I mean “people” because God’s tent is now not a material structure but a covenant community. The real beauty of the tabernacle wasn’t the gold or colorful curtains, but the presence of God. This is why David says, “One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4).
As one Old Testament scholar says, “No Israelite ever walks away from (the) tabernacle after a worship experience and says, ‘What a bronze altar!’ or ‘What curtain flaps!’ or “Best incense I’ve ever smelled!’ or ‘Nice turban on the Reverend’s head!’ What they surely say after they exit the gate of the courtyard must be something like ‘What a God! And just think, he invited us into his residence to meet with him!’”[4]
The real beauty of the tabernacle was the holy and gracious God who wanted to live with his people. The beauty of the tabernacle was the beauty of the Lord.
This means that, if the church is the new tabernacle and if the tabernacle is where the beauty of God is revealed, then the church should reveal the beauty of God. Our worship and our life together should reveal the beauty of God.
Paul talks about ordering the church so that, when “an unbeliever or outsider enters” he “declares that God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:24-25). Since we’re God’s tent, the place where his presence lives, when people come to our church, our worship and our life together should reveal the beauty of God. We don’t want people to come and say, “Oh what beautiful facilities, what great programs, look how many resources, what friendly people!” We want people to say, “Oh what a beautiful God they serve!” Are your actions and attitudes helping or hindering that? Are your words and works making the church more beautiful or more ugly?
What does God want now? He wants to live with his people, with those who’re in his Son, so that they can enjoy his glory and reveal his beauty to an ugly world.
A Final Tabernacle
Just as the tabernacle was an outpost of heaven on earth, so are local churches. Our church is called to reflect and reveal heaven on earth. This is what we work and pray for. And we do so while we wait for the final tabernacle, the New Heavens and New Earth, where God will live with his people on the earth again (Rev. 21-22).
We all long to be in a place where we’re seen and secure, a place where we’re finally free and fully alive. We were made to live in God’s tabernacle. In Jesus, God tabernacled with us, and one day he’ll bring his tabernacle to us. Are you ready to live there with God?
[1]C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 29ff.
[2]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 250.
[3]Ibid., 252.
[4]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 448.
Freedom From and Freedom For
Exodus tells the story of God giving his people freedom from something and freedom for something. Freedom from Egypt is only the first part of the story. Most of the book is about what Israel was set free for, namely, worship and service.
In our cultural moment, it’s easy for us to think about freedom only in terms of what we’re free from. We want to be free from oppression, constraint, or authority. But the Bible emphasizes what we’re free for: for worship and growth in obedience and joy and glory.
God didn’t design us to be free from all constraint, ruling our lives as our own masters. Exodus shows us that God wants his people to be free from so they can be free for, that he rescues them from their old master so they can joyfully serve a new one.
This truth is at the center of what it means to follow Jesus. The first question in the New City Catechism is, “What is our only hope in life and death?” Answer, “That we are not our own but belong to God.” Everyone in Christ belongs to Christ. It’s been said, “The freest people in the world are those who are owned by someone else.”[1]
The Endgame of Exodus
Serving the Lord is the endgame of the exodus. At the burning bush, the Lord said to Moses, “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain” (3:12). The servants of Pharaoh would become the servants of the Lord.
The first of the Ten Commands summarizes the freedom from, freedom for nature of what the Lord is doing with Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (20:2-3).
The Lord Preserves His Word So His People Can Obey
Redemption leads to obedience. The Lord set Israel free before he gave them the law, but he also set them free in order to give them the law. He freed his people so he could lead his people.
The way the Lord leads his people is through his word. So it’s no surprise that, when we come to Exodus 24, we see the Lord ensure that his word is preserved. In this chapter, Moses codifies, or writes down, the law of the Lord. Then he reads it and the people swear to do it. They understand that obedience comes after redemption.
The main point of this chapter is that the Lord preserves his word so that his people can obey. In this chapter, we’ll see Moses go down and the word go out (vv. 1-8) and Moses go up and God come down (vv. 9-18). Then I want us to see how Sinai connects to Pentecost, or that Jesus goes up and the Spirit comes down.
Moses Goes Down and the Word Goes Out
In verses 1-8, we see Moses go down the mountain and the word go out to the people. Verses 1-2 portray Mount Sinai like the tabernacle that will soon be built. There’s the holy of holies at the top where only the covenant mediator, Moses, can go. Then there’s the holy place part way up the mountain where the other leaders must stay. Then there’s the camp around the mountain where the people live.
We should note that Nadab and Abihu, two of Aaron’s sons, are allowed to go up the mountain and experience the presence of the Lord, but it won’t be long before they disobey God’s word and are killed on the spot (Lev. 10:1-7). Even the leaders of Israel are called to obedience or they’ll be judged. Great privileges come with great responsibilities.
Ratification By Blood
In verses 3-8, there’s a pause in the movement of the narrative when Moses goes down the mountain and tells the people all that the Lord has said (v. 3). The people agree to the terms of the covenant, saying, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (v. 3).
Moses wrote down the words of the covenant so that there could be no question about what the Lord was asking from Israel (v. 4). The agreement was now in writing.
Then Moses made an altar like the one described at the end of chapter 20. He set up twelve pillars to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Both parties of the covenant are represented by physical signs, the Lord by the altar and Israel by the pillars.
Since there weren’t official priests yet, Moses sends young men to make sacrifices to the Lord (v. 5). Then he takes half the blood and puts it in basins and throws half against the altar (v. 6).
Blood was an essential element in covenant-making in the Bible. There’s blood when God makes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, telling him to cut the animals in half and walk in between them. And there’s blood in Genesis 17 when God tells Abraham to circumcise all the males as a sign of the covenant.
The Israelites saw a creature’s blood as it’s life-force, the thing that gave something life. Keeping a covenant sealed in blood would lead to life. Breaking it would lead to death. Covenants in the Bible, says one scholar, are “a bond in blood.”[2] Using blood in a ceremony like this meant that what has happening was a matter of life and death.
After the sacrifices were made, Moses read the Book of the Covenant (chs. 20-23) to the people (v. 7). This was to ensure that there would be no misunderstanding regarding the content of the agreement. No one was being asked to sign up before the terms were fully disclosed.
Then in verse 8 Moses sprinkles some of the blood on the people. By splashing blood on the altar and the people, Moses is binding both parties of the covenant to each other, the Lord to Israel and Israel to the Lord.[3]
You may recognize the language from verse 8, “the blood of the covenant.” Someone else uses the same language at the inauguration of another covenant. The night before he died, Jesus took a cup of wine and passed it around to his disciples, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt. 26:27-28).
Moses Goes Up and God Comes Down
In verses 1-8, Moses goes down the mountain so the word can go out to God’s people. The Lord preserves his word through Moses so his people can obey. Their freedom from Egypt is freedom for obedience to the Lord.
Then in verses 9-18, we see Moses go up the mountain and God come down onto the mountain. Verse 10 says, “they saw the God of Israel.” How does this fit with passages like 1 Timothy 6:16 that says that God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see,” or Exodus 33:20, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live”?
Old Testament scholar Jim Hamilton says we should understand these texts that say no one can see God as God using hyperbolic figures of speech to communicate his transcendence and separateness. In Numbers 12, the Lord says that he speaks with Moses “mouth to mouth…and he beholds the form of the Lord” (v. 8). This indicates a “face to face” kind of relationship, so these other passages can’t mean, “no one ever sees God.”
In Exodus 33, the Lord allows Moses to see the back side of his glory, but not his face (vv. 21-23). Hamilton summarizes all this data like this, “There are aspects of God that are too much for us, and only a privileged few can even begin to experience him.”[4]
We should also note that here in Exodus 24, the Lord invites Moses and these leaders into his presence, not to destroy them, but to commune with them. The Lord told Moses that if anyone came up the mountain uninvited, they’d die (19:21). But here it says, “And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel” (v. 11).
If sinful people enter the holy presence of God, they’re in danger. But the fact that God doesn’t lay a hand on them means that he was making a way for sinful men to be in his holy presence. By grace he allowed them to be there and enjoy his glory.
It even says in verse 11 that they “ate and drank.” There’s a pattern here: a sacrifice of an animal that ratifies a covenant and the people of God feasting in communion with the Lord. This is the covenant meal that depicts peace and joy between the covenant parties. This points us forward to the Lord’s Supper where Christians celebrate the covenant we have with Jesus. The Supper, one commentator says, is like the wedding reception after the covenant of marriage has been ratified: “The holy hour and the happy hour flow together.”[5]
A Portable Sinai
After the covenant meal, Moses is summoned up to the top of the mountain where he’ll receive the stone tablets (v. 12), or written copies of the covenant, and the instructions for building the tabernacle.
Even in this glorious moment, verse 14 says that Moses is concerned with the welfare of the people, so he leaves Aaron and Hur in charge. This reminded me of Ephesians 4, where Paul says that, when Jesus ascended to heaven, he gave gifts to the church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (vv. 7-11). Jesus, the new Moses, goes up to God but has his people’s welfare in mind. He goes away but not without providing them with leaders “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (v. 12).
Verses 15-16 say that when Moses went up, God’s presence came down. This anticipates the very end of Exodus (40:34). The tabernacle, as we’ll see in coming weeks, will become a portable Sinai for the people of Israel.
Jesus Goes Up, the Spirit Comes Down
Moses went up the mountain and the Lord came down. Now I want us to consider some connections between Moses and Jesus, to see how Sinai connects to Pentecost. Just as Moses went up and God’s presence came down, so also Jesus went up and the Spirit came down.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus went up to Jerusalem, up to Golgotha, up onto a cross, up from death to life, up to the Mount of Olives, and up into heaven.
After his ascension, Jesus continued his work on the earth by sending his Spirit down to fill his church (Acts 2). Jesus went up so his Spirit could come down.
As I mentioned last week, there are several parallels between Pentecost and Sinai. In their book Echoes of Exodus, Alastair Roberts and Andrew Wilson draw out several connections between Pentecost and Sinai:
“The law was given to Israel about seven weeks after the Passover; the Spirit is given to the church about seven weeks after the cross. The anointed leader has gone up, and the divine presence comes down. There are tangible physical signs: a great noise from heaven, whether thunder and trumpets or a mighty rushing wind, and the descent of God in fire. The gift that defines God’s people – first the law and then the Spirit – is given. The people are commissioned as kings and priests, and the tabernacle/temple is established. A sermon is preached, calling for obedience. A new covenant has started.”[6]
They also point out that, just as Israel faced opposition as they followed the Lord, so did the early church. Both Israel and the church faced enemies from the outside, whether Amalekites and Canaanites or beatings and prison sentences.
But these external enemies weren’t the real problem. The bigger problem came from within. It comes from hearts full of pride, sexual immorality, idol worship, and injustice. Roberts and Wilson point out how, “just as the victories of Israel were marred by the greed of Achan, so the progress of the church was marred by the greed of Ananias and Sapphira (Josh. 7:1-26; Acts 5:1-10).”[7] Joshua and Peter are both amazed that God’s people could act in such a way given all the Lord had done for them. Both families are singled out by the Lord, publicly rebuked, and killed.
Roberts and Wilson draw this conclusion: “As hard as we may find these stories to read, they point to the reality that, as Jesus explained, it is the inside rather than the outside of the cup that makes it unclean. More people die of infectious diseases than in warfare. More churches are undone by sin than by persecution. If God sees fit to use the ultimate sanction in response…it simply shows us the terrible severity of unrepentant sin.”[8]
Invisible Chains
This brings us back to where we started. The pattern of Exodus, and the Christian life, is freedom from and freedom for. The Lord sets his people free so that they can serve and obey him. Obedience is the result of redemption.
Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death (written in 1986!), compares the scenario of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984.[9] Orwell, he says, imagines a future where our freedom is destroyed by external forces like governments and prisons. But Huxley imagined a world where our freedom was destroyed from within, by internal forces like ego and selfish desires and leisure. Postman says, for modern America, Huxley was right, not Orwell.
Think about a contemporary parallel. In The Hunger Games, it’s the celebrity-obsessed crowds in the Capitol who’re in many ways more captive than the hungry and poor laborers in District 12. The people in the Capitol are no less enslaved than the people in the Districts. Their chains are just invisible.
True freedom means being rescued from both Huxley’s and Orwell’s picture of tyranny: tyranny of the other and tyranny of the self. Egyptian enslavement was no more deadly than Israel’s cravings. Bondage can be external and internal.
Many today are like the people in the Capitol, or like the Jews in John 8, and think they have no need for freedom because they’ve never been enslaved to anyone. But Jesus says our problem is that “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn. 8:34). Yet the solution is simple: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v. 36).
Freedom Isn’t Free
How does Jesus set us free? As it’s often said, “Freedom isn’t free.” Our freedom cost Jesus everything. The new covenant was ratified by his blood. On the cross, God took the blood of his Son and sprinkled it on his people. The blood of the obedient Son for his disobedient people.
Those who’re washed by Jesus’ blood also have a hope that, when he returns, they’ll get to go up, like Moses, into the presence of God and eat and drink with him.
In Exodus 24, the summit of Sinai becomes the floor of heaven. But we’re anticipating the day when these realms merge completely, when heaven comes down to earth. The day when all God’s people are invited into the holy of holies, when no one will be at the bottom of the mountain, when all God’s people will be at God’s table.
Are you ready for that day? Are you a slave to sin? Are you free from internal masters? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? If so, you’re free from sin and free to obey.
[1]Alastair J. Roberts and Andrew Wilson, Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 48.
[2]Oscar Robertson, quoted in John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus: Volume 2, Chapters 19-40 (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2001), 137.
[3]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 441.
[4]Exodus 24–25: On the Floor of Heaven and the Feet of God (Bible Talk, Ep. 31) – 9Marks : 9Marks
[5]Hamilton, 443.
[6]Roberts and Wilson, 138.
[7]Ibid., 139.
[8]Ibid.
[9]This analysis is from Roberts and Wilson, 51-2.
The People of God Reflect the Character of God
Today we’re coming to the end of the section of rules and starting to come down Mount Sinai and set our eyes toward the Promised Land.
The laws in Exodus 21-23 are specific examples of how the general principles of the Ten Commandments can be applied in everyday situations. They’re expositions of the Ten Commandments. These laws show us that God’s people aren’t free to live however they want.
The Lord wants his people to reflect his character. God’s people are redeemed so they can reflect God’s glory. These rules can be seen as the priorities of our King. These are the things he wants done in his kingdom, the things that our King values.
Our text is Exodus 23:10-33, where we’ll see that the rules of the Lord are also gifts from the Lord. The main idea of this text is that the Lord gives good gifts to his children. In our text, we’ll see the Lord give the good gifts of sabbath and celebrations (vv. 10-19) and the good gift of home (vv. 20-33). In between these two points, I want us to think more about the good gift of the law.
The Good Gift of Sabbath
In verses 10-19, the Lord gives his people commands about the Sabbath and Celebrations. These are the good gifts of a father to his children, teaching them that God’s people rest and remember. Verses 10-12 are about the sabbath, and verses 14-19 are about the Festivals.
These rules about the sabbath are an application of the fourth commandment (20:8-11). Verses 10-11 are about a sabbath year for the land, an extension of the sabbath command. Every seventh year, land owners surrender their land to its ultimate owner, Yahweh.
There are surely ecological benefits in letting your soil rest and replenish. But in Exodus 23, the stated reason why the land should rest is “that the poor of your people may eat” (v. 11). The sabbath for the land is to feed the poor, showing us yet again the Lord’s concern for the disadvantaged (cf. 22:21-27).
In verse 12, the sabbath command is reiterated from chapter 20. But there’s a difference in the motivation for Sabbathing. In chapter 20, it’s because God rested on the seventh day of creation, so Israel should as well (v. 11). Here the motive is to “refresh” the animals, servants, and sojourners. The sabbath command has both a theological and a humanitarian purpose. We don’t pit these things against each other.
“A Temple in Time”
The Sabbath is a unique gift to God’s unique people. Judith Shulevitz, a Jewish writer, talks about how the Jewish rabbis described the Sabbath. She says, “The Sabbath, said the rabbis, is the Temple in time rather than space.”[1]
Jewish people understand how wonderful and beautiful the gift of a day of rest is. I’m afraid many of us modern evangelical Christians do not. But Jesus explicitly says that the Sabbath was made for us. Mark 2:27, “And he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’”
The sabbath command is the only one of the Ten Commandments not explicitly repeated in the New Testament. What’s clear is that Jesus fulfilled the sabbath laws for us (Heb. 4:3, 8-10).
Those in Christ are free to not observe the sabbath laws, free from the specifics of the Old Testament commands. But we aren’t free to ignore God’s wisdom.
When should Christians sabbath? Whenever is best for you and your family. Take a day each week, or a portion of a few days, to stop working and rest. Take time each year to rest – we call this vacation. Find what works for you and your family and your stage of life. Talk to another brother or sister in Christ and see what they do.
What Should We Do When We Rest?
What should we do when we rest? Two things. First, make worship part of your rest. Sabbath means setting apart time to rest in and with the Lord. This means that you need to open your Bible and pray during your time of rest. The point is to rest with Jesus, not from Jesus. Binging on Netflix or gaming all day during your sabbath isn’t sabbathing. Pursue things that will fill your soul, not numb your mind.
Second, do anything that’s not work. This doesn’t mean inactivity. It means do something that’s not part of your regular work. It means do something just for fun. Notice the word “refreshed” in verse 12. The sabbath is meant to refresh you, not bore you, so pursue things that refresh your mind, body, and soul. For me it’s running and reading. Running isn’t easy, but it’s super relaxing for me. When we go on vacation, I take a stack of books on things I just want to read about that aren’t directly related to my work.
What brings you joy? Pursue those things on your sabbath. The sabbath for the land is a good gift to the poor, and the Sabbath day is a good gift to God’s people. The law of the Lord doesn’t suffocate us, it liberates us from the tyranny of the urgent. The law gives the gift of rest.
The Good Gift of Celebrations
The law also gives the gift of celebrating. In verses 14-19, the Lord gives his people three festivals to observe every year: the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Harvest, and Feast of Ingathering.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread (v. 15) was celebrated in conjunction with Passover (12:14-20, 13:3-16). It was a week-long Feast that began with the Passover meal and was marked by not eating any leavened bread to remind Israel of the haste with which they left Egypt (12:39).
The Feast of Harvest (v. 16), also called the Feast of Weeks (34:22), was held seven weeks after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and it was to celebrate the beginning of the harvest and to honor the Lord as the provider of their crops and therefore deserving of their firstfruits. This Feast fell fifty days after Passover, so it came to be known as Pentecost.
I think there’s a biblical symmetry here, showing us something about the nature of what happened in Acts 2:1-4. At the Passover, God redeemed his people through the blood of a spotless Lamb. Two months (or fifty days) later, Israel arrived at Mount Sinai and the presence of the Lord descended in fire to meet with his people.
At the cross, God redeemed his people through the blood of a spotless Lamb. Fifty days later, on the day of Pentecost, the Lord descended on his people with tongues of fire.
Passover prepares God’s people for Pentecost. In the Old and New Testament, the Lord redeems by blood and reveals his power by fire.
The Feast of Ingathering (v. 16), also called the Feast of Booths (Lev. 23:43), celebrates the end of the harvest season and how the Lord sustained Israel in the wilderness. These Feasts are meant to remind Israel that the Lord is the one who gives them the land and sustains them in it. Their ability to produce crops is from the Lord. Their daily bread comes from him.
The four laws in verses 18-19 are attachments to the previous laws about the Feasts. The one at the end of verse 19 seems odd but teaches a theological lesson. The law is saying that it’s not right to use something that brings life to bring death.[2] Things should be used for their God-given and life-giving purposes, not twisted to fit every whim or preference we may have.
The Lord is Sovereign Over Our Work and Worship
The sabbath and the celebrations are good gifts from a father to his children, teaching Israel that God’s people must rest and must remember him. The Lord is sovereign over his people’s work and worship. He decides how much we should work and when we should gather for worship.
Just as the Lord wanted Israel to remember him and his work through regular rhythms of rest and worship, he also wants his New Covenant people to remember what he’s done. The death and resurrection of Jesus for our deliverance should alter and rearrange our lives and schedules. Remembering Jesus with other followers of Jesus every single week is not only commanded but also reveals that our lives truly have been altered by what he did. If church is a “I’ll go if I can, if I’m not too tired, if I’m not too busy or have too much homework,” then you perhaps haven’t understood the radical, life-reshaping nature of what Jesus has done for you. Gathering regularly with the covenant community is part of our identity, part of who we are.
The Good Gift of the Law
Before we look at the next section, I want us to think about how Christians should use the law. In The Highlander this month, I wrote about some implications of what’s called the “third purpose of the law,” namely, that God’s word governs God’s people, God cares about every aspect of our lives, and that God wants his people to be distinct.
These are general principles, but they don’t help us know what we’re to do with these laws specifically. In other words, how do Christians apply these laws we’ve been looking at? There are three options for us: Must we strictly obey them? Are we free to ignore them? Do we just look for principles in them?
I came across an article this week that was really helpful for us as we think about this question. In his article “The Law of Moses and the Christian: A Compromise,” David Dorsey argues that the law is and isn’t binding for Christians. He says the 613 laws given at Mount Sinai aren’t binding for Christians because they weren’t given to Christians. They were given to ancient Israel.
Here is how he summarizes this point: “In sum, the Sinaitic law code was very specifically designed by God to regulate the lives of the West Semitic inhabitants of the southern Levant. Nearly all the regulations of the corpus – over ninety-five percent – are so culturally specific, geographically limited, and so forth that they would be completely inapplicable, and in fact unfulfillable, to Christians living throughout the world today. This fact alone should suggest that the corpus is not legally binding upon Christians and that it cannot possibly represent the marching orders of the Church.”[3]
One response to this is to say that the law has three parts: ceremonial, civil, and moral, and while the ceremonial and civil laws no longer apply, the moral laws do. There are some problems with dividing the law up like this, however. This threefold division isn’t found in the Bible or in early rabbinic literature, and which of the laws are not moral, or don’t concern matters of what’s right and wrong?
Dorsey argues that there’s a way to approach the law that allows the morals of all the laws to still be binding for Christians. He points out that 2 Timothy 3:16 says that “all Scripture…is profitable for teaching,” which includes the law. And that Paul has a very high opinion of the law, calling it “good, holy, righteous, and spiritual” (Rom. 7:12-14). Paul says the law is valuable, not just in what it teaches, but in what it exposes, namely, our sin (Rom. 3:20). Paul even says that individual laws were given “for us” (1 Cor. 9:8-10). And he never implies that only a certain category of laws applies to us.
The law may not be legally binding, but it shows us the mind and ways of God just like all the other portions of the Old Testament. These laws may not be our laws, but they were issued by our God, given by the One we know and serve. Dorsey summarizes this well: “A law reflects the mind, the personality, the priorities, the values, the likes and dislikes of the lawgiver. Each law issued by God to ancient Israel…reflects God’s mind and is therefore a theological treasure.”
In other words, the law shows us something about God and about what he values in his people. In this sense, all 613 of the laws of Moses are binding for Christians.
Rules for Interpreting the Law
Dorsey gives us four simple steps to follow when we’re interpreting the Old Testament laws. First, remind yourself that these laws were originally for ancient Israel, not you. Second, ask what was the original meaning and purpose of the law – what was its point for Israel? Third, determine the theological significance of the law – what does this law reveal about God and his ways? And fourth, what are the practical implications for our context?
For example, lets go back to the sabbath laws we’ve already discussed. They were for Israel originally, not us, so what purpose did they serve for them? They taught them something about God as creator and they provided for the poor. They taught Israel that God orders creation and loves his creation. They gave Israel a tangible way to honor God and their neighbors.
What are some implications for us? That we need to remember that God orders his world, not us, and that resting is a gift for us for our refreshment. The sabbath reminds us that we’re humans, not machines, and that rest will bless us and help us to bless others.
The laws of Moses are good and holy and spiritual. Yes, they show us our sin and our need for Jesus. But they also show us the goodness and greatness of God. Therefore, we should “pay attention to all that the Lord has said” (v. 13), and delight ourselves in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night (Ps. 1:2).
The Good Gift of Home
Verses 20-33 are God’s reminder to Moses and Israel that he will bring them home. The law shapes their lives, but it’s his promises that energize their hearts.
The Lord will bring them to the place he’s prepared for them (v. 20). Victory will come slower than they may want (v. 30), but they must never turn away from him or they will perish (v. 21). If they stay true to him, they’ll receive his full blessing (vv. 25-26).
The “angel” of verse 20 was also at the burning bush (3:2) and at the Red Sea crossing (14:19-20), so it’s fitting that he be the one to guide them to the Promised Land. This angel is closely identified with Yahweh, “my name is in him” (v. 21). Listening to him means listening to God (v. 22). This “angel” is likely a manifestation of the Lord’s presence.
Notice in verse 20 that it says that the angel will go “before you,” or “ahead of,” the Israelites. The Lord, like every good leader, is out front taking initiative and guarding his people from dangers in the wilderness. God’s honor is at stake with the Israelites. If they don’t make it safely to the Promised Land, he’ll be considered a liar and weak and unable to save his people.
Israel’s battles were his battles, so he goes out front to lead them into the unknown. The Lord himself will make sure his people get home. It’s not just that he’s with his people, he’s going “before” them and “guarding” them on their way. He’s their buffer, standing between them and anything that would keep them from getting home.
The Harvest Has Begun, and Will Be Completed
There’s a great symmetry here as well. Just as Yahweh went before Israel leading them through the waters of judgment and through the wilderness to the Promised Land, so also Yahweh-in-the-flesh Jesus Christ went before the church leading them through the waters of death and into a glorious resurrection.
Just as the Feast of Harvest meant giving God your firstfruits, trusting in the harvest to come, so Jesus’s resurrection, Paul says, is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). The Feast of Harvest was the tangible evidence of what was ahead. So too Jesus’ resurrection is the tangible evidence of the resurrection of all believers.
The first part of the harvest has come in, Jesus has risen, meaning that the full harvest will come. Everyone in Christ will be raised like Christ. They’ll be brought into an eternal Sabbath, a never-ending rest, a Feast of unending joy in a land promised to anyone who belongs to Jesus.
Is there an ache in your heart for that rest and joy, for life in that good land? Your heart yearns for the rest and joy of that land because that’s what you were made for, and you can have it in Jesus.
[1]Judith Shulevitz, The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time (New York: Random House, 2011), xvi.
[2]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 432.
[3]David A. Dorsey, “The Law of Moses and the Christian: A Compromise,” in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34, 3 (Sep. 1991): 329.
The Law in Local Churches
The laws in chapters 21-23 are specific examples for how the general principles of the Ten Commandments can be applied in everyday situations. They’re expositions of the Ten Commandments. In 22:16-23:9, most of the laws are focused on how God’s people treat one another, what’s commonly called “social justice.” These laws show us that we’re not free to treat people however we want.
The laws we’re looking at in Exodus 21-23 originally shaped a nation, but now they shape local churches. 22:31 says, “You shall be consecrated to me,” or as the NIV says, “You are to be my holy people.” Peter tells Christians that the Lord’s desire for his people hasn’t changed, “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1:15-16).
The people of God should reflect the character of God so that those who don’t know God can see God in the people of God. In other words, our life together as a local church is a fundamental part of our evangelism. Our congregational character is our witness to the world. What people see in us will shape how they think of God.
The Lord wants to reveal his holiness and love to the world. Since Jesus’ arrival this revelation no longer comes through a specific ethnic group, but through Jesus’ followers who’re made up of people from all ethnic groups and gathered into local churches.
The way we live together and treat one another in the church must reflect the character of God. To the degree that it doesn’t, we’re giving God a bad name in the world, saying false things about him. Our world desperately needs to see true justice and mercy, true love and compassion, and the place God wants them to see it is in local churches. God is redeeming the world through healthy local churches.
Another good way to think of these rules is as the priorities of our King. These are the things he wants done in his kingdom, the things that our King values.
Sexual Ethics
The first two verses in our section (22:16-17) are an application of the seventh commandment about sexual ethics (20:14). This “virgin,” as the ESV footnote says, is a “girl of marriageable age.” In this scenario, she has not consented to sexual relations with this man. Because he has taken what is not his, he must pay the “bride-price” and marry her. If her dad doesn’t want her to marry him, the man must still pay up. Laws like this show us that sexual morality is a matter of justice. All sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman is an injustice because it’s taking what isn’t yours.
Capital Offenses
The next three verses (vv. 18-20) list three crimes punishable by death. These laws are an application of the first and second commandments because they’re all deviations away from the true worship of God.
Verse 18 isn’t just a prohibition against female magicians. Leviticus 20:27 says, “A man or woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death.” Sorcery and mediums are forbidden by God’s people because they seek to coerce God to do what you want him to do, which is an afront to his kingship. Christians shouldn’t have their palms read or go to fortune tellers. We are free, however, to disagree over what level of engagement we have with entertainment or literature that employs magic. To be fair, if you choose to boycott Harry Potter, you may also need to boycott The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.
The death penalty associated with “lying with an animal” in verse 19 is because the practice was associated with the animal cults and fertility worship in Canaan and because it’s a flagrant disregard of God’s ordering of his creation.
Verse 20 gives the death penalty to those who worship anyone but the Lord. In a nation ruled by God, a theocracy, people who didn’t worship God properly were committing treason against their King. Some want to apply this principle today in order to make our society more Christian, but they fail to understand that conversion comes by the Spirit, not the sword.
Protecting the Immigrant
Verses 21-27 are about protecting the vulnerable. There are four categories of defenseless and disadvantaged people here: immigrant, widow, orphan, and poor.
The Lord begins with the immigrant in verse 21. A “sojourner” is someone from another place who doesn’t possess citizenship in the place they currently live. They were liable to exploitation because they didn’t have connections in the community because they weren’t from the community. “Oppress” means to “squeeze,” referring to all forms of physical and psychological oppression, whether harsh actions or unkind attitudes.
How do you see immigrants? More importantly, how does the Lord see them? Later in the law, he says he loves them. Deuteronomy 10:18, “(The Lord) loves the sojourner.” The Lord loves immigrants. Do you? If you’re an immigrant in our church, we love and welcome you and we want to help you as best we can.
This command has a theological purpose behind it. Israel must not oppress immigrants because they were immigrants (v. 21b). They knew what it was like to be foreigners in a foreign place. 23:9 says, “You know the heart of a sojourner.” Israel understood the fear and uncertainty and total vulnerability of being immigrants, so they must treat immigrants with care and respect.
The apostles applied this law to Christians, with Paul telling us Gentiles that we were “alienated” from God’s people and “strangers” to the covenant (Eph. 2:12), but that in Christ we’ve been given a permanent home. And Peter says that, because Christians are “sojourners and exiles” in this world, we shouldn’t live like the world (1 Pet. 2:11).
This means that, even if you’re not an immigrant ethnically or socially, if you’re a Christian, you’re an immigrant spiritually. You were born outside of Christ and God brought you into him and therefore wants you to live like him. Christians know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in, so we love and show compassion to the immigrants around us.
Protecting the Widow and Orphan
Verses 22-24 move to laws protecting the widow and orphan. “Mistreat” means to “abuse or humiliate.” The widow and fatherless are economically vulnerable because their breadwinner and defender is dead, so they were more exposed to those who’d want to take advantage of them.
There’s a promise and a warning here. The promise is that in verse 23 it says that the Lord hears the cries of orphans and widows (cf. 2:23-25). The Lord is a “Father to the fatherless and protector of widows” (Ps. 68:5, cf. 10:14).
Maybe you’re not an orphan but you grew up with parents who were distant or cold. Maybe they put food on the table and put you through school, but they missed your heart. The Lord hears your cries too. As King David says, “My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in” (Ps. 27:10).
The warning is that if you mistreat widows and orphans, God will judge you (v. 24). The mistreatment is individual in nature (v. 23), but the punishment is plural – the “you” in verse 24 is plural. The Lord’s response is against the community because mistreating orphans and widows is a matter of public concern. In other words, the whole community is responsible because they all know who the widows and orphans are and they choose to stand idly by while they were being mistreated.
When orphans and widows are mistreated, the Lord himself intervenes with righteous indignation. The Lord cares deeply for the vulnerable because no one else does.
Taking care of orphans and widows is high on God’s priority list. James, the half-brother of Jesus, understood this. He wrote, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction” (Js. 1:27).
Not all of us are called to foster or adopt, or to take in a widow. But we’re all called to consider it, pray about it, seek counsel about it, and do whatever we can to help those who do.
Protecting the Poor
Verses 25-27 are laws to protect the poor. Verse 25 doesn’t mean the Israelites could never charge interest (cf. Deut. 23:20). The law is more about the attitude God’s people take toward those who’re struggling.
Verses 26-27 are about someone in extreme poverty, someone so poor that all they have to offer as security for a loan is their cloak. The principle here is that God’s people care more about the spirit of the law than the letter of the law. Even if the person hasn’t paid back their loan, you give them their cloak back so they can rest at night.
The reason why is because the Lord is compassionate (v. 27). This is unique to Israel’s law code. Other law codes just set the standard, but Israel’s King both set and embodied the standard. In other words, the Lord never asked his people to do or be what he wasn’t.
The Lord is compassionate, so his people must be compassionate, whether toward the immigrant, widow, orphan, or poor. The Lord cares about the vulnerable, so must his people.
Justice, Not Charity
That these laws are here means that helping the vulnerable isn’t just charity, it’s a matter of justice, or doing what’s right in God’s eyes. Justice isn’t just about punishing those who do wrong. It’s about doing what’s right for those in need. It’s about giving people what they’re due, whether that’s punishment or protection. Ignoring the needs of the most vulnerable among us isn’t only unloving, it’s unjust. It’s not right.
It’s not enough to know these laws and want to do something. We must actually do something. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8) Desire and knowledge must lead to action.
Here are some specific ways that you could “do justice” to the vulnerable in our society. You could visit nursing homes to encourage and pray with those living there. You could volunteer at a hospital or be more intentional in caring for your parents or grandparents, especially if they’re widows or widowers. You could become a foster parent, adopt children, give money to adoption agencies, give money to or volunteer at a local food bank, build friendships with immigrants and refugees, ensure that they’re paid a fare wage, support businesses run by immigrants, give money to or volunteer at a local homeless shelter, buy groceries or a computer or a car or a house for a single mom you know, offer single parents free babysitting so that they can run errands or rest, offer your services free of charge to someone you know who struggles financially.
Honor Authority and Give Faithfully
Verses 28-31 are about honoring authority and giving faithfully. Verse 28 says that honor is owed to God and kings. Paul says that those in authority over us are “God’s servants” (Rom. 13:4), so we honor them and humbly submit to their leadership as long as they don’t ask us to disobey God.
Verse 29 says that a due portion of our goods goes to God. Giving from the “fullness” and “outflow” means giving from your best. This is referring to what later came to be known as giving God your “firstfruits,” which the last phrase of verse 29 confirms.
Giving the firstfruits means we give out of the heart of our income, not out of the leftovers. Giving out of the surplus is how we usually think, but it means putting ourselves first. Giving the firstfruits means putting God first. As you plan your budget, plan your giving first and then watch how the Lord provides.
False Witnesses
23:1-3 are laws applying the ninth commandment about false witnesses. The destructive use of language is still a problem among God’s people. James says the tongue is a “restless evil, full of deadly poison,” and “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God…My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (3:8-9).
Whether it’s lying under oath in court or slandering someone in the church, we shouldn’t use our words to “spread a false report.” This applies to gossip or saying to others what you won’t say to the person, without the qualification of, “But it might be true.”
Verse 2 says that just because everyone is doing it doesn’t make it right. “Siding with the many,” or allowing your thoughts to be shaped by the crowd rather than the truth, is not how God’s people act.
Verse 3 says that the poor don’t receive special treatment in court just because they’re poor. Verses 3 and 6 together show us that the law is balanced, measured, and just.
Verses 4-5 say not to take advantage of someone’s misfortune, no matter who it is. This goes against our natural and sinful impulses. But as those who’ve been shown amazing mercy in Christ, we “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” (Mt. 5:44), and “Repay no one evil for evil…To the contrary, if our enemy is hungry, we feed him; if he is thirsty, we give him something to drink” (Rom. 12:17, 20).
These laws show us that it’s wrong not to do the right thing and that we pursue justice based on truth, not emotions. What’s right is more important than how we feel.
The Wicked Can Be Righteous
The end of verse 7 says that the standard of justice for God’s people is God himself. He doesn’t let the guilty go free, so neither should his people.
But this creates a huge problem for us because we’re guilty. None of us keep God’s law perfectly, not even close. Some groups are better at some things than others. Conservatives emphasize sexual ethics and the rights of the unborn and liberals emphasize the rights of ethnic minorities, immigrants, and the poor. But neither lives up to their standards, much less God’s.
We’re guilty and God says he doesn’t acquit guilty people, so we deserve his “burning wrath” (22:24), his justice, for breaking his laws.
Thankfully, in mercy, he hasn’t left us to ourselves or consigned us all to hell. In love, he sent Jesus to live the law-keeping life we could never live, die for our law-breaking, and rise again to prove that God accepted his death as a perfect payment for sins, so that anyone who trusts in him and turns away from their sins will have their guilt removed and will be declared righteous.
God doesn’t acquit the wicked, unless they’re in Christ. The penalty we deserve fell on Jesus so that God can declare the wicked righteous and not be unrighteous in doing so (Rom. 3:21-26).
The law tells us that the wicked will be punished. The gospel tells us that Jesus was punished for the wicked. Understanding this changes the way we interact with each other. It sets us free to do justice for others instead of living for self. It turns us into people who value what the king values.
The Ten Commandments Applied
Chapters 19-24 is the “Book of the Covenant” (24:7). This “Book” has a prologue (ch. 19) and epilogue (ch. 24). In between, are the ten words (ch. 20) and the judgements (chs. 21-23), or the Ten Commandments and then several chapters of case law applying the commands to specific situations (“rules,” 21:1).
The “words” and “rules” (24:3) are to teach Israel how God wants them to relate to him and to each other. They’re about worship and social justice, about loving God and loving neighbors. As Jared pointed out last week, these laws are a picture of what God values.
The laws in chapters 21-23 are illustrative, not exhaustive. They provide specific examples for how the general principles of the Ten Commandments can be applied in everyday situations.
In our text today, we’ll see four things that characterize God’s people: God’s people take responsibility (21:33-36), God’s people know that every person is made in God’s image (22:1-6), God people go to God’s leaders when things are serious but unclear (22:7-13), and that God’s people make amends.
God’s People Take Responsibility
Verses 33-36 pick up where we left off last week, with the goring ox. As one commentator says, “The goring ox must count as the most celebrated animal in legal history.”[1] Last week we saw that an ox who kills someone should be stoned, but if the ox has a history of hurting people and the owner fails to keep it penned up, the owner can be stoned or ransom himself.
As Jared pointed out, these laws about public safety are really about personal accountability. The law under these laws is that every person is responsible for their actions and the actions of their property. The owner of the ox is responsible for any loss incurred by his ox. In verses 5-6, if your ox or a fire you started destroys someone’s field, you’re responsible to compensate the owner of the field for their loss. In verses 14-15, if you borrow something from someone and something happens to it while you have it, you’re responsible for compensating the owner.
The point is that God’s people take responsibility for their property and their actions. If you do something that causes harm to someone else or someone else’s property, you’re responsible to make things right. This is how God’s people operate.
I experienced a wonderful example of this a couple weeks ago. When I went to inspect the new church sign, I quickly realized it wasn’t the right color. When I pointed this out to the manufacturer, they looked into it and realized there had been miscommunication between the office and the shop. Instead of covering that up they told me the truth and said it was their mistake and would cover the cost of having it redone. I told the guy that I greatly appreciated his honesty and that his integrity made me want to do more business with him in the future. It was no surprise to later learn that he’s a church-goer. God’s people own their mistakes and do whatever needs to be done to make things right.
When you make a mistake or wrong someone, do you hide it or are you honest about it?
God’s People Know that Every Person is Made in God’s Image
This theme continues in 22:1-4, where the Lord gives some specific examples of how to apply the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (20:15).
These verses deal with thieves and thievery, whether cattle stealing (v. 1) or breaking and entering (vv. 2-3). The law demands payment of four to five times the amount stolen (v. 1). The Lord takes stealing seriously. The right to own property is a basic human right, a right codified in the Ten Commandments with the prohibition against stealing.
Verse 1 is why Zacchaeus says he’ll restore people he’s defrauded fourfold after he encounters Jesus (Lk. 19:8). Interestingly, Jesus didn’t bring this up, Zacchaeus volunteers to do this. Those who’ve met the Messiah are set free from hiding their sins and want to make things right with anyone they’ve hurt. Wanting to do this is an indication that “salvation has come to your house” (v. 9). Following Jesus and stealing from others are mutually exclusive. As Paul says, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph. 4:28). Are there any ways you’re taking what isn’t yours?
Verses 2-3 are a brilliant piece of legislation. If the thief breaks in at night and the homeowner kills him, the homeowner isn’t susceptible to a charge of murder, “there shall be no bloodguilt for him” (v. 2). This is where things like the Castle Doctrine in Texas come from, or the right for a property owner to defend themselves against an intruder, even allowing the use of deadly force if necessary.
But notice in verse 3 that the life of the thief is protected if he’s caught in the daytime, “if the sun has risen on him, there shall be no bloodguilt for him.” If the homeowner kills the thief in plain daylight, he’s held responsible for the homicide and vulnerable to blood vengeance and must flee to a city of refuge (Num. 35:36-37). This law protects the lives of both the homeowner and the thief.
Why can you kill a thief at night but not in the daytime? Because at night the homeowner is totally vulnerable and can’t see what the thief is doing or if they’re armed. In daytime, you can see if they’re armed and diagnose the situation much more quickly and accurately.
The text is clear that stealing is always wrong, but it’s also clear that the life of the thief is just as valuable as the life of the homeowner. Other law codes in the ancient Near East didn’t have such a concern for the life of the criminal. But God’s people must know that every person is made in the image of God, even thieves caught in the act of stealing in the daytime.
God’s People Go to God’s Leaders When Things Are Unclear
The next section, verses 7-13 continues on the theme of thievery, focusing on what to do when someone entrusts something to someone else and something happens to the thing entrusted to them while it’s in their possession. This continues the theme of personal responsibility. If you do something that causes harm to someone else’s property while it’s in your possession, you’re responsible to make things right.
Notice that in this section there’s an emphasis on God’s role in adjudicating the cases (vv. 8-9, 11). In cases where there’s disagreement about who’s right, the case is brought to the Lord. In ancient Israel, that meant going to Moses and the elders Jethro encouraged him to install back in chapter 18 (vv. 13-23).
But what about God’s people in the New Testament? What are we supposed to do when there’s a disagreement over something? Jesus says in Matthew 18 that we start by going to talk to the person privately who we think has sinned against us. If there’s unrepentant sin there, then more people can get involved, and if there’s still unrepentant sin, the church must act (vv. 15-17).
What if it’s not a sin issue but rather a legal dispute? In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says that believers shouldn’t take each other to court but do their best to work things out themselves. This is why our Church Membership Agreement says, “Lawsuits between believers, or threats of lawsuits between believers, are a matter of grave concern for the church, are contrary to biblical and church teaching, and mediation is an effort to resolve disputes in a biblical fashion (1 Cor. 6:1-7).”
What if it’s not a sin or a legal issue? What if there are things in the church that are unclear and ambiguous? How are those sorts of decision made? In the book of Acts, you see the church move from being led by the apostles to being led by elders. Acts 14:23 says that Paul and Barnabas “appointed elders…in every church.” Acts 15:6 says that “the apostles and the elders…gathered together” to consider a doctrinal dispute in the church. In Acts 20:17, Paul “sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.” In Titus 1:5, Paul instructs Titus to “appoint elders in every town as I directed you.”
Elders in a church aren’t God, just as Moses or his elders weren’t God. They are, however, there to help God’s people discern the best way forward when things aren’t clear.
Teaching and Governing
How do they do this? Teaching and governing. 1 Timothy 3:2 says that an elder must be “able to teach” (cf. Tit. 1:9). 1 Timothy 5:17 says, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” So elders teach and elders rule.
The elders are the “teaching shepherds” of the church, a gift given by Christ to his church (Eph. 4:11). This doesn’t mean that they teach every class or preach every sermon. It does mean that they’re the ones who’re responsible for the teaching ministry of the church. What’s taught in the Training Class, Kids Classes, Community Group, and Women’s ministry all fall under the auspices of the elders.
Elders are also the primary governing, or decision-making, group in the church. The elders are given the responsibility of leading and giving direction to the church, of “directing the affairs of the church” (1 Tim. 5:17 NIV). This involves planning, administrating, and delegating, and it’ll look different in every church. But having elders who govern essentially means that the decision-making processes of the church are streamlined. Instead of requiring a church vote or a committee decision on the details of the church’s life and ministry, the elders are entrusted with the authority to make many of those decisions. This is what Peter is referring to when he tells the elders to “exercise oversight” in 1 Peter 5:2. Our church’s bylaws summarize this oversight like this, “Oversight of the ministry, resources, and facilities of the church shall be vested in a council of elders who satisfy the qualifications set forth in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9.”
Elders who lead or govern with a domineering attitude is strictly forbidden. 1 Peter 5:2-3, “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you…not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.” Elders are called to take the posture of a servant, not a king.
And finally, in Galatians 1:8-9, Paul tells the churches in Galatia to sit in judgment of preachers (even himself!) if they should preach any other gospel than the one that the Galatians had accepted. Elsewhere in the New Testament, it’s the church that’s blamed for bad teaching, not the leaders (cf. 2 Tim. 4:3-4). So the church is ultimately accountable for doctrinal matters.
Scripture supports the idea of elder leadership in the church, while also giving the congregation final say on certain matters, a church polity summarized as elder-led congregationalism. This tension raises two further questions.
First, what about other matters that arise in the life of the church besides discipline, membership, and doctrine? So, for example, what about issues like building renovations or the budget? Should the congregation have the final say on these issues? The New Testament doesn’t address this issue. So how much a congregation decides to involve itself in such issues is a matter left to its discretion. Our church’s Constitution, for example, requires a congregational vote to approve the annual budget, but doesn’t require a congregational vote to approve the color of paint for the walls.
The second question is how can you be obedient to the biblical command to obey your leaders (Heb. 13:17) and at the same time exercise your membership responsibilities? The congregation must assert its authority where a matter is serious and the elders’ position is clearly contrary to Scripture. When the issue is serious but unclear, the congregation should trust the elders.
So, for example, let’s say that the issue is whether the Bible is the inspired word of God. It’s very clear from Scripture that the Bible is inspired by God. This is the kind of clear doctrinal issue that the congregation should not defer to the elders. This is where the congregation has the duty to step in and preserve the integrity of the gospel.
When things are serious but unclear, God’s people look to their leaders for guidance.
Here’s what we’ve seen in this section: God’s people take responsibility for their property. They own their mistakes and do whatever must be done to make things right. They don’t take things that aren’t theirs. They honor the lives of all people, including criminals. And they look to the Lord by trusting their leaders in cases that are serious but unclear.
God’s People Make Amends
Our text shows us that the thief must return what they stole, if they can, and make things right by paying the owner even more than they stole. Even if the owner forgives them, there’s still the need to make amends, to make things right. Forgiveness doesn’t cancel the need for restitution.
Forgiveness is a fundamental principle in all our relationships. If someone has wronged us, we’re called to forgive them. As Paul says, “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Col. 3:13).
But for true reconciliation to happen, the offending party must do whatever they can to make things right, to restore the relationship by owning their wrongs.
The Offended Person Pays
The amazing thing about the gospel is that the Lord is the One who’s been wronged, yet he’s the one who pays. We’re the ones who’ve broken his law. We’re the thieves, the murderers, the adulterers, the liars, the greedy, the proud. We’ve deliberately and consistently broken his law, and he’s rightly angry about that.
His law is good, it reveals his values. So when we trample on it, we’re trampling on him. Our sin is like saying to the Lord, “I don’t think your ways are good. I think my ways are better.” No wonder the Lord burns with anger toward those who break his law. Breaking his law is to call into question his goodness. Sin is calling into question the integrity of God.
In Jesus, God, the offended party, steps forward and says, “I’ll do whatever I have to do to make things right. I’ll restore our relationship. I’ll own your wrongs. I’ll pay what you owe and I won’t ever require you to pay me back.”
The gospel tells us that the offended person pays for the offenders. Those who admit that they’ve offended God’s holiness by breaking his law, put their trust in Jesus, the only one who ever kept the law of God perfectly and then died taking the curse of the law that he didn’t deserve, will be restored, will be given one million times more than they deserve.
The Vileness of Our Sin
One of the problems we have is that we actually don’t think our sin is that bad. We think as long as we’re dotting our I’s and crossing our t’s and keeping our nose clean and voting the right way and being nice to people outwardly and avoiding the world as much as possible, then that means we’re good with God.
But do you see your heart as vile because of sin? The hymn says, “The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day; and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.”
Only if you sense the vileness of your heart will you love the gospel. Only when you understand your dirtiness will you glory in the cross. Only when you believe that you deserve to be hung on a cross because of what you’ve done, will Jesus hanging on a cross for you capture your heart.
We’re the thieves who, in the night of our sin, have broken into the house of God’s law, taken what isn’t ours and trampled on his good name and deserve to be killed on the spot. But instead Jesus takes our death. Unrighteous thieves like us get to live because the Righteous One died. We deserve the cross, but Jesus took it instead.
Do you believe you’re as vile as the thief who hung next to Jesus? If you do, your sins will be washed away and your life saved.
[1]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 391.
[2]Mark Dever, A Display of God’s Glory: Basics of Church Structure, Deacons, Elders, Congregationalism, and Membership (Washington D. C.: 9Marks, 2001), 45.
The Book of the Covenant
Exodus 19 begins one of the most important sections in the Bible. It’s when Israel arrives at Mount Sinai. Their stay at Mount Sinai is the heart of the Pentateuch.[1]
Chapters 19-24 is the heart of the heart. Moses calls it the “Book of the Covenant” (24:7). This “Book” has a prologue (ch. 19) and epilogue (ch. 24). In between, are the ten words (ch. 20) and the judgements (chs. 21-23), or the Ten Commandments and then several chapters of case law applying the commands to specific situations (“rules,” 21:1).
The Ten Commandments are the heart of the heart of the heart of the Mosaic covenant. They teach Israel how God wants them to relate to him and to each other. These commands are about worship and social justice, about loving God and loving neighbors.
Rules about Worship
Exodus 20 gives us these ten words/commands in verses 1-21, then in verses 22-26 the Lord begins to give Moses specific instructions about a variety of issues. He begins with worship, or laws about altars. Why does he begin here? Because the way to respond to God’s commands is through proper worship.
Rules about worship are at the beginning and end of the judgments (20:22-26 and 23:10-19). Throughout this section there are instructions about worship and instructions about social matters interwoven together. God wants Israel to think about all of life as sacred, to not think that there’s a secular and sacred divide. He wanted them to know that his word is for all of life.
The way to respond to God’s commands is worship and proper worship involves things that must not be done and things that must be done. In these short verses, we see what God forbids in worship (vv. 22-23) and what he requires in worship (vv. 24-26). After we look at these verses, we’ll consider what proper worship looks like for Christians.
What God Forbids in Worship
First, we see what God forbids in worship in verses 22-23. In verse 22, the Lord addresses just Moses. He graciously honors the people’s request that he not speak directly to them (v. 19), and Moses yet again becomes the intermediary between God and the people.
The first thing the Lord says is that Moses should remind the people that he talked with them from heaven (v. 22). Why would the Lord point this out? Because he wanted the people to know that he wasn’t some local deity who lived on top of Mount Sinai, but that his dwelling place is heaven. The top of Sinai was a local manifestation of his heavenly presence.
Then in verse 23 the Lord basically repeats the first two of the Ten Commandments. These commandments are so important that the Lord repeats them virtually immediately after he gave them. True worship means not worshipping anything but Yahweh alone.
“Gods of silver” and “gods of gold” were forbidden to be part of Israel’s worship. No substance, no matter how beautiful could be worshipped as representing God. The argument can’t be made that something beautiful or expensive is “appropriate to God” or “call him to mind because their excellence suggests his excellence.”[2] The Lord is beautiful, but we find his beauty in his Word and in his Son, meaning we don’t need images or icons or idols to help turn our minds to him.
The fact that the Lord repeats the first two of the Ten Commandments almost immediately after giving them means that he understood his people’s propensity to use beautiful objects to worship him. The golden calf incident just days or weeks later proves he was right (ch. 32).
What God Requires in Worship
The Lord has reminded Moses what he forbids in worship in verses 22-23, now in verses 24-26 he tells him what he requires. What the Lord requires from Israel is an altar. Most of the Book of the Covenant is about social regulations, so these instructions about how to build an altar seem random and out of place. But they fit nicely at the front end of the rules because they let us know that proper worship is a priority for God. Everything else follows from that.
At this point in redemptive history, worship involved sacrifices, and altars were necessary for sacrifices. So he gives them a simple plan for a simple altar.
Altars weren’t a new thing for God’s people. Noah built one after the flood (Gen. 8:20). Moses built one after Israel defeated the Amalekites in 17:15. The patriarchs built many of them (Gen. 12:7, 13:18, 22:9, 26:25, 33:20, 35:1-7). The Lord would give Israel instructions for a more elaborate altar for the tabernacle in chapter 27 (vv.1-8).
At this point, the need was for an altar that could be built quickly and simply so Israel could begin worshipping as a covenant community. Moses built this altar after he finished giving them the words and rules of the covenant and Israel agreed to its terms (24:3-8).
This first altar for the people’s worship was simple in design, organic and earthy if you will. It was to be an “altar of earth” (v. 24), or made out of dirt, or stones that hadn’t been cut (v. 25). The Lord insisted on an altar that was simple. Why?
Old Testament scholar Doug Stuart says it’s because the Lord was still teaching them something about his holiness and idolatry.[3]
The altar must not be made with human tools because the Lord wanted it to be clear that it was his, not theirs. Holiness belongs to the Lord and anything he declares holy, so the altar must be his and his alone. It’s where he makes unholy people holy by transferring their guilt onto the animal that’s sacrificed.
His holiness is why he didn’t want any steps on the altar so that nakedness wouldn’t profane it (v. 26). People didn’t wear underwear then, except the priests who were later instructed to (28:42). In the Bible, nakedness usually refers to a loss of dignity or humiliation, so the Lord wanted his people to avoid indecent exposure during worship.
The altar was a holy place. It was where the Lord’s holiness would be revealed and satisfied.
But this simple altar also taught them something about idolatry. The altar must not be so fancy that it started to function like an idol, or something that human hands made but possessed divine qualities. Its simplicity was to teach people that it didn’t have intrinsic value. Its value was in its purpose, not its material worth.
The Lord wanted an altar that was functional, not necessarily beautiful, in order to draw his people’s attention to his holiness and protect them from making an idol of it. The first altar God commanded his people to build was simple to show them his holiness and to prevent idolatry. God wanted their eyes to be on him in worship, not on the forms or materials of their altar.
After giving the Ten Commandments in verses 1-21, the Lord begins to give Moses specific instructions about a variety of issues. He begins with worship, or laws about altars, because the way to respond to God’s commands is through proper worship. And in proper worship there are things that must not be done and things that must be done.
Proper Worship for Christians
We aren’t Old Testament Israelites, or under the Mosaic Covenant, but this principle still applies to us. In his discussion with the woman at the well, Jesus teaches his followers about worship (Jn. 4:20-26).
There are several things here that inform and guide our Christian understanding of worship. First, Jesus says that place is not important (v. 21). With his coming, God’s people can worship him anywhere, anytime. Worship isn’t confined to sacred mountains, buildings, worship centers, sanctuaries, churches, retreat centers, prayer closets, concerts, youth camps, or the like.
Second, worship is centered on the person of Jesus Christ. Salvation comes from him (v. 22) because he’s the promised Messiah (v. 26). Jesus is the sacred “mountain” where we meet God.
Third, true worshippers worship “in spirit and truth” (v. 23). This means that proper worship is guided by true views of God (“in truth”) and deep affection for God (“in spirit”). Worship is a matter of head and heart, of thoughts and affections. Good doctrine and deep emotions for God are not at odds. They go together. Right ideas of God create right feelings for God. If you understand God with your mind and feel nothing for him in your heart, or if you’re washed away in emotion for God without understanding who he is, you’re not worshipping “in spirit and truth.” People who have minds and hearts centered on God are the worshippers God is looking for (v. 23). Indeed, proper worship demands that we worship with head and heart (v. 24).
The Regulative Principle
Those who follow Jesus can worship God all the time from anywhere. But Jesus didn’t do away with the corporate nature of worship and make it purely individual. After he gave his followers the Great Commission, the command to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18-20), what we see in the book of Acts is that the way they fulfilled it was by starting churches. They went out preaching the gospel and gathering believers into local churches.
The apostles wrote letters to many of these churches, instructing them in the gospel and in their lives together. One of the things they talked about was what a church gathering should include.
Just as Old Testament Israel only worshipped in response to God’s word, so the New Testament church’s worship is regulated by God’s word. This is often called the “regulative principle,” meaning that God’s word, not cultural fads or personal preferences, regulates our worship.
Churches, like ours, who want to see the church reformed by the word often talk about five ways we make the word central in our gatherings: we read the word, preach the word, pray the word, sing the word, and see the word in the ordinances.
We read the word because Paul tells Timothy to “devote yourself the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13). We read Scripture out loud, multiple times, without comment, every week to show how much we value the Word of God.
We preach the word because Paul also tells Timothy to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). The Bible must be preached when the church gathers. Paying a pastor to devote his full-time efforts to preaching the word is a church’s way of demonstrating their belief that God’s work is accomplished through his word.
We pray the word because the early church in Acts was “devoted to…prayers” (2:42) and because Paul said, “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim. 2:1-2). We follow the ACTS pattern in our public prayers to teach that we should approach God on his terms, not ours.
We sing the word because Paul commands the Ephesians to “address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph. 5:19). The church sings to each other and to the Lord. Songs are teaching tools, so they should be full of biblical truth that opens our hearts to God’s glory and love. Everything that happens up front in a worship service is part of the teaching ministry of the church, so the elders shouldn’t delegate things like song choice to someone else. God will hold pastors accountable for how they teach in all the ways the church teaches.
One of the things we do to keep our eyes on Jesus and his holiness and not the form or style of our music is to pick songs with rich gospel content, prefer less instrumentation, and focus on congregational singing, or what we’re doing together rather than what’s happening on the stage.
And we see the word in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Jesus commands all disciples to be baptized (Mt. 28:19) and Paul says that the Supper should be taken “when you come together as a church” (1 Cor. 11:17-32). Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the visible signs and seals of the New Covenant and, with the preaching of the word, they visibly mark the church out from the world.
Our Lives on the Altar of God
Just as in Exodus 20, God doesn’t need man-made tools to build his church. He will build it on his word. God loves beauty and there’s a place for beauty, but when it comes to worship, God wants us to obey his word so that our eyes are drawn to the beauty of Jesus.
The beauty of Jesus is most clearly seen as his word transforms his people. Local churches committed to Jesus’ word are where the presence of the living God dwells. We’re “like living stones…being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). Like the earthy altar in Exodus 20, the church is the earthy place where people meet God through Jesus.
This is why Paul urges us to put our entire lives on God’s altar. He says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). Everything we are belongs on God’s altar. And that’s a good place to be because the altar is the place where God shows up, “I will come to you” and the place God blesses, “I will bless you” (Ex. 20:24).
Is your heart an altar to God? Have you given him your life?
God’s Son Jesus climbed up on God’s altar and willingly died for your sins so you could be with God and live for God.
When you understand that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, put his life on the altar for you you’ll want to put your life on the altar for him. Your whole life will be a “living sacrifice” and “spiritual worship” that pleases God.
Do you see Jesus dying on the altar of God for you? If you do, you’ll gladly put your life on God’s altar for him.
Have you put your life on God’s altar?
[1]We know this because of how long they stay there (one year) and how much material is devoted to their stay there (57 chapters). To put this in perspective, Genesis 1-Exodus 18 covers 2600 years in 68 chapters, Exodus 18-Numbers 10 covers 1 year in 57 chapters, and Numbers 11-Deuteronomy 34 covers 40 years in 59 chapters.
[2]Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 472.
[3]Ibid.
A Shepherd is With His Sheep
I want to start our study of Psalm 23 in Genesis with the story of Jacob. What does Psalm 23 have to do with Jacob? Long story short, because of poor decisions, Jacob is a fugitive on the run, sent away by his parents, and on a journey by himself into the unknown. But as he sets out on this journey, God meets him and tells him, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go…For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (28:15).
This promise marks the rest of his life. The Lord gives it again when he flees his evil father-in-law Laban in 31:3. Then when Jacob is preparing to return home, he tells his family that God “has been with him wherever he has gone” (35:3). As an old man, when he has to make a long journey to join his sons in Egypt, God goes to Jacob again and reminds him of his lifelong promise. He says to Jacob, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you in to a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again” (46:3-4).
Then at the very end of his life, Jacob looks back over all his years and confesses that God has been with him every step of the way. He says, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day” (48:15).
Why does Jacob call God his shepherd? Because throughout his life God was with him. A shepherd who’s not with their sheep is no shepherd at all.
David picked up on this theme in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd” (v. 1). Then notice the promise in the exact middle of the psalm: “for you are with me” (v. 4). David likens the Lord to a shepherd because the Lord is with him. Like any good shepherd, the Lord is with his sheep.
Dying to Be With Us
The best news in the world is that the God who made the world wants to be with you. And the gospel tells us that he even died to be with us and wants to take care of us.
Psalm 22 shows us how the Good Shepherd dies to save his sheep and Psalm 23 shows us how he lives to care for his sheep.
What does the Lord’s care look like? Using some of the most memorable imagery in the whole Bible, Psalm 23 says that the Lord’s care looks like a shepherd who bring his sheep safely home. We can divide the psalm into two sections based on these two metaphors of shepherding and hosting. The Lord shepherds in the field (vv. 1-4) and brings to the house (vv. 5-6).
The Lord Shepherds in the Field
First, in verses 1-4, we see the Lord shepherding in the field. When David says in verse 1, “The Lord is my shepherd,” he’s employing a metaphor that was common in the ancient Near East. People would often call their God or king their “shepherd.” The kings of Israel were judged as bad shepherds in Jeremiah (23:1-4). David in the psalms is called a faithful and skillful shepherd (78:70-72).
When David says that the Lord is a “shepherd,” he’s not just talking about what actual shepherds did, though he certainly is doing that. He’s also pointing out that the Lord is the King of his people, that he’s the one leading and in charge. The sheep don’t lead themselves. They’re led by a shepherd, and the Lord is that shepherd.
So before we get to the personal and intimate imagery of the Lord as a shepherd in a pastoral sense, we need to understand that David’s opening statement is a confession. To say, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is like saying, “The Lord is leading and I’m following,” or “The Lord is the Master and I’m the servant.” Saying “The Lord is my shepherd,” is like saying, “I belong to the Lord. He’s my King.”
Who Belongs to the Shepherd?
Phillip Keller was a shepherd who wrote a book about Psalm 23. He talks about how when he bought his first group of sheep, he was told to mark them. Each shepherd had their own distinct earmark which they’d cut into the ears of their sheep. This makes it easy to know who the sheep belong to. The mark was a lifelong reminder that could never be erased.[1]
In the same way, when someone comes to the Lord in faith and says, “I want to follow you, I want you to save me,” they have to take his mark. What’s the outward, visible mark of God’s people? In the Old Testament, it was circumcision, now it’s baptism. Everyone who comes to Jesus in faith and repents of their sins and wants to be part of his people is “marked” by baptism.
Baptism doesn’t save you, but it does identify you as a sheep who belongs to the Shepherd. This makes baptism far more important than you may realize. This means baptism is only for those who are actually following the Shepherd. It’s not for babies or for anyone who just wants to feel better about themselves. It’s for those who’re actually following the Shepherd’s way of life rather than their own.
Phillip Keller says, “It is a tragic truth that many people who really have never come under His direction or management claim that ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’ They seem to hope that by merely admitting that He is their Shepherd somehow they will enjoy the benefits of His care and management without paying the price of forfeiting their own fickle and foolish way of life.”[2]
Saying, “The Lord is my shepherd” is saying, “The Lord is my King, my leader.” It means he’s taken over the management of your life. His personal care is only for those who follow him.
“I Shall Not Want”
The next phrase in verse 1 is the result of the first phrase. Because the Lord is David’s shepherd, “he shall not want.” The NIV says, “I lack nothing,” the CSB “I have what I need.”
David says that the Lord meets his physical needs in verse 2 and spiritual needs in verse 3. The Lord makes sure that his sheep have grass and water so they don’t go hungry or thirsty (v. 2). But meeting these needs isn’t purely physical, as Old Testament scholar James Hamilton points out. It’s also emotional and psychological. By giving his people green pastures and still waters, the Lord is helping them “feel safe to lie down and rest,” and giving them “psychological stability and soul-quiet” so they don’t have to worry about lions or heat.[3]
The Lord’s provision for his sheep is a safe and quiet place where they can exhale and breathe and just be. You know the way you feel when you’re not in a hurry and you just sit somewhere and enjoy the moment? That’s what our shepherd wants to give our hearts all the time.
Verse 3 talks about the Lord meeting our spiritual needs. “He restores my soul” links back to 19:7, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” It seems that the way our shepherd restores our souls is by renewing our hearts as we meditate on the law of the Lord (Ps. 1:1-3).
Then it says that the Lord leads his sheep “in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (v. 3b). There are “right paths” for God’s sheep. The shepherd leads them on paths that he deems right, no matter what the sheep think. This means, as Derek Kidner says, there’s a “demanding moral content for (God’s) human flock.”[4] It even says that the paths we walk will either shame or exalt the Shepherd’s good name. David is saying that God’s glory is at stake in the way he lives. God leads his sheep in what’s right for their good and for his glory.
Because the Lord is a good shepherd, he provides all the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs that his sheep have, so that “we lack nothing.”
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Verse 4 says that the Lord’s provision isn’t just for the good times, but also the dark times. The “paths of righteousness” that the Lord leads us on often go through dark valleys.
In the summer months a shepherd would lead his sheep through valleys in order to find grass and water. This often meant walking through deep and rugged wadis, or dry stream beds that cut through the hills. The air in these wadis would be heavy with heat and would be covered with dark shadows as the cliff walls blocked the sun. In the wadis there was no grass or water, the heat was stifling, and the cliffs would often be too steep to climb. These valleys were also dangerous places because enemies could ambush from the high ground.
The sheep are in a vulnerable position as they walk through these valleys. If the sheep were in these valleys all alone, they’d have no chance.
Notice that David calls these “the valley of the shadow of death.” John Owen says this refers to “evils to the soul.”[5] David is talking about any dark valley the Lord leads us into, valleys such as paralyzing fear and anxiety, depression, habitual sin, disappointment, rejection by someone we love, chronic pain, financial insecurity, health issues that have no answers, political uncertainty, persecution for following Jesus, or even the sense that we’re a disappointment to God. These dark valleys feel like death, even if we aren’t dying.
The paths of life often lead straight into these valleys. There’s no turning back and going forward is terrifying. It’s uncomfortable at best and deadly at worst. What do you do?
If the Lord is your shepherd, you start walking. You’re terrified but you also know something. You know that the Lord is with you and that he has his tools for protecting and leading you. You start walking with a courage you didn’t think you had and along the way you actually feel comfort in the valley. Because you fear the Lord you don’t fear any evil.
Verse 1 says that the Lord’s sheep don’t lack anything, even in the valleys of darkness. How can that be? Verse 4, “For you are with me.”
Did you notice the shift in the language from verses 1-3 to verse 4? The more distant “he” is replaced with “you.” The shepherd is no longer out front leading but now walking beside. Our shepherd is more than a king, he’s also our friend, a side-by-side companion, someone who sticks with us no matter how hard things get.
God’s presence lights up the dark valleys we walk through. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Ps. 27:1) The light of the Lord gets us through our valleys of darkness.
In The Lord of the Rings, as Frodo and Sam approach Mordor, they’re exhausted and the burden of the ring is getting heavier and heavier. One night Sam couldn’t sleep so he looked up at the sky and, as Tolkien writes, “Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”[6]
How does the presence of God help us in the valleys of darkness? We remember that Jesus walked through the ultimate dark valley, the valley of condemnation and hell, a valley we should have to walk through, and that he did it for us so that in our temporarily dark valleys we can know that, despite our fears and failures, God will bring us into his house forever.
Would you rather be on the mountain without God or in the valley with him?
The Lord Brings to the House
We’ve seen how the Lord shepherds in the field, and in the valley, in verses 1-4, now in verses 5-6 we see that he brings us to his house. The threat of verse 4 turns into the triumph of verse 5. This is a celebration of victory over enemies, a vindication for God’s sheep.
The cup and the table of verse 5 match the grass and water of verse 2. The Lord is richly providing for his people. This is divine hospitality, the Lord bringing us to his table, anointing us with oil and giving us abundant food and drink.
The “Lord” (Yahweh) is mentioned in verses 1 and 6, bookending the psalm, telling us that the Shepherd is also a kind and rich host. Verse 6 says that he even pursues his guests or sheep with his love. His love will run after his people “all the days of their lives,” so they can trust that they’ll always be protected and provided for. The Lord will shepherd us all the way home.
May the Force, or God, Be With You
The psalm says that the Lord is with us now (v. 4) and will be with us forever (v. 6). This is no throwaway promise. It’s the best thing in the world. Psalm 84:10, “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” Living with God is the best way to live.
The characters in Star Wars often say to each other, “May the Force be with you.” It’s a blessing that says, “May you have special, even supernatural, power in whatever you do.” It’s a declaration of hope that something bigger than the person will be with them to protect them and provide them the power and skills and protection they need as they go on their journey.
George Lucas borrowed this phrase from the traditional Christian blessing, “May God be with you.” Many Christians around the world still say something like, “May God be with you” or “Go with God” when parting ways. Our English word “goodbye” is a contraction of the phrase “God be with ye.”
On the one hand, both blessings have the same desire, namely, that the person receiving it will have special strength to do what they need to do, that they’ll have power, skill, knowledge, and protection from something bigger than themselves. Both blessings are an acknowledgement that we need help because there are things in the world too strong for us.
On the other hand, one blessing says the strength will come from a mysterious and undefined “Force,” or power in the universe that’s available to all who’re able to attune to it. The other blessing, however, says that strength will come from “God,” or a clearly defined person.
Do you see the difference? One promise is impersonal, the other personal. One is vague and not clear about how we access the help. One is clear and tells us exactly who to go to for help.
The difference is massive. If you’re about to walk out the door to go climb a huge mountain, would you rather your friend or spouse say, “May strength be with you” or “May I go with you”?
God’s personal presence with his people makes all the difference in the world. The fact that God is with his people wherever they go means that they have direct access to God’s infinite wisdom, strength, comfort, protection, provision, peace, guidance, and help anytime and anywhere. God’s presence is what we need to survive. Without God with us, we have no hope in this world (Eph. 2:12).
That little word “with,” when it links humans and God, is so powerful. God promised to be with Jacob and many others. “The Lord be with you!” was a standard greeting used in Israel. It’s what you wished for yourself and for others. Why? Because life with God is the way life should be.
Life Only Possible through Death
But that life is only possible through someone else’s death. In Jesus, God came not just to be with us but to die for us. He says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn. 10:11).
Isaiah said that the Messiah would be like a “lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent” (53:7). Because of the cross, Jesus is a shepherd who knows what it’s like to be a sheep. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death and came out the other side alive and well so that everyone who follows him, who gladly submits to his leadership, will as well.
Jesus died so he could live with you. To live with him, you have to die to yourself. His friendship is only for those who accept his kingship. Those who do never lack anything.
[1]W. Phillip Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 25.
[2]Ibid., 26.
[3]James M. Hamilton Jr., Psalms, Volume 1: Psalms 1-72, Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021), 295.
[4]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 110.
[5]Quoted in William S. Plumer, Psalms: A Critical and Expository Commentary with Doctrinal and Practical Remarks (first published 1867; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2016), 312.
[6]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), 922.
The Bible Tells One Story
One reason it can be hard to read the Bible is because we don’t see how it all connects. It feels disjointed and confusing so we struggle to keep reading, especially the Old Testament.
To get the most out of the Bible, we have to understand that it tells one story. If we only read one chapter out of a book, without reading anything that happens before or afterward in the book, we wouldn’t understand or appreciate the book. We might learn about some of the characters and see a part of the action, but we wouldn’t know how that chapter fits into the larger story.
Psalm 22 and Jesus
The Bible is telling one story, so when we read a chapter we always need to see how it fits into the larger story or we won’t understand the chapter. How does Psalm 22 connect to the larger story of what God is doing through Jesus?
Jesus makes this one easy for us because he quotes Psalm 22:1 while he’s on the cross. After he was nailed to the cross and had hung there for several hours, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) In the middle of the agony of his death, he screams out the first verse of Psalm 22. Every Jewish person would’ve recognized the reference and known that Jesus was referring to the whole psalm even though he only quoted the first verse.
Why does he refer to this Psalm in particular? Why would Jesus refer to a psalm written by King David a thousand years earlier? It’s because Jesus understood this psalm to be about his death. He quotes the first verse as a way of saying that the entire psalm captures the essence of what’s happening to him on the cross.
Trust in the Midst of Despair and Ridicule
At least thirteen Old Testament texts are quoted or alluded to in the passion narrative. Five of them are from Psalm 22. Let’s go through this psalm and look at the various ways that it was fulfilled by Jesus’ work on the cross.
The first thirteen verses of Psalm 22 illustrate David’s trust in God in the midst of despair and ridicule, which is a picture of Jesus’ situation on the cross.
In verses 1-2, David is in despair, thinking that God has abandoned him, wondering why God doesn’t answer him and do something. In verses 3-5, he remembers who God is and what he had done. God is holy and had delivered his people from slavery.
David’s faith in God during this time of confusion and despair led people to mock and taunt him (vv. 6-8). The words of David’s enemies are almost identical to what Jesus’ enemies said to him while he was on the cross. Matthew 27:41-43, “So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him.’”
Jesus was trusting in God and was being mocked for it. But he didn’t waver from doing what he was sent to do. Like David in verses 9-11, he knew that God had been with him from the beginning, so he remained steadfast. David was trusting in God in the midst of despair and ridicule, just as his greatest Son would while he hung on the cross.
An Execution Not Deserved
Verses 14-18 ramp up David’s experience of suffering. Verse 14, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” Fatal dehydration in verse 15, “My tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.” Evil men pierce his hands and feet in verse 16. His bony frame is exposed in verse 17, “All my bones are on display” (NIV).
These verses describe more than persecution or illness. They seem to be describing an execution. It’s interesting that nothing like this ever happened to King David. He wasn’t executed. He died peacefully as an old man in his palace.
Notice that there are no cries for justice in this section. In the Psalms, you’ll usually see the psalmist cry out to God for justice in the midst of suffering or persecution, but not here. It seems as if David is willing to submit to this punishment even though it’s not deserved.
Are you beginning to see why Jesus understood this Psalm to be about his death? He was executed in a way that matches this description. The apostle John even says that, after the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his garments and cast lots for them in fulfillment of verse 18 (Jn. 19:24). Jesus submitted to an execution that he didn’t deserve and he didn’t cry out for God to stop it.
God’s Rescue Leads to Praise and Proclamation
In verses 19-25, God rescues David from his enemies which leads him to praise God and proclaim his salvation. Rescue in verse 21 leads to proclamation and praise in verses 22-23.
What’s the basis of David’s proclamation and praise? Verse 24, “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.”
David is led to proclaim and praise the goodness of God because God didn’t despise his suffering. He didn’t look down on the affliction of the afflicted one. In fact, just the opposite happened. God didn’t hide his face from the afflicted one and he heard him when he cried (v. 24b). In other words, God accepted the suffering of the one who was executed unjustly.
The suffering and death of Jesus wasn’t despised by God. Rather, it was accepted. We know this because he raised him from the dead. God validates, endorses, and confirms the efficacy and sufficiency of Jesus’ death by raising him from the dead.
Because the suffering of the afflicted One has been accepted by God, we’re led to respond just like David did, with proclamation and praise. Because of Jesus’ sacrificial death for our sins, we’re led to praise God for his goodness. Because God rescued Jesus from his afflictions we’re led to tell our brothers his name. God’s rescue leads to proclamation and praise.
A Universal Message
Notice in verses 26-31 who this message of rescue is for. It’s for the afflicted in verse 26, for all races and nations in verse 27, for the prosperous in verse 29, and for all generations in verse 30.
The proclamation of God’s rescue is for all classes of people. Rich and poor and middle class, Hispanic and Asian and African and American, young and old and middle-aged. All people and all kinds of people must hear this news.
What exactly is this news that all people must hear? According to this text, it’s the simple message that salvation isn’t something that we do but something that God has done. Verse 31, “They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.” The message that all must hear is that Jesus’ undeserved execution was accepted by God so that anyone who trusts in him and repents of their sins will also be accepted by God.
Jesus, Forsaken So We Can Be Accepted
Jesus was forsaken so we can be accepted. For the first time ever, Jesus the Son of God experienced separation from his Father while he hung on the cross. Jesus was forsaken by the Romans, the Jews, even his own followers. Now he’s forsaken by his Father.
Have you ever hurt so bad that all you can do is cry? The deepest pain we feel, the pain that brings out the most emotion in us, is the pain we experience in relationships. The agony and ache of losing a loved one, the betrayal or abandonment of a friend or spouse or parent touches the deepest part of us.
Why is Jesus in such agony? Because his Father has abandoned him, “Why have you forsaken me?” He didn’t just feel forsaken. He was forsaken. The Son is forsaken by the Father. But why?
To put it bluntly, it’s your fault. It’s my fault. Jesus was forsaken by the Father because of our sin. Jesus endured the agony of abandonment because our sin is worse than we think.
Because God is holy, he cannot even look at sin. The prophet Habakkuk says that the Lord has “purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (1:13). Our sin is so terrible and God is so holy that he can’t look at our sin. On the cross, our sin was put on Jesus. Therefore, because God can’t look at sin, he had to look away from Jesus. Because of our sin, the Father had to turn his back on the One he loved the most.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.” And in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” On the cross, Jesus became sin and was cursed by God because of it.
We usually don’t think our sin is that big a deal. We excuse it away by saying, “Nobody’s perfect,” “This is just how I am, this is my personality,” or “At least I’m not as bad as other people.” But we must come to terms with the fact that it’s our sin that Jesus suffered for. He didn’t die in some generic sense for the whole world. He died for your sin.
Our sin is so bad that it brought a curse upon Jesus. Your sin is not a small thing. It is a big thing. It created agony in Jesus’ soul. Does it do anything to you? Does it create any brokenness in you? Do you feel the effects of it on your soul? Do you hate it? Do you grieve it because you know that it hurt Jesus?
God cannot look on sin, so because he wanted to look on us, he had to place our sins on Jesus and then look away from him. He had to abandon Jesus in order to accept us. He had to punish Jesus in order to reward us. He had to forsake Jesus in order to come near to us.
Many of us know this but we don’t fully believe it, so we move back and forth between pride and self-loathing, depending on our performance. We either love ourselves or hate ourselves, depending on how we think we’re doing.
But the good news of the gospel is that our status before God is not at all dependent on our performance. “He has done it.” Or, as Jesus said right before he died, “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30). Jesus’ performance, not ours, is what matters.
How could our performance ever add anything to the price that Jesus paid? It can’t. When Jesus died on the cross, he made a full payment for our sins. So if you’re proud of your moral achievement, don’t be because it doesn’t add anything to what Jesus did. If you’re full of self-hate because of your sin, look to the cross and remember that Jesus paid your sin debt so you don’t have to punish yourself anymore. Jesus was punished to free you from pride and self-pity. He was abandoned so you could be accepted.
A Prayer for Help
Psalm 22 gives us a window into Jesus’ suffering, but it also tells us something about our own suffering. This psalm, in its original context, is simply a prayer for help. The psalmist doesn’t sense God’s care (vv. 1-2), other people are attacking and rejecting him (vv. 6-8, 12-13, 16-18), and he doesn’t feel like he can keep on living (vv. 14-15).
David is feeling pain and agony on every level. But his words express the pain and agony of anyone who suffers. Psalms like this are in the Bible as a model for how to talk about our pain because we all suffer. It’s a song filled with pain to help those in pain.
Hurt
Music still does this today. An artist will write a song out of a place of deep personal pain, but when they release it to the public it becomes a song for anyone who’s hurting. Recently I discovered a song Johnny Cash covered in 2002, the year before he died. It was a Nine Inch Nails song from the mid-90’s called “Hurt.” It goes like this:
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar’s chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
It’s a heavy song (the music video is even heavier). It’s a song about pain, addiction, regret, hopelessness, loneliness, shame, and grief.
Trent Reznor, the song’s original writer, called it a “valentine to the sufferer.” He said, “I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone.”
Reznor said he was “flattered” when he learned that Cash was covering his song, but he had his reservations when they first sent him the track. He said, “I listened to it and it was very strange. It was this other person inhabiting my most personal song. I’d known where I was when I wrote it. I know what I was thinking about. I know how I felt.”
But after he saw the music video, his thoughts changed. He said, “I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. What I had written in my diary was now superimposed on the life of this icon and sung so beautifully and emotionally. It was a reminder of what an important medium music is. Goosebumps up the spine. It really made sense. I thought: ‘What a powerful piece of art.’ I never got to meet Johnny, but I’m happy I contributed in the way I did. It wasn’t my song any more.”[1]
Johnny Cash took Trent Reznor’s song and made it his own. Those who listen to it in a sense make it their own.
Jesus’ Song for the Sufferer
In a similar way, on the cross Jesus took David’s song and made it his own. Anyone who listens to his dying words and takes them to heart is brought into contact with the pain of the singer himself.
By quoting Psalm 22 on the cross, Jesus identifies with the sufferer and joins the sufferer in their suffering. Old Testament scholar James Mays says this better than I could. He says:
“In his anguished cry to God when (Jesus) begins to recite this psalm (he) joins the multitudinous company of the afflicted and becomes one with them in their suffering. In praying as they do, he expounds his total identification with them. He gives all his followers who are afflicted permission and encouragement to pray for help. He shows that faith includes holding the worst of life up to God.”[2]
What do you do with your affliction? Where do you go with your pain? Do you try to outrun it? Do you avoid it through perfectionism or professional success? Do you mask it with humor and charisma? Do you ever stop long enough to listen to it and recognize Jesus with you in it?
Pretending things are okay when they’re not isn’t faith, and it isn’t what Jesus did. Jesus, modeling David, lifted his cries to God when he had no where else to go.
After Death, Resurrection
Psalm 22 is more than just a cry for help, it’s also a testimony that the cry was answered. You see this shift in the second line of verse 21, “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!” David cries out in his affliction and then praises God when his help comes.
The song descends into the depths of David’s pain. But David’s descent into despair is matched by his rise into praise (vv. 22-26). The result of his honest reckoning with the darkness of his life is a resurrection into a new life. After death, there was resurrection.
Jesus also descended into the deepest darkness, a fatal darkness, a descent matched and surpassed by his resurrection into new life and glory at his Father’s right hand.
What about you? Are you willing to walk into the darkness, to face all your fears, to let God save you from the evil that binds you? If you are, there’s a resurrection waiting for you on the other side.
[1]Johnny Cash’s Hurt: the story and meaning behind the classic song | Louder (loudersound.com)
[2]James L. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 106.
Knowing the One We Pray To
I said last week that the psalms give us a language to guide our prayers, that the psalms help us pray. That’s true, but they also help us know the One we pray to, and they help us know how we know the One we pray to.
How do we get to know someone? Through communication, both verbal and nonverbal. How can we know the One we pray to? Because he’s made himself known. The God who made us speaks to us, verbally and nonverbally. How does God speak to us? In our text today, Psalm 19, we’re going to see that God speaks to us through creation (vv. 1-6), through his word (vv. 7-11), and that his speech requires a response (vv. 12-14).
God Speaks through Creation
In verses 1-6, we learn that God speaks to us through creation. God speaks through the skies: “The heavens (everything above us) declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (v. 1). The whole universe is God’s wordless revelation, his nonverbal communication.
Ancient people were tempted to worship the sun, moon, and stars (Job 31:26, 2 Kgs. 23:5). Modern people see them as there by chance, serving no real purpose, or use astrology to discover a deeper meaning for their lives hidden in the stars. But the Christian looks at them with wonder and joy at the thought that God made them to show off his power and beauty.
These verses are saying that God designed the world to be a choir that sings his praise. God designed the world to be his witness, so that when we look at the world we see God. This wasn’t just the belief of ancient Israelites. The apostle Paul says the same thing in the New Testament: “His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20).
The world is God’s wordless speech, going out into the whole world, declaring the glory of God. One Old Testament scholar puts it this way, “It is all very mysterious and marvelous. The visible becomes vocal. Seeing is experienced as hearing. The imagination is in the midst of an unending concert sung by the universe to the glory of God.”[1]
Many people have created amazing things in the world. Plato turned the spoken dialogues of Socrates into a literary and philosophical masterpiece. Jane Austen created novels that have moved readers for hundreds of years. Hans Zimmer creates movie soundtracks that stir the soul. George Lucas created a universe of worlds and characters that are both entertaining and intellectually stimulating. Countless painters, writers, musicians, scientists, sculptors, designers, engineers, and architects have made a name for themselves by creating amazing things. They receive glory because of the splendor of what they made. How much more glory is due to the One who created all things, who created the creators?
Creation praises the Creator, showing us the worth of the Creator. God is speaking to us through the world he made. What else explains the fact that getting outside is one way to fight back depression and despair? Or the fact that many of us feel closer to God when we’re outside? Why do secular cities insist on having lots of parks? Why do we preserve vast amounts of land for state and national parks? Something in us is deeply stirred when we’re outside. Unplug and go outside so you can enjoy the choir of creation.
God Speaks through His Word
In verses 7-11, David says that God speaks through the Scriptures. God reveals himself through the world and through the word.
Verses 7-9 have six similar lines. Each line has a noun, adjective, and verb describing the word of God.
The six nouns are: law, testimony, precepts, commandments, fear, and rules. Taken all together, these six terms show us the practical purpose of the Scriptures, namely, to bring God’s will to bear on our lives.
The six adjectives describing the word are: perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true. These descriptors tell us just how different God’s words are from ours. Our speech is full of half-truths, compromise, hiding, and insincerity. God’s word is perfect, clean, and true. Whose words would you rather build your life on?
The six verbs describing specific qualities of God’s word are: “reviving the soul” and “making wise the simple” (v. 7), “rejoicing the heart” and “enlightening the eyes” (v. 8), and “enduring forever” and “righteous altogether” (v. 9).
These verses say that God’s words are good for us. They “revive the soul” and “rejoice the heart.” God’s word is meant to liberate, not enslave us, to bring freedom, not bondage.
Freedom doesn’t mean “I can do whatever I want.” Freedom doesn’t mean “no restraints.” It means finding the proper restraints. For example, a bird that swoops down into the water to get a fish will die unless it comes back out of the water. Why? Because it wasn’t designed to live underwater.
In our culture, we champion the idea of unlimited personal freedom, or the idea that we should be able to do whatever we want and no one should stop us. But freedom isn’t life without restraints.
Inside Out as a Modern Parable about True Freedom
Our family discovered the Inside Out movies this past week. They thoughtfully and powerfully illustrate the way our emotions work and the way identity is formed. Unlike most Disney movies, however, the message of “I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me” is turned on its head. In his review of the movie, specifically the second one, Samuel James writes:
“The Inside Out films offer a view of human nature that is far more realistic than most of the princess stories…Inside Out depicts a world in which teenagers like Riley cannot bend the world to their desires; in fact, they cannot even master the desires themselves. For Riley, redemption comes from giving up the ruthless pursuit to make her dreams come true. She learns that her most intense desires are not always righteous ones, and that she’s not the hero of her story in the way she has perhaps believed.”
James goes on to talk about how this messaging from Disney is all the more interesting given our current cultural moment. He says it’s good to hear a message about the folly and brokenness of our desires. He says:
“There is freedom in being liberated from the tyranny of my exalted view of myself. There is relief in being welcomed into grace, rather than cheered into self-determination.”
He talks about how many people are afflicted with a despair driven by performance and image. “This despair is lethal,” he says. “It drives many into friendlessness, into paralysis, and even into self-harm. I think Inside Out 2 could be a powerful parable for these souls. There could be a freedom that many feel for the first time in realizing, ‘Hey, I actually am not that good of a person, but there can still be love and grace for me.’ When the burden of self-creation is off, the quest for a love and a meaning that your own selfish nature can’t finally destroy is on.”[2]
True freedom is found in aligning our lives with the word of the Lord. The “law of the Lord” liberates us from slavery to our desires and “revives our souls” and “rejoices our hearts.”
Better than Money and Pleasure
In verse 10, David says that God’s word is better than money and sensory experience. David understands that knowing God is the highest good, not getting gold, and that the Scriptures reveal God, so the Scriptures are more valuable than gold of the highest quality. Money can’t revive your soul like the Bible can.
He also says that the Scriptures are better than sensory experience, or “sweeter than honey.” Anyone who has encountered God through his word will agree with David, that the delight that comes from hearing God speak to you, from being in his presence, is far greater than the taste and rush of energy that comes from sensory experiences.
He’s saying that the word of God has transformed his desires. Because he’s met God in his word, he has a greater desire for his word than for money or sensory pleasure. As one scholar says, “The Bible has wooed David away from other sources of pleasure.”[3] Has it wooed you?
Responding to God’s Revelation
God has spoken through the skies and the Scriptures, and his revelation requires a response (vv. 12-14). David says in verse 12 that there are inadvertent “errors” in his life that he doesn’t see, as well as “hidden faults.” Derek Kidner says, “A fault may be hidden not because it is too small to see, but because it is too characteristic to register.”[4] There are “hidden faults” in us that we’ve lived with for so long that we don’t even see them anymore. They’re like our doormat, always there but we never see them. We don’t see them because they’re small, we don’t see them because they’re normal.
David says that, despite the Lord’s revelation through the skies and the Scriptures, there are still things he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t have the resources to know himself completely. So he asks the Lord for help. The Lord’s help is often through friends who bring the word to us to help us see what we can’t see.
David also asks to be kept back from “presumptuous (or “willful”) sins” (v. 13). These are probably open, public sins that are the result of a conscience that’s grown hard through living with hidden sins. If we sin long enough in private, we’ll eventually stop thinking of it as sin and then we’ll sin publicly, or in a way that’s known to others, but we won’t care because we no longer think of it as sin. This is the point when sin “has dominion” over a person. The sin is the master and the person is the slave; you do whatever you want, no matter what it costs you..
David is praying against this in his heart and life. He wants to be “blameless,” to be a man of integrity. This isn’t perfection. It’s an integrity that results from confessing private sins so that he’s restrained from egregious public sins. What private sins do you need to bring to the light?
First Purpose of the Law
David understood that the law was perfect and righteous but he also knew that he wasn’t. Verses 12-13 are his admission that he’s unrighteous, imperfect, even confused.
This is a really good place to be because the primary purpose of the law of God is to swamp us. We read it and we know we should be this or that, but we know we’re not, so we despair.
If you read the law and it makes you smug, you haven’t read it closely enough. The job of the law is to show you yourself as you actually are. The psalmist looks at the law and sees how wonderful it is (v. 7), but by verse 12 he realizes he’s full of flaws and errors, and then at the end he starts crying out for a redeemer (v. 14).
Second Purpose of the Law
This is the second purpose of the law, to help us see our need for a redeemer. Christianity is only for moral failures. Jesus came for sinners, not the righteous. So if you look at the law and it doesn’t swamp you, if it makes you feel like a moral success, you’re not a Christian. Jesus only came for people who know they’re moral failures, and the way you know that is when the law comes in and shows you how bad you are.
The law pushes us to see our need for a redeemer. Paul says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). A Christian reads the law and says, “Jesus has done all this for me. He lived the life I owe God and died the death I deserve.”
We all know we should be perfect. Apart from the gospel, there are only two ways to deal with it. We either try to kill it by saying, “No one’s perfect but I’m better than most people.” The other way is to be consumed with perfection, where you have to achieve the perfect record, the perfect job, the perfect body, live in the perfect home, have perfect moments. We either try to kill our moral sensitivity or it drives us into the ground.
The only alternative is to understand that Jesus fulfilled the law for you. Christianity says that there’s nothing we have done, are doing, can do, or will do to gain God’s acceptance. It looks at Jesus and sees him as the One who’s done everything needed.
Third Purpose of the Law
The third purpose of the law is to show us how to give pleasure to God. For the Christian, the law shows us how to please God.
Tim Keller illustrates this by asking, “How do you know if you love someone? You begin to experience their desires as commands. You want to know what pleases them and you love to do those things. You know you’re in love when the pleasure of giving pleasure is greater than the pleasure of taking pleasure. Men, if you’re in love with your wife, when she asks you to do something you don’t like, if the pleasure of giving pleasure is greater than the pleasure of taking pleasure, you do it. And as you do it, you change and your relationship deepens.”[5]
It’s the same with God. The law of God are the things that please him, that give him delight. If you want a relationship with him, if you want to know him more intimately, you obey him so that you get the pleasure of pleasing him.
The Father wants to pour the assurance of his love into your life, and he does so as we keep his law. So we obey to grow deeper with him, we delight in the law because it brings the Lord pleasure, and whatever brings him pleasure brings us pleasure.
When we understand the purposes of the law to show us our need and bring us to Jesus, we don’t ignore it and we aren’t crushed by it. Instead, we delight in it, and the prayer of our life becomes verse 14, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
[1]James L. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 97.
[2]The Disney Princess Whose Heart Isn’t Worth Following (digitalliturgies.net)
[3]James M. Hamilton Jr., Psalms, Volume 1: Psalms 1-72, Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021), 261.
[4]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 100.
[5]The Search for Values – Gospel in Life
Pray the Psalms
This week we’re beginning a six-week series through six psalms (18-23). We’ll pick back up in Exodus in August.
Why study the psalms? To help our prayer life. Do you struggle to pray? Get in the psalms. Read them slowly and carefully and meditatively. Make them your prayers. The heat of summer can make us tired and lethargic. So can the “heat” of despair, loneliness, anxiety, fear, frustration, and sin. The psalms are God’s gift to us, giving us water in a dry and thirsty land.
They also give us a language to pray in we wouldn’t have otherwise. The late pastor Tim Keller, in his excellent book on prayer, says that the psalms give us a wide spectrum of prayers because if we’re left to ourselves, to our cultures or natural temperaments, there are many types of prayers we’d never pray. He’s worth quoting at length here:
“The Psalms contain heights and exuberant outbursts that melancholic types would never produce on their own. There are depths of heart insight that extroverted people might never discover. There are complaints and blunt questions to God of which introverted and compliant people are less capable.
We would never produce the full range of biblical prayer if we were initiating prayer according to our own inner needs and psychology. It can only be produced if we are responding in prayer to who God is as revealed in the Scripture. The biblical God is majestic and tender, holy and forgiving, loving and inscrutable. That is why prayer can never be primarily abject confessions or triumphalistic praise or plaintive appeals – it cannot be mainly any one type of expression. Some prayers in the Bible are like an intimate conversation with a friend, others like an appeal to a great monarch, and others approximate a wrestling match. Why? In every case the nature of the prayer is determined by the character of God, who is at once our friend, father, lover, shepherd, and king. We must not decide how to pray based on what types of prayer are the most effective for producing the experiences and feelings we want. We pray in response to God himself. God’s Word to us contains this range of discourse – and only if we respond to his Word will our own prayer life be as rich and varied.”[1]
Reading and studying the psalms will help your prayer life more than anything I know. So I want us to spend these weeks learning and growing in prayer.
A Love Song
Psalm 18 is our text today. It’s a song of “triumphalist praise,” announcing and celebrating God’s deliverance of king David. It’s a song about victory and freedom, a song of joy in God’s salvation of his king from all his enemies. It’s a song that teaches us how to rejoice in the salvation of God.
It’s also a love song from David to the Lord. Love bookends the psalm. In verse 1, David says he loves the Lord. In verse 50, the Lord expresses his love for David.
This psalm shows us how love for God works. Why should we love God? How can we love God? By understanding that he loves us first. David loves the Lord because the Lord loves him. Or as the apostle John says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10).
Love Refined by Fire
This prayer is a love song, but it also teaches us that God’s love doesn’t make life easier. This psalm shows us that David’s love is refined and the Lord’s love is revealed through trials.
Notice the introduction to the psalm before verse 1. David wrote this song as a result of walking through the fire. He had “enemies” he needed “rescuing” from.
Some context here will help. In 1 Samuel 16, the obscure, young shepherd boy David was anointed as the next king of Israel. It says that “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward” (v. 13). David was chosen by God and given God’s Spirit.
But that didn’t mean his life was easy. We don’t know how many years went by between that moment and 2 Samuel 2 when David was officially installed as king of Israel. But they were years full of uncertainty and pain. Saul, the man David served, becomes jealous of him, so jealous he tries to kill him multiple times, but David escapes into the hills.
None of this happened because the Spirit left David. All of it happened according to the plan of God. No one who serves the Lord gets a pass from pain. As Paul says after being stoned, “Though many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). After Jesus was baptized and anointed with the Holy Spirit, he was driven into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1). As Old Testament scholar Alec Motyer says, “The Holy Spirit and conflict belong together.”[2] To be a good and faithful king, David needed to learn war (v. 34). He needed to understand the strength (v. 32) and gentleness (v. 35) of the Lord. So the Lord sent him into the wilderness, literally and metaphorically, to teach him and make him into the man God wanted him to be. In all this, he loved the Lord. Why? Because he knew the Lord loved him.
This psalm is a love song written in the furnace of affliction. David’s love for God is deep and rich because it was refined by fire. He loved God despite all the testing God took him through.
Do you have the Holy Spirit? Do you curse God in the wilderness or press into his love in it? Have you experienced the strength and gentleness of the Lord? Do you love him as a result?
Let’s see how David expresses his love for God by looking at the five sections of this psalm. We’ll look at David’s danger (vv. 1-6), the Lord’s deliverance (vv. 7-19), David and the Lord’s character (vv. 20-30), David’s conquest (vv. 31-45), and the Lord’s praise (vv. 46-50).
David’s Danger
Verses 1-6 describe David’s danger. In verse 2, he uses a bunch of metaphors to describe how he escaped from Saul. One such example is in 1 Samuel 23:24-28. David lived in “the rock” (v. 25) and escapes from Saul by running around the mountain.
This wasn’t just a game of hide and seek. Saul was trying to kill David. This is what he refers to in verses 4-5. David is a man with a target on his back. He’s staring death in the face, “the snares of death confronted me” (v. 5).
What does he do? Verse 6, “I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help.” And what happens? “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”
This verse is about the effectiveness of prayer. When we cry out to the Lord, he hears us. He’s not deaf like our idols. His ears are always open to his children. David was in danger and he knew where to go. He knew who would listen. He knew who would meet him where he was.
What good father doesn’t bend down low and listen to his children when they’re hurting? And no one has bent as low as the Lord. He sits enthroned over the universe yet bends down to engage his children.
The Lord’s Deliverance
In verses 7-19, we see the Lord’s deliverance. These verses describe a theophany, or when God makes his presence known, in ways that remind us of the parting of the Red Sea (fire and cloud, parting of the waters), and Mount Sinai which was on fire and wrapped in smoke and shook violently.
As I’ve mentioned in our study of Exodus, the exodus functions in the Bible like a paradigm, or pattern, for how God will save his people in the future. We may read verses 7-15 and think, “But nothing like this actually happened in David’s life as recorded in 1 Samuel.” David uses the language of the exodus because he sees his deliverance as no less miraculous than Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea. He uses the exodus to interpret his experience because the way the Lord worked at the exodus is how he works to save all his people.
Look at the result of this amazing theophany in verses 16-19. The display of God’s power results in action at the point of David’s need. God employs his power to help his helpless son. As Derek Kidner says, “In God’s hands, absolute power serves the ends of perfect freedom.”[3]
David is poetically saying that the Lord will move heaven and earth to rescue his children, that he uses his strength to help his people. Why? “Because he delighted in me” (v. 19). The Lord rescues us because he delights in us. The Lord doesn’t have to love his people; he wants to.
David and the Lord’s Character
In verses 20-30, we see David and the Lord’s character. Verses 20-24 sound like they’re saying David is sinless, or that God saves him because of his good behavior. But this isn’t self-righteousness. David is simply asserting that he’s in the right in his dealings with Saul.
David doesn’t believe he’s sinless. He says in Psalm 143:2, “No one living is righteous before you.” He’s saying that he’s done nothing to deserve the way Saul is treating him. As a result the Lord “rewards” him with protection and safety.
Verses 25-30 are about God’s character and action. Notice the emphasis on God’s action in verses 27-30. David isn’t boasting in this song; he’s praising the Lord.
“Humble people” in verse 27 shows us what kind of people the Lord loves to save. God is for the under-dogs. Throughout the psalms, we see God’s care for the poor (10:2), the afflicted (22:24), the weak (35:10), and the needy (68:10, 86:1).
Remember how Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:2). Who does the Lord bless? Those who’re in need and know it. Those who understand and admit their spiritual poverty, their weakness, and their affliction are saved by the Lord. In other words, the Lord only saves people who know they need saving.
David’s Conquest
In verses 31-45, we see David’s conquest. David swiftly defeats his enemies, but he makes it clear who really won the battles: “God who equipped me with strength…he made my feet like the deer…he trains my hands for war…you have given me the shield of your salvation…you made my enemies turn their backs to me…you made me the head of the nations.”
In verse 31, David says the Lord is “a rock” (vv. 2, 46). In the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32, Moses says the Lord is “the Rock”: “For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice” (vv. 3-4). The Lord is the unmovable and unmoving One. He’s strong and provides refuge and protection.
But then in verse 35, David says something amazing, “Your gentleness made me great.” The Lord is a velvet-covered Rock. He’s strong yet soft, hard yet calm, tough yet tender, uncompromising yet thoughtful. The Lord is strong as a rock and gentle as a doe.
God was gentle with David, not harsh, and this gentleness “made him great.” Experiencing the Lord’s strength and gentleness changes us. In him we find someone who won’t leave or abandon us and someone who’ll hug us; someone who’ll fight for us and someone who’ll cry with us. This kind of love creates courage in us to face the world. His velvet steel “makes us great.” When the Lord stoops down to us, listens to us and cares for us like a good father, we’re raised up to do great things, namely, to serve him and others.
The Lord’s Praise
In verses 46-50, the song ends with praise to the Lord. David closes by saying that the Lord will love him and his descendants “forever” (v. 50). He must’ve wondered how his descendants, those in his kingly line, could be established “forever.” Isaiah picked up on this and speaks of one who’ll “reign on David’s throne…forever” and “of the increase of his government there will be no end” (9:7).
How could there be a king who reigns forever? Isaiah’s answer is that there will be a child who’ll be born who’ll be the “Mighty God” (9:6). He’ll be born, therefore human, but divine. One of David’s descendants will be given a kingdom and never lose it because of his divine and indestructible life. Jesus, the ultimate Son of David, is this King.
David praises the Lord that his line will be preserved so that a King for the whole world can come from him. This is why Paul quotes verse 49 in Romans 15 in a string of prophecies that say that Jesus came for the Gentiles and the Jews (vv. 8-12).
The greatest Son of David Jesus Christ came to be the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the care and provision the Lord showed David. When we look at Jesus, we see him doing all the things he did for David in Psalm 18. He saw us in danger from enemies too great for us and moved heaven and earth to rescue us. He swiftly conquered our greatest enemies, sin, Satan, and death by dying on the cross and rising on the third day.
Jesus, the only truly righteous one, left heaven and came to earth, not in a display of cataclysmic power, but in a display of strength through weakness. He allowed himself to be defeated so we could be victorious. He brings those who trust in him into a “broad place,” a place we can live and move and be free, because he delights in us.
Whatever danger you’re in, call out to him. He loves to save the honest and humble. He’ll light up your darkness. And he’ll be the strong yet tender Father your heart aches for.
[1]Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), 59-60.
[2]Alec Motyer, Psalms by the Day: A New Devotional Translation (Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2016), 50.
[3]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 93.
The Book of the Covenant
Exodus 19 begins one of the most important sections in the Bible. It’s when Israel arrives at Mount Sinai. Their stay at Mount Sinai is the heart of the Pentateuch.[1]
Chapters 19-24 is the heart of the heart. Moses calls it the “Book of the Covenant” (24:7). This “Book” has a prologue (ch. 19) and epilogue (ch. 24). In between, are the ten words (ch. 20) and the judgements (chs. 21-23), or the Ten Commandments and then several chapters of case law applying the commands to specific situations (“rules,” 21:1).
Chapters 19 and 24 are bookends to the “Book of the Covenant,” with 19 laying out the purpose of the covenant and 24 giving us the ratification ceremony for the covenant.
Chapter 19 is the beginning of what’s often called the Mosaic Covenant. Covenants are how the Lord relates to his people. There was a covenant at creation, a covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and a new covenant.
The Ten Words that Create a Nation
The Ten Commandments is the heart of the heart of the heart of the Mosaic covenant. They teach Israel how God wants them to relate to him and to each other. These commands are about worship and social justice, about loving God and loving neighbors.
There’s something else happening with the Ten Commandments. They were originally called “Words” and not “Commands” (Ex. 34:28), and the reason there are ten of them is because God is connecting the covenant of creation with the covenant at Sinai.
In Genesis 1, we learn that God creates the universe simply by speaking, by his word. The phrase “and God said” is repeated ten times in Genesis 1. The entire creation was a result of the God’s word.
These “Ten Words” at Sinai create a new nation. God is creating spiritual and social order out of chaos. These commands are an act of re-creation, and like all of creation, Israel’s life exists as the result of the word of God. Their life hangs on the ten words of God.
Exodus 20 gives us these ten words/commands. Today we’ll consider these three questions: what are the commands, why are they given, and how does Jesus fulfill them?
What Are the Ten Commandments?
The Lord begins in verse 2 by reminding Israel who he is and what’s he done for them. Israel’s relationship with Yahweh is established on grace. Now they must learn what life with Yahweh looks like. The law flows out of grace. The law is based on God’s salvation, not a condition for his salvation. They’re already God’s people, now they must learn how to live as his people.
The First Commandment
The first command in verse 3 provides the framework needed to understand all the others. Yahweh and Yahweh alone deserves allegiance from Israel. They should put him first in their lives, not to pay him back, but because he’s worthy.
Worshipping only one distinct God would make them a distinct people among the nations. The cultures around them had pantheons of gods. The first commandment says that Yahweh doesn’t operate within a divine assembly. He’s not first among equals, the leader of a pantheon of gods.
Israel left a land of many gods and is headed into a land of many gods, so they must know that Yahweh alone is God.
The Second Commandment
The second command follows logically from the first one (vv. 4-6). Israel is prohibited from making any idol of any form. The command has a twofold meaning: Israel must not worship the idols of other nation’s gods and they must not worship their own God in the way the nations do.
Yahweh regulates the worship of his people. He creates, saves, and sustains them, and therefore has authority to tell them how to worship him.
This command has a threat for those who disobey (v. 5) and a promise for those who obey (v. 6). It’s not entirely clear what the punishment or promise means, but what we can take from this is that Yahweh cares deeply about idolatry. He wants to be in the center of his people’s hearts.
The Third Commandment
The third command (v. 7) is often understood to mean, “Don’t cuss or use the Lord’s name when swearing.” Those are good ideas, but not what this command is about.
God’s name is his identity, revealing the essence of who he is. Later it’s referred to as “the glorious and awesome name” (Deut. 28:58). It’s God’s personal name, connected to his salvation of Israel. It indicates God’s intimacy with his people. The nations know him as “God,” or “the God of Israel.” Israel knows him as Yahweh.
What does it mean to use his name “in vain”? There’s ambiguity here. It at least means that we don’t use it lightly, but respectfully. But the command could be said like this: “Do not bear the name of God deceitfully.” This happens today when we say God told us to do something forbidden in Scripture, or when we get baptized into “the name of God” and don’t live according to his ways.
The Fourth Commandment
The fourth commandment (vv. 8-11) is the longest commandment, letting us know how important it is. We learn later that the Sabbath is the sign of the Mosaic covenant (31:12-17).
There’s the command itself (v. 8), what it means to keep the command (vv. 9-10), and a reason for the command (v. 11). “Remembering” the sabbath isn’t a mental exercise, but something that requires action. “Remembering” your anniversary without doing anything about it won’t go well!
By “remembering” the sabbath, Israel is treating the day as separate, or holy, compared to the other six days. The command applies to every human and animal (v. 10). Israel’s work week should reflect the original work week (v. 11). This verse is the reason why we should rest. We should stop working because we didn’t make everything. God did. We’re not sovereign. God is. We say we believe God is in control, but if we never take time to rest, we’re contradicting what we say we believe. Resting reveals that we believe that God’s in control, not us.
The Fifth Commandment
It’s often noted that there are two “tables” of the law, or two sections. The first four commands are about how we relate to God, the last six about how we relate to one another. This may be why God wrote them on two tablets of stone. We turn now to the second table of the law.
The fifth commandment (v. 12) brings us into the home, the center of all human social life. What does it mean to “honor” our parents? Does it mean we do what they say no matter what? What if our parents are wrong? Do children ever outgrow this command?
The command doesn’t answer these questions for us. One Old Testament scholar notes:
“The Ten Commandments are consistently ambiguous…the Ten Commandments are not exhaustive pieces of legislation that account for each and every contingency and possibility. They are to be obeyed, but as to how, that is a matter of continual reflection by the Israelites as they continue to live and grow in the shadow of God’s love and protection.”[2]
The word “honor” is similar to the word for “glory” and means “to be weighty or valuable.” Children must not think lightly of their parents. But it’s more than an attitude, as Paul says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Eph. 6:1). The command assumes that parents are honorable, or treating their children in ways that please the Lord. The command is a two-way street, about how children treat their parents and how parents treat their children.
The Sixth Commandment
The prohibition against murder (v. 13) doesn’t mean that any taking of human life is wrong. In the Old Testament, killing is something done by God and the Israelites, with God’s approval.
The word for “murder” here doesn’t refer to killing someone in the context of war or as punishment for a crime, or capital punishment. In other words, there’s legitimate and illegitimate killing in the Old Testament. This command refers to any type of killing God doesn’t approve of.
Positively, the command highlights God’s claim upon every human life. As Creator, he gets to decide who lives and dies, not us.
The Seventh Commandment
The seventh commandment forbids adultery (v. 14). This command forbids married individuals from having sexual relations with anyone who’s not their spouse. Jesus interprets the command as more than a prohibition of the physical act, but also against what we think or feel in our hearts (Matt. 5:27-28). As Ray Ortlund says, when we lust after someone, “We may not be touching, but we’re still taking what’s not ours.”
The command is applied elsewhere to prohibit any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman. It’s applied to all types of sexual relationships, whether homosexuality, incest, bestiality, or any form of sexual activity outside of marriage.
Question 11 in The New City Catechism asks, “What does God require in the seventh commandment?” Answer: “That we abstain from sexual immorality and live purely and faithfully, whether in marriage or in single life, avoiding all impure actions, looks, words, thoughts, or desires, and whatever might lead to them.”
The Eighth Commandment
The eighth commandment (v. 15) implies the right to own property. We have a right to keep what we rightfully own. Taking what’s not ours without consent is a high crime in God’s court and will create chaos and distrust in any society.
The Ninth Commandment
The ninth commandment (v. 16) is the command against perjury or lying in a judicial setting. God takes this law so seriously that he requires at least two witnesses for evidence to be considered valid (Num. 35:30) and the witnesses have to be the ones to throw the first stone if there’s a conviction (Deut. 17:7).
This command lays out a foundational principle to be applied in all areas of life. It applies to how we talk about one another, forbidding defamation, slander, or gossip. Every person has the right to their own reputation.
It applies to keeping promises and doing what we say we’re going to do. As Jesus says, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ anything more than this comes from evil” (Matt. 5:37). Or as Paul says, “Therefore, having put away all falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25).
The Tenth Commandment
The tenth commandment (v. 17) is about the heart, not behaviors. “Coveting” is “an inordinate, ungoverned, selfish desire for something.”[3] It’s used in Genesis 3:6 referring to Eve’s desire for the fruit of the forbidden tree. Her sin wasn’t merely eating the fruit but craving the fruit.
You can see why David prays, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord” (Ps. 19:14). The Lord is concerned with our hearts and our hands. He wants his people to do the right thing and want to do the right thing.
The Lord wants his people to be content with what he’s given them, not envying others for what they have or resenting what God has given them or us.
Why Are the Commands Given to Israel?
Why does the Lord give Israel these ten commandments? For at least three reasons: to reveal God’s character, to order God’s society, and to show them their need for God’s grace.
To Reveal God’s Character
Verses 18-21 tell us how Israel responded to God speaking these “Ten Words” directly to them. Verse 20 can be paraphrased like this, “Do not be afraid. God is giving you a taste of himself so that this memory will stick with you to keep you from sinning.”[4]
The people must live in the fear of God and not sin against his holiness. The Lord isn’t giving them these commands as simply good rules to live by. They’re meant to show them his nature. They aren’t guidelines for a successful life, but a reflection of God’s character. They show us what he likes and doesn’t like. The ten commandments help us understand God.
To Order God’s People
The second reason for the law is to order God’s people. The point of the commands isn’t to make Israel “nice people,” but to make them a “holy nation.” They’re given to people who’re already redeemed, not to people who need to be redeemed. They’re given to the redeemed community, not just to individuals. The commands are meant to build a culture that will display the greatness and goodness of God. The Lord wants Israel to be world-changers, not just religious rule-keepers.
This means that the purpose of the Ten Commandments is to order the life of God’s people, not all people. Is it good for all people to tell the truth, etc? Of course. But why are we so surprised when God’s law is broken by people never intended to keep it in the first place?
There’s a danger in misunderstanding this purpose of the law. As one writer says, “Expecting unbelievers to keep God’s law, or even to respect it, blurs the sharp divide between those who are God’s people and those who are not….To single out the Ten Commandments and set them up as a standard of conduct for unbelievers or American society in general indicates not only a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Ten Commandments, but of the good news itself. Christ died and rose to provide another way. We should do nothing to make that way obscure.”[5]
To put it more bluntly: “God’s laws are for his people. Those who do not know him are walking tombs. They do not need whitewashing but complete renovation, from the inside out.”[6]
People outside of Christ need resurrection, not rules. Being right with God isn’t about following rules but about faith and repentance. Expecting moral excellence from people without the Holy Spirit is wishful thinking at best and sends the wrong gospel message at worst. Those without Christ can do lots of good, but they don’t do it to please God, so their righteousness is tainted. Our lawless culture the gospel, not the law.
To Reveal Our Need for God’s Grace
Does this mean that God’s law has no place or purpose in an unbeliever’s life? No! The third purpose of the law is to show us that we can’t keep the law, or to show us our need for grace.
As the apostle Paul says, “Through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). We’re all sinners because we’ve all broken God’s law, “sin is lawlessness” (1 Jn. 3:4). “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside…no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12).
Since Adam and Eve, no one keeps the law perfectly. We all break it in our thoughts, words, attitudes, and actions. The law is God’s gift because it shows us how far we are from God, and it brings us to Christ, the only One who perfectly kept the law and then received the penalty of the law, death, for everyone who’ll trust in him.
How Does Jesus Fulfill the Ten Commandments?
I want to close by moving from one mountain to another. Go with me from Mount Sinai to the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to the top and is transfigured before them. Similar to Sinai, God’s presence comes down on this mountain with a cloud and God speaks and the disciples are terrified (Mk. 9:2-8).
Moses and Elijah are on the mountain, representing the Law and the Prophets. Instead of ten commandments, God only gives one: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (v. 7).
Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh, revealing God in the fullest possible way. The law pales in comparison. Jesus is the final and ultimate word from God, the true summary of the Law and Prophets. The Father commands us to “listen to him.”
If we want to hear God’s word today, we must hear Jesus. He fulfills and transforms the law. He is God’s new law.[7]
The universe hangs on the ten words of God, Israel’s life hangs on the ten words of God, your life hangs on the Word of God, Jesus Christ. Are you listening to him?
[1]We know this because of how long they stay there (one year) and how much material is devoted to their stay there (57 chapters). To put this in perspective, Genesis 1-Exodus 18 covers 2600 years in 68 chapters, Exodus 18-Numbers 10 covers 1 year in 57 chapters, and Numbers 11-Deuteronomy 34 covers 40 years in 59 chapters.
[2]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 421.
[3]John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus: Volume 2, Chapters 19-40 (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2001), 49.
[4]Enns, 426.
[5]Ibid., 432-3.
[6]Ibid., 433.
[7]Edmund P. Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007), xiv.
Yahweh is Savior and Lord
Last week we saw how grace is the basis of how God relates to his people. This wasn’t a new development when Jesus died on the cross. From the beginning, God loved his people simply because he loved them, not because of their performance. Yahweh made Israel his son (Ex. 4:22-23) before he gave them the law. He set them free from slavery before he gave them the law.
As we enter Exodus 19, the prologue to God giving Moses the law, we must see that grace always comes before the law. The law will kill you unless you understand that God relates to his people through grace, not law.
Last week we talked about how the Lord delights in his people, making them his “treasured possession” (19:5), how the Lord loves and even likes his people. But if that’s all we knew about the Lord then we’d have an incomplete view of who he is.
Yahweh is good and great, redeemer and righteous, Savior and Lord. He’s above and beyond us, and close and with us. He’s the Lion and the Lamb.
The danger is emphasizing one aspect of his character over the other. If we think God is only loving and not righteous, then we’ll think sin is not that big of a deal. If we think God is only righteous and not loving, then we’ll think we have to perform to please him.
If we over-emphasize God’s delight in us, then we may think the rules don’t apply to us, that we can do whatever we want and God not be affected. If we over-emphasize God’s righteousness, then we may think that we have to perform for him to love us. Biblical Christianity holds these things together. God is love and God is holy.
The two dangers are lawlessness or legalism, rule-breaking or rule-keeping, self-indulgent or self-righteous. Which way do you lean?
In Exodus 19, the Lord shows Israel his love and his holiness. He delights in Israel, but he also demands that they be holy. This week we move from the statement of his love (vv. 1-8) to the revelation of his holiness (vv. 9-25). Yahweh wanted Israel to know his love and then to know his holiness. In our text today, we’ll see the announcement of the Lord’s coming (vv. 9-15) and the arrival of the Lord (vv. 16-25).
The Announcement of the Lord’s Coming
In verses 9-15, we see the announcement of the Lord’s coming. Verse 9 sets up the purpose of the interchange between Yahweh and Moses that’ll take place over the next few chapters. Yahweh wants Israel to listen in on his conversation with Moses so that they’ll trust him and his leadership. The Lord is going to speak in a very public way to Moses to convince the people that Moses is the mediator of his word, not his own opinion.
God doesn’t need the audio and visual phenomena to convey his word to Moses. In fact, he talks with him and other leaders without them in chapter 24. They’re meant to show the people that what Moses says comes from God, not Moses.
Consecration
In verses 10-13, the Lord tells Moses how the people should prepare to meet him. There are several things they should do and not do. They’re to “wash their garments” (v. 10), set limits around the mountain (v. 12), don’t touch the mountain (v. 12), kill anyone who does touch it (v. 13), refrain from sexual relations (v. 15), and wait for the trumpet call (v. 13).
Washing garments symbolizes purifying themselves. Setting limits around the mountain reminds them that sinners can’t enter the presence of the holy without dying. The community-enforced death penalty reveals how serious this is.
Husbands and wives refraining from sexual relations seems like an unusual prohibition. It doesn’t mean that sex in marriage is sinful. Rather, as Alec Motyer says, it arises “from the awareness that in a true and happy marriage, intercourse involves a total absorption of each with the other and is the deepest emotional delight and commitment known on earth. The restriction was put in place at this important moment in time because the Lord wished to have his people’s hearts wholly for himself.”[1] Their entire attention needed to be on what the Lord was about to say to them.
What’s the point of all these preparations and precautions? To impress upon them that what’s about to happen is unlike anything they’ve ever experienced. This is the only time in the Old Testament when the whole community of Israel hears God speak without an intermediary. There was nothing like this before or since. God is getting them ready for something spectacular.
It’s like when you go out on a nice date, or get ready for a wedding, you spend extra time getting ready. You do things you normally don’t do. You take your time and you’re filled with eager anticipation over what’s about to happen. There’s a nervous excitement.
Moses is told to “consecrate” the people or get them ready for something that isn’t like their ordinary affairs. Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow, but here Israel is supposed to get ready for a “tomorrow” unlike any other “tomorrow,” when God will speak in a decisive way.
Electrifying and Terrifying
This moment is similar to Moses’ experience at the burning bush, which took place on the same mountain (3:1). There’s revelation from fire in both. There’s attraction to and cowering in the divine presence. There’s a command to come no closer.
The air is filled with divine electricity. There’s something terrifying and fascinating about what’s happening. It’s like doing something that’s exhilarating but could cost you your life, like skydiving, rock climbing, or swimming with sharks. There’s a risk and a thrill. You could die but you can’t wait to do it.
There’s something about encountering the presence of God that’s both electrifying and terrifying, both dangerous and delightful. In God’s presence is consuming fire and fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11). You can’t just stroll into his presence. You have to get yourself ready.
This reminds us of the importance of preparing ourselves for worship each week. Do you prepare to worship the Lord on Sundays? What we do here together is unlike anything else in the world. It’s a sacred moment. You don’t have to treat it like you’re getting ready for prom. But it’s good to think about how you can “consecrate,” or prepare yourself, for this holy moment. Going to bed on time, getting up early enough to pray for yourself, the church, and the preaching of the word, reading the sermon text ahead of time, or getting here 10-15 minutes early to engage with people are all good ways to get ready for worship.
“Be Ready for the Third Day”
Notice the emphasis on being ready on “the third day” (vv. 11, 15). There’s a pattern in the Old Testament of the Lord doing something spectacular for his people on “the third day.”
Abraham and Isaac arrive at Mount Moriah on the third day (Gen. 22:4). Joshua leads Israel across the Jordan River on the third day (Josh. 3:2). King Hezekiah is healed from his sickness on the third day (2 Kgs. 20:5-6). Esther asks the people to pray and fast and then on the third day she goes before the king to intercede for the life of the people (5:1).
When Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4), he’s not saying that Jesus’ resurrection fulfills a specific prophecy in the Old Testament. He’s saying that the resurrection fulfills a pattern of God intervening for his people on the third day.
Something life-altering is going to happen on the third day. Israel must be ready. Yahweh, the Creator of heaven and earth and their Redeemer, is coming down from heaven so they can see his glory and hear his voice. The Lord is coming and they must be ready.
The Arrival of the Lord
In verses 16-25, the Lord arrives on Mount Sinai. This is one of the most awe-inspiring moments in the Bible. Yahweh descends on the mountain in fire. There’s lightning and thunder, a thick cloud covering the mountain, a tower of smoke rising up into the sky, the mountain was shaking, and the trumpet was getting louder and louder until “God answered Moses in thunder” (v. 19).
The Lord of heaven and earth came down to the top of the mountain to have a conversation with Moses, and by extension, Israel. When he arrived, everyone was terrified (v. 16).
The fire in verse 18 reminds us of the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were blocked from coming back into the Garden by a “flaming sword” (Gen. 3:24). As sinners, the fire of God excluded them from his presence. An unaided return was impossible.
The fire of God shows us that God’s holiness is life-threatening to anyone who tries to come into his raging inferno of holy fire without protection. Mount Sinai has become the Holy of Holies.
If the fire scares them, the cloud protects them. In the cloud and smoke (vv. 16, 18), God comes to his people without incinerating them. In the cloud, he accommodates himself to be among his people without consuming them. The cloud is a sign of grace. Yahweh wants to be near his people but he knows his unshielded glory would consume them, so he veils himself.
God Warns Them to Save Them
It appears that verses 20-25 are an interlude, with 20:1 picking up where 19:19 left off. God tells Moses to warn the people yet again to not touch the mountain or else they’ll die. Moses tells God that he’s repeating himself (v. 23), but the Lord insists that he tell them again.
Why? To make sure they still understood the gravity of the situation. No matter how much they wanted to see more, they must remain obedient. “Breaking and entering” will be punishable by death. God has to keep the people at a certain distance from himself to keep them alive. If they get too close, his presence will consume them as a flame would consume a butterfly.
He wants his people to be close to him, but because they’re sinners, they can’t come into his presence unaided and live. The Lord is giving these commands to keep them alive. He wants to bless them with his word, not kill them with his fire. God warns them to save them. Do you see how grace is present with his holiness?
God wants his people to come into his presence, but it’s crucial that people come into the Lord’s presence on his terms, not theirs. David says in Psalm 24:3-4, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). And Hebrews 12:14, “Without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Only the pure and holy can come into God’s presence. Only the consecrated can see the Lord.
Are You Prepared?
Are you prepared to see the Lord? Yahweh will descend on the earth again. Yahweh-in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ, will return to the world. Before he died, Jesus announced that he’d return: “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:30-31). And Paul said, “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thess. 4:16).
The Lord has yet again announced his arrival and his arrival could be soon. Are you prepared to see him? How can you be prepared? There are three things you must do to be prepared: you must understand his holiness, consecrate yourself to him, and believe the word of his Servant.
Understand His Holiness
Yahweh is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He loves and likes his people. He is “gentle and lowly in heart,” and is the friend of sinners.
But he’s also holy and righteous. There’s no one like him. He’s in a category all by himself. He created us in his image to glorify him, but we chose to rebel against his authority and go our own way, so now the whole world is under his curse and we’re born as his enemies. Because he’s just, he can’t let our sin go unpunished. Our sin excludes us from his presence and his holiness threatens our existence. Our biggest problem is our sin before a holy God.
The problem is deep in us, in our hearts. We don’t want to love and obey God. We prefer to live according to our rules, not his. We don’t trust his goodness. We believe the lies of the serpent that God is holding out on us.
Our problem isn’t our behaviors, but our hearts. Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” not “pure in behavior.” The fruit of our life won’t change until the root changes. At root, we don’t fear the Lord. We assume that he’s not that holy, our sin isn’t that bad, and as long as we’re basically good people then we’ll go to heaven. It’s been said that “an easy-going people believe in an easy-going God.”[2] Is the God you believe in the God of Mount Sinai?
The existence of hell teaches us that God’s glory is even better than we imagine, which is why there’s so great a punishment for falling short of it. The wages of sin is eternal death because God is eternal and our sin against him is a complete afront to his goodness.
Do you understand God’s holiness? This passage teaches us that we must never presume upon God’s grace. Israel was God’s treasured possession, but they couldn’t causally rush into his presence without a mediator telling them the way.
Consecrate Yourself
The next thing you must do is consecrate yourself to him. You must give your entire life to him, devoting your whole being to him, even if it doesn’t make sense.
You have to come to God on his terms, not yours. Israel prepared themselves for three days, but Sinai showed them that their holiness wasn’t the Lord’s holiness. They must know that no self-preparation can ever satisfy the demands of God’s holiness. Even after preparing themselves for a couple days, they’d die if they touched the mountain.
Our best efforts to clean up our lives will never make us ready to enter God’s holiness. No matter how sincere and strong our efforts are, we can’t make ourselves ready to see God. The problem is too deep. Can you purify your heart? Self-consecration projects will not work.
Unless we throw ourselves fully on Jesus, the only One who was fully consecrated to God, we’ll never be fit for his presence. On our own, the Lord’s presence is a mortal danger to us.
We need more than washing our clothes and refraining from sex to make ourselves ready to see the Lord. What do we need?
Believe the Word of the Lord’s Servant
We need to believe the Word of the Lord’s Servant, Jesus Christ. Just as Moses brought God’s word to Israel, so Jesus brought God’s word to the whole world. His word is straightforward: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk. 1:15).
Jesus says we must “repent,” or turn away from all our efforts to save ourselves and put our hope fully in him. This is consecration.
And he says we must “believe in the gospel.” What’s the gospel? It’s the good news of Yahweh coming down out of heaven a second time, not as a consuming fire, but as a humble servant. He came down onto another mountain, Calvary. He came down to be lifted up on the cross. If Israel touched the mountain they’d die; Jesus was tortured on a mountain so we could live. At Sinai, God’s fire killed people who came too close; at Calvary, Jesus walked into the fire of God for us. At Sinai, the people washed themselves; in the gospel, God washes us.
In the gospel, God comes down to be lifted up on a cross for our sins, so that we can be lifted up to a new mountain with him in holy joy forever.
“But 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 covenant” (Heb. 12:22-24).
Jesus went into the fire of Sinai to bring us into the joy of Zion. Have you come to God on Mount Zion through Jesus? Do you understand his holiness? Have you consecrated yourself to him by giving your whole life to him? Have you believed the word of his servant Jesus? Do you see the consuming fire of God’s love for you on Mount Calvary?
If you do, you’ll want to live for Jesus, obey him, tell others about him, and be in his presence. His presence will be electrifying. If you haven’t, his presence will be terrifying.
Are you prepared to see the Lord when he descends on the earth again?
[1]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 204-5.
[2]Ibid., 208.
Does God Like You?
Does God love you? Many of you don’t hesitate to answer “yes” to this question. But are we as sure of this as we seem to be?
Kelly Kapic, in his book You’re Only Human, says that our automatic “yes” doesn’t always reflect our internal world and that underneath our quick responses we’re not so sure. He says that asking another question helps us see what we really think about God’s love for us: does God like you?[1]
We’ve heard “God loves you” so much that when someone tells us it’s like throwing a marshmallow at us. When it hits us we barely feel it. We know we’re supposed to believe that God loves us, but those words don’t hit us with any force.
The word “like” helps us see an aspect of God’s love that we struggle to see. “Like” carries with it a sense of preference, inclination, and delight. It’s what you say when you’re shopping and you see something you want and you say, “Oh I like that, I want that.”
“Love” is a beautiful word and loaded with all kinds of meaning and depth. But sometimes we use the word to refer to obligation and duty, not satisfaction and delight. “I love you” can sometimes mean, “I’m supposed to love you,” not “I delight in you.” When God says, “I love you,” he means, among other things, “I am inclined toward you, I prefer you, I delight in you.”
Grace Before Law
Why does God love and like his children? What’s the basis of his affection for you?
The only way to answer this without making God’s love dependent on you in any way is to say, “God loves you because he loves you.” His love is the result of grace and it can be trusted because it’s based on promises.
God has always related to his people on the basis of grace. This wasn’t a new development when Jesus died on the cross. From the beginning, God loved his people simply because he loved them, not because of their performance.
Today we’re entering into Exodus 19, the prologue to God giving Moses the law. But what we must see is that grace always comes before the law. The law will kill you unless you understand that God relates to his people through grace, not law.
In Exodus 19, the Lord inaugurates the Mosaic covenant. We’ll look at verses 1-8 today and 9-25 next week. Today, we’ll see the foundation of the Mosaic covenant (vv. 1-4), the function of the Mosaic covenant (vv. 5-6), and the failure and fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant (vv. 7-8).
The Foundation of the Mosaic Covenant
In verses 1-4, we see the foundation of the Mosaic covenant. Put simply, the foundation of the Mosaic covenant is grace, and this grace is related back to the Abrahamic covenant.
The language of “house of Jacob” and “people (sons) of Israel” links the Mosaic covenant back to Abraham. By introducing the Mosaic covenant by mentioning the Abrahamic covenant, the Lord is bringing out the continuity between them.
The Lord starts to redefine their identity by calling Israel the “house of Jacob” (v. 3). They no longer lived in the “house of slavery” but were in the “house of Yahweh.” They were no longer slaves but sons (4:22-23).
Their identity and role in the world would be based on sonship. This must shape the way we think about the giving of the law. They were rescued out of slavery before they had the law. They were God’s sons before they had the law. Grace always come before the law.
The Lord’s Interpretation of the Exodus
Verse 4 is a dramatic and beautiful portrayal of how God rescued them. This verse is the Lord interpreting the exodus experience for Israel. The first phrase, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,” refers to the Lord’s judgments on Egypt in the plagues and at the Red Sea.
The second phrase, “how I bore you on eagles’ wings,” refers to how the Lord brought Israel safely through the wilderness providing them with water and food and saved them from the Amalekites, despite their grumbling and contentiousness.
This phrase makes grace the basis for their lives. It says that Israel’s role in surviving in the wilderness was entirely passive. The Lord agrees with what they sang back in chapter 15, that he was their salvation (v. 2). Israel owes their life to the Lord. If not for him, they’d be dead.
Then the third phrase says, “and brought you to myself.” Israel’s destination was ultimately Yahweh, not Sinai or Canaan. The Lord unilaterally rescued Israel from death in Egypt and kept them alive in the wilderness because he wanted a relationship with them.
This was radical stuff in the Ancient Near East. There’s no record of another culture having a covenant relationship with their god. The other nations were terrified of their gods. Their rituals sought to “smooth the face” of their scowling gods.
But Israel’s God, Yahweh, rescued them from Egypt, cared for them on their journey, and brought them to himself because he wanted to be close to them, despite how they treated him.
Some say that the old covenant is based on law and the new on grace. But what we see here is that the old covenant is based on grace. God’s covenant with Israel at Sinai is gracious, not legalistic, because before he gives them the law he’d already given them his love.
The gracious nature of this covenant is clear because before any demands are given, the Lord reminds Israel of the grace he’d shown them. He doesn’t begin with demands and say they have to obey to be his people. He says, “You are my people, ‘now therefore’ (v. 5) be who I’ve made you.”
Grace precedes demands. Israel must obey, not to become holy, but because they already are thanks to God’s grace.
The Function of the Mosaic Covenant
In verses 5-6, we see the function of the Mosaic covenant. After interpreting the exodus for Israel, the Lord then begins to define what means for them to be his people.
The “Now therefore” signals a shift from the Lord’s grace to the implications his grace has for his people. They must “listen” to Yahweh’s voice. This begins by listening to the gospel, not the law. His speech here begins with gospel, as it does in 20:1-2.
“My Treasured Possession”
The Lord’s grace makes Israel his “treasured possession among all peoples” (v. 5). The word for “treasured possession” is only used eight times in the Old Testament, with six of them being used in this metaphorical sense to refer to Israel. The two exceptions help us understand it’s theological meaning here. In 1 Chronicles and Ecclesiastes the word is used to refer to the royal treasury, or the king’s personal treasure (29:3, 2:8).
The Lord says that the whole earth is his, so Israel isn’t the his only possession. But they are his personal treasure. The other nations are like common stones and Israel is like a rare jewel.
This wasn’t their status naturally. The phrase “among all peoples” reminds Israel that they’re part of humanity in general. But God deliberately selected them from all the peoples to be his special people.
Moses later tells Israel that the Lord didn’t choose them because they were the strongest, biggest, or moralist nation (Deut. 7:7-8, 9:1-24). Their selection was an act of sheer grace.
God chose Israel to be his special treasure. The whole earth is like a ring on his finger, but Israel is like a jewel in that ring. As King, Yahweh possess the whole earth, but he made Israel his personal stash of treasure.
Do you see how high Israel’s status is to God? It couldn’t be higher. Despite all their grumbling and contention he values them above all the people on the earth.
Name Tags
Kings don’t feel obligated to love the royal treasure vault. They don’t feel like they owe love to the vault. They love it and like it and delight in it and want to be around it. They enjoy and brag about and are happy with their treasures.
Do you think God feels that way about you? What do you think God calls you? What name tag do you think he puts on you? All of us wear name tags, labels on our souls that define us. These name tags are deep beliefs that others projected on us and that we’re usually not consciously aware of. What’s your go-to self-designation? Failure, stupid, not good enough, incompetent, weak, worthless, too sensitive, rejected, alone, worthless?
These name tags have a huge impact on our lives because, as neuroscience is beginning to demonstrate, the vast majority of our decisions come from our subconscious brain.[2] This is why the Lord wants to change our hearts, not just our behaviors.
What’s on your name tag? What lies govern your identity? How have you been shamed into thinking that you’re something other than what God says about you?
“Kingdom of Priests and Holy Nation”
If verse 5 is their identity statement, then verse 6 is their mission statement.[3] God didn’t make Israel his treasure to be an end to themselves. When God elects people, it’s always for a purpose. Election is about service and mission, not safety and comfort.
The Lord says that Israel will be a “kingdom of priests,” or better translated, a “priestly kingdom.” In Israel, the priests weren’t set apart for their own sake, but for the purpose of serving the Lord and the people. Just as the priests represented the Lord to Israel, so Israel was to represent him to the nations.
As the Lord’s representative among the nations, Israel would also be a “holy nation.” They were set apart to be devoted to the Lord. They would be a unique nation among the nations.
These two designations, “kingdom of priests and holy nation,” tell us that God’s intent for Israel wasn’t for them to just have a special relationship with him without paying attention to the rest of the world. Rather, as one scholar says, “they were to represent him to the rest of the world and attempt to bring the rest of the world to him.”[4]
Israel’s status was God’s personal treasure. Their role in the world was to show off the value of their king.
Hopefully, you can start to see why the Lord gives them these designations before he gives them the law. The purpose of the law was to make them categorically different than the other nations, to point the nations beyond Israel to the God of Israel. Israel was distinct not because they were better but because they were the Lord’s.
The function of the Mosaic covenant was to reveal God’s character through God’s people to God’s world. The law wasn’t about Israel. It was about the nations knowing God. Through Israel, God would make himself known to the world.
Peter says that the church is the new Israel in the world, “a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9-10).
The Failure and Fulfillment of the Mosaic Covenant
The next thing we see in verses 7-8 is that the people of God understand what’s expected of them. They agree to obey the God who saved them.
The problem was that no one could obey the law. Even the most holy people, the priests, had to offer sacrifices to cover their lawbreaking. The people couldn’t even keep the first ten laws, much less all the others. As professor Tom Schreiner says, “The Mosaic covenant was a gracious covenant, but the Lord didn’t provide Israel with the moral ability to keep its requirements.”[5]
The commitment of the Israelites was short-lived. They quickly lost faith in God and broke their word (32:1-6). God’s people decided to find another god who saved them.
The failure was on the part of the people, not the covenant. The people failed their God, but God wouldn’t fail them. The sin of God’s people was not stronger than the grace of their God. Despite their constant and deliberate sinning, he would keep his promises to them.
How could God’s people enjoy the promises of the Abrahamic covenant as long as the curses of the Mosaic covenant hung over them? As long as they were under the Mosaic covenant, how could they be sure that they would stay faithful to the Lord?
The bottom line is that they couldn’t. This is why, in God’s mercy, he had another covenant that he was going to establish with his people. In a new covenant he would give them the ability to do the things he called them to do (Jer. 31:31-34).
This covenant will not be like the Mosaic covenant. The Lord will write his word on their hearts (v. 33b). The external word of the law needed to be internalized. God would write his law on hearts instead of stone tablets.
How has God enacted this new covenant? Blood would have to be spilled, and it was. At the Last Supper, Jesus took “the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’” (Lk. 22:20).
All the blessings of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31 had to be purchased and given to God’s people. We could never afford them ourselves. We could never earn them. We can only receive them. The payment for these precious promises was the precious blood of Jesus.
Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic covenant and enacted the new covenant. He perfectly kept the law and he received the curse of the law, so that everyone who believes in him might be considered righteous and given the Spirit (Gal. 3:10-14).
“Because He Delighted in Me”
Why would God do this for his people? Because we’re his personal treasure. King David says it like this, “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me” (Ps. 18:19). You do whatever you have to do to rescue those you delight in.
Do you understand the delight of God in you? Do you understand that it has nothing to do with your performance but is based solely on his grace?
This contrast was made clear to me this week at my son’s Field Day at their school. At one point they asked the dads to do the games all the kids had been doing, so I got to relive the glory days of embarrassing myself in front of hundreds of people by missing a lay-up. My heart sank when I missed the shot. I was so embarrassed and wanted to hide and pretended it was no big deal. I felt like such a loser and failure.
Later that afternoon at Elisha’s fourth grade graduation, as they started calling kids names, my heart welled up with pride that Elisha was my son. It wasn’t because he won an award or did anything special. I simply relished the fact that he was my son, and I was so proud that he was my son. My joy in him wasn’t based on anything he’d done, but simply on who he is.
That is how God loves his children. He dies for us because he delights in us. He wants to have a relationship with us, to bring us to himself, because we’re his personal treasure. He knows we can’t keep his law so he came to keep it for us so that we can be with him and then be sent out into the world with his grace.
But we won’t have grace to offer the world until we taste it ourselves. The way to taste it is to understand that Jesus doesn’t have to love you, but chooses to, by understanding that he loves you out of delight, not duty. Do you understand that? Do you believe that God likes you?
[1]Kelly M. Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2022), 17-18.
[2]See Daniel J. Siegel, Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2012), 1-5, 13.
[3]W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 87.
[4]Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 423.
[5]Thomas R. Schreiner, Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Short Studies in Biblical Theology, eds. Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 70.
Theological Function of the Wilderness
In our journey with Israel in the book of Exodus, we’re with them in the wilderness. They’ve been saved from death in Egypt by the blood of a spotless lamb and delivered from the floodwaters of judgment at the Red Sea and are following Moses into the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.
We’ll arrive at Mount Sinai in chapter 19 and be there for the remainder of the book. In between Egypt and Sinai are a few chapters (15:22-18:27) that span a few months journey through the wilderness.
What happens out there is very important. The Lord takes them into the wilderness in order to teach them that he’s able to deliver and sustain them. The same Lord who parted the Red Sea can also turn bitter water sweet and make bread rain down from heaven.
The Lord taking Israel into the wilderness was like taking them to school. Deuteronomy 8 tells us what their curriculum was (vv. 2-5). The Lord brought difficulty into their lives, not to punish them, but to discipline or train them. The Lord’s purpose in the wilderness was education, not transportation. Just as we train our bodies to learn a new sport or train our minds to learn a new subject, so the Lord must train his people to be who he wants them to be.
The problem is that we’re slow learners! We understand the curriculum cognitively. We know we’re supposed to trust and obey the Lord, but our hearts are quickly captured by fear and unbelief. We know we’re supposed to trust the Lord, but we don’t want to.
God knows this about us yet responds with patience and daily manna. At great cost to himself, he gives his undeserving people everything they need. This is what we see in Exodus 17. The people of Israel are slow learners yet the Lord is a substitutionary lover.
Slow Learners
In the previous two chapters, Israel was tested by the Lord (15:25, 16:4). Here they test the Lord (vv. 2, 7). It says they “grumbled against Moses” in verse 3 and relapsed again into the slave mentality. The wilderness was full of struggles and in the midst of such struggles, bondage started to look more attractive. Life is hard, so to escape we often run to things to cope that numb us from the pain but end up making life even harder. Israel wondered whether slavery in Egypt was better than freedom in the wilderness.
Their grumbling revealed their discontent hearts, but their discontentment spiraled into a contentious spirit, even reaching the level of wanting to stone Moses (v. 4). Their problem, as Moses pointed out, wasn’t with him but with the Lord (v. 2).
A Ridiculous Question
What was the root problem of their grumbling and quarreling? Verse 7 summarizes it like this: “They tested the Lord by saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’”
Do you see how ridiculous that statement is? His presence is obviously with them at all times in the pillar of cloud and fire. Their question isn’t because they wonder where the Lord is. He’s obviously with them, they just don’t like what he’s doing. Their question is contempt of his leadership over them.
It’d be like me walking into your workplace and asking you, “You gonna do any work today?” Or like a coach asking his players in the middle of a game, “You gonna start playing today?” Or like asking someone cooking dinner, “Are we gonna have any food tonight?” Or like asking me during this sermon, “You gonna start preaching anytime soon?”
These questions are insulting because it looks at the obvious and says, “It’s no good.” It’s saying, “I see you’re preaching or cooking or playing or working, but I don’t like it.” Israel is insulting the Lord by questioning his presence with them because they don’t like what’s happening.
Hard Hearts
Psalm 95 provides some commentary that helps us see what’s really happening here. It says in verses 7-9, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.” It says in verse 10 that they went “astray in their heart.”
The psalmist uses language to describe Israel that was used to describe Pharaoh. Their hearts were “hard,” or unresponsive and inflexible. The greatness of God’s presence and provision was right in front of them and they refused to see it. They’d repeatedly seen his provision but tested him as soon as they were thirsty again.
They’d been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, set free, saved from the flood, and were headed to the Promised Land, but they still hadn’t come to terms with what they’d become. They were the people of the Lord, yet they wondered if the Lord was really with them.
The heart of God’s covenant with his people is, “I will be their God and they will be my people.” In other words, fellowship with God is the central goal of his relationship with his people. But this is what they’re denying. Even worse, they’re saying that God broke covenant with them. They’re accusing him of infidelity, of injustice, of breaking his relationship with them. As one commentator says, “Their stance was unbelievable.”[1]
Israel was challenging the Lord in a way he couldn’t ignore, in a way that deserved judgment. How would the Lord respond?
Substitutionary Love
The way the Lord responds is amazing. There’s substitutionary love here for God’s grumbling and contentious people.
To see this love, we need to understand what some of these words mean that Moses is using. “Quarreled” and “tested” are legal words, and they’re the root words for Massah or Meribah. The word for “quarreled” in verse 2 is a legal term that describes initiating a lawsuit. It means, “they lodged a complaint,” or “filed a suit.” The prophets use this word to talk about the lawsuit the Lord brought against Israel when they broke his covenant (Jer. 25:31; Mic. 6:1-2). The word used in verse 2 for “test” means “to try or test,” implying in this context that they’re putting God on trial.
Israel is accusing God of bringing them into the wilderness to kill them and they want justice. Since God isn’t available to stand trial, they start with Moses. They’re ready to stone him, not as an act of mob violence, but as a judicial execution by the community. In protest, Moses told them that they were putting God on trial, not him (vv. 2, 7).
Do you see what’s happening? God is with them but they’re hurting and angry. They assume that he’s broken faith with them and they want answers. They’re doing what many of us do when we see the misery of the world and in our lives. We call God to account, and who wouldn’t call God into account for the miseries of the world? The Bible says that the one who lives by faith wouldn’t. These charges, says the writer of Hebrews, show that Israel had “a sinful, unbelieving heart” (Heb. 3:12). Trusting that God knows what he’s doing even if we don’t is Christianity 101, part of the basic curriculum of our faith.
The Trial Begins
Understanding the judicial nature of this passage helps us understand what happens next and brings great drama to the scene. In verse 5, the Lord tells Moses to take some of the elders and his staff and go before the people. “Pass on before the people” suggests that the people were aware of Moses’ going. He goes ahead as the judge of Israel, bearing in his hand the rod of judgment, the same rod that turned the Nile River to blood as an act of judgment on Egypt’s gods. He takes the elders as witnesses. Their presence is necessary because of the legal nature of the case.
Moses was Israel’s judge and he was going before them with the staff of judgment and with witnesses to convene a public trial. He’ll raise his staff of judgment and bring down justice on the guilty. What would happen if he lifted his staff against them?
God is in the Dock
Israel is guilty but Moses is told in verse 6 not to raise his staff against them. Rather, in what Ed Clowney calls “one of the most astonishing statements in the Bible,”[2] God says, “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock.” This is the only time in the Old Testament where it says that the Lord stands before someone. God doesn’t stand before men, men stand before God.
Picture the scene. The trial has begun and God stands in the dock and Moses stands over him with the rod of judgment in his hand. And then God commands him to “strike the rock.” In the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32, the rock is identified with God, “For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice” (vv. 3-4).
God identifies himself with the rock at Horeb by standing on it: “the Rock on a rock.”[3] Israel put God on trial, accusing him of breaking covenant with them. He stands in the place of the accused, and the penalty is discharged. Moses strikes the rock. The rod of judgment falls on the Lord.
Is God guilty? No, the people are guilty. They’ve refused to trust the faithfulness of God. Yet, God the judge bears their judgment. He receives the blow that their rebellion deserves. If God’s people are to be spared, the law must be satisfied. So God bears their punishment for them. The Judge is judged.
Yahweh not only delivers his people from slavery, saves them from their enemies at the Red Sea, leads them and provides for them through the wilderness, he also stands in their place and takes their judgment. The Lord saves them by bearing their judgment.
Rivers of Living Water
When Moses struck the rock, the water of life flowed into the deadly wilderness. Paul understood what this incident in Exodus 17 meant. He says in 1 Corinthians 10 that Israel “drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (v. 4). And John tells us that Jesus stood up in the Temple and said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (7:37-38). Then John says, “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive” (v. 39).
Those who trust the Rock of Christ are given the living water of the Holy Spirit, the very life of God to keep them alive in the wilderness. This water of life only comes through Jesus’ death. When Jesus was crucified, John tells us that blood and water flowed out of his side (Jn. 19:34). Jesus’ death is what opens the way to the waters of life, or life in the Spirit. He saves our lives and gives us life.
The people back in Exodus 17 said, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (v. 7) The Lord’s answer is, “Yes, I’m with you in ways you can’t even imagine. I’m not only with you, I’m standing in your place.” This is substitutionary love.
“The Lord Is My Banner”
There’s another pointer to this love at the end of the chapter. After Israel defeats the Amalekites, Moses builds an altar and names it “The Lord is My Banner” (v. 15).
The word for “banner” can also mean “pole” or “signal.” In Exodus 17, we have water from the rock followed by the raising of a pole. In Numbers 20, there’s another water from the rock incident, followed by the raising of a pole with a bronze serpent on it (21:8).
Then in Isaiah 11:10, it says, “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal (or “banner/pole”) for the peoples – of him the nations shall inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.” And then it says that, in that day, “the Lord…will raise a signal for the nations,” gathering together the people of God from all over the earth (vv. 11-12).
Then Jesus says in John 12, “‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (vv. 32-33). Jesus says in John 3, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (vv. 14-15).
Do you see what’s happening with Jesus? He’s lifted up on a pole or banner, struck with the rod of judgment, and water flows from him. He’s put on a banner and becomes a banner for all peoples. His death becomes the banner for life for whoever believes in him.
A Love that Changes People
This is what makes the God of the Bible so radically different from every other God. As Moses sings, “Their rock is not as our Rock” (Deut. 32:31), meaning that the gods of the nations are nothing like Israel’s God. Other nations and religions understand the wrath and justice of God, the idea that we owe a debt to God and that there will be a necessary punishment if we don’t pay it. But they have no concept of a God who’d come pay the debt himself.
There’s nothing in the world like the substitutionary love of God. Love that really changes people always involves a substitutionary sacrifice. When someone lays down their life for your good, you notice it, you pay attention, you want to know why, and you want to be close to that person. The self-substituting love of God is the only real love that will change your life.
Do you understand what Jesus did for you? Despite your grumbling and contending and accusing him of injustice, he stood on the rock and absorbed the blow that you deserve and then gives you springs of the freshest, cleanest, purest water imaginable. He gives up his life for you and then gives you his life, the Holy Spirit. He saves your life and gives you life.
Jesus is the Banner who was lifted up and struck down so that his people could live in the wilderness of this world. God never promises to take us out of the wilderness. Why would he? How could he? It’s his classroom. It’s where we learn who he is and how much we need him.
He may not take us out of the wilderness, but he can change us while we live there. The sacrifice of God is the only love that’ll change you in the wilderness, the only love that’ll give you water in the desert. Every other love will leave you thirsty. Have you drunk from the Rock of Christ?
[1]John L. Mackay, Exodus: A Mentor Commentary (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2001), 312.
[2]Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 29; cf. Edmund P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 127.
[3]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 264.
Worship Shapes Culture
In Exodus 15, we find the first song in the Bible. It’s a song that informs the book of Psalms because it sets up the biblical pattern for singing, namely, God acts and God’s people respond with praise. Songs are responses to stories.
This isn’t unique to the Bible. Every culture has events that lead to celebrations and memorializations. Every High School and College has a fight song you sing at the end of every game to remind themselves who they are and what they’re about.
Singing in the Bible is driven by a master narrative. The narrative creates worship, and the worship shapes the community. Singing in the Bible is therefore culture-forming. The Feasts and celebrations and songs retell and interpret what God did and reinstruct and reenact and help us enter into and experience what God did all over again. Worship shapes community.
Word Shapes Worship
That the song of Exodus 15 is joined to the narrative of Exodus 14 teaches us that worship is shaped by the word. We don’t get to worship however we want. We start with the Word of God that shows us who God is and what he’s done and we let that determine how we worship him.
Worship shapes a community and the word shapes our worship. When I say, “the Word,” I mean the sum total of what God tells us in the Bible. The Bible tells one story. It’s not a series of disconnected and random stories, but smaller stories that add up to tell one bigger story.
As I said last week, the exodus and the Red Sea crossing are events that point backward and forward in the story of the Bible. They’re paradigmatic for how God works to save his people in all times and places. The exodus is the pattern of how God rescues his people.
In Exodus 15 we see more evidence for this claim. The exodus is set up as a pattern for, not just how God delivered his people in the past, but how he’ll deliver them in the future. This chapter shows us the pattern of the gospel, the promise of the gospel, and the praise of the gospel.
The Pattern of the Gospel
Verses 1-10 are a celebration of the Lord’s deliverance at the Red Sea. Verses 11-18 promise future deliverance. The song uses previous events to help Israel interpret future events, such as the conquest of Canaan.
There are several places in these verses that link to other places in the Bible, showing us the connectedness or oneness of God’s story. Again, the exodus functions like a paradigm, model, template, type, or key for how God will save his people in the future.
“The Lord is My Strength and My Song”
Verse 2 is quoted verbatim in two other places in the Old Testament. Isaiah 12:2, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation.” This comes immediately after Isaiah 11, where the final salvation of God’s people is prophesied.
Then Psalm 118:14 quotes it as part of the psalmist’s response to the triumph of the Messiah in Psalm 110. In Exodus 15, it’s part of the celebration of the exodus, but then Isaiah and the psalmist use the same exact words to point forward to God’s final victory that’ll come through his Messiah. Past events are used to interpret future events.
“The Floods Stood Up in a Heap” and “The Blast of Your Nostrils”
In verse 8, the phrase “the floods stood up in a heap” is the same language used when Israel entered the Promised Land. In Joshua 3:13, it says when the priests put their feet in the Jordan River, “the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.” Joshua connects what’s happening at the Jordan River with what happened at the Red Sea.
Then in Psalm 18:15, David quotes the first part of Exodus 15:8, “Then the channels of the sea were seen and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.” This psalm is about David’s deliverance from Saul. By pointing back to Exodus 15, David is saying that his salvation from Saul is like Israel’s salvation from Egypt. This psalm describes the Lord’s deliverance of David from his “Egypt.”
Israel sees their deliverance in the exodus as a picture of not just something that happened in the past, but a pattern God will continue to use in the future. Past events are used to interpret future events.
“Still as a Stone”
In verse 16, Moses says that the inhabitants of Canaan are “still as a stone,” afraid of what God will do to them. This links back to verse 5 where Moses says that the Egyptians went down into the Red Sea “like a stone.”
Moses is intentionally presenting the Canaanites as like the Egyptians, indicating that the way God saves Israel at the exodus is the way God will save Israel at the conquest of Canaan. He’s saying, “What God just did for you is the kind of thing he’ll do for you in Canaan.” Moses is consciously using the exodus as a pattern for future salvation. Again, past events are used to interpret future events.
Jesus the New Israel in Matthew’s Gospel
The writers of Scripture are showing us that the Bible is one story. The individual puzzle pieces are unique but they all fit together. The way God has saved his people teaches us how he will save his people. Past events are templates for future events.
The one story that all the stories point to is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to bring a new exodus for God’s people. One of the best places to see this is the way Matthew structures the opening chapters of his Gospel.
At the beginning of Matthew, we learn that Jesus was also hunted by a wicked king who was killing the baby Hebrew boys but he flees into Egypt. He’s baptized in the Jordan River, moving through waters into the land of Canaan, a new Red Sea crossing. Like Joshua, he’s going into the Promised Land to start a new conquest for the people of God. First he spends forty days in the wilderness being tested, but he doesn’t fail like Israel. He moves through the wilderness to give the Sermon on the Mount, giving God’s law for his new covenant people.
Jesus is the true and better Israel, succeeding where they failed. His story is the story of the whole Bible. The pattern of this story is in Exodus 15, as Moses and other writers of the Old Testament use past events to explain current events and as templates for future events.
The pattern of the gospel is that the Lord saves his people from enemies too strong for them. The patter is that salvation belongs to the Lord, whether it’s salvation from Egypt, Canaan, Saul, or sin, Satan, and death.
The Promise of the Gospel
The promise of the gospel is living with God. We see this already alluded to in verse 17 of Moses’s song.
The idea of God “planting” his people resonates throughout the Old Testament. In 2 Samuel 7:10-11, when God is promising to make David great and give him an everlasting kingdom, he says, “And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more…And I will give you rest from all your enemies.”
God promises to “plant” his people in a place where they’ll live in peace and never have to worry about evil again. This is the where the imagery of beating swords into plowshares comes from (Isa. 2:4). When God plants his people in his place there will be no more violence.
The psalmists pick up this language of “planting” as well. Psalm 80:8-11, “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River.”
The psalmist compares Israel to a vine that was taken out of Egypt and planted in Canaan. But then a few verses later he moves from talking about a nation being planted to a man who’ll be planted (vv. 14-17).
When Jesus says, “I am the true vine” (Jn. 15:1), he’s saying that he’s the true Israel. His Father planted him on the earth and his branches are spreading out offering shade and relief to the nations. He’s the vine, the plant of the Lord, and we are his branches (v. 5). The first bread crumb of this trail is in Exodus 15.
The Lord says he’ll bring his people to his “own mountain” (v. 17). This is Sinai first, but then the Lord brings them into the Promised Land and they build the temple on Mount Zion. All this points forward to God’s cosmic temple, when God’s dwelling comes out of heaven and he’ll live with his people on the earth.
Images of the Garden are reemerging in Exodus 15:17. Because of the exodus, Israel will be a new garden planted on God’s mountain so they can live in God’s house.
This verse helps us understand the goal of the exodus. Why does God redeem Israel? Because he wants to live with them. This is why the vast majority of the book is about his sanctuary and how Israel is to live with their God. Through the exodus, the Lord is restoring to Israel what Adam lost, namely, life in the presence of God. The promise of the gospel is life with God.
Made to Live with God
We were made to live with God. We intuitively know this, which is why we’re so unsatisfied with everything the earth offers. As one writer puts it, “The only ultimate disaster that can befall us…is to feel ourselves to be at home on earth.”[1]
God made us for himself, to live with him in his place. We feel a sense of alienation with this world because we were made for another world. This is why the Bible calls us “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Pet. 2:11).
- S. Lewis puts it this way, “If you really are a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don’t feel at home here? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet?…Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. (‘How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!’) In heaven’s name, why? Unless indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal.”[2]
Nearly every society on earth (except modern secular people) believe in some form of life after death. Why? Because, as Peter Kreeft says, we have a “homing instinct” or “home detector” in us: “Earth just doesn’t smell like home.”[3] These instincts are in us because God made us to live with him. He made us to be “planted on his holy mountain.” He made us for heaven.
But because of our sin, we’ve forfeited our right to live with God because God is holy. Nothing unclean can live in God’s presence but must be put outside. This is why Jesus says, “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (Jn. 15:6).
The promise of the gospel, however, is that everyone who understands their uncleanness and runs to the clean One will be brought back into the presence of God. On the cross, Jesus became unclean so we can be washed. Our sin makes us dirty and Jesus’ blood is the only thing that can make us clean. He’s the spotless Lamb who rescues us from the death our sins deserve. He was drowned in the floodwaters of God’s judgment so we wouldn’t be. He came safely through the Sea of evil and darkness so that everyone who joins him can too.
God wants to live with his people, and his people are those who run to Jesus with repentance and faith. In Jesus, God has made a way for us to live in his presence once again. This is the promise of the gospel.
The Praise of the Gospel
Why did the Israelites sing when they got to the other side of the Sea? Because what the Lord did for them was worth celebrating! Salvation can’t just be said, it must be sung.
If the gospel was, “The Lord will save you if you’re a really good person,” or “God will love you when you clean your life up and stop acting out sexually and stop drinking and stop cussing,” then there’d be nothing to sing about.
The reason we sing is because we understand that salvation is from the Lord (15:2), that he did everything and we can do nothing. We sing when we realize that God doesn’t owe us anything but judgment but in Jesus he wants to make us his sons and daughters.
Praise wells up in people who understand their deep need for Jesus. People who take pride in their morality don’t sing like people who take pride in Christ’s righteousness.
Those who take his message of grace deep into their hearts can’t help but sing. If there’s no joy, no dance, no music in your heart toward Jesus it may be because you’re the prodigal son who’s letting your badness get in the way of God, or you’re like the older brother and letting your goodness get in the way of God. Either way, you’re trying to control him. It doesn’t matter how religious you are, if there’s no song in your heart, you still don’t get the gospel.
The pattern and promise of the gospel creates praise to the God of the gospel. You may see the pattern of the gospel and want the promise of the gospel, but is there the praise of the gospel in your heart? Can you say verse 2 will all your heart: “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him”? Does Jesus’ love song for you fill your heart?
[1]Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 47-8, quoted in Peter Kreeft, Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, expanded ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 63.
[2]Quoted in Kreeft, 66, italics his.
[3]Ibid.
Recap of Exodus 11-13
In our study of Exodus, we come today to chapter 14. God has decimated Egypt with the ten plagues, culminating in the death of the firstborn and the Passover. Every house in Egypt, including the Israelite houses, were subject to the judgment of God if they weren’t covered by the blood of a spotless lamb. Those covered by the blood were saved, those not covered by the blood were judged. The penalty for not believing the word of the Lord was death.
In the midst of these horrific events, God gives Israel instructions about remembering the events. It seems that how they’ll remember the thing God does is almost more important than what he does, which is why he gives them instructions for it before he does it.
Why would he do that? Because if they forget what he’s done, they’ll forget who they are and who he is. If they forget they’ll start to lose their identity as his people.
When Pharaoh learns that his firstborn was dead, he tells Moses and the Israelites to leave Egypt. God led Israel out with a pillar of fire and cloud, taking them the long way to Canaan because they weren’t ready for war. So they left Egypt and headed out into the wilderness.
A Paradigmatic Event
This brings us to chapter 14 and the Red Sea crossing. What happens here is paradigmatic for how God works to save his people in all times and places. There are things here that help us understand the whole Bible.
We’ll see Israel’s greatest enemy (vv. 1-14), Israel’s greatest deliverance (vv. 15-31), and then consider how this event points to an even greater deliverance, not just for Israel, but for the whole world.
Israel’s Greatest Enemy
In verses 1-14, we see Israel’s greatest enemy, and it’s not what you might think it is.
The emphasis of these opening verses is that God is sovereign over what’s happening here. God tells Moses to tell Israel to “turn back” and make camp by Pi-hahiroth (v. 2). Why? Because he wants Pharaoh to think that Israel is lost. Why would he want him to think that? Because the Lord is setting a trap to catch Pharaoh, luring him out into the wilderness so that he can “get glory over him” (v. 4).
The word for “get glory” is a term that has to do with weight or heaviness. So the Lord is saying, “I will make myself heavy to Pharaoh.” He wants everyone to see that he’s a weightier consideration than Pharaoh. The Lord doesn’t want to just boast over Pharaoh, he wants him (and us) to know what reality is. The Lord wants to be acknowledged for who he is. He wants to be worshipped.
God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, making it “heavy,” so that he can “get glory over Pharaoh” so that Egypt “will know that I AM the Lord” (vv. 4, 18).
After all that God has done to Egypt and Pharaoh, you’d think that he would know this by now. But history is full of a long line of kings and governments who insist on defying God and think that they’ll somehow get out from under his “heaviness.”
Expect Persecution
Pharaoh changing his mind and going after the Israelites reminds us that God’s people will be persecuted by capricious rulers. Authoritarian figures and governments become more viable during seasons of turmoil and upheaval, and God’s people are often their first targets.
What do we do? We prepare for persecution. Yes, we strive to be good citizens, but our King is in heaven, not Washington. So we loosen our grip on personal and national treasures and put our hope fully in heaven.
In Acts 1, just before Jesus ascends back to the Father, his disciples ask him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He says it’s not for them to know the times of these things, but they’ll receive power from the Holy Spirit so that they can be his witnesses to the end of the earth (vv. 6-8).
What’s he saying? He’s saying that their primary goal isn’t political success, but faithful witness. Because pagan kings and governments feel threatened by people who don’t bow the knee to them, we can expect persecution. Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John all promise persecution and none of them promise political success. As followers of King Jesus, our goal when the kings of the earth bear down on us is faithful witness in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Enemy of the Heart
So Pharaoh and his army of chariots come after the Israelites and catch up with them at the edge of the sea. But the text says that Israel’s greatest enemy isn’t Pharaoh and his army. It’s their own hearts (vv. 10-12). They’re understandably afraid and rightly cry out to the Lord (v. 10). But then they start to complain to Moses, telling him they’d rather be slaves than dead.
Their fear led to unbelief and grumbling. It’s understandable that they were afraid. They were cornered by the greatest army in the world. But how they handled their fear wasn’t good. The Lord already told them that he’s positioning all the pieces on the chessboard to save them (vv. 2-4). But their faith in his word was overcome by fear in their circumstances.
They “were going out defiantly” (v. 8) but at the first sign of trouble they start whining, complaining, and blaming. This trial reveals what’s in their hearts. Israel is a nation of sinners who don’t trust the word of the Lord. They’d rather serve the Egyptians than serve the Lord (v. 12). We always serve what we’re afraid of, and at this moment they’re afraid of Egypt, not the Lord.
Moses counters their fear with a call to faith (vv. 13-14). We, like Israel, often assume we know what’ll happen. In our fear, we create a story about what’s true and often leave the Lord out and try to manage our fears through anxiety and control, which usually results in grumbling and complaining. This is why our hearts are our greatest enemy.
Moses tells them, and us, that salvation will come, but they cannot save themselves. Yahweh will intervene and act, making it clear that Israel isn’t saved by their righteousness. Deliverance will come by grace and by grace alone.
Israel’s Greatest Deliverance
In verses 15-31, we see Israel’s greatest deliverance. Despite their lack of faith, the Lord fights for them, delivering them once again from Pharaoh and his army.
Before God delivers them, he protects them. In verses 19-20, God again makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel as his presence moves between Israel and Egypt. God’s presence in the cloud teaches Israel that God is not only powerful but also good. The cloud and fire offered shade and warmth during the journey, and now protection here at the sea. God isn’t just a big tough guy, he’s a loving, tender Father who cares for and protects his children.
Verse 21 says that the Lord used “a strong east wind” to divide the waters of the sea. God often uses natural things in supernatural ways, highlighting his complete control over the natural world. But notice that it says that the wind blew from the east “all night.” This means that the miracle wasn’t instantaneous and that the waters would’ve begun to part on the eastern side of the sea, meaning that the Hebrews had to wait all night before they could put one foot into the sea. God was performing a history-changing miracle before their eyes, but they had to be patient while God worked. God doesn’t do things quickly because we need time to see and understand his power and grace.
After the waters are divided, Israel walks into the sea on dry ground with the waters like fortress walls beside them. At some point, the Lord must’ve removed the barrier of the cloud because the Egyptian calvary and chariots went in after them (v. 23), probably expecting to overtake them quickly. But God literally makes the wheels of the chariots “heavy” (v. 25). Pharaoh and his chariots are subject to the hardening activity of God.
Then the Lord brings the waters down over the Egyptian army (vv. 26-28). The means he intended to kill the baby boys in chapter one becomes the instrument of his own punishment. Pharaoh drowned the Hebrew boys in the water so the Lord drowned his army in the water.
An Even Greater Deliverance for the World
This leads to my third and final point, that the Red Sea crossing points us to an even greater deliverance, not just for Israel, but for the whole world. Exodus 14 is called a literary masterpiece because of the way it connects the Red Sea crossing with the account of creation and Noah’s flood.
Connections to the Flood
The language of “dry land,” “the waters returning,” and “covering the chariots and horseman” (vv. 21, 28) is also found in Genesis 7 and 8, meaning that Moses is linking what happens at the Sea with what happened in the flood. He wants us to remember how the world was baptized in the flood and how Noah was delivered from the waters of judgment. Now, through the waters of judgment at the Red Sea, Israel is being saved.
This informs how Paul talks about Israel being “baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2) and how Peter talks about Noah and the flood and how it corresponds to baptism which “now saves you” (1 Pet. 3:21). The point of connection is that Jesus, like Israel and Noah, was plunged into the flood waters of God’s wrath when he died on the cross and yet brought safely through them by his resurrection, and that those who’re united to him through faith are also brought safely through the flood waters of God’s wrath and raised to new life with him.
Connections to Creation
There are also connections between what happens at the Red Sea and what happens at creation in Genesis 1. At the Red Sea, God brings light into darkness, reminding us of day one of creation. He divides the waters, reminding us of day two of creation. Dry land emerges, reminding us of day three of creation. In Genesis 1, God saves the world, delivering it from the waters of chaos. In Exodus 14, God saves a people, delivering them from the waters of chaos.
The connection to creation goes even deeper. In the Bible, the sea symbolizes chaos and death (cf. Rev. 21:1). Israel’s entrance into and emergence out of the sea are therefore like a death and resurrection. Israel enters the sea during the night, but they find that the ground is dry land suitable for life. They journey through the darkness and emerge out the other side of the sea toward the rising sun (v. 27). As one scholar says, “Through the waters Israel has died to death and has been reborn, resurrected as the people of Yahweh. Salvation is an act of new creation.”[1]
The Death Chamber
The idea of the Red Sea crossing being a resurrection for Israel is further confirmed when we see how in the Bible Egypt symbolized death. The Bible often talks about people “descending” into Egypt or “ascending” out of Egypt (eg. the Joseph narrative in Gen 37-50), just as one “descends” into Sheol when they die. Going down into Egypt was like going down into the underworld. Living in Egypt was like living in a tomb.
The Egyptians were skilled in mumification and had elaborate designs and schemes for how to survive in the afterlife. They were the leading experts on death in their day. This brings out the sarcasm of Israel’s complaint in verse 11.
Israel’s deliverance from Egypt is their deliverance from the death chamber. God takes them through the land of death and out the other side in a glorious resurrection at the sea. They’re brought through the waters of death to safety on the other side.
The Sea Dragon
Scripture takes the deadly nature of the sea one step further. The Bible often associates the sea with an evil dragon who lives in it (Job 9:8, 13, 26:12-13; Ps. 74:12-17). The waters of chaos are often personified by a sea dragon that lives in the waters. This monster is a power that humanity is unable to tame, dark and chaotic and evil and deadly.
This dragon symbolizes Satan. He’s “the monster who assaults life and order, beauty and goodness, light and gladness – a beast of chaos who opposes the cosmos of God.”[2] He’s the face of evil and hatred that threatens our lives daily. He’s the serpent who deceived humanity in the Garden and came to be depicted as a deadly monster who lived in the sea.
At the Red Sea, God delivered his people from the powers of evil and darkness and defeated them. He defeated the evil monster who was trying to kill his firstborn son.
The Sea Dragon Conquered by a Slain Lamb
The pattern that moves from creation through the flood through the exodus through Jesus is that God delivers his people from the waters of judgment and brings them into a land of life.
The Lord has always saved his people from the floodwaters of judgment and the deadly sea dragon in the same way: through death and resurrection. This was true for Israel in the Passover and the Red Sea crossing and for us in the cross and empty tomb. A spotless substitute had to die and God had to make a way through the waters of death.
On the cross, Jesus, the spotless Lamb, walked through the waters of judgment for us, taking on God’s wrath that we deserve. In the resurrection, God parted the waters of death so that Jesus could come out safely on the other side.
Through Jesus’ death and resurrection our greatest enemies, sin, Satan, and death, are defeated. The sea dragon is conquered by the slain Lamb.[3] The only way out of the land of death is by the death of another. The only way we get through the sea of chaos and darkness is if we’re raised by another.
Our proud and stubborn hearts are only changed as we realize the depth and power of what Jesus did for us. Verse 31 says that Israel went from fearing Egypt to fearing the Lord only after they saw his power at the Red Sea. Do you see the power of God in the cross of Jesus Christ?
As the song says, “With his arms stretched wide to heaven, see the waters part in two, see the veil is torn forever, cleansed with blood we pass now through.”
[1]L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption, Essential Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. Benjamin L. Gladd (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 50.
[2]Ibid., 62.
[3]Ibid., 76.
Remembering is about Hope
Where does hope come from? The Bible says that remembering God is what brings us back to hope and hope back to us. Lamentations 3:21-24 , “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”
Do you see what it’s saying? It’s saying that hope comes from remembering the unending love and mercy and faithfulness of the Lord, from believing that the Lord is all you need. It’s saying that remembering God is how we walk in hope.
Remembering is Important in the Bible
You can see why remembering is very important in the Bible. During the Easter season we think about our future hope and rejoice and look forward to our resurrection in light of Jesus’ resurrection. But in the Bible, looking back and remembering the past is just as important.
The psalmist compares “forgetting the works of God” to having a heart that isn’t faithful to God (78:7-8). When Ezra was getting ready to go to Israel to check on the status of the Israelites in Jerusalem, he devoted himself to “study the Law of the Lord…and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). He devoted himself to teach the truth where it was already known, doing repetition, not innovation. He wanted to make sure the people remembered what they knew.
In 2 Peter 1, Peter is facing death and the thing he’s afraid of is that his hearers would forget the truth that they know. They know the truth (v. 12), but as long as Peter lives he wants to keep reminding them what they know (vv. 13-14). He intends to “always remind them” and thinks it’s “right” to do so (vv. 12-13). So he makes “every effort” to help them remember what they know.
The Passover Must Be Remembered
In our study of Exodus, we’ve come to chapters 11-13, or the final plague. A couple weeks ago, we looked at chapter 11 where the final plague is threatened and the first half of chapter 12 where the Lord gives Israel instructions for the Passover. Today we’ll look at the second half of chapter 12 and the first 16 verses of chapter 13.
The main thing for us to see today is that the way Israel remembers these events is just as important as the events themselves. God establishes the ceremony of the Passover before the events of the exodus happen (12:14-28). The bigger thing happening here is how they’ll remember the thing God does, which is why he gives them instructions for it before he does it.
Why would he do that? Because if they forget what he’s done, they’ll forget who they are and who he is. If they forget they’ll start to lose their identity as his people.
Delivered from Death
In our text, 12:29-13:16, we’ll see what they’re remembering (12:29-42) and how they remember it (12:43-13:16).
First, what are they remembering? They’re remembering when God delivered them from death (12:29-30) and from Egypt (12:31-42).
Verses 29-30 tell us what happened during the tenth and final plague. The description of the most destructive plague is given in two verses. This reminds me of, “And they crucified him” in the Gospels. Only a few words to describe events that send shockwaves through history. The horrific consequences of Egyptian resistance to God and abuse of his people over many years comes to pass in a single night.
The judgment included every segment of society with no exceptions, from the very highest to the very lowest (v. 29). There was no favoritism. Everyone was judged: rich and poor, young and old, slave and free.
The entire Egyptian society experienced the judgment of God: “there was not a house where someone was not dead.” Every single family lost someone that night. Egypt made Israel cry and wail (2:23, 3:7); now it was their turn to cry and wail.
How Could God Be So Harsh?
Why would God bring such terrible destruction on an entire people? Wasn’t it just Pharaoh who rejected him? Two things need to be clear here. God’s justice is based on his goodness. The reason God brings judgment is because he’s good. He created and loves the world and everyone in it, so anyone who hurts the things he’s made is subject to his judgment. If he didn’t love the people he’d made, he wouldn’t care about those who hurt them, like Pharaoh.
Pharaoh was hardly the only one guilty of oppressing the Israelites (1:22). His evil orders had to be carried out by thousands of Egyptians. Those who see and know about injustice and stand by and do nothing are complicit. Doing nothing in the face of evil is an injustice in itself.
Was Israel Exempt from the Tenth Plague?
Why couldn’t God have just sent the tenth plague on the Egyptians and then they let Israel go? Why the Passover? Because he wanted to engrain on Israel’s collective memory the truth that no one escapes the judgment of God unless they take cover under the blood of a spotless lamb.
Israel didn’t escape because of their ethnicity or because they had the right religion or because they lived better than the Egyptians, but because they had faith in the blood of the substitute lamb.
The tenth plague is different from the others because in it the Lord himself comes down to execute the judgment (11:4, 12:12, 23, 29). The absolute Lord and Judge of the whole earth came down into Egypt that night. Israel’s problem that night wasn’t how they’d escape from Pharaoh but how they’d escape from Yahweh.
They, like us all, were fallen in sin and deserved God’s justice. Their real issue that night was how they would stand in the presence of the Judge of all the earth. Their ethnicity or good behavior wasn’t going to protect them. The only thing with the power to solve their problem that night was the blood of a lamb.
The blood had this power because it satisfied the Lord’s justice, which demanded a life for a life. It says in verse 30 that someone was dead in every house in Egypt. There was “someone dead” in the Israelite houses too, namely, a spotless lamb had died outside and been brought in to be eaten by everyone in the house.
Delivered from Egypt
Israel was delivered from death through the death of a substitute. They were also delivered from Egypt (12:31-42).
“Bless me also” in verse 32 reminds us of Esau saying to his father Isaac after Jacob steals his blessing, “Have you but one blessing father? Bless me, even me also, O my father” (Gen. 27:38). Esau and Pharaoh want the blessing of God but they don’t want to repent.
Verses 35-36 tell us how Israel financed their trip. They’d need money to buy and trade along the way in the wilderness, and they didn’t know it yet, but they’d need lots of gold and precious metals to build their King a palace in the wilderness. The Lord was providing what they needed even before they knew they needed it.
Verse 38 is a beautiful picture of God’s promise to Abraham beginning to be fulfilled (Gen. 12:3). Other “families of the earth” were blessed by attaching themselves to Israel that night. An ethnically diverse group exited Egypt, likely consisting of some Cushites, one of whom Moses takes as a second wife later on, and probably many repenting Egyptians who were convinced that Yahweh was the one true and living God and that life with him and his people was their best hope for a future.
Verse 40 almost sounds like a funeral, but it was really a resurrection. Israel’s time in slavery was over and they were free. They were born as slaves but were now raised to walk out in newness of life. European settlers came to the U. S. and established Jamestown in 1607. So Europeans have been in America for less time than Israel was in Egypt. Imagine if all of a sudden we all had to leave and go live in a land we’d never seen. This was a radical change.
Verse 42 says that the Lord “stayed on watch” for Israel that night so that they would “stay on watch” for him in remembrance “throughout their generations.” Remembering the event was just as important as the event itself.
How Are They to Remember?
So what are they remembering? That God delivered them from death and from Egypt, which parallels how Jesus delivers us from slavery to sin through his death on the cross and from slavery to the fear of death through his resurrection.
Now let’s see how they’re to remember it (12:43-13:16). God tells Israel to remember their deliverance in three ways: through the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the consecration of the firstborn.
Remembering through the Passover
This section on the Passover emphasizes who can participate (12:43-49). This automatically rubs our modern sensibilities the wrong way, as we assume that everyone should always be allowed to do everything. But that is not how any religion works. Every religion consists of a faith and practices. So for Jews, or Christians, to say, “You have to believe and do these things to be part of our community” is fair and legitimate. The secular person who flattens all religious distinctions is the one who’s intolerant and unkind toward people who think differently than them.
Since it was a “mixed multitude” going out of Egypt, who could participate in the Passover was a real question. The instructions here essentially say that the Passover is for those who’ve officially joined the covenant community through circumcision. This applied to females whose dad or husband was circumcised. Circumcision qualified someone to observe the Passover.
This applied to anyone willing to confess Yahweh as Lord and join their lives to his community. Anyone of any class or race could be part of Yahweh’s people so long as they confessed the faith of his people and received the sign of that faith, namely, circumcision. To take part in celebrating the deliverance of God’s people, you had to become a part of God’s people.
Christians carry this same principle forward by requiring a person to be baptized before they take the Lord’s Supper. Every denomination places baptism before taking the Supper, though there are differences on who’s qualified to be baptized. So when we take the Supper and I say, “You must be a baptized follower of Jesus to take the Supper with us,” I’m not doing anything new.
If a person wasn’t circumcised, they couldn’t take the Passover. If they were circumcised, it’d be wrong for them not to take it. In the same way, whoever is baptized as a believer should observe the Lord’s Supper. The reenactment of the events of our deliverance help us remember our deliverance and reveals that we’re still part of the people who’ve been delivered.
Remembering through the Feast of Unleavened Bread
The second way Israel was to remember their deliverance was through the Feast of Unleavened Bread (13:3-10, cf. 12:14-20). This week-long Feast began with the Passover meal and was marked by not eating any leavened bread and not working on the first and seventh days. This was meant to remind them of the haste with which Israel left Egypt (12:39).
The exodus was so important for them to remember that they needed more than one day. As Alec Motyer says, “Passover was of such outstanding importance that its annual remembrance had to be protected from becoming merely episodic, a day that goes as quickly as it comes.”[1]
Remembering the exodus wouldn’t be casual tip of the hat, but a life-altering refocusing of attention of Yahweh and his work of deliverance. Shouldn’t the death and resurrection of Jesus for our deliverance also alter and rearrange our lives and schedules? Remembering Jesus with other followers of Jesus every single week is not only commanded but also reveals that our lives truly have been altered by what he did. If church is a “I’ll go if I can, if I’m not too tired, if I’m not too busy or have too much homework,” then you haven’t perhaps understood the radical, life-reshaping nature of what Jesus has done for you. Gathering with the covenant community is part of our identity, part of who we are.
Remembering through the Consecration of the Firstborn
The third way Israel was to remember the exodus was through the consecration of the firstborn (13:1-2, 11-16). There’s a lot of emphasis on the firstborn in the tenth plague. The firstborn will die if the house isn’t covered by the blood (11:5). And here it says that the firstborn must be devoted to the Lord or redeemed.
Why so much emphasis on the firstborn? Because from the beginning the Lord told Moses that he was sending him to Egypt for a “contest of the firstborn.”[2] Israel was God’s firstborn (4:22), so they would be safe if they were under the blood. Everyone not under the blood would lose their firstborn to prove that God’s firstborn son will be victorious over Egypt’s firstborn.
When we get to the New Testament, we learn that the Lamb is the firstborn, a merging of these themes. Jesus was the firstborn who received the judgment of God and he was the spotless Lamb who became the substitute to save his people from the judgment of God. On the cross, Jesus, the firstborn Lamb, receives judgment and saves from judgment.
Regular Rhythms of Remembrance
Remembering is very important in the Bible. God wanted Israel to remember their deliverance from death and from Egypt by observing the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and by devoting the firstborn to him. This was to be done perpetually. They must never forget.
Things we do repeatedly shape us. We’re all being shaped by something. It’s safe to say that our digital technologies are shaping us more than we realize. Whether it’s our phones, computers, gaming, social media, or virtual reality, we’re being shaped by technology, just as we always have been. The invention of the printing press, automobile, airplane, and central heating and cooling shaped how we live and how we think about living.
We’re usually more concerned about the content of our media without realizing that the medium itself is shaping us in profound ways. Samual James, in his book Digital Liturgies, says, “American evangelicals have had a lot to say about cultural software but very little about cultural hardware.”[3] His point is that our technologies are shaping us, whether we see it or not. This doesn’t make them inherently bad or evil, but it does mean that we need to be aware of the ways they’re shaping us and be able to identify the ideas that are behind them and understand how they shape us even if we aren’t conscious of the shaping that’s happening.
The Lord understood that his people would be shaped by something, so he gave them regular rhythms of remembrance so that they’d be conformed into his image, not the image of the world around them. He wanted his people to reflect his glory to the nations, so he built into their lives a steady stream of practices and rituals to help them reflect him well.
What Can We Do?
What can we do to make sure we’re being shaped by God and not by the world? This text shows us three things we can do. First, we need conversion, or to become part of God’s people. We need to join ourselves to Jesus through faith and then join his covenant community through baptism and church membership.
Second, we need content, or to immerse ourselves in the word of God. The Lord said he wanted his people to take his word and put it on their hands and between their eyes so that “the law of the Lord may be in your mouth” (13:9, 16).
And third, we need community, or other people to help us grow. God gives us families and roommates and churches to sharpen and encourage and pray for us. Community is built, not found, so if you’re not connecting well, then start going to community group, men’s or women’s groups, training class, come early and stay late.
Remembering Him Who Remembered Us
We need each other because life is hard. In Lamentations 3, Jeremiah asks the Lord to “Remember my affliction and wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me” (vv. 19-20). Jeremiah is overwhelmed with pain and wants God to do something about it.
Several hundred years later, just before he died, Jesus gave a striking command to his followers. As he broke the bread in the upper room, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk. 22:19). He wants us to remember him because what he’s about to do on the cross means he remembers us. He walked into our sin and suffering and his soul was the one bowed down so that our hearts could be lifted up with hope again. His aim was to capture and hold the memories of all those he was going to die for. He knew that we must remember him or our hope would die.
Has Jesus captured your memory and attention? Do you practice regular rhythms of remembrance to help you remember him? We must remember him who remembered us. May we never forget to remember him.
[1]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 150.
[2]Ibid., 137.
[3]Samuel D. James, Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 35.
What is Church About?
We all come to church for various reasons. Kids come because they have to. Grown-ups come because they want to. Why we want to varies from person to person, and from Sunday to Sunday.
I am so glad each of you is here! You are each made in the image of God and loved by Jesus, and by this church. But I want you to consider why you come to church, not just on Easter, but any Sunday? What is church all about for you? Why do you come to church?
Maybe you come to meet people, make friends, or find a spouse. Maybe you come to fulfill your obligations to serve, because the church is a good place to raise your kids, to make business connections, to fight back the bad things of our culture, or as a nostalgic throwback to the years of your childhood. What is church about for you?
Some of these things are okay in themselves, but what’s the most important thing about church? Jesus! What brings us to Jesus? The gospel! The news of what God has done in Jesus is therefore the most important thing in the church. The church is about the gospel because the gospel brings us to Jesus.
The text we’re looking at this morning says the gospel is the most important thing for any church to be about (1 Cor. 15:1-5). In this text we see the importance of the gospel, the substance of the gospel, and the result of the gospel. Another way to say it is to say that the gospel is the most important thing because of what it is (substance) and what it gives (result).
The Importance of the Gospel
First, we see the importance of the gospel. In verse 1 it says that Paul is reminding them of the “gospel he preached to them,” then in verse 3 it says that this gospel is “of first importance.”
This comes at the end of a long letter about all sorts of things, things like unity, preaching, wisdom, sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage and singleness, matters of conscience, idolatry, head coverings, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, love, and worship. Yet of all the things Paul teaches on he says the gospel is the most important.
Why is the gospel more important than anything else? Because the gospel is what brings us to God. The beginning of verse 2 says that the gospel is “by which you are being saved.” The gospel itself doesn’t save. God saves by the gospel.
The gospel is a message about a Person. The message brings us to Jesus, and Jesus brings us to the Father. The gospel is the most important thing because it’s what brings us to God.
Believing without Believing
The reason Paul is restating the gospel for a bunch of people who already knew it is because he’s concerned that some of them aren’t actually believing it.
Notice the language at the beginning. In verses 1-2, Paul says that he preached the gospel to them, they received it and stand in it and are being saved by it, and then he says, “if they hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.” Do you see what he’s saying? He’s saying that there’s a way to believe in Christ that doesn’t save you.
John gives us an example of this in John 2:23-25, “Now when (Jesus) was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”
Some people were “believing” in Jesus when they saw his signs, but Jesus knew their hearts. He knew they were more interested in what he could do than they were in who he was. He was a magic-man for them, not a Savior. What about you? Do you love the gifts or the Giver? Would you want to be in heaven if Jesus wasn’t there?
Knowing and Tasting
How can we know if our belief in Jesus is real and saving? Jonathan Edwards, in one of his sermons provides an illustration to help us think through this:
“There is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind.”[1]
A true Christian is someone who knows God’s goodness and has tasted it (Ps. 34:8). There’s a difference between having information about Jesus and having a sense of his reality.
True revival happens in us and in the church when God’s love travels from our heads into our hearts and then flows outward through our hands.
This love comes to us when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the wonder of Jesus in the gospel. This is why we have to keep the gospel central, and why we have to pray. The Spirit working through the word is the only way lives are changed (1 Pet. 1:23, 25).
The Substance of the Gospel
Second, the substance of the gospel is here in verses 3-4. The substance of the gospel is the death and resurrection of Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s plan. The foundational facts of the gospel are the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus’s death on the cross for our sins is the heart of the gospel, but the resurrection is the blood. You have to have both for either to be of any use. Many Christians emphasize the cross at the expense of the resurrection. But the gospel keeps these two events together.
Jesus is both Lord and Savior, Victor and Substitute. We see this from the beginning to the end of the Bible. In Genesis, a substitute died to cover Adam and Eve’s shame, and yet there was the promise that one would come who would defeat evil (3:15). And in Revelation Jesus is Lord of all, and he’s the Lamb who was slain. God’s way is winning by losing.
Notice that Paul says that Jesus died “for our sins” (v. 3). Jesus’ death wasn’t merely an example of how to live a sacrificial life. It was that, but at its core it was substitutionary atonement. Jesus, like the Passover Lamb, died in the place of sinners, taking their punishment in their place.
The gospel says that there’s alienation between us and God because of our rebellion, and that the just penalty for our rebellion is death. But when it says that Jesus died “for our sins” it means that he took the penalty that we deserve to overcome the alienation. Jesus died to remove our sins and bring us back to God.
Moralism is Not the Gospel
This also means that the gospel teaches us that our greatest problem is inside us, not outside us. The gospel addresses our hearts, not just our behaviors. Many people understand the facts of the gospel but don’t experience a heart change because of what we can call “moralism.”
Moralism is when we confuse the law with the gospel. You may agree that Jesus died for your sin, but day to day you live as if God loves you because you obey him. You believe God accepts you because you’re sincere or because of your conversion experience or your religious performance or the relative infrequency of your deliberate sinning. You believe that God’s acceptance is based on your performance, so you feel good about yourself when you’re performing well and you feel terrible when you’re not.
Richard Lovelace, in his book Dynamics of Spiritual Life, says that when we don’t know that God accepts us on Jesus’s behalf, we become deeply insecure. He says, “(Our) insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of (our) own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. (We) come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster (our) own security and discharge (our) suppressed anger.”[2]
Lovelace is saying that our lack of security in Christ creates an insecurity that reveals itself in resentment of other cultures, styles, races, genders, political parties, career fields, economic statuses, and education levels. We look down on others because we want to feel better about ourselves and stifle the inner whisper of doubt that we’re not as good as we think we are. Instead of running to Christ, we compare ourselves to others and compete with them in our heads and hearts.
This insecurity prevents us from resting in the love of Jesus, suffocates our joy in Christ, harbors disunity in the church, and hinders our evangelism. In this we miss the heart of Christianity, namely, that Jesus died for sinners, and we’re all sinners. Revival in the church happens when we’re overcome by the love of Christ for us and for others. If we want revival, we have to focus on the substance of the gospel, on Jesus’ death and resurrection for us.
The Result of the Gospel
What is the result of the gospel? Hope. As Peter says, we’re “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). The death of Christ keeps us from moralism while the resurrection of Christ keeps us from despair.
Our hope is resurrection. Paul’s argument in this chapter is simple: “the resurrection of Christ implies the resurrection of the Christian”[3] (vv. 20-23, 51-57). Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope that we too will be raised, that everything in the end will be okay.
The result of the gospel is hope, a hope in our future resurrection, but a hope that also has power in the present. How does it have power in the present? Because Jesus’ resurrection brought the powers of the age to come into this age. What do I mean?
The Bible divides history into “the present age” and “the age to come.” The New Testament says that “the age to come” started with Jesus’ appearance, so that now the age to come overlaps with the present age. This is why Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is here and that the kingdom of God is coming later. It’s “now” and “not yet.” The kingdom is here but not in its fullness.
We don’t have to wait for our future resurrection to experience the power and peace of the kingdom of God. But while we live in this overlap of the ages, there will be tension. We will experience the power and peace of the kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit, and we’ll experience the despair and death of this present evil age.
In his book Hope in Times of Fear, Tim Keller summarizes this well:
“We must not underestimate how present the kingdom of God is, but we must also not underestimate how unrealized it is, how much it exists only in the future. Because the kingdom is present partially but not fully, we must expect substantial healing but not total healing in all areas of life.
The implications of this are significant. If we overstress the ‘already’ of the kingdom to the exclusion of the ‘not yet,’ we will expect quick solutions to problems and we will be dismayed by suffering and tragedy. But we can likewise overstress the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom to the exclusion of the ‘already.’ We can be too pessimistic about personal change. We can withdraw from engaging the world, too afraid of being ‘polluted’ by it.”[4]
The Balance of Living in the “Now” and “Not Yet”
John Stott gives us several ways this plays out in our view of truth, other people, the church, and the world. The now of the kingdom of God means that we can know truth, but the not yet means that we must humbly admit that we don’t understand truth perfectly.[5] The not yet means we should be more charitable in non-essentials and enter into dialogue with those with whom we disagree with humility and openness.
The now of the kingdom means that anyone can change, that any addiction can be broken, that any relationship can be repaired. But the not yet of the kingdom means that we must not expect quick fixes and that we must engage people with patience and understanding.
The now of the kingdom means that the church, as the community of the King, can have revival and bring transformation to our city and our world. The not yet means that that every church will struggle against error and evil, and that we must not be too critical of imperfect churches or impatiently jump from church to church over perceived failures.
The now of the kingdom means that Jesus is ruling over human history and that through the common grace of family and government, he is restraining evil and promoting righteousness, and that through strong consciences and gifts of leadership and art and science, many lives are enriched. It means that Christians, with God’s power, can make a difference in the world. But the not yet of the kingdom means that there will always be strife, selfishness, cruelty, terrorism, poverty, greed, and oppression. Christians therefore harbor no illusion that politics will usher in a utopian golden age. We understand that no political or social agenda can fully bring the kingdom of God to the earth.
Those who focus on the not yet of the kingdom will be overly pessimistic and negative about change in people, the church and society. Those who focus on the now will be overly optimistic and naïve about the possibility of revival, change, and transformation.
British pastor and theologian John Stott, writing in 1992, advocates for a BBC, or “Balanced Biblical Christianity.” He says that the devil is the enemy of common sense and moderation, and that he loves to tip us off balance:
“If he cannot induce us to deny Christ, he will get us to distort Christ instead. In consequence lopsided Christianity is widespread, in which we over-emphasize one aspect of a truth, while underemphasizing another. Thank God, however, that he has given us two ears, so that we may engage in double listening, and may pay careful attention to both sides of every question; two eyes, so that we may see straight and not squint; two hands, so that we may grasp both extremes of every biblical antinomy; and two feet, so that we may walk steadily and not limp our way through life.”[6]
The Kingdon Seen in the Church
The result of the gospel is hope, a hope in our future resurrection, but a hope that has power in the present. Jesus’ resurrection brought the powers of the age to come into this age, but as long as we live in the overlap of the ages, there will be tension.
God’s kingdom is starting to dawn on the world. Where can we best see and experience the kingdom of God on the earth? In local churches that honor Jesus as King, churches ruled by his Word and filled with his Spirit. Churches that look like Jesus reveal the kingdom of Jesus. Churches where love, peace, unity, truth, righteousness, acceptance, belonging, healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, joy, wisdom, and shared mission exist give evidence that the kingdom of God is real and is really here on the earth. Are you part of a church like that? Are you working and praying for your church to display the kingdom of God more beautifully on the earth?
A Guaranteed Future
The most important thing about the church is that we guard and give the gospel, the most important message on earth, the message that God uses to save his people and bring his kingdom to the earth. The substance of the message is Jesus’ death for our sins and his resurrection as the fulfillment of God’s word. The result of the message is hope, resurrection hope, hope for today and tomorrow.
In Jesus’ resurrection, we have the presence of the future. Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t just point to our future resurrection, it guarantees it. When we unite ourselves to Jesus through faith, a power potent enough to remake the universe comes into us and starts to remake us and our churches so that we look more and more like Jesus, revealing the power of the age to come. Do you have this power? Do you want it?
[1]Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” quoted in Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023), 101.
[2]Quoted in Hansen, 96.
[3]Leon Morris, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 203.
[4]Timothy Keller, Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter (New York: Penguin Books, 2021), 29.
[5]This section is a summary of Keller’s summary of John Stott, The Contemporary Christian: Applying God’s Word to Today’s World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 383-92, in Keller, 29-31.
[6]Stott, 375-6.
The First Passover
Last Sunday, we looked at the announcement of the tenth plague and the instructions for the Passover in Exodus 12. The tenth plague would be the death of the firstborn in any home not covered by the blood of a spotless Lamb. The plague would come upon Egypt and Israel because the Israelites weren’t any better than the Egyptians. Judgment would fall on any house not covered by the blood of the lamb.
The Passover meal was given as a vivid and annual reminder of that night. It taught Israel that God saves through a substitute, that salvation comes by a life for a life. This is why they had to roast the whole lamb so that they could see the animal that died so that they could live.
Christ, Our Passover Lamb
The New Testament uses lots of words and images to explain what happened when Jesus died on the cross. One of them is the Passover. There isn’t much in the New Testament that draws the connection between Passover and Jesus specifically, but it’s there and it’s clear. For example, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” Paul clearly says that Jesus is the “Passover lamb” for Christians.
In the Gospels, there are three things that link Jesus to the Passover: Jesus chose to die at Passover time, Jesus died when the Passover lambs were being killed in the temple, and Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper during the Passover meal.
Let’s take these one at a time. First, Jesus chose to die at Passover time. In John 10:17-18, Jesus says, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” No one forced Jesus to die, and no one forced Jesus to die when he died. He didn’t have to go to Jerusalem when he did, pick a fight with the religious authorities in the temple, allow Judas’ betrayal to go unchecked, or go to the Garden of Gethsemane when he did. His actions make it clear that he chose to die at the time of Passover, while the Passover was on everyone’s mind.
Second, Jesus died when the Passover lambs were being killed in the temple. It says in Exodus 12:6 that the Passover lamb was to be killed “at twilight.” The historian Josephus tells us that the Passover lamb was killed in the temple around 3:00pm, the same time Jesus was dying on the cross, or “the ninth hour” (Lk. 23:44-46). John also links Jesus’ death to the Passover Lamb when he says that none of Jesus’ bones were broken “that the Scripture might be fulfilled,” and then he quotes Exodus 12:46, “Not one of his bones will be broken.” The bleating of the lambs being sacrificed for Passover could be heard coming from the temple courts as Jesus hung on the cross just outside of the city gates. This is not accidental or incidental. It’s theological.
And third, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper during the Passover meal. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all point this out (Mt. 26:17-18, Mk. 14-16, Lk. 22:7-15). There are similarities and differences between the Passover meal and the Lord’s Supper. They both have bread and wine and both look back to a great act of deliverance in the past as well as forward to a future deliverance. They also draw God’s people together in “communion” with each other and with the Lord. Everyone who believes God’s word participates. It’s the family meal for God’s family. But the main difference at the Last Supper is the absence of the sacrificial lamb. The Gospels don’t mention lamb as part of the meal. Why not? They didn’t eat the Passover lamb because the Passover Lamb was eating with them. Jesus links the Lord’s Supper to the Passover meal to teach that he was the true and better Passover Lamb.
Jesus is Our Deliverer
Why is this important? What does it teach us? It means that Jesus is our Deliverer and that our deliverance is done.
The main idea of the original Passover is that God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt and from the judgment of death. Passover was about freedom from evil and bondage and death.
Jesus as our Passover Lamb highlights his role as our Deliverer. He delivers us from judgment, evil, death and the fear of death, and sin.
He delivers us from judgment: “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10).
He delivers us from evil: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
He delivers us from death and from fear of death: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:14-15).
He delivers from sin: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin…if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn. 8:34, 36).
Living in slavery in Egypt under the harsh oppression of Pharaoh was terrible, but living in bondage to sin, evil, death, and judgment is much worse. Jesus, the great Emancipator, has won the freedom of everyone who follows him as King.
Our Deliverance is Done
Jesus as our Passover Lamb means that he’s our Deliverer and that our deliverance is done. No more sacrifices are necessary. Jesus did everything needed to set us free. He paid the full price so that we owe him nothing but gratitude and worship. As one commentator says, “All that had to be done is done.”[1]
We don’t have to wonder if we’re free, in Christ we are free. We don’t have to feel sufficiently sorry for our sins to be forgiven, in Christ we are forgiven. We don’t have to act really good to be loved, in Christ we are loved. We don’t have to make a name for ourselves, in Christ we are adopted. We don’t have to look presentable to be accepted, in Christ we are accepted. We don’t have to have sterling moral track record to be saved, in Christ we are righteous.
Our calling is to be who we are. We’re delivered from sins and therefore called to remove remaining sins. We’re delivered from fear of death and therefore called to face death with anticipation. We’re delivered from judgment and therefore called to be gracious in all we do. We’re delivered from evil and therefore called to hate evil and hold onto what’s good.
Everyone under the blood of the Lamb is safe. Everyone under the blood of the Lamb is forgiven and free. Everyone under the blood of the Lamb is victorious and saved from all the things that could hurt them the most, and nothing can ever change that. Jesus, the Passover Lamb, is our Deliverer and our deliverance is done.
[1]F. W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 126.
“Something Will Have Your Heart”
As we’ve been studying the opening chapters of Exodus, we’ve seen Pharaoh stubbornly refuse to let go of his idols, his false gods of power and wealth. Why did he refuse to let the people of Israel go, especially after the first nine plagues? Why didn’t he submit to God when he saw the power of God all around him?
From God’s point of view, it’s because God hardened his heart. But what did that hardening do to Pharaoh? It made him love his idols more than God. He loved his idols more than he loved God. God demanded that he let his idols go and he hated God for it. Jonathan Edwards says that this is why we all hate God. He says:
“God is opposed to the worship of our idols. Everyone worships the true God or some idol…It is impossible that it should be otherwise. Something will have your heart, and whatever you give your heart to will be called your God. Nothing will so soon excite enmity as opposition to that which is dearest to your heart. A man cannot serve two who claim to be his master (Mt. 6:24)…If a man loses their idol, they lose their all.”
What “has your heart”? One of the best ways to know is to think about what provokes anger in you when it’s threatened. When something bumps up against our idols, we get angry and often double-down on refusing to loosen our grip on the thing that’s destroying us.
Sometimes pain is the only voice we can hear when we’re stuck in our idolatry. God loves us and wants to give us what’s best for us, which is more of himself. To do this he sometimes has to loosen our hands from the things we’re holding onto too tightly. In love, he wants to replace our false gods with the real comfort and hope that only comes from him.
Salvation through Judgment
This is where Pharaoh finds himself after nine devasting plagues. He refuses to acknowledge Israel’s God as the one true God. Yahweh has demanded to be known and demanded that Pharaoh let the Hebrews go, but he would not.
So God has to force his hand. He must compel the strongest power in the world to let Israel go when his fixed intention was to keep them as his slaves.
Pharaoh’s persistent idolatry and his refusal to obey God provokes Yahweh’s judgment in one final plague. But this judgment will also be the means of Israel’s salvation. Through the final plague, Pharaoh will be judged and Israel will be saved.
This is the main idea of our text today and of this sermon, and arguably the whole Bible. From the Garden of Eden to Noah to the exodus to the cross, God saves his people through judgment. In a singular act, the judgment and mercy of God fall down together.
Exodus 11-13 are about the tenth plague. In these chapters, we see that judgment is coming (ch. 11), judgment is averted (12:1-28), judgment comes (12:29-32), salvation comes (12:33-42), and salvation remembered (12:43-13:16). We’ll look at the first two today, the next three in a couple weeks.
Judgment is Coming
In chapter 11, we see that judgment is coming in the form of one final plague. This is the climax of the plague narrative, the final blow against Pharaoh. God’s patience is out. This is the only plague with no hope of reversal.
The plague is related to what Pharaoh did in chapter 1 when he attempted to kill all the male children of Israel (v. 16). This decree wasn’t against Israel’s children, but God’s children, so God comes after Pharaoh’s children. There will be no distinction between rich or poor (11:5). It will be Egypt’s turn to “cry” (v. 6), just as Israel cried out under their oppression (2:23, 3:7), but not even a dog will bark among the Israelites during the tenth plague (v. 7).
This plague is divine retribution for what Pharaoh did to the Israelite children. God’s ethic is “eye for an eye.” Pharaoh’s punishment will meet his crime.
But the plague is more than retribution. It’s also part of God’s larger purpose in hardening Pharaoh’s heart so that he can make his wonders known in Egypt (vv. 9-10), and to all nations (9:16).
Judgment is Averted
In 12:1-28, we see that judgment is averted for some. The result of the tenth plague is put on pause while God gives Israel instructions for what’ll become one of the defining marks of their identity as a people: the Passover.
What is the Passover? Simply put, it’s when God passed over some while he judged others, a benefit provided because of the blood of a substitute.
This meal would reorient time for the nation of Israel (v. 2). They’ll date all future events with this night in mind. This historical event becomes the foundation of their national identity, the event that makes all the other events possible. It’s their founding festival, their July 4th. It’s the oldest of the Jewish festivals and will be fixed in their national consciousness as the night a bunch of poor slaves became a mighty nation.
But their deliverance wasn’t automatic. They had to trust and obey God’s word first. Chapter 11 says that judgment is coming. Chapter 12 says that Israel isn’t exempt from this judgment just because they’re Israelites. The Passover taught Israel that they aren’t inherently better than the Egyptians, that they deserve judgment too.
In mercy, God tells them that his judgment can be averted if they trust him and follow his instructions. He tells them that a substitute would be needed for every Israelite family (v. 3). They were to make a meal of the lamb, making sure that there was enough for everyone so that everyone could participate, but not too much so that none is wasted (v. 4).
This lamb had to be special (v. 5). It had to be “without blemish.” We’re all tempted to keep the best for ourselves and give God what’s leftover, but God commanded them to give him their best.
This lamb “without defect” makes us think of Jesus. Peter says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Pet. 1:18-19). John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God” (Jn. 1:29, 36), and John the Apostle saw in heaven, “a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne” (Rev. 5:6). It says in Exodus 12:6 that the lamb was to be killed “at twilight.” The historian Josephus tells us that the Passover lamb was killed in the temple at 3:00pm, the same time Jesus was dying on the cross (Lk. 23:44-46).
It’s the blood of the lamb that was especially important for the Israelites (v. 7). The Israelites were to put the lamb’s blood around the entrance of the house where they would eat the meal.
Verse 12 tells us why they should do this. Yahweh, the Creator and Judge of the whole earth, will come that night to execute judgment on the people, animals, and gods of Egypt. Why the animals? Many of the Egyptian gods were represented by animals, so Yahweh wanted to show them how utterly helpless their gods were to save them. Their gods couldn’t protect them from Yahweh. “All the gods of Egypt” will be judged that night, including Pharaoh. They’ll all be shown to be non-gods. The “battle of the gods” begun in the plagues is about to be over.
The Israelites, however, would be saved by the blood of the substitute (v. 13). God again makes a distinction between his people and Pharaoh’s people. Those who belong to him will put on their houses the “sign” of blood and be spared from the plague. Those who do not mark their houses with blood will experience the plague.
The blood is called a “sign,” meaning it’s a physical symbol pointing to a spiritual reality. The reality it points to is that the people inside the house that was covered in blood belonged to Yahweh. Leviticus 17:11 tells us that the blood of an animal symbolized the life of the victim and the life of those for whom it was substituted. The blood doesn’t cause the people in the house to belong to Yahweh but acts like a billboard announcing that they do. Their faith in his word is what unites them to Yahweh. The blood on their doors stands as a sign and symbol of their faith. Just as baptism and the Lord’s Supper don’t unite us to Jesus but stand as signs and symbols that show that we belong to him.
The Israelites weren’t exempt from the judgment of God just because they were Israelites or because they lived better than the Egyptians. They also were under the wrath of God and needed to be protected. If they were to be protected it wouldn’t be because God had no claim against them. It would only be because he saw the blood of the lamb on their doorframes and would in grace pass over their homes as he judged. The blood symbolically covered the people who were within the house whose own blood should’ve been rightfully shed for their sins against God.
Verse 8 says that they should eat bitter herbs with the lamb to remember the bitterness of their slavery (1:14). Then in verse 9 he tells them to not eat the meat raw and not to boil it. What’s behind this instruction? Eating raw meat with the blood was part of pagan festivals, so God didn’t want his people to think that he was somehow giving them magical powers from the animals they ate.
But he was also teaching them to think in terms of “life for a life.” The whole lamb was to be roasted and sat before them (v. 9). There wouldn’t be a stew with unrecognizable or hidden meats, but rather a whole lamb. This was, as Mark Dever says, “an uncomfortable reminder that they as a community were dependent on another being slain in their stead.”[1] The dead animal that they were eating died so that they could live.
Verse 10 says that the lamb must be eaten in its entirety and that no leftovers were to go in the fridge. The lamb was set apart for the Passover and was too sacred to be eaten any other time. Eating the lamb completely points to the completeness of the sacrifice.
Verse 11 says that the meal must be eaten quickly. “Loins girded, shoes on, staff in hand” means that they must be ready to depart at a moment’s notice during the meal. The Hebrew word for “in haste” implies trembling and a sense of alarm at all that’s going on around them. This was the night of their deliverance, their rescue.
Can you imagine all that they were feeling that night? The only thing they knew was slavery, poverty, back-breaking work, and a hopeless future. Yet, here comes Moses with a word from God, with signs and wonders, with promises of freedom, with directions from the Lord about a spotless lamb and blood and judgment and death. They undoubtedly felt the full range of human emotions that night!
But notice the end of verse 11, “It is the Lord’s Passover.” This is the first time the word “Passover” is used in the Bible, and it’s used to tell us what the Passover is primarily about. It’s not primarily about deliverance for Israel or judgment for Pharaoh. It’s primarily about the glorification of Yahweh: “It is Yahweh’s Passover.” Everything happening that night is so that God might be known and feared and loved and worshiped “in all the earth” (9:16).
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
Verses 14-20 are the Lord’s instructions to Moses about the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This Feast, the oldest in Jewish history, was how Israel would remember the night they were delivered. More instructions are given in verses 43-51, which we’ll look at in a couple weeks.
What was happening that night was so important that it must be remembered for all generations. As one commentator says, “The purpose of these celebrations is clearly for the benefit of those generations who did not participate in the Exodus itself…Yahweh’s acts on behalf of his people are never meant to be anything less than acts that transcend time and space. There is more to the Exodus than simply delivering slaves from Egypt. God’s field of vision is far and broad.”[2]
The importance of this Feast is seen in verses 15 and 19. Not keeping the festival in the way the Lord instructed is the first step in forgetting what the Lord did, which would eventually lead them to stop worshipping the Lord. This forgetting is therefore a kind of blasphemy, a rejection and denial of God’s goodness. That’s why the punishment was so steep for violating the feast. The Lord wanted to make sure that his people never forgot the night he delivered them from slavery.
God gave Israel this special meal followed by a special week to teach them and their children about himself and his kindness. This is what the Lord has done by giving us baptism and the Lord’s Supper, baptism as the initial rite and the Supper as the repeated rite, to remind us of the great deliverance Jesus has worked for us in saving us from our sins and delivering us from the wrath to come.
Verse 24 says that they should obey these things for the sake of their children. Verses 26-27 make this even more clear. Here we see that in the middle of this horrific final plague, the Lord is concerned with the children. God is always concerned about the children, even if sometimes we aren’t. Because he cares about the rising generations, he builds into the very structure of Israelite life a way to teach children about himself and what he’s done. The story they were to pass down was that they were saved because a lamb was sacrificed. Not so different from the story we pass down to our children. I’ll say more in a few weeks about the importance of catechizing our children, but for now see that this has always been what God’s people do.
Verses 27-28 show us how the people responded to all this. They believed what the Lord said through Moses and did what the Lord told them to do.
Our Greatest Need
Friend, if you’re not a Christian, God is calling you to trust him, to believe his word, to trust that he’s sent a perfect sacrificial Lamb as a substitute for you, to save you from God’s judgment for your sins. The Lord made us in his image and yet we deserve his judgment because we’ve all rebelled against him. But God in his great love poured out his judgment on Jesus, our Passover Lamb, so that everyone who trusts in him will be saved. He’s the Lamb without defect who was our substitutionary sacrifice, if we’ll repent and believe in him.
When we were helpless and unable to save ourselves, Jesus came as our substitute, our perfect sacrifice, to protect us from the death we deserve. Believing this is the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
Some think that being a Christian means becoming a little religious or wanting to use God to have a little more peace in life. They want a little forgiveness, a little emotional pick-me-up, a little sense of order or moral reformation, a little bit of God’s blessing so that life isn’t so hard.
But this isn’t Christianity. The good news of Jesus is so much better than that. In Jesus, God came not to give us what we think we need, a little hope or peace or purpose or joy or health or prosperity, but to meet a much deeper and more profound need you may not even realize you have. Your primary need is to be made right with the God who made you and who you’ve sinned against. You need him to “pass over” your sins and spare you from his judgment. There’s nothing more important than this. You don’t need him to make you feel better. You need him to save you from his coming judgment. And in Jesus, he has come to do just that for everyone who comes to him in faith and turns away from their sins.
The Sufficiency of the Blood
For those who have put their faith in Jesus, we still have our doubts. We wonder if we’re really saved. We sin and feel horrible and feel like God is so far away and question if we really know him at all. We look around at our friends and see their faith and think that we must not really love Jesus because we don’t look or act like they do.
Let me try to help you with an illustration I heard from Professor D. A. Carson. He tells us to imagine two Jews having a discussion in the land of Goshen in Egypt on the day of the Passover. One said to the other, “Aren’t you a little nervous about what’s going to happen tonight?” The other said, “Well, God told us what to do through Moses. Haven’t you put the blood of the lamb on your doorposts, packed your bags, and prepared the meal to eat tonight?” “Of course I’ve done all that,” the other man said. “But there’s been all this scary stuff happening around here, with the flies and the locusts and now the destroyer is supposed to come and kill the firstborn. That may not concern you because you have three kids, but I’ve only got one. I know what God says, I put the blood there, but this is scary stuff. I’ll be glad when this night is over.” The other man says, “I’m not scared, I trust the promises of God!”
That night, the destroyer swept through the land. Which one lost his firstborn? The answer is of course, neither. Why? Because death doesn’t pass over them on the basis of the intensity of their faith, but rather on the ground of the blood of the lamb.
The blood of the Lamb is what purchases our life and salvation. How we feel or what we’ve done can never change that. Even if our faith is like shifting sand and even if doubts whip through us like a howling wind and even if we feel that God is distant and doesn’t see us or care for us and even if temptation wins the day, our house will stand and be secure if it’s covered by the blood of the Lamb.
As the hymn says, “I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.” Is your house covered with the blood of the Lamb? Remember Edwards, “Something will have your heart…whatever you give your heart to will be called your God.”
Understanding that the spotless Lamb of God died for you is the only thing that’ll bring your heart fully to God. What has your heart? Is the house of your heart covered by the blood of the Lamb?
[1]Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence, It Is Well: Expositions on Substitutionary Atonement (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 20.
[2]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 247.
Who’s in Charge?
Do you ever think that things are out of control in the world? Listening to the news can lead us to think, “Who’s in charge around here?” Who’s in charge of the nations, politics, money, social media, natural disasters, disease, and death? We wonder, “Is there anyone at the wheel?
When we come to the Bible, we learn that the Lord is in charge of the world he made. He created the world and he governs the world. “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Ps. 24:1). “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Mt. 10:29).
Because God created the world, he is also the Judge of the world. As Maker, he’s also Owner.
Everything he made is accountable to him. To deny God’s judgment is to deny his rights as Creator. The doctrine of judgment was the first doctrine the serpent denied in the Garden (“You will not surely die.”). Eternal judgment is considered an “elementary doctrine” (Heb. 6:1-2).
As the I AM WHO I AM, he answers to no one. The world he made answers to him. When things are out of line, he has the right to put things back in their place.
“Great Acts of Judgment”
This is the theological foundation that the passage we’ll study this morning is built on (Ex. 7-10). The ten plagues are about the judgment of God. In fact, they’re more often referred to as “signs” or “wonders” (eg. 7:3), indicating that they’re from God and meant to signal his authority.
“Great acts of judgment” summarizes what God is doing in the plagues and the exodus (7:4). The plagues show us that God is the Creator and therefore Judge of the world. “Show” is an important word here. The plagues aren’t just about deliverance, but about communication. They’re meant to reveal the God who sent them (7:5).
The plagues show us one over-arching truth, namely, that God is holy. When I say “holy,” I don’t mean “morally pure,” though God is that. I mean that there’s no one like him. He’s over and above everything and everyone. He’s supreme and sovereign. He has no rivals.
In these chapters, we see this truth everywhere. Instead of looking at each plague individually, I want to show you how God shows us his supremacy in these signs. There are at least eleven places we see his supremacy in these chapters.
The Transformation of Moses
First, in 7:6 we see a transformation in Moses that’s subtle but profound. Last week we saw his misstep in his first encounter with Pharaoh (5:1-3). He adds to and subtracts from the word of the Lord, things go badly, and his own people want God to judge him (v. 21).
Instead of running away, he runs to the Lord (vv. 22-23). And the Lord meets him with grace and promises and renewal, reminding him who he is and promises that his mission will succeed. Something finally shifted in Moses’s heart.
He entered the presence of the Lord with complaints but emerged as a man who knew who he was, who God was, and was willing to do all that the Lord commanded. The lesson had been learned. Moses now moved forward with a quiet confidence, strength, and poise that comes from being in the presence of the Lord. The Lord is supremely able to transform his people.
The First Sign
Second, we see the supremacy of God in the prologue to the plagues (7:8-13). Pharaoh wants Moses and Aaron to prove that they’re from God by working a miracle, not because he’s open to persuasion, but in order to expose them as charlatans. But he gets more than he bargained for.
After Aaron casts his staff down and it becomes a snake, Pharaoh’s magicians do the same, “but Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs” (v. 12). Magical transformations like this were part of the pagan practices of ancient Egypt.
Pharaoh’s magicians are a formidable force to be reckoned with. But their magic tricks are swallowed up by God’s power. This is a trial of strength on the highest level, making Yahweh’s first victory spectacular. He’s supreme over serpents.
The Structure of the Plagues
The third way we see the Lord’s sovereignty in the plagues is the way they’re structured. There’s beautiful, literary artistry in the way Moses has arranged this material. This doesn’t make it any less historical. It simply means that the Lord does things in orderly ways to show us who’s in charge.
There are three groups of three plagues, with the last plague (death of the firstborn) as the capstone. The three trios are:
- Nile to blood, frogs, and gnats
- Flies, livestock, and boils
- Hail, locusts, and darkness
Like an invasion, the plagues gradually escalate and build in intensity. The first group of three plagues affect the water and the ground: the Nile bleeds (7:20), frogs come out of the Nile (8:3), and the dust turns to gnats (8:16).
The second group of plagues affect living flesh: swarms of flies (8:21), death of livestock (9:2-3), and human skin covered in boils (9:8-9).
The third group of plagues affect the skies: destruction through the weather (9:22-24), locusts coming with the east wind (10:12-15), and blacking out the sun (10:21-23).
There’s a structural symmetry in the first nine plagues in order to emphasize that what’s happening is not the result of chance and cannot be explained by natural phenomena. As one writer says, “They are not a fortuitous succession of random, senseless visitations of Nature’s blind fury, but the calculated, purposeful, directed, and controlled workings of the Divine Intelligence.”[1] The design of the plagues reveals the supremacy of the Designer.
“The LORD Said”
The fourth way we see God’s supremacy in the plagues is how each plague begins. Every plague begins with the phrase, “Then Yahweh said to Moses…” (7:14, 8:1, 16, 20, 9:1, 8, 13, 10:1, 21). Even the first sign begins this way (7:8).
God takes initiative in every plague. Every stage of the encounter between Moses and Pharaoh is divinely controlled. God is in charge of and responsible for the devastations that come upon Egypt.
The Magicians
The fifth way we see God’s power in these chapters is in the magicians. They had success initially in using the dark arts to copycat Moses and Aaron (7:11, 22, 8:7), but they were ultimately forced to admit that Yahweh was stronger than their gods (8:19). They were on the ropes after just two rounds and then knocked down (literally) after six rounds (9:11).
Aaron is the counterpart to the Pharaoh’s magicians. He’s Moses’ assistant who performs miracles on his behalf (7:10, 19, 8:5-6, 16-17). But when the magicians can no longer hang with Yahweh, they fall away from the story, as does Aaron. After the third plague, the battle narrows to Moses versus Pharaoh because Moses’s prophet was stronger than Pharaoh’s prophets.
The Staff
The sixth way we see God’s supremacy is in the staff of Moses and Aaron (7:9-10, 15, 19-20, 8:5, 16, 9:23, 10:13).[2] In ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh carried a staff that signified his power and authority and that supposedly had god-like or magical powers. Moses and Aaron also had a staff, but theirs was a simple shepherd’s staff.
Back at the burning bush, God told Moses to take his staff with him to Egypt (4:17) because he wanted to use this everyday object to show Pharaoh who had real power. Moses engaged Pharaoh with a simple shepherd’s staff, not an elaborate staff of Egyptian royalty. This would’ve been insulting to the Egyptians, but that was the point.
God used a physical object that stood for glory and power in Egypt to conquer Egypt. He turns their royal regalia on its head and uses it to show them their weakness and his strength, to show them who the real King of the world is.
In using Moses and Aaron’s staff, God was showing Pharaoh that real power in the world was not in the right staff but in the right God. Moses was victorious, not because he had the right staff, but because he had the right God.
The Battle of the Gods
The seventh way God reveals his power is in the “battle of the gods.” This is a key theme in the plague narrative, but isn’t stated explicitly until 12:12, when the Lord says, “On all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.”
The ability to remove a plague is another way the Lord distinguishes himself from false gods, so that Egypt “may know that there is no one like the Lord our God” (8:10), that there’s “none like him in all the earth” (9:14). Only the Creator can manipulate creation when and where he likes.
The battle in the exodus wasn’t between Aaron and the Egyptian magicians, Moses and Pharaoh, or Israel and Egypt. The battle was between the God of the Hebrews and the gods of Egypt. The battle was clearly a mismatch, as battles against the Lord always are. The question was, “Who is the real God?”
We see this in how the nine plagues are bookended with direct assaults on major Egyptian deities. The Nile and the sun were a fundamental part of Egyptian life and were personified as deities in Egyptian religion.
The plagues are God’s war against polytheism, his dramatic assertion that he and he alone is God. This war begins here but finds it’s clearest articulation in the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me” (20:3).
In the plagues, God is singling out and exposing the fake gods of Egypt and revealing himself as the one, true, living, and supreme God.
Power Over Nature
The eighth way we see God’s supremacy is in his power over nature. In the plagues, it seems like “all creation is becoming unhinged,” and we wonder who’s in charge.[3]
Some want to explain the plagues away by saying that they’re the result of natural causes. But that doesn’t account for things like blood also being found in the “vessels of wood and in vessels of stone” (7:19), the exact timing and extent of the plagues, or their reversal (8:9-10).
God’s judgment looks like a de-creation of Egypt, reversing God’s acts in creation. Rather than progressing for the sake of life, they progress toward death. “The world of Egypt comes undone, moving from cosmos to chaos.”[4] As Creator, Yahweh has the power to create and de-create.
The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart
The ninth way we see God’s supremacy is in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Several times in the narrative it says, “Pharaoh’s heart was/is/remained hardened” (7:13, 14, 22, 8:19, 9:7, 35) or “Pharaoh hardened his heart” (8:15, 9:34). As the plagues advance, the language shifts to “the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh” (9:12, 10:1, 20, 27, 11:10, 14:4, 8, 17).
The narrative makes it clear that the Lord controls Pharaoh’s heart. Before any of the plagues begin, the Lord has already said twice that he’s going to harden Pharaoh’s heart (4:21, 7:3). From the beginning, we learn that all that follows is Yahweh’s work. Pharaoh’s heart remained hard, “as the Lord had said” (7:13, 22, 8:19) and he “hardened his heart…as the Lord had said” (8:15). These are the results of God’s initial intent to harden Pharaoh’s heart. John Piper summarizes this well: “For the ancient writer these three events (self-hardening, being hardened, and God’s hardening) are not three, but one.”[5]
What does it mean that his heart is “hard”? It means that God doesn’t allow him to see the obvious, the thing even his servants see (10:7). God makes his heart “heavy,” unresponsive, insensible, and inflexible. The truth of his smallness and God’s greatness is right in front of him and he refuses to see it.
Why would the Lord harden Pharaoh’s heart? Why are there ten plagues instead of an immediate liberation? The Lord tells us why in 10:1-2. Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he could display his power through the plagues, so that Israel could pass the story down, so that they might know him as he is, Yahweh.
Yahweh wants to show Egypt, Israel, and the world that he and he alone is God. He says in 9:15 that he could’ve stopped them, but he didn’t because he wanted the whole world to see his power and know his name (9:16).
The moral dilemma is: “How can God hold Pharaoh accountable when he’s responsible for his hard heart?” Why is he held accountable for things that God purposed to do?
Because he’s a moral agent and the Bible never removes responsibility for sins from the moral agents who commit them. God “himself tempts no one” (Js. 1:13). Pharaoh did exactly what he wanted to do. God made sure his sinful desires didn’t change in order to fulfill his purposes.
We understandably want answers to how this works, but the Bible doesn’t give them to us. As Piper says in his book Providence, “How God governs the human heart in its acts of sinning, we are not told. That he does, we are told over and over…This is why stories of God’s providence abound in Scripture, but explanations of the mystery of how it works do not. Our faith needs the certainty of the fact, not the fathoming of the mystery.”[6]
As Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.” Yahweh is in charge of Pharaoh and every other king’s heart, and your heart.
The Oppression of Israel
The tenth way we see God’s power is by seeing the plagues as the Lord’s response to the oppression of his people. The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart because Pharaoh oppressed his people. The judgment of the plagues were public judgments. God publicly humiliates Pharaoh and Egypt for using and abusing the Israelites.
The Lord will not tolerate oppression, especially of the weak and vulnerable. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). The Supreme One won’t let anyone elevate themselves over his people because he’s the only Lord.
The Protection of Israel
The eleventh and final way we see God’s power is in his protection and preservation of Israel during the plagues. Starting with the fourth plague, Goshen – the part of Egypt where the Israelites were, was “set apart” and didn’t experience the plagues (8:22-23, 9:4, 26, 10:23, 11:7).
Going all the way back to Noah, Abraham, Israel, and now through the church, those who trust in God are distinct from those who don’t. There’s a sharp line between those who belong to God and those who don’t.
The last thing we heard from them was when their leaders cursed Moses and Aaron (5:20-21). They’re angry and not trusting the Lord. They don’t deserve the Lord’s protection.
But the Lord sets them apart from the Egyptians anyways. They’re the objects of his care, “vessels of mercy.” The Lord’s protection of Israel is because of his free mercy. As God, he is free to harden and free to save (Ex. 33:19).
God’s Love in Goshen
Do you understand that the Lord is the supreme ruler of the world? He’s sovereign over car accidents, thunderstorms, professors, employers, markets, CEO’s, and every aspect of your life? Your family, marriage, kids, sexuality, gender, money, politics, media intake, thoughts, words, and behaviors?
The kings of the earth and false gods are helpless to save. Pharaoh couldn’t protect his people or his land. He implicitly acknowledges this by turning to Moses rather than his magicians for relief from the plagues. Some Egyptians did heed the word of the Lord (9:20-21).
The Judge Was Judged
Why does God preserve Israel from the plagues? They’re spared so you can be spared. No Israel means no Messiah. No Messiah means no salvation for anyone. Do you see God’s love for you in Goshen?
The same God who “stretched out his hands against Egypt” also stretched out his hands against his own Son. When Jesus stretched out his hands on the cross, the Father poured out his judgment on the Son. Why? For our sins, not his. At the cross, God delivered judgment and was judged. The Judge was judged.
When we realize that he did this for us, we want to give him whatever he asks for. We want to give him control of our lives because he gave up his life for us.
The cross is the ultimate sign of the supremacy of God, the supremacy of his justice and supremacy of his love. Do you see his love for you on the cross?
[1]Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel, 2nd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1996), 78.
[2]See John D. Currid, Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), ch. 9.
[3]Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press: 2003), 99.
[4]L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption, Essential Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 44-5.
[5]John Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1993), 168.
[6]John Piper, Providence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 446.
Where Do You Go When You Fail?
Have you ever had any setbacks or disappointments in your job, your relationships, your friendships, your education, your ministry? Maybe something happened that wasn’t your fault, or maybe it was your fault. Have you ever felt like you let the Lord down? What did you do? Where did you go with your failure, or when you felt like a failure? What’s your instinctive response to challenges and setbacks and disappointments and failures?
For believers, there are two ways we respond to setbacks. We either turn to the Lord, or away from the Lord. We either engage him or avoid him. We avoid him by busying ourselves, focusing on doing better, trying harder, by talking to everyone but him about our problems, by stuffing what we think and feel down and pretending we’re okay and putting on a strong face, by being falsely positive about difficult things because we think Christians can never honestly share their thoughts or emotions, especially with God.
Anticipation then Frustration
In Exodus 5 and 6, we’re going to see how Moses handles a major setback and failure in his life. Chapter 4 ends on a very high note. After almost dying because he disobeyed God’s command for his son to be circumcised (vv. 24-26), he has a joyful reunion with his brother Aaron (vv. 27-28), and they go to Egypt and tell the Israelites what God is going to do (vv. 29-30). The people’s response is incredible: they hear, believe, and worship the Lord (v. 31).
But then in chapter 5 and 6, things start to go south very quickly for Moses, Aaron, and the Israelites. The anticipation of chapter 4 is followed by frustration in chapters 5 and 6. It’s like going to Six Flags and running straight to the Texas Giant and finding a two hour wait, or going to a Chinese buffet and realizing they sesame chicken is out, or getting your dream job and realizing there’s toil in all our work, or getting married and realizing you married a sinner.
How does Moses handle the setback and apparent failure? In these chapters, when Moses faces disappointment and failure, he runs to the Lord with honest faith and the Lord responds with renewing grace.
That’s the big takeaway for us from this text: honest faith is met with renewing grace. We can outline our passage like this: Moses goes to Pharaoh (5:1-21) and Moses goes to the Lord (5:22-6:30).
Moses Goes to Pharaoh
In 5:1-21, Moses goes to Pharaoh, and things go badly. Verse 1 seems rather innocuous, but when you look back at 3:18, you see that Moses doesn’t approach Pharaoh in the way God directed him to. In 3:18, the Lord says that the elders are to go too, but in 5:1 it’s just Moses and Aaron. In 3:18, the Lord speaks of a three-day journey, but that’s omitted in 5:1. In 3:18, the Lord says to approach Pharaoh with the less aggressive, “Let us go,” but Moses uses an imperative, “Send us away!” In 3:18, the Lord even tells Moses to say, “Please,” but in 5:1 there’s no “please.”
The differences between what the Lord tells Moses to say and what he says are subtle, but important. God says he should go more courteously and diplomatically, but Moses goes in guns-blazing, with an abrasive and confrontational tone. Moses goes in to hammer rather than talk to the rock of Pharaoh’s heart. As my mom used to say, “It’s not what you say but how you say it.”
In verse 3, he also adds something the Lord hadn’t said by threatening plagues and the sword if they don’t go. So he’s subtracting from and adding to the word of God. Both of which always lead to disappointment and disaster.
Maybe the excitement of 4:31 led Moses to be over-confident and forget some of what the Lord told him to do. Or maybe his fear is leading him more than his faith. Either way, the results were disastrous.
“Who Is the Lord?”
Pharaoh responds to Moses in verse 2 with, “Who is this Yahweh you’re talking about? And it doesn’t matter because I’m not letting Israel go.” This is either understandable ignorance (if Moses didn’t know God’s name, how could Pharaoh?), or arrogance and defiance.
Maybe it’s a little bit of both. This dismissive attitude toward Israel’s God is indicative of every human heart fallen in sin. But someone like Pharaoh, who set himself up as a god, would never recognize the authority of another God, especially one he hadn’t heard of.
Pharaoh’s question, “Who is Yahweh?” forms the motivation for the coming events. He doesn’t know who Yahweh is, but he’s about to. The Lord is about to take Pharaoh and Egypt to school on who he is. His purpose in the plagues and the deliverance of Israel is that they might know who he is (7:5).
Oppression Increases
Pharaoh says the Israelites must find their own straw and make the same number of bricks, and that the increased work is because they’re “idle” (vv. 8, 17). This is a classic case of a victim being blamed for the tyranny of their oppressor. Pharaoh blames Israel for his evil.
Then he increases Israel’s work so they won’t have time to listen to lies (v. 9). But he’s the one full of lies, and the Lord will turn his lies on his head. In verse 5, he accuses Moses of making the people “rest” from their work. The word “Sabbath” comes from that verb. The God of Israel will provide a Sabbath rest for his people because Yahweh is the antithesis of Pharaoh. And in verse 9, the verb used for “letting heavier work be laid” on the people is used in 10:1 when God “hardens,” or “makes heavy,” Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh oppresses God’s people, so God oppresses him. We always reap what we sow.
In verse 14, things get so bad that the “foremen” (Israelites put in charge of Israelites) are beaten because the quota of bricks isn’t being met. Things are going from bad to worse. They’re being asked to do the impossible and then punished when they can’t do it.
The foremen are furious with Moses. His misstep in his first meeting with Pharaoh, whether intentional deviation from God’s word or not, has cost his people greatly. In the people’s eyes, Moses is a failure who deserves the judgment of God (“The Lord look on you and judge,” v. 21).
Moses Goes to the Lord
What does Moses do? Where does he go with his failure? Verse 22 says that he “turned to the Lord,” not away from the Lord. Moses engaged God instead of avoiding him.
Moses is humble, human, and honest. I’s moments like this that earn Moses the title “humblest person in the world” (Num. 12:3). Humble people turn to the Lord in their failure. We know we should do this, but it’s hard. It’s hard to admit failure. It’s much easier to turn to self-pity or to blame others or to tell ourselves how unfair the world is or to withdraw from God and our community and sulk in shame.
Moses started in the presence of the Lord (3:1-4) and this is where he needed to go to re-start. Moses had matured since chapter 2, when he failed and then ran away (v. 15), to this time when he failed he ran back, back to the Lord.
Moses was humble, but he was also human. In verse 22, he starts his prayer by asking “why” two times. This is our instinctive response when trouble comes, even if the trouble comes as a result of our disobedience or failure. Asking “why” is very normal (eg. the psalms).
Moses is humble, human, and honest. He took his honest thoughts to God, and so begins a long tradition of “truth-telling and truth-talking in biblical prayer.”[1] He doesn’t go to God with cliches. He’s failed, rejected, and confused by God’s apparent lack of involvement in Israel’s desperate situation.
He even says that Pharaoh and God have done “evil,” or “harm,” to Israel (vv. 22-23). He believes that God not doing anything is just as bad as Pharaoh doing terrible things. This is an audacious charge! Are you this honest in your prayers?
But his prayer is infused with biblical truth. Listen to Alec Motyer’s explanation:
“If we cannot blame God, neither can we trust him. This is a very delicate matter…But consider how, in times of crisis, tragedy or trouble others encourage us, or we encourage the distressed, to trust God to be with us and to see us through. But if he was not there when the tragedy happened, when the baby died, the child was killed, the engagement was broken or whatever, how can we be sure that he is here now and can be trusted with our trouble?…We may prefer to think of the Lord ‘permitting’ sinful plans to reach tragic outcomes and allowing the wrongs and sufferings inevitable in a sinful world to remain unchecked. We may prefer to take the more rigorous and biblical way of seeing eternal wisdom presiding in absolute rightness and justice over everything, including what sinners do in their culpability (Acts 2:23) and what eventuates in a world of sin.”[2]
Moses knew that God, as the “I AM WHO I AM,” superintends all things, so he went to God with his complaint, his questions, his frustration over his failure. If God isn’t in charge of the world, then why would we go to him with our setbacks and failures? If he’s not there in the tragedy, then why would we go to him after the tragedy?
This prayer is a lot like Psalm 88, one of the only psalms that doesn’t end on a high note, but the psalm, like Moses’s prayer is full of faith because it’s a prayer to God.
Moses’s complaint rises from an honest faith. How do we complain to God with honest faith? In Numbers 11, the people complain and get burned and then Moses complains and gets blessed (11:1-17). How do we complain about the toast without becoming toast? As Victor Hamilton says, “Whenever the people complain, they complain about God, whereas when Moses complains, he complains to God.”[3]
In the military or in your job, if you have a complaint you have to take it to a superior if you want anything to be done with it. So we take our complaints to God, because he’s in charge and he can handle it. God can take these kinds of complaints because he has incredibly strong self-esteem. The “I AM” doesn’t need anything or anyone, so critique or complaints never get him down.
The Lord’s Response
We know Moses’ prayer is a result of honest faith because of how the Lord responds in 6:1. God responds to Moses’ prayer with grace. He’s not shocked or frustrated by Moses’ charge. He doesn’t reprimand Moses or put him in his place. He simply says, “Just wait and see what I’m about to do to Pharaoh.” He doesn’t excuse Moses’ sin or failure. He simply says, “I will do what I said I will do.”
The Lord’s responds to Moses’s honest faith with renewing grace. Moses’s honest faith takes him deeper into God’s renewing grace. The Lord pours out his grace in verses 2-8. He reminds Moses what he’s done in the past (vv. 2-4), what he’s doing in the present (v. 5), and what he’s going to do in the (very near) future (vv. 6-8).
He says three times, “I am Yahweh” (vv. 2, 6, 8). He says the patriarchs didn’t know him as “Yahweh” (v. 3), but the name “Yahweh” appears 148 times in Genesis! So what does he mean?
He doesn’t mean the name wasn’t used because it obviously was. He means the full meaning of the name wasn’t known. What else is God making known about his name here?
Verse 3 is best explained by verses 4-8, where the Lord says what he’s about to do for his people. He’s going to bring his people out, deliver and redeem them from Egypt (v. 6). Then he’s going to settle them in Canaan (v. 8).
The patriarchs knew God as the One who provided for their needs, but they didn’t know him as Redeemer. To the patriarchs, he was the provider and the promise-maker. In the exodus, God reveals himself as the bondage-breaker and promise-keeper.
God’s response to Moses’ honest faith is line after line about who he is and what he’s done and what he will do. It’s like he takes a big bucket of liquid grace and pours it over Moses’ burning frustration. The Lord doesn’t reprimand Moses; he renews him with his grace.
Moses’s failure doesn’t determine his acceptance. God accepts him out of sheer grace. He’d done nothing to deserve it. In fact, he’d already done a lot to not deserve it. But when he comes to God with his need, what he finds is grace (Heb. 4:16).
A line in a song by Switchfoot from 2000, “Dare You to Move,” says, “Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell.” Grace is found at the point of our need.
The Fear of Failure
In his failure, Moses went to the Lord, and so should we. But there are different ways we experience failure. When we have a nagging sense that we’ve failed even if we haven’t or when we have a fear of failure, we take that to the Lord as well.
Samuel James, in his weekly newsletter last week, talked about how our modern world often makes us feel like we’ve failed, even if we haven’t. Let me read you a bit of what he says:
“Modern life, untethered as it is from givenness and tradition, poses a contradiction. The more we flex our economic and social freedom to move, resign, divorce, and start over again, the more adrift we seem to become in the ocean of decision. Many people struggle to overcome a paralyzing sense that they’ve made the wrong choice, or that something better is passing them by. Like a prisoner who is given a window just big enough to see enough of the outside world to know he’s excluded, socially mobile types cannot go very far before the mere possibility of an alternative suggests regret…Perhaps the only thing that looms larger for the emerging generation of Americans than the desire for success is the fear of failure. Risk aversion is arguably the defining feature of Gen-Z, a generation that is willing to work hard (just look at their extracurriculars at age 10), willing to follow the rules…but not willing to regret.”[4]
Where do you take your nagging sense that you’ve failed, even if you haven’t? Your fear of failure? Your fear that you’ve married the wrong person, taken the wrong job, chose the wrong school, joined the wrong church?
We take these things to the Lord who did everything right so that we are fully accepted by him. Our acceptance with God is not based on whether we’ve failed in life, fear failing, or think we’ve failed. Our acceptance with God is based on the success of Someone else.
The People Don’t Want to Hear
The Lord responds to Moses’s honest faith with renewing grace. Unfortunately, this renewal did nothing for Israel (v. 9). People who’re suffering often don’t want to hear God’s word. Pain often drowns out his voice.
But God tells him to go to Pharaoh anyways (vv. 10-11). Moses wonders how Pharaoh will listen to him if his own people won’t, even pointing out that he has “uncircumcised,” or “failing,” lips (v. 12). He’s possibly referring again to his speech handicap, or like Isaiah, his unworthiness to speak for God. But God says, “Just go and do what I’ve said” (v. 13).
Then in verses 14-25, there’s what appears to be a random genealogy. Its purpose is to show us where Moses and Aaron come from and to validate their authority (vv. 26-27).
In verses 28-30, Moses summarizes what happened before his digression in the genealogy. He repeats his complaint from verse 12, wondering why Pharaoh would listen to him since he speaks with faltering lips. Moses has a genuine question. How will God respond? We’ll see next week.
Pharaoh and Jesus
In Moses’ distress, the Lord doesn’t rebuke him for his lack of faith. Instead, he reassures him of the success of his mission. He sees in his prayer an honesty about where he’s at and responds with buckets of grace.
What kind of God does this? Who responds to sinful people, people who bungle things up, people who fail with grace and patience? The kind of God who’s the antithesis of Pharaoh, the kind of God who doesn’t want to use and abuse his people, but who wants to live with them (6:7) and give them rest.
This text shows us just how different Pharaoh and Yahweh are. One rules with cruelty and injures his people, the other rules with love and heals his people. One makes his people slaves, the other makes them free.
Pharaoh’s yoke is life-sapping; Jesus’ yoke is life-giving. The true God, Jesus (“Yahweh in the flesh”), has a yoke and burden for his people, but it’s “easy” and “light” (Mt. 11:29-30).
Pharaoh gives his people more work; Jesus gives his people rest. Pharaoh has unrealistic and impossible expectations for his servants; Jesus has realistic expectations for his followers.
Pharaoh, and other masters like sin and Satan and every idol we set up before God, impose their yoke upon us. All they care about is keeping us miserable and in bondage.
Jesus offers to share our yoke with us, to help us carry any burden and says, “Anywhere you go, I’ll go to, because we’re yoked together.”
When you fail, which yoke do you put yourself under? Pharaoh’s heavy and harsh yoke, or Jesus’ light and easy yoke?
Pharaoh punishes his servants when they fail him; Jesus died for his. When we turn to him instead of away from him in our failures, with an honest faith, we’ll find renewing grace, and the Lord will say to us, like he said to Moses, “Just wait and you’ll see what I will do.”
[1]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 94.
[2]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 102.
[3]Hamilton, 94, italics his.
[4]The Best Movie of the Year – by Samuel D. James (digitalliturgies.net)
The Author Writes Himself In
When Russian cosmonauts first entered space, they came back and said they didn’t find God there. C. S. Lewis pointed out how silly this way of thinking was. He said if there’s a God and he wanted to be known he would have to write himself into the story of the world, just as the only way Hamlet can know Shakespeare is if Shakespeare writes himself into the story.
In most stories, you don’t meet the author in the story. You meet the characters, not the author. The Bible is different. In the Bible, the Author writes himself into the story.
God has written himself into the story of the world because he wants to be known. This is the main point of Exodus. The reason why God delivers Israel from Egypt is because he wants to be known.
The point of salvation is revelation. God wants his people and all the peoples to know him for who he is. This is what he says to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16, “For this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
God wants the world to know his name. He wants you to know him, so he wrote himself into the story of the world. Have you met him? Do you know God as an abstraction or as a reality?
A Hypothetical Question
God wants his people to know him for who he is, to know his name. This is the point of our text this morning, Exodus 3:13-15.
God calls Moses to go to Egypt to deliver his people but Moses is reluctant and has questions. His first question is in 3:11. He feels inadequate to do this work. So the Lord promises his presence with him in verse 12, “I will be with you.” Moses is still fearful concerning his calling, so he brings a hypothetical question to the Lord in verse 13.
There are lots of theories about why Moses thinks the Israelites may ask this question. It’s at least clear that he isn’t looking for a philosophical discussion. He’s trying to think through what God is asking him to do.
God graciously condescends to answer his hypothetical question. His answer is full of theological implications and applications, which we’ll get to at the end. But first let’s look at how God answers Moses’ question.
Stage One: “I AM WHO I AM”
There are three stages, or steps, to God’s answer in verses 14-15. First, in verse 14, “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’”
This isn’t the name yet, and it almost looks like a refusal to answer Moses’ question. But the Lord is laying theological groundwork for Moses so that he can understand his name when he gives it. He’s saying, “You must understand my being before you can understand my name.” God is telling Moses the kind of God he’s dealing with.
It wasn’t unusual for nations to have names for their gods (eg. Ra, Osiris, Baal), and if you wanted to secure their favor you had to call on their name. There was even the idea that if you knew a god’s name, you had some power to make them respond.
So God begins by saying, “I won’t be tied down by a name. I’m not a genie in a lamp. Israel mustn’t think that they can make me do whatever they want because they know my name.”
He’s saying, “I’m absolute reality, no one can make me do anything. I will not be constrained.”
But interestingly, we’ve already seen something of what God will be back in verse 12, “I will be with you.” This is the same verb as in verse 14, and could say, “I am with you.” God already told Moses that, though he’s free, he does commit himself, and what he commits is himself.
Whatever else “I AM WHO I AM” means, it at least connects back to verse 12 and is related to the promise of success. The I AM can and will deliver Israel from Egypt.
Stage Two: “I AM Has Sent Me to You”
The second stage in God’s answer to Moses is the second half of verse 14, “And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.”’”
This is still not the name, but a bridge between “I AM WHO I AM” and “Yahweh” in verse 15. The first part of verse 14 is for Moses; the second part is for Israel, “Say this to the people of Israel.” Israel will need the same kind of assurance that the mission would be successful as Moses did.
This step in the revelation of God’s name is good news for Israel. This is gospel! When he says, “I AM has sent me to you,” he means that the One who can’t be constrained has constrained himself to a specific course of action for Israel’s sake. God is free to do whatever he wants, and what he wants to do is send Moses to deliver Israel.
The self-determining God is determined to be Israel’s Savior. In his grace and love, he’s choosing to move toward them and dedicate himself to their good.
God cannot be controlled or constrained, but he can be committed. In his love, he’s committed to sending Moses to deliver his people out of slavery. God isn’t merely giving his people a theological lesson. The force of what he’s saying isn’t just that he’s God or that he’s present, but that he’s choosing to be their God. This is really good news for Israel.
Stage Three: “YAHWEH…Has Sent Me to You”
The third stage of God’s answer is in verse 15, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of (the patriarchs), has sent me to you.’”
The word “LORD” in all caps in our English Bibles is the Hebrew word, “Yahweh.” It’s four consonants, YHWH, and we don’t know how it was pronounced because vowels weren’t added till much later. “LORD” isn’t the name of God. Yahweh is.
The Jews seldom said the sacred name of God, mostly to avoid breaking the third commandment, and instead usually used substitutes like “Adonai,” which means “Lord” or “Master.” Yahweh is a noun built on the verb “I AM” of verse 14. It’s not perfectly clear what the noun means, but it looks like a play on words with the verb I AM. The parallel in verses 14 and 15 also point in this direction. Both verses essentially say the same thing, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM’ (or ‘the LORD’)…has sent me to you.”
The first two stages of God’s answer to Moses make it clear that God giving his name does not negate his freedom and self-determination. Giving his name does not reduce him to a tribal demi-god like Ra or Baal.
It does mean that he wants Israel to know his name so that they can know him, so they can call on him, not control him. Giving someone your name means you want to be known. It’s an invitation to a relationship.
God’s willingness to reveal his name to Moses is an invitation, a “supreme act of God’s grace.”[1] As finite creatures, we can’t know everything there is to know about God because he’s infinite. But God has made himself known in the world. Giving his name means he wants people to know him and relate to him. It means that God is accessible.
God doesn’t reveal his name to satisfy our curiosity but to be the medium of continuous relationship with his people. As the end of verse 15 says, “This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”
What Does God Want the World to Know About Himself?
God’s personal name, Yahweh, is used over 6,800 times in the Old Testament. He clearly wants people to know his name!
This is also the purpose of the exodus. “That they may know that I am Yahweh” is repeated throughout the narrative (Ex. 7:5, 17, 8:22, 10:2, 14:4). This purpose is stated most clearly in Exodus 9:16, when the Lord says to Pharaoh, “For this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
What is it that God wants the world to know about himself? If I said, “I’m John” 6,000 times in this sermon, that’d be weird and it wouldn’t tell you anything about me. But if I said, “I’m absolute power,” that’d also be weird, but it’d tell you something about who I am.
That the noun “Yahweh” is linked to the verb “I AM” shows us something of what God wants the world to know about him. When God says, “I AM Yahweh,” what’s he saying about himself? What does he want us to know about who he is?
In the context of these early chapters of Exodus, especially during the plagues, “I am Yahweh,” means, “I am supreme over creation, human, and gods.” But when we extrapolate this meaning more broadly, we can find that there are many things that God’s name means theologically.
Twelve Meanings of “I AM WHO I AM”
In a sermon on this text at The Gospel Coalition’s national conference last year, John Piper listed twelve meanings, or theological implications, of God’s name, and I can’t improve upon them.[2]
First, God never had a beginning. When we tell our kids that God made everything and they ask, “Who made God?” We say, “No one made God. He’s always existed.”
Second, God will never end. He’s the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the One “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev. 1:8). He was there before we came and will be there after we’re gone.
Third, God is absolute reality. All reality outside of him is reality he created and sustains. Before the universe existed, there was only God. No time, space, matter, or emptiness. Only God.
Fourth, God is utterly independent. He’s not depending on anything outside of himself (Acts 17:23-25). This is what the burning bush communicates. It’s a theological object lesson. God, like this fire, is a flame that doesn’t need nourishing. He’s a truly living flame, needing nothing to sustain him. God draws no vitality from outside himself. The God of the flame doesn’t need Moses, me, you, or anyone or anything. He’s not lonely but full of life and love within himself (Jn. 17:24).
Fifth, everything that is not God depends on God, and is therefore secondary.
Sixth, the universe compared to God is as nothing, as a shadow is to substance, as a bubble is to the ocean. Isaiah 40:17, “All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”
Seventh, God is constant. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). He cannot be improved, is not developing, progressing, or becoming. Absolute perfection cannot be improved.
Eighth, God is the absolute standard of truth, goodness, and beauty. He’s where we go to know what is true, right, and lovely.
Ninth, God does whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:3). There are no constraints on him. He is utterly free.
Tenth, God is the most important and valuable person in the universe. He’s more worthy of our attention, affection, worship, obedience, and enjoyment than anything else.
Eleventh, since Jesus is God, Jesus is absolute being. John 8:56-59, “‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.” He could’ve said, “I was,” but he said, “I am” to link himself to the Divine Name. He was saying, “I am Yahweh.” This is why they wanted to stone him.
Twelfth, Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh. John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In Jesus, absolute being united with human being. This means that God purchased us with God’s blood. In Jesus, Yahweh comes to us to make a second exodus, to deliver us from our bondage to sin and Satan and death.
This is the God we worship, pray to, sin against, and will live with forever.
Ten Applications of God’s Name
There are many ways these truths can shape our lives. Here are ten applications that I thought of:
First, God is a safe place. Because God is absolute being, when we feel like we’re falling, we can find stability in God. When we’re unsteady, God is our Rock. When we’re afraid, God is our Refuge.
Second, God is sufficient. Because God is absolute being, he is absolutely sufficient for us in every circumstance. Our needs will never exhaust his resources. God has infinite reserves of power, wisdom, and love. There’s an endless abundance of God for us to know and experience.
Third, God is trustworthy. In a world full of deception and A.I. “deep fakes,” God stands forth as a reliable source of information about the world and everything in it. He has nothing to gain by lying because he doesn’t need anything. He’ll always be an authentic and trustworthy guide.
Fourth, God is where we find ourselves. Because God is the absolute standard of truth, goodness, and beauty, expressive individualism (the dominant belief of our culture) is a dead-end street. Only in God can we find ourselves, and only in God can we find something compelling enough to conform our lives to. Our desires aren’t absolute, so they’ll never finally satisfy.
Fifth, the nature of God isn’t discovered, but revealed. God isn’t found inside us, but outside us. This doesn’t negate the mystery of faith. In revealing his name, God conceals as much as he reveals. As the old saying goes, “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” God cannot be known exhaustively, but he can be known truly.
Sixth, God’s revelation is an invitation. God doesn’t merely give us information but calls for commitment. God didn’t promise to take away Moses’ nervousness or to give him boldness. He simply told him who he was, as if he was saying, “Here is who I am, can you trust me?”
Seventh, God’s nature inspires courage. If God is absolute reality, absolute strength, and if he’s with us, then nothing can come against us that’s stronger than him. You can see why the promise, “I am with you” is so inspiring. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31)
Eighth, God must be the main point of our ministry as a church. We can and should learn from anyone because the world is full of God’s truth and wisdom, so we learn to “swallow the meat and spit out the bones.” But we must stay committed to the Reformed tradition because of its God-centeredness.
Ninth, we’re baptized into the “name” of God. Jesus tells us to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). Our baptism and entrance into the church signals that we belong to the “I AM WHO I AM.” Being baptized or joining a church doesn’t save anyone, but it does reveal those who are saved.
Tenth, because Jesus shares the Divine Name with his Father (“the name above every other name,” Phil. 2:9-11), God is knowable and accessible to all people. The incarnation results in the “worldwide availability of God.”[3] God made himself Israel’s God in order to make himself the God of all nations.
Do You Know God’s Name?
Tolkien’s character Treebeard says of his name, “My name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to.”[4]
God’s name is like this. It tells us the story of reality, of what or who is really real. God’s name tells us who he is. It tells us we owe everything to him. It tells us he owns us and that we’re accountable to him.
Jesus as Yahweh in the flesh tells us that we must come to him to finally find who we are and how we can be saved. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13).
Jesus as Yahweh in the flesh tells us that the God who isn’t constrained by anything wants to be committed to us. Only in an absolute being can we find absolute forgiveness, righteousness, and redemption. Only in Jesus can we be “saved to the uttermost” (Heb. 7:25).
Proverbs 18:10 says, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.” Do you live in God’s name?
[1]Richard Bauckham, Who Is God?: Key Moments of Biblical Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 45.
[2]TGC23 On Demand (thegospelcoalition.org)
[3]J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, 1993), 30.
[4]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 68, n. 6.
An Unlikely Deliverer
Last week we began studying Exodus 3. I said that the end of chapter 2 is Moses’s way of saying, “God is fully aware of what’s happening to his people and he’s about to act.” Or as C. S. Lewis would say in The Chronicles of Narnia, “Aslan is on the move!”
In chapter 3, God takes center stage and starts to reveal his plan to save his people. What’s the plan? How will he act?
God could’ve rescued Israel in a number of ways, but he decides to use a man to accomplish his plan. And not some great man with power, nobility, wealth, or an army. No, he chose an aging, poor, obscure, displaced immigrant shepherd who was minding his own business.
He chose to use Moses, the Hebrew turned Egyptian, the prince turned exile, the royal son turned shepherd. Moses isn’t doing anything special. He’s faithfully fulfilling his duties in the ordinary things of life when the presence of God suddenly changes his life.
Moses is an unlikely candidate to be the deliverer of God’s people. But God calls him anyway, and Moses responds in the same way we usually do. This part of Exodus (3:1-4:17) is all about God’s calling of Moses and Moses’s reluctance to answer that call.
God choosing Moses teaches us about the kind of person God uses. The kind of person God uses must know God’s holiness, God’s call, and God’s plan.
Last week we looked at Moses’s encounter with God’s holiness. Today, we’ll look at God’s call to Moses, God’s plan for Israel, and God’s call and plan for your life.
God’s Call to Moses
In verses 7-12, God calls Moses to deliver his people. In verse 8, the Lord says that he has “come down” to deliver his people. This language is reminiscent of his response to the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:5) and Sodom and Gomorrah (18:21). It’s what God says when he’s about to intervene in human affairs, especially in judgment.
The verse says that God has come “down” to bring his people “up.” God’s condescension is always for his people’s salvation. God comes low to bring us high.
It says that he’ll bring them to “a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” This language is reminiscent of the Garden of Eden, where everything God made was “good.” God bringing Israel to Canaan will be like a return to the Garden.
He says the land is “flowing with milk and honey.” Our tour guide in Israel told us this describes the topography of the land. Milk comes from goats and goats live in the hills and mountains, so the land will have mountains. Honey refers to the sweetness of the juice that comes from pomegranates, dates, or grapes, which grow in fertile valleys and plains. Canaan is thus a land of mountains and valleys, a land capable of producing all that Israel needs. This was a beautiful promise for a people suffering in slavery.
Verse 9 says that God sees the oppressed and the oppressor. This is good news for the one, bad news for the other.
Then in verse 10, something unexpected happens. In verses 6-9, the focus is on God and what he’ll do: “I am the God of…,” “I have seen,” “I have heard,” “I know,” “I have come down to deliver them,” “I will bring them up,” “their cry has come to me and I see their oppression.”
But then God says to Moses, “I’m sending you to deliver my people.” The emphasis in verses 6-9 is the Lord’s action, but then he says Moses will be the deliverer. It’d be like me saying to Suzy, “Hey babe, I know we need to build a new house, I’ve found the right piece of land, I secured the money, I drew up the plans, and I bought the materials. Now will you please go build the house?”
This helps us see that Moses is making a legitimate point in verse 11. He’s confused and doesn’t understand what the Lord is asking. He’s wondering, “Why are you saying that I’m going to rescue them when you just told me that you’re going to rescue them?”
Moses’s reluctance is understandable at this point. He’s saying, “I’m not God, how can I bring Israel out of Egypt?” We can sympathize with Moses because we understand what it feels like when God asks us to do something that feels impossible.
God responds in verse 12 with a promise to calm Moses’s heart, “I will be with you.” Cambridge scholar Richard Bauckham says that discovering that God is with us “is probably the most important discovery anyone can make, for, once made, it colors all life’s experiences.” He says that the Lord’s presence with us is “how life should be.”[1]
This is also a play on words with the Lord’s name in verse 14. “I will be” and “I am” are the same word in Hebrew. The “I am” is with Moses. As one commentator says, “Moses’ assertion that he cannot do this task is correct but entirely beside the point. He is not doing the saving. Moses says, ‘I cannot do this.’ Yahweh responds, ‘You’re not, I am.’”[2]
Moses would be flying blind when he returns to Egypt, but God being with him was all that mattered. The reason God keeps introducing himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” (vv. 6, 15) is to reassure him that the same God who was with them is also with him. The God of the patriarchs is the God of Moses. As Alec Motyer says, God was still “the God who calls into the unknown, overcomes impossible odds to keep his promises, bothers with those who have tried and failed and, certainly in the case of Jacob, is the God who can take the unpromising material of our lives and transform it.”[3]
We can begin to see a pattern of redemption begin to develop here. This isn’t the last time God would “come down to deliver” his people out of the hand of their enemies, out of their bondage and affliction, and “bring them up” to a “good and broad land.” And this isn’t the last time God calls someone to himself and then sends them to others with the good news of redemption (Mt. 28:18-20).
God’s Plan for Israel
How did God plan to use Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt? He starts to unfold the plan in verses 13-22. The flow of thought in these verses goes like this: God says to Moses, “This is who I am” (vv. 13-15), this is what see (v. 16), this is what I’ll do (v. 17), and this is what you’ll do (vv. 18-22).”
Verse 13 is the second of five times Moses questions God about his call and plan. It seems as if he’s projecting his doubts onto the Israelites. If the first objection was, “I don’t think I can do this,” then this second objection is, “No one else will think I can do this either.”
The straightforward implication of Moses’s question is that Moses doesn’t know God’s personal name. There’s no implication that the Israelites are ignorant of it. They would have to know it if Moses’ appeal to it is going to help him win them over.
We’re going to look more extensively at verses 14-15 next week and consider what God’s name teaches us about God. For our purposes today, God likely reveals his name at this point because he wants Moses to know that he’s the God of the patriarchs, that the one he’s heard about is the one speaking with him now (v. 15).
In verse 16, the Lord tells Moses to take his message to the elders of Israel first, not Pharaoh. Verse 17 says he’s to tell them of God’s promise to deliver Israel out of Egypt and take them to Canaan.
Then in verse 18, there’s an unexpected development in the plan. Moses and the elders are to go to Pharaoh together. God wants everyone to get into the act![4]
Their initial request for Pharaoh appears as if they’re only asking to go a three-day journey and then come back. But verses 8, 10, or 17 don’t give any impression that the Israelites will be returning to Egypt, so how do we understand this request?
Some commentators say that a “three-day journey” simply refers to a long journey without implying a return trip, so this is the same as boldly saying to Pharaoh, “Let my people go!”
But other commentators suggest that this could be another example of God’s people using cunning and misdirection to accomplish God’s purposes, similar to the midwives’ response to Pharaoh in 1:19. By limiting their request to only a three-day journey, they hoped to outwit the tyrannical monarch.
God could also be using this request to reveal just how obstinate Pharaoh is. His rejection of their modest request reveals his true character. This is why in verse 19 God gives Moses a note of caution. Moses is warned of Pharaoh’s hardheartedness. In 4:21, when God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, he’s simply giving him over to what he would’ve chosen otherwise.
God is preparing Moses for disappointment in his dealings with Pharaoh. He wants to protect him from despair and let him know that his mission will require a sustained effort.[5]
The Lord tells Moses that Pharaoh won’t listen to reasonable persuasion, even if the terms are presented in as non-threatening a way as possible. Persuasion won’t work, so the Lord says he’ll have to use force (v. 20). This foreshadows the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea.
Then there’s this beautiful promise in verses 21-22. This promise of provision is evidence of God’s kindness toward his people. He understands that as slaves his people have nothing, so he promises a miraculous provision, “I will give you favor with the Egyptians.”
The fact that it’ll be the women who “plunder” the Egyptians illustrates Israel’s decisive victory over Egypt. This wealth would later provide for the beauty and richness of the tabernacle. God would use his enemies to bless his friends.
God’s Call and Plan for Your Life
Now that we’ve seen God calling Moses and God giving him his plan for Israel, what does any of this have to do with you?
This text helps us understand God’s call on our lives. A pattern in the way God calls people in the Old Testament begins here. The most famous call narratives are with Joshua (Josh. 1), Gideon (Judg. 6), Samuel (1 Sam. 3), Isaiah (Isa. 6, 40), Jeremiah (Jer. 1), and Ezekiel (Ezek. 1).
In each case, God initiates contact, the recipient is living an ordinary life, the recipient is jolted by what God is asking them and responds in humility or disbelief, but they come to learn that God is greater than their inadequacies, lack of experience, or lack of talent. He makes it clear that it’s his power at work, not theirs.[6]
The Calling to Salvation
These call narratives show us that God’s call is to salvation and vocation. First and foremost, God’s call is to salvation, a calling that he initiates. God calls us into his kingdom, we don’t invite ourselves.
We can’t invite ourselves because we understand God’s holiness and our sinfulness. They understand that we can only enter the holiness of God if we’re covered by the holiness of God. They understand that in Jesus, God stepped out of the bush and onto a tree. On the cross, Jesus walked into the fire of God’s holiness so that we wouldn’t have to, that he took our uncleanness so that we can be cleansed, that the clean one became dirty so that we could be clean, that the Holy One took our unholiness.
Have you encountered the holiness of God and been covered by Jesus’ righteousness? Has God called you to himself? Every Christian has had a Mount Horeb experience of sorts because every true Christian has encountered the holiness of God and been truly changed. Like Moses, the direction of our lives was eternally altered by God. And like Moses, we may’ve resisted, but God’s grace overcame our resistance so that now we want to follow God, however imperfectly.
The Calling of Vocation
God calls us into his kingdom, and then he calls us into some kingdom service. God has unique work for each of us and you don’t need a magical formula to figure out what it is. You simply need to look at your life, know yourself and listen to others.
First, look at your life. Whatever is right in front of you is what God has called you to. Marriage and singleness are callings from God (1 Cor. 7:7). Your kids are your calling. Your current job or school is your calling. Your current neighborhood and friend group is your calling. Church membership is a calling. Calling isn’t about what’s next, but what’s right in front of you.
Second, know yourself. As you make decisions about the work you’ll do, consider what you’re good at, what gifts and propensities and interests do you have. What comes naturally to you? What do you enjoy that others hate? This isn’t the only or main thing to consider. Elevating personal satisfaction to the top of the list of things to consider is very modern. It’s not wrong to think about, but it shouldn’t be the determining factor.[7]
Third, listen to others. Did you notice how God incorporated the elders into his call on Moses’s life (vv. 16, 18)? Moses wasn’t to be a lone ranger but was to work for the group by working with the group.[8]
Our vocational calling isn’t a private matter. Hearing a personal word from God isn’t enough to confirm what he wants us to do. The church is a body with many members, so God’s call on our lives should be checked by others in the body.[9]
As you consider what to do with your life, don’t do it in isolation. God has given you amazing resources in the church through elders and brothers and sisters in Christ.
Moses Is Just Like Us
Even with great counsel and clarity about what we should do, we’re still more like Moses than we’d like to admit. We’re reluctant, unsure of ourselves, afraid, and struggle to trust in the Lord.
This narrative doesn’t emphasize Moses’ great courage. Tom Schreiner puts it like this, “The story does not elevate Moses to greatness by emphasizing his courage. He does not represent a brave ‘general’ who is ready to rescue God’s people. Instead, he pleads and begs to be relieved of his duty, for he is deeply conscious of his inadequacy. Moses’ greatness stems not from his own inner strength but rather from his recognition that without God he could do nothing.”[10]
The Moses of forty years ago was full of self-confidence and took matters into his own hands. The Moses of now asks to be relieved of his work.[11] Moses is a changed man. He’s deeply conscious of his inadequacy. He feels utterly incapable to do what God is asking him to do. He’s afraid of the unknown. In other words, he’s just like us.
The Called One Can Help Us in Our Callings
So how did Moses, and how can we, find the strength, courage, and resources we need to do the things God calls us to do?
We must start in the presence of God. Moses didn’t learn what his life mission was until he encountered God. As Motyer says, “True Christian service begins…in the presence of the Lord…Before he sent him out he brought him in and let him stand in his presence and commune with his God.”[12]
We start in the presence of the One who perfectly answered God’s call on his life. Jesus’ “call” is similar to others in the Old Testament, but also very different. He was living an ordinary life before his extraordinary mission began and there were periods of intense struggle with his mission (eg. praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and his cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
But what you never see in Jesus is obstinate rejection, feelings of inadequacy, or a stubborn reluctance to do what the Father sent him to do. The Father and the Son are one, so there was always a unity of purpose between them. Jesus never needed a sign from God to know what to do.
This means that Jesus has a strength in himself that we can’t find anywhere else. He’s holy and independent. We’re unholy and dependent, so the only place we’ll find the resources we need to answer God’s call on our lives is in him.
An Incredible Thing
It’s an incredible thing that a holy God calls us into his service. Like Moses, we must move from approaching God out of curiosity to approaching him with the awe and reverence and surrender that he deserves. If we’re approaching God flippantly, he tells us what he told Moses: “Stop, come no further. I am not a matter of curiosity. I am holy.”
When we stop and gaze at God in Christ and listen to him, we’ll find all we need to do what he wants us to do. So what is God calling you to do? Maybe to repent and believe the gospel? Maybe to seek wise counsel as you make plans? Maybe for help and wisdom as a parent, spouse, employee, student, church member, or neighbor?
God uses the most unlikely people to do the most unlikely things. The kind of person God uses knows God’s holiness, his call, and his plan. Are you this kind of person?
[1]Richard Bauckham, Who Is God?: Key Moments of Biblical Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 11.
[2]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 101, italics his.
[3]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 56.
[4]Enns, 107.
[5]See Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel, 2nd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1996), 55-56.
[6]Enns, 117-8.
[7]See Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert, The Gospel at Work: How Working for King Jesus Gives Purpose and Meaning to Our Jobs (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013) for help thinking through this.
[8]Enns, 123-4.
[9]See Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will, Or How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, Etc. (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009), 99.
[10]Thomas R. Schreiner, The King In His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 29.
[11]Alfred Edersheim, The Bible History, Old Testament, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, originally published 1876-1887), 48.
[12]Motyer, 63.
Aslan Is On the Move
Last week we looked at the last three verses of Exodus 2. In verses 24-25, Moses piles up four verbs to tell us that God is fully aware of his people’s condition and that he’s getting ready to act. He “hears, remembers, sees, and knows.” Moses piles up these verbs to say, “God is fully aware of what’s happening to his people and he’s about to bring all his resources to bear on their situation. He’s about to move toward them in mercy.” Or as C. S. Lewis would say in The Chronicles of Narnia, “Aslan is on the move!”
In 2:23-25, “God” is used five times, signaling that God is about to do something, that something big is about to happen. God begins to move from the background to the foreground of the narrative, taking center-stage and revealing himself as the true Redeemer of Israel.
In chapter 3, this “God” is about to reveal his personal name and plan, his personal identity and his plan of redemption.
God’s Plan is a Man
What’s the plan? How will he act? Being God, he could’ve rescued his people in lots of different ways. All the resources of heaven and earth are at his disposal. He could’ve sent in an army of angels led by Michael and defeated the Egyptians. He could’ve changed the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians and given them a desire to let the people go. He could’ve given the people of Israel the ability to fight their way out of Egypt or find some hidden way of escape. He could’ve sent in other nations to destroy the Egyptians. He could’ve sent thousands of chariots of fire from heaven that swooped in, picked up Israel and took them to Canaan.
God could’ve rescued Israel in a number of ways. What was the plan he decided to use? Not the one we would’ve drawn up! He decided to use a man to accomplish his plan. And not some great man with power and nobility and wealth and an army. No, he chose an aging, poor, obscure, displaced immigrant shepherd who was minding his own business and not looking to step onto the stage of world history and play a leading role.
God decided to deliver his people through a deliverer, to save persons through a person. He could’ve saved Israel unilaterally, but he decided to use a person.
It makes sense for a personal God to do it this way because he wants to be known personally. Sending a person as his chosen representative shows us that he wants to meet his people where they are, rather than expecting them to come to where he is.
Moses, the man God chooses as the deliverer of his people, is an unlikely candidate to be a deliverer, as we’ll see. God choosing him teaches us about the kind of person God uses. The kind of person God uses must know God’s holiness, God’s call, and God’s plan.
Do you know these things? Moses wasn’t ready to deliver Israel until he did. As we work through Exodus 3, we’ll see how Moses encounters God’s holiness, God’s call, and God’s plan.
Moses Before He Meets God
Before Moses can deliver God’s people, he must understand the holiness of God. In verses 1-6, Moses encounters God’s holiness. This text shows us three aspects of Moses’s encounter with God’s holiness. He sees a burning bush (vv. 2-4), he’s told he’s on holy ground (v. 5), and he hides his face (v. 6). There’s a fire, a command, and a response.
But first notice in verse 1 how the scene is set up. We learn several things here about Moses before God calls him. He’s a shepherd, he’s not a man of means, and he’s in the wilderness.
God wanted a shepherd to lead his people so his chosen man would learn how to lead by shepherding someone else’s sheep. This also tells us that Moses is ready to identify with his people the Israelites, who were shepherds, rather than the Egyptians, who abhorred shepherds (Gen. 46:32-34).
After forty years in Midian, Moses wasn’t a man of means, he hadn’t accumulated wealth. He was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep, not his own. In contrast to his years as an Egyptian prince, he’s now more or less a household worker for his father-in-law.[1]
It also says that was on the “west side of the wilderness.” He’d left Midianite territory and headed west, back toward Egypt, looking for grass for the flock. He was weeks away from home. It says he “came to Horeb, the mountain of God.” “Horeb” is another word for Sinai, and the word in Hebrew means “desolate or waste land.”
Here is Moses, the Egyptian prince who’s now a shepherd. He’s not rich and powerful; he’s poor and dependent. He’s not in the royal courts, he’s in the wilderness. He’s not ruling cities, he’s a household worker. He’s not doing anything special. He’s faithfully fulfilling his duties in the ordinary things of life.
Maybe you feel like Moses right now. You feel like you’re on “the west side of the wilderness,” weeks away from home, alone, poor, managing someone else’s assets, unknown, and getting through life one mundane day at a time. Keep serving, keep working, stay faithful. God sees you and his life-changing presence is closer than you think.
A Burning Bush
One ordinary day, ordinary Moses stumbles onto something extraordinary, a burning bush (vv. 2-3). This fire is the first aspect of Moses’s encounter with the holiness of God.
Verse 2 says that it was “the angel of the Lord” who appeared to him in the flame of the burning bush. This is likely a visible manifestation of God himself. God is everywhere, but when he wants to reveal himself in the Bible he typically does so through representation. This “angel” isn’t all there is to God, but was a real representation of his presence. It’s similar to a video call that brings a real sense of the presence of another person into a room through a video screen, even though the person isn’t fully present.[2] By appearing as an “angel,” a holy God can come close to sinners without consuming them.
It says that the “angel of the Lord” appeared to Moses “in a flame of fire” (v. 2). God’s presence is often made visible through fire in the Bible. A pot of fire went through the animal pieces in Genesis 15:17. God leads Israel through the wilderness with a pillar of fire (Ex. 13:21), and he descended onto Sinai in fire (19:18, 24:17). Ezekiel and Daniel see him in heaven as a fiery shape and on a throne of fire (Ezek. 1, 8; Dan. 7:9-10). The apostle John says he has eyes of fire (Rev. 1:14). The Spirit filled the first believers with “tongues of fire” in Acts 2:3.
God reveals himself to Moses through fire. But it was an unusual fire. Verse 2 says, “The bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” What does this tell us? It could point to the suffering of the people of Israel, who, like the bush, were engulfed in the fire of affliction but not consumed. But it primarily says something about the nature of God. God, like this fire, is a flame that doesn’t need nourishing. He’s a truly living flame, needing nothing to sustain him. The burning bush is a theological object lesson to illustrate God’s being (which will be further explained with the revelation of his Name in the next verses). Through the burning bush, God is saying that he’s a God who needs nothing or no one for his life. He’s self-sustaining and self-existent. He draws no vitality from outside himself. The God of the flame doesn’t need Moses.
God is Holy, But Not Impersonal
But the burning bush also shows us that the transcendent God who needs nothing is also willing to come down and meet his people where they are, that his holiness doesn’t negate kindness.
The God of the flame calls out to Moses in verse 4, saying, “Moses, Moses!” Saying his name twice is called a repetition of endearment and was a common way to address loved ones in the Ancient Near East, similar to when David and later Jesus said, “My God, my God” (Ps. 22:1, Mt. 27:46) or when Jesus said, “Saul, Saul” (Acts 9:4).
This means that Moses would’ve understood that he was being addressed by someone who loved him and cared about him. The God of the flame didn’t come to consume him, but to care for him.
This teaches us that God is holy but not impersonal. He’s not like The Force in Star Wars that’s there and kind of scary and mysterious and people can use it but not actually know it. You can’t talk to The Force or receive love and care from The Force. You can manipulate it but not know it. God isn’t like that. He’s a consuming fire and a caregiver. He can be known.
God Wants to be Known, On His Terms
And verse 5 shows us that he wants to be known. God wants Moses to be able to keep standing in his presence so he gives him the conditions necessary for that to happen.
Our inclination is to assume that we know the best way into his presence, or that we can figure it out on our own, or that anyone can just walk into the fire of God’s presence without being consumed. But we’d remain outside until God tells us how to come to him.
God wants us in his presence, but it has to be on his terms. God tells us how to come to him, we don’t tell him how to come to us. And the good news is that he does tell Moses, and us, how to come to him! He invites us into the sphere of his holiness through his loving and gentle call.
This is good news for those who feel unlovable, those who feel that no one really wants to be around them, those who feel that their shame and guilt mean that even God doesn’t want to be around them. We think something’s wrong with us because no one really wants to come close to us. But God, the most important person in the universe, wants to come close to us. He loves the unlovable, and those who feel unlovable.
God desires us to be in his presence. But with David, we ask, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” (Ps. 24:3) Who’s able to stand in God’s presence?
“Moses, Take Off Your Shoes”
The command in verse 5 shows us who can be in God’s presence and shows us the second aspect of Moses’s encounter with God’s holiness.
Here God begins to teach Moses two things: God is holy and man is unclean. Moses needed to learn from God the things he would later have to teach Israel. He needed to learn that God is holy and that he’s not.
The command to take his sandals off is meant to remind him that he’s “of the earth.” Our feet symbolize our creatureliness because they link us to the earth. Even the seraphim around the throne of God in heaven have two wings to cover their feet (Isa. 6:2). They’re angels but they’re still creatures. Only when we understand ourselves as creatures will we understand God as holy.
The holiness of God refers to his separateness, or uniqueness. He belongs in his own distinct sphere of existence. There’s literally nothing like him. He’s totally independent and everything else depends on him.
But holiness can also mean his moral purity. This is the other reason why God asks Moses to take his sandals off, to teach him that he was unclean. As a shepherd, his sandals would’ve been covered with dirt and mud and excrement and sweat. It was customary for someone to remove their sandals when entering a house because dirty sandals would tarnish a clean house. Moses is entering God’s house, so the only proper thing to do was remove his dirty shoes.
God tells him plainly that he’s to do this because the place where he’s standing is “holy ground.” Why is the “ground” holy? What’s so special about this ground? Nothing. The ground is “holy” because God is there, and God is holy. The burning bush is the first tabernacle in Exodus, the first place the holy God met with an unholy people.
When God comes to reveal himself to Moses in the burning bush, that ground is “set apart” for him, becoming “holy ground.” When God touches the common it becomes uncommon. This ground is only holy because God is there (cf. Josh. 5:15). Nothing is intrinsically holy until God makes it holy.
A Radical View of Holiness
This is a radically different way of thinking about holiness compared to the pagan nations around Israel, and many spiritual people today. The pagan view says that things can be sacred or holy intrinsically, that there can be a mysterious quality in an object that makes it special. But biblical religion says that nothing is inherently holy except God himself and anything he declares holy or makes holy by his presence being there (eg. the tabernacle, temple, church).
This means that, though God made everything, there’s nothing intrinsically spiritual or holy or sacred in specific trees or mountains or rivers or food or candles or people. We can give thanks for these things and enjoy them as gifts from God, but to revere them as inherently special would be wrong. This applies to everything from the land of Israel to sacred cows in India to popstars in America. None of these things are intrinsically holy, or different. The only sacred things are things that God declares sacred.
God’s Introduction and Moses’s Response
In verse 6, God introduces himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” in order to establish a link between Moses and the Patriarchs. The same God called each one of them. Even Moses’ dad is listed here. It’s his mother who hides him in the Nile so he isn’t killed by Pharaoh (2:3), but the book of Hebrews tells us that both his parents hid him in faith and didn’t fear the Pharaoh (11:23).
This introduction must’ve jolted Moses back to the reality of his identity as an Israelite. By invoking the three patriarchs, God is implicitly reminding Moses of the promises he made to them. He’s saying to Moses, “I’m going to keep my promises to my people, and you’re going to the one I use to do it, so you’ll need to trust me like your father and forefathers did.”
The end of verse 6 shows us the third aspect of Moses’s encounter with God’s holiness. His immediate and instinctive reaction is dread and terror. He can’t even bring himself to look at the burning bush anymore.
Moses’s theology wasn’t fully formed, but he understood the power of God’s holiness. This experience was almost beyond his human capacity to endure. Seeing the holiness of God was traumatic and terrifying.
The Holiness of God is Attractive and Repelling
The world we live in doesn’t see God this way. God’s name is used as a curse word and trampled through the dirt. Few give honor or reverence to God. There’s little respect for him or awe before him. We all struggle with this.
But we’re conflicted. As R. C. Sproul, in his book The Holiness of God, says, “We tend to have mixed feelings about the holy. There is a sense in which we are at the same time attracted to it and repulsed by it. Something draws us toward it, while at the same time we want to run away from it. We can’t seem to decide which way we want it. Part of us yearns for the holy, while part of us despises it. We can’t live with it, and we can’t live without it.”[3]
Like Moses, we’re drawn to the flame but terrified when we get close. Why are we drawn in? Because God’s holiness, his being, is the most beautiful thing in the universe. Why are we repelled? Because we’re small and our sandals are filthy. We’re unclean. The stain and filth of sin is all over us, even in us defiling our hearts and minds.
God Stepped Out of the Bush and Onto a Tree
What are we to do? How can we stand with our faces uncovered and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord without being consumed because of our sin?
We have to approach the holiness of God covered by the holiness of God. God has told us how we can approach him, just like he told Moses how to approach him. God has approached us, called out to us with the repetition of endearment, met us in the wilderness of our despair, and said that we can come into his presence because of someone else.
He sent another man who left royalty to become a shepherd, another man who left riches to become poor, another man who became a servant for his Father.
In Jesus, God stepped out of the bush and onto a tree. On the cross, Jesus walked into the fire of God’s holiness so that we wouldn’t have to. He took on our uncleanness so that we can be cleansed. The clean one became dirty so that we could be clean. The Holy One took our unholiness.
So how do we get covered by the holiness of God? When we grab onto Jesus by faith, we receive forgiveness and holiness. Through faith, God declares us holy in Christ so that we can freely come into the presence of God and not be burned up.
Jesus went into the wilderness and walked into the flame for us because he loves us. Anyone who follows him receives the Holy Spirit, the very flame of God’s presence that makes them holy and purifies their hearts.
These verses are the story of Moses’s conversion. He was confronted by the holy and living God and his life forever changed. Have you encountered the God of the flame? Have you encountered God’s holiness? Is your life covered with his holiness?
[1]Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 108.
[2]Ibid., 113.
[3]R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1998), 41.
Why Does God Act to Save?
Our text is short but worth spending time on because it’s a transitional text, linking what’s before it with what’s after it, showing us why Moses was delivered as a baby and why God is about to call him as a man.
This passage is also crucial because it shows us why God delivers Israel from Egypt. Amazingly, this passage tells us that God would have brought Israel out of Egypt even if their life there was great.
Why does he deliver them? To reveal his character as a covenant-keeper (v. 24). If he didn’t bring them out he’d be a liar and Israel and all the nations would have reason to never trust him. But he made a covenant with Abraham to give him a people and a land (Gen. 17:4-8). And God always keeps his promises.
The main reason God works to save Israel is to reveal his character, to make himself known as a God who can be trusted, as a God who loves his people so much that nothing will stop him from giving them the good gifts he’s promised them. What’s at stake in the exodus is nothing less than the character of God.
The main point of this text is that God is a covenant-keeper. In this text, we’ll look at Israel’s situation (v. 23) and God’s response (vv. 24-25). Then from this text, we’ll consider our problems in light of what we learn here.
Israel’s Situation
In verse 23 the scene shifts from Moses’ prosperity in Midian to Israel’s suffering in Egypt. The death of Pharaoh didn’t bring any relief for the Hebrews. The new king didn’t remove old sorrows.
The text says that they “cried out” or “groaned” four times in verses 23-24 and mentions their “slavery” twice in verse 23, emphasizing how bad their situation was. The word for “cried out” is usually used when someone cries out in agony, like with David cried out over his murdered son Absalom (2 Sam. 19:4). It’s a “loud and agonized crying of someone in acute distress and calling for help.”[1]
Honest about Pain
It’s often said that “time heals all wounds,” but this verse means that time was no healer for Israel in Egypt. After 400 years there, their pain was greater than ever, so acute that they’re crying out in agony.
Have you ever been in so much pain that all you can do is cry, so much agony that weeping and wailing and “groaning” comes upon you? Have you ever had so much physical or emotional or psychological or relational pain that all you could do is cry and weep and wail?
This is good and healthy because it means you’re letting yourself actually express the things you feel, rather than pursuing a stoicism that’s more Greek than Christian. We’re all wired in different ways temperamentally, but we all feel things that are painful. If we didn’t, God wouldn’t have put a book in the Bible with over sixty songs of lament. Lament, or grieving over painful things, is part of a normal, healthy Christian life. Lament is having honest and unedited conversations with God. Lament is taking our pain to God.
Pain Led to Prayer
This is what the Hebrews did with their pain. They took it to God. Verse 23 says they “cried out for help.” It doesn’t explicitly say that they cried out to God, but we learn elsewhere that their cries were to God (Num. 20:16, Deut. 26:7).
Time or political change didn’t bring them relief, so what was it that activated their deliverance? Prayer, their suffering led to prayer. As Kathy Keller said, “Suffering is the school where we learn to pray.”[2] The Lord loves to answer the cries of hurting people (Ps. 34:15-18). As Irish Old Testament scholar Alec Motyer (Maw-tear) says, “The prayer of the people of God is the beginning of their deliverance because prayer brings God into the situation.”[3]
But, you may say, “God was already in the situation, working things out behind the scenes. He acted to save Israel because of his covenant promises. What does their prayer have to do with that?”
God doesn’t need our prayers, of course. He can fulfill his promises without our help. But the Bible tells us to pray. Jesus tells us to pray, even about things that belong solely to God’s control, like the timing of the tribulation (Matt. 24:20). We should pray simply because God hears and answers prayer.
In our text, the narrator presents things as if God’s action is in response to the people’s cries: “They cried out for help…and God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant.” In this text, it’s prayer that moved God to action.
Again, Alec Motyer explains this beautifully:
“The prayers of the people of God have such a key role to play that the Bible can make it clear only by speaking of it in terms we can understand. It…depicts the unforgetting God as though he were capable of forgetting and depicts our prayers as having the marvelous effect of causing him to remember. Our prayers are so effective and so delightful in his ears, that God condescends to accommodate his eternal, sovereign, providential working to what we can understand, as though to say, ‘Oh, thank you for reminding me.’”[4]
Our heavenly Father is fully in control and yet chooses to order his plans so that some things only happen in response to our prayers. Like a good Father, he knows what his children need before they ask him. But he loves to respond to the asking.
God’s Response
In verses 24-25, we see how God responds to the prayers of his people. He’s neither deaf nor indifferent to the needs of his people.
He responds to his people’s prayers in four ways: he hears, remembers, sees, and knows. These four verbs summarize God’s posture toward his people.
First, he “hears their groaning” (v. 24). This doesn’t mean that God’s ears were finally working or that he hadn’t heard their cries before. The sense is that he hears in a way that leads to a response (cf. 3:7-8).
Second, “God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (v. 24). This doesn’t mean that he forgot about the covenant, or that Israel’s prayers jogged his memory. God “remembering” doesn’t mean he’s recalling information. It means he’s about to act, just as “God remembered” Noah during the flood and then made the waters subside (Gen. 8:1).
God “remembering” something tells us that he’s about to fulfill a prior commitment. Here the specific commitment he’s about to act on is his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He promised to put Abraham’s people in the land of Canaan, but they’re in Egypt, so something must happen if God wants to keep his word.
This means that God saves Israel to be true to his word, not just because he hates slavery. As I said earlier, even if their stay in Goshen was great, God would still act to move them because he said he would. He couldn’t be faithful to his covenant and do otherwise.
Third, verse 25 says that “God saw the people of Israel.” This doesn’t mean he finally makes eye contact with them or that he hadn’t noticed them until now. When God “sees” someone in Scripture, it means that he begins to move toward them with mercy and acts in their favor (cf. 3:7-9). As Jacob says to Laban, “God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night” (Gen. 31:42).
Fourth, it says “and God knew” (v. 25). There’s no object to the verb, but the end of 3:7 lets us know that what God “knows” is their sufferings. This isn’t mere head knowledge, as if God is gaining new information. God never learns anything. He knows everything.
This kind if “knowing” is an intimate, relational knowledge, like when a man “knows his wife” (Gen. 4:1). It’s sharing an experience with someone so that the experience can be called their own. God was intimately aware of Israel’s pain and suffering. He felt what they felt.
All four of these verbs are essentially telling us the same thing: God was fully aware of how his people were being treated and he was getting ready to act. What will he do? Starting in chapter 3, we’ll find out.
Our Problems
What can we take away from a passage like this? First, it teaches us that God sees everything. This “seeing” is both good news and bad news.
It’s bad news because it means that sin isn’t hidden from God’s sight. As Jesus said, “Nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (Mt. 10:26). Or the writer to the Hebrews, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (4:13).
God sees everything, even things not visible. He sees our bitterness and bigotry, our denial and dishonesty, our gluttony and gossip and greed, our laziness and lust and legalism, our pride and people-pleasing. He sees individual and corporate sins. He sees corporations who care more about profits than people. He sees nations who mistreat or oppress minorities made in God’s image. He sees when his people are mistreated (2 Thess. 1:5-7).
What God sees provokes him to anger because he loves his creation and those made in his image and those who belong to him. He wouldn’t be good and just if he looked at the sins of the world and in our hearts and didn’t feel angry. His response to what he sees in Egypt is judgment.
God Sees You
God “seeing” everything is also good news because it means that our suffering isn’t hidden from him. In Matthew 9, Jesus sees the woman in the crowd who touched his garment and heals her. Jesus saw the lame man at the pool of Bethesda and healed him (Jn. 5:6). He sees the lepers, the blind, the lame, the poor, the prostitutes, and the tax collectors and moves toward them with kindness and compassion and changes their lives.
God sees your suffering. He sees your loneliness, struggles with singleness, despair, mental health struggles, suicidal ideation, difficulties in marriage, futility you feel in your work, the struggle to know what to do with your life, the broken home you grew up in, the tears you cry when no one is looking, financial insecurity, health challenges, chronic pain, your anxiety about living in a new country or new city, the abuse you’ve endured, the pressure you feel to please your parents or to perform well, same-sex attraction, addictions.
That God sees all this is good news, but it feels like bad news because the voice of shame tells us that these things define us. We believe that satanic voice and run into hiding behind our work, school, screens, even our spirituality, afraid that if anyone really knew us they’d reject us. So we put on the fig leaves of a godly and productive life and hope that we feel better soon. But the longing to really be seen and known doesn’t go away, the longing for someone to move toward us, to know what it’s like to be us, to feel what we feel, is still there.
The good news of the gospel is that God does see you and his heart is moved to work for your good. He sees our sin and suffering and has worked to remove the one and be with us in the other. He “remembers” his covenant with us and moves toward us, not away from us.
Because he remembers us, we remember him. When we sin, we remember his forgiveness. When we’re anxious and afraid, we remember that he’s with us. When we’re struggling with hopelessness, we remember the glory he’s promised us. When we’re tempted, we remember his satisfying love. When we’re isolating, we remember that he’s called us into community. When we see someone hurting, we move toward them because he’s moved toward us.
The Covenant Is for Those Who Know They Need It
The other thing this passage shows us is that this is the way God has always saved his people. This passage describes what happens when God saves any of us. He hears our groaning, understands the bondage to sin and death we’re in, sees our helplessness, knows our guilt and shame, and remembers his covenant.
What covenant does he remember? The new covenant that Jesus created by his blood (Lk. 22:20). Jesus came to fulfill God’s covenant with Abraham (Lk. 1:54-55, 72) and bring God’s blessing to all the nations. If you’re in Christ, you’re part of the people of God, a new Israel, and God will never forget you because he’s forgotten your sin (Jer. 31:34).
The new covenant is only for those who understand they have sin that needs to be forgiven. God saved Israel in response to their honesty about their situation. The psalmist says that the Lord “saves the crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18). And Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:3).
To be “poor in spirit” means to acknowledge your spiritual poverty apart from Christ. It means realizing your unworthiness before God. It means acknowledging that you’re a sinner who deserves nothing but the judgment of God. The “kingdom of heaven” is given to those who realize how spiritually poor they are.
God Knows Us and Still Comes Close
Our sin and shame make us wonder if God really sees us. But this text tells us that God never forgets his people. He always remembers his own. You never forget the one you love, the one who’s in your heart. Through the cross, God has brought us into his heart, so no matter what we feel or think or do, we’re his.
As John says, “Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (1 Jn. 3:20). God knows everything about everything about you and he still loves you. His omniscience is meant to relieve us, not terrify us. His all-knowing love quiets our anxious hearts.
I heard something this week that really stuck with me. It was, “You can’t be fully loved until you’re fully known.” God fully knows us, and therefore, he fully loves us. He sees every corner of our lives, every part of our story, every sin and every suffering. And none of that knowledge pushes him away. It actually draws him in.
It draws him in because that’s the essence of the gospel, God identifying with us, meeting us where we are.
Like Moses, Jesus identified with the suffering of his people. Like Moses, Jesus experienced firsthand what it’s like to be rejected. Like Moses, Jesus was scorned by his people in order that he might redeem them.
Like Moses, our Redeemer Jesus Christ, identifies with us, and he identifies with us in order to enter into a covenant with us, a covenant that he’ll never forget. He’s made promises to us, and he’ll stick with us no matter what.
As the hymn “The Solid Rock” says, “His oath, his covenant, his blood support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.”
Even if you lose everything else in your life, you won’t lose God if you belong to him. He’ll keep you because he’s a covenant-keeper.
[1]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 41.
[2]“A Word From a Mule” — Kathy Keller (youtube.com)
[3]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 43.
[4]Ibid., 46.
Fear of Man Versus Fear of the Lord
The passage of Exodus we’re studying this morning is an ancient account about an ancient event about an ancient problem. It’s a story about fear. It teaches us that what we fear controls us.
The text draws a contrast between the fear of man and the fear of the Lord. The main characters are Pharaoh and two midwives, and each was controlled by their fear. But the object of their fear was drastically different, leading to actions that were drastically different. Pharaoh’s fear led to death and destruction. The midwives’ fear led to life and flourishing.
Fear is an important subject to discuss because we live in what Michael Reeves calls a “culture of fear.” He says, “Though we are more prosperous and secure, though we have more safety than almost any other society in history, safety has become the holy grail of our culture. And like the Holy Grail, it is something we can never quite reach. Protected like never before, we are skittish and panicky like never before.”[1]
Fear in one sense is a very normal and natural thing. God designed our bodies to react to threats for the sake of our survival. But when fear comes, what we do with it is what’s important. Do we identify it for what it is in a way that leads us to God for protection, help, and refuge, in a way that leads to faith and wisdom? Or do we seek to manage it in a way that leads to control, anxiety, and, left unchecked, rage? Or do we run from it by medicating it?
What do you do with your fears? The main point of this message is that we fear controls us. In our text, we’ll look at Pharaoh’s fear (vv. 8-14), the midwives fear (vv. 15-21), and freedom from fear (v. 22).
Pharaoh’s Fear
In verses 8-14, Pharaoh’s fear is on full display. First notice in verse 8 that it says a “new king arose who did not know Joseph.” It’s unlikely that this king was the immediate successor of the one in Joseph’s day since the Hebrews were in Egypt for over four centuries (12:40). The “new king” was likely a new dynasty.
Depending on how you date the exodus (some prefer the middle of the 15th century BC, some the middle of the 13th century), the historical situation in Egypt would’ve given this “new king” some reason to be afraid. Starting in the 18th century BC, Egypt was controlled by foreign invaders, called the Hyksos people, for over 150 years. The Hyksos weren’t organized invaders, but were a conglomeration of ethnic groups, predominantly Semitic people who probably came from Canaan. They established their control and built their capital in the eastern Nile Delta, and gradually replaced Egyptians in high administrative offices. Joseph’s rise to power and the migration of the Hebrews to Goshen likely took place during the Hyksos era.
The Hyksos were finally defeated and Egyptian nationals establish their rule again. But for generations the Egyptians feared the outside world and were haunted by the danger of foreign invasion, especially from Semitic peoples coming through the eastern Delta. Semitic people living there could not be ignored or underestimated.[2]
Pharaoh’s concern is justified in one sense. But his fear leads him to spiral into anxiety about hypothetical situations (vv. 9-10). Pharaoh was managing his fear through anxiety and control. Rather than pursuing peace with the Hebrews, his fear of man controls him.
The Fear of Man
Before we’re too hard on Pharaoh, let’s remember that the same sin disease that lived in his heart lives in ours too. We also struggle with fear of man.
The fear of man is sneaky and lives all over our lives. These questions can help you see fear of man in your life: Do you struggle with peer pressure, feeling like you have to be a certain way to fit in? Are you over-committed, finding it hard to say “no”? Are you a people-pleaser, desperately wanting people to be happy with you? Do you seek to control people or are you controlled by people? Are you afraid of being exposed or of being seen as a failure? Are you so afraid of making mistakes that you never risk anything? Are you easily embarrassed? Do you cover things up and live in the dark to make yourself look better to others? Are you jealous of other people? Do other people often make you crazy? Do you avoid people? Do you compare yourself to others to make yourself feel better about yourself? All of these things are a way of being controlled by people rather than God, ways we use other people to define our lives rather than God. This is the fear of man.[3]
Heavy Burdens to Break Their Spirits
Pharaoh’s fear of man led him to mistreat the Hebrews in ways that escalated in evil. First there was slavery, then the secret killing of the boys, then the public killing of the boys. Each time his plan is thwarted in different and strange ways, almost as if there’s another plan in play keeping Israel alive, “hanging on by a string.”[4]
The first thing he does is set taskmasters over them “to afflict them with heavy burdens” (v. 11). Why doesn’t he just kill them at the beginning? Because he wanted to use them first. Fear of man always leads us to use people instead of loving them.
This wasn’t an all-out murderous assault on Israel. These “heavy burdens” were designed to ruin their health, shorten their lives, lessen their numbers, break their spirit, and ultimately destroy their hope. Pharaoh wanted to break their spirits before he broke their necks.
Pharaoh’s plan at first was slow, but cruel. He wanted to break the Hebrew’s will, to make them so bitter and angry and sick that they despaired of life itself.
The harsh taskmasters in your life are no different. The seed of the Serpent doesn’t have any new tricks. He usually starts by trying to kill us slowly, by stealing our hope and overwhelming us with the burdens of life so that we despair of life itself.
More Affliction Led to More Spreading
But notice what happened in verse 12. Pharaoh’s first plan backfired. The more the Hebrews were afflicted, the more they grew! The heavy burdens of the Egyptians somehow made Israel stronger instead of weaker.
Isn’t this always the case with God’s people? For some inexplicable reason, suffering and persecution often produces growth in God’s people. For example, the authorities plotted against Jesus and his fame spread more and more. The authorities killed Stephen in Jerusalem and Paul was throwing Christians in prison, but the word spread as the disciples scattered (Acts 8:1-4).
Over the last decade or so, the governments of China and Iran have sought to crack down on Christians and churches, only to see the church spread and multiply in miraculous ways.
Peter said, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Pet. 4:12). Persecution is the way the unbelieving world treats the church. Having a certain candidate in office or living with religious freedoms won’t change that. The seed of the serpent is intent on crushing the seed of the woman. But the cross is always followed by the resurrection. So we agree with Gamaliel, the Pharisee who said in defense of the apostles, “If their plan is of man, it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them” (Acts 5:38-39). God’s plan to grow his people will not be stopped by anyone or anything at any time. Even death takes us to glory!
Life as Slaves
The growth of Israel made the Egyptians even more afraid, and so they made the Hebrew’s lives even harder (vv. 13-14). Moses underscores just how bad it was by repeating the phrase “they ruthlessly made the people work as slaves” in both verses.
A document from this time period describes life as a brickmaker: “He is dirtier than vines or pigs from treading under his mud. His clothes are stiff with clay; his leather belt is going to ruin…His sides ache, since he must be outside in a treacherous wind…His arms are destroyed with technical work…What he eats is the bread of his fingers, and he washes himself only once a season. He is simply wretched through and through.”[5]
The enslavement of the Israelites wasn’t like the domestic slavery of the antebellum southern United States in the 1800’s. Later we learn that the Israelites lived in close proximity, possibly in the same house sometimes, with the Egyptians (3:21-22). One scholar says, “What we are dealing with is state slavery, the organized imposition of forced labor upon the male population for long and indefinite terms of service under degrading and brutal conditions.”[6]
The dehumanizing scheme of the Pharaoh didn’t produce the expected results. The more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread. Nothing could stop the promises of God.
But God was taking note. The word used to describe the “hard” labor Pharaoh imposed on Israel (v. 14) is later used to describe God “hardening” Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh made their work hard, so God made his heart hard.
The Midwives Fear
In verses 15-21, we see another kind of fear. Pharaoh’s fear of man led to death and destruction. The midwives’ fear of the Lord leads to life and flourishing.
These midwives (who probably led the guild of Hebrew midwives) performed the first recorded case of civil disobedience. Why? They “feared God” (vv. 17, 21).
Honoring Two Heroines
We’ll talk more in a moment about the fear of the Lord, but first notice what Moses is doing here. In verse 15, Moses tells us that the midwives names are Shiphrah and Puah. Why is this important? Did you see a name given for Pharaoh? No, “Pharaoh” is a generic title given to the reigning king and his house, similar to what we mean when we say, “The White House decided to do this or that.” “White House” refers to the President without using his name.
Do you see what Moses is doing? He’s naming these two lowly women and not naming the most powerful man in the world. Why? To give honor to those who deserve honor. Those who work for justice and righteousness in the land deserve to be named. Those who work to oppress and mistreat don’t even deserve a name.
All the power and wealth and monuments and building projects of the Pharaoh are ultimately insignificant and will crumble and turn into dust because they rest on foundations with no moral content. The midwives (mentioned seven times in the story to indicate their importance), however, will live on in the memory of God’s people as heroines. “A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Prov. 31:30), and that is what Moses is doing here.
A woman’s fear of God must outweigh every other fear, whether that of her husband, boss, children, or future. For example, a wife’s fear of the Lord means that she doesn’t have to stay silent while her husband mistreats her. Her ultimate fear or hope is in the Lord, not in her husband, so she’s free to speak up when her husband is rude or inconsiderate or selfish or controlling or abusive or hurting her.
These women were commanded to kill, but they disobeyed the command and let the boys live. Why only the boys? Because boys would grow up to be soldiers, girls could easily be assimilated into Egyptian culture through intermarriage, bloodlines and status were conferred through male lineage, and because the Pharaoh and the seed of the serpent sought to thwart the promise of a male Redeemer (Gen. 3:15).[7]
The Fear of the Lord
Why did these women disobey the command of the king? Because they had a higher king, because they “feared God” (v. 17).
What is the fear of the Lord? This phrase is used at least 100 times in the Bible. It’s not about being scared of the Lord. Deuteronomy 10:12 talks about fearing, loving, and serving the Lord together. Psalm 130:4 says, “with you is forgiveness, that you may be feared,” so grace increases our fear of God.
The “fear of the Lord” isn’t less than terror, but it’s so much more. Ed Welch describes it as a continuum that moves from terror to astonishment to reverence to devotion to trust to worship.[8] John Bunyan says that Satan tries to make us afraid of God so we’ll flee from him, but the Spirit creates in us a fear that wins our hearts and draws us to God.[9] Michael Reeves says that the kind of fear that pleases the Lord “is not a groveling, shrinking fear. He is no tyrant. It is an ecstasy of love and joy that senses how overwhelmingly kind and magnificent, good and true God is, and that therefore leans on him in staggered praise and faith.”[10] The “fear of the Lord” changes everything. Tim Keller says the fear of the Lord is a “life rearranging joyful awe and wonder before the greatness of who God is and what he’s done.”[11]
The fear of the Lord means that God becomes absolutely central in your life. Your relationship with God is no longer about enriching your life spiritually like your gym membership enriches your life physically. God isn’t just another thing on your shelf or an add-on to help you live a better life. Everything you do is done with this question in mind: how does this effect my relationship with God?
The Hebrew midwives put everything on the line because of their fear of God. Is there anything in your life not yielded to God? Anything you’re holding onto out of fear of man?
Acting in the fear of the Lord is no guarantee that things will always work out. After all, God didn’t whisk these midwives away and hide them from Pharaoh. He allowed them to be called to account (v. 18).
A Delicious Irony
But their fear of the Lord pleased the Lord, and in this case, God brought great blessing to them because of it (vv. 20-21). Verse 20 echoes verse 7, letting us know that God’s blessing is still on the Israelites and that death isn’t stopping his promises.
Verse 21 is actually what one commentator calls a “delicious irony.”[12] The midwives saved families by disobeying Pharaoh, so God rewards them with families for their stand against evil.
This isn’t karma, it’s grace. God owes none of us anything, he always gives us more than we deserve. But the Bible says that he honors those who honor him – sometimes in this life, always in the next.
Freedom from Fear
What we fear controls us. How can we be free from fear of man and grow in the fear of the Lord? Verse 22 points toward a solution in an unexpected way.
Pharaoh commands a direct holocaust. The Egyptian public is called on to help aid in the extinction of the Hebrew people.
This decree to publicly kill all the boys foreshadows a New Testament event found in Matthew 2:16, “Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.”
Like Pharaoh, Herod attempted to kill a bunch of Hebrew boys, wiping out the promised Redeemer. But in each case, God orchestrated events so that each deliverer was delivered.
As we’ll see next week, Moses was saved by the water instead of killed by the water. And ironically God used water to kill all the elite Egyptian males at the Red Sea (15:1), turning Pharaoh’s scheme on its head. The means he intended to kill the baby boys was the instrument of his own punishment.
This great reversal is God making it clear that the seed of the serpent will not prevail over the seed of the woman. How does he prevail? Isaiah 53 uses the same Hebrew word for “burdens” as Moses does in Exodus 1:11. Isaiah says that the coming Redeemer will bear his people’s burdens (vv. 4, 11).
The Egyptians afflicted with “heavy burdens.” The Messiah came to bear his people’s burdens. We’re languishing under the burden of our sin and God came not just to help us carry it, but to take it from us. Jesus came to take our burden, not be a burden.
This is why Paul can say, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). The “law of Christ” is the law of undeserved burden-bearing, of sacrificially entering into the life of another to do them good no matter what it costs.
The burden-bearing mercy of Jesus creates the fear of the Lord in us. This love sustains the fear of the Lord. This grace grows the fear of the Lord in us. Jesus came to set us free from fear of man and free to fear the Lord. He “takes pleasure in those who fear him” (Ps. 147:11)
What you fear controls you. As the hymn Amazing Grace says, “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” Jesus’ burden-bearing love sets us free from the fear of man and free to fear the Lord. Which fear controls you?
[1]Michael Reeves, Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 19.
[2]See Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel, 2nd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1996), 16-17.
[3]Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1997), 14-17.
[4]Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1974), 14.
[5]Sarna, 23.
[6]Ibid., 21.
[7]John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus: Volume 1, Chapters 1-18 (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2000), 52.
[8]Welch, 97.
[9]Reeves, 43.
[10]Ibid., 67.
[11]Knowing God – Gospel in Life
[12]Currid, 54.
On Stories
Everyone loves a good story. Stories have an enduring place in the human experience. They’ve been told and retold for millennia, around campfires, in dorm rooms, classrooms, living rooms, books, plays, and streaming services. Storytelling is part of what it means to be human.
Why do we love stories? Because they connect us to something deep and basic about the world and our lives. They touch a part of us that nothing else can. C. S. Lewis says good stories are like a “secret thread” holding things together.
Stories move us because they get us in touch with the underlying reality of what God created the universe to be. What do I mean? I mean that on a deeper level we all know that we shouldn’t die, that losing loved ones is tragic, that good should triumph over evil, that nature is infused with power and beauty, even that we should be able to communicate with other creatures.
Good stories move us because they touch that part of us that knows that we live in a supernatural world. Skeptics want these things to be true, so while their heads are against the Christian faith, their hearts are with us, in a sense, even while they suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness. Many people deny God intellectually but in a good story they sense deeper meaning in the world.
The Story of the Bible is about Exodus
Lewis talks about Jesus as the one myth that became fact, the “true myth.” Jesus’ story, the Bible’s story, is the story under all other stories. What is the story of the Bible about? It’s about exodus, about deliverance from death, about a community’s journey to a better future. It’s about death and resurrection.
One of the clearest and most important places we see the shape of the whole Bible’s story is in the Old Testament book of Exodus. Today we’re beginning a study of Exodus that’ll take us through most of this year.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of Exodus for our understanding of the story of the Bible. One book on Exodus says, “Whatever book of the Bible you are reading, and whichever Christian practices you are involved in, echoes of the exodus are in there somewhere.”[1]
The main plot line of Exodus is the main plot line of the Bible. Old Testament scholar Michael Morales says that, in Israel’s exodus out of Egypt through Moses, God establishes “a paradigm, the pattern, for understanding the salvation of his people.” He says that we can only fully comprehend Jesus’ work by studying Old Testament scriptures like Exodus.[2]
So what’s the plot of Exodus? If you’ve read Exodus before, you know that the story is about a people, Israel, who’re in slavery/misery/despair/death, but then a hero/redeemer/savior/leader steps forward (Moses) and deliverance/salvation/rescue comes. Then these people set off on a journey through a wilderness headed toward a new world/place/life. Exodus tells a story about death and resurrection, and isn’t this the plot of every good story?
The Author Writes Himself In
But here’s what’s unique about Exodus, and the whole story of the Bible. In most stories, you don’t meet the author in the story. You meet the characters, not the author. The Bible is different. In the Bible, in Exodus, the Author writes himself into the story.
Some people think that God is “the man upstairs.” When Russian cosmonauts first entered space, they came back and said they didn’t find God there. Lewis was still alive at the time and pointed out how silly this way of thinking was. He said if there is a God and he wanted to be known he would have to write himself into the story of the world, just as the only way Hamlet can know Shakespeare is if Shakespeare writes himself into the story.
God has indeed written himself into the story of the world! Why? Because he wants to be known. This is perhaps the main point of Exodus. The reason why God delivers Israel from Egypt and brings them through the Red Sea and gives them his word and leads them through the wilderness toward the Promised Land is because he wants to be known.
God’s salvation isn’t an end in itself. The point of salvation is revelation. God wants his people and all the peoples to know him for who he is. Anglican scholar Ross Blackburn says, “The Lord’s missionary commitment to make himself known to the nations is the central theological concern of Exodus.”[3]
God wants to be known for who he is and not for who he is not. He wants the world to know that he’s a particular kind of God, a God who is both supreme and good, merciful and mighty, Ruler and Redeemer, Lord and Savior.
The Writer of the story of the Bible wants you to know him, so he wrote himself into the story of the world. Have you met the Author of the story? Do you know God as an abstraction or as a reality?
Why Study Exodus?
That we’d know God truly and deeply is the main reason we’re studying Exodus. But there are a couple secondary benefits to studying a book like this. In their book Echoes of Exodus, British theologians Alastair Roberts and Andrew Wilson talk about how studying Exodus can be particularly helpful for the church in this given cultural moment.
They point out the rootlessness many of us feel.[4] Despite the drive to find and live out our identity, many of us feel like we don’t know who we are. In this context, Roberts and Wilson say that there’s no better way to find our moorings than by reading the Old Testament. As Paul says, these things were “written for our sake” (1 Cor. 9:10), so the Old Testament in general and Exodus in particular isn’t just Israel’s story, it’s our story. Just as the D-Day landings were a defining moment in our history that explains who we are, so “the exodus is our family story.” The exodus tells us that our lives are caught up in something so much bigger than self-expression.
Roberts and Wilson also point out that a book like Exodus can help us think through the nature of true freedom. Many of us feel like we’re in some form of bondage, oppression, or limitation. Roberts and Wilson describe our condition like this:
“We get free from boredom, and fall into slavery to distraction. We pursue liberty from prohibitions, and fall into bondage to addictions. We escape repression, and become enslaved to lust. We are released from isolation, and fall captive to peer pressure and the power of the online mob…in the imagery of The Hunger Games, we get free from fences and guns in the districts, only to find ourselves trapped by slavish banality in the Capitol. True freedom is more complicated than it looks.”[5]
The exodus story, however, says that God’s people have a “freedom from” and a “freedom to.” As exodus people, we know we’re free from serving Pharaoh and free to serve the Lord.[6] So we pursue true freedom found only in a life devoted to God.
Genesis Sets the Stage
If Exodus is the main drama of the biblical story, Genesis sets the stage. Exodus continues the story begun in Genesis.[7]
The story of the Bible begins with a creator God who makes the world. Humans are his crowning work. We’re made in his image and given special tasks to perform on behalf of the Creator. Adam and Eve are priests in the garden sanctuary of God, where they live with God and learn his ways in order to exercise the rule of God as God himself would.
But the first humans rebelled against God and brought chaos and disharmony and death into the world. The destruction spiraled downward until God intervened and judged the human race with a flood and started over with Noah and his family. Noah is a new Adam and is told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 9:1).
Unfortunately, the second Adam is a lot like the first Adam and Noah’s family ends up in the same chaos and corruption as the family of the first Adam. After God scatters the nations at the Tower of Babel, he makes another start with Abraham. Abraham and his family are another Adam and will be God’s true humanity.
God makes big promises to Abraham, promising to give him descendants as numerous as the sand on the seashore and a land that will be a center of blessing to the whole world. As Old Testament scholar Peter Gentry points out, “Since Israel is located geographically on the one and only communications link between the great superpowers of the ancient world (Egypt and Mesopotamia), she will, in this position, show the nations how to have a right relationship to God, how to treat each other in a truly human way, and how to faithfully steward the earth’s resources.”[8]
Abraham’s family was to be the vehicle of God’s blessing to a cursed world. God would make this family a great nation and put them in a strategic land, the land of Canaan, so that they could mediate God’s truth and blessing to the nations. But when Exodus begins, we find them in Egypt, hundreds of miles from their promised land (1:1).
How did they get there? God’s promise to Abraham was passed to his sons Isaac and Jacob, but Jacob’s family actually leaves the land they were promised! Long story short, they go to Egypt to get food because of a severe famine in the land of Canaan. In Egypt, they meet Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons who’d been sold into slavery by his brothers, taken to Egypt, but rose to be second in command over Egypt.
In this unlikely turn of events, Joseph recognizes his brothers, provides for them, and asks them to bring his father Jacob to Egypt. Pharaoh lets Joseph give his family the best part of the land, the land of Goshen. So Jacob brings his sons and grandchildren to live in Egypt, seventy people in all (1:1-5).
God’s Promises Are Materializing
Eventually Joseph and all his brothers die (1:6). But verse 7 says that death doesn’t stop the promises of God. This verse takes us back to two important passages in Genesis that help us understand what’s happening here.
The first is God’s command to humanity in Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.’” God wants himself to be known throughout the earth so he tells his image-bearers to multiply and rule over the earth.
The second is God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”
The connections between 1:7 and Genesis 1:28 and 12:1-3 are Moses’ way of telling us that Israel is living under the blessing of God and that his purposes for Israel are going forward in Egypt. God’s promises were materializing in Goshen.
Be Grateful in Goshen
God’s promises to Abraham focused on two things: descendants and land. The promise was for a people in a place. At the beginning of Exodus, the people are growing, but in the wrong place!
But is it the wrong place? Some may wonder why God took his people from the land of Canaan to Egypt for 400 years. But think about it. What do you think would’ve happened to Jacob’s small family in Canaan? They would’ve been swallowed up by the pagan culture around them. Judah had already taken a Canaanite wife before they went to Egypt (Gen. 38:2).
Egypt, and Goshen in particular, served as an incubator for God’s people, a place where God’s “son” Israel could be kept safe and grow strong. Goshen functioned as a sort of theological cocoon for the Israelites so that they could get away from the pagan influences of the Canaanites. Goshen was God’s gracious means of growing his people.
God often takes us to places we don’t expect to prepare us for the things he called us to. What’s your Goshen? Our whole lives are in a sense lived in “Goshen,” the place God puts us until he takes us home. Be grateful in Goshen. It’s not home, but it’s a good land.
Exodus Is About Resurrection
The opening of Exodus tells us that God’s promises are starting to materialize. His promise was to make a people and give them a place. They were multiplying, but they were stuck in Egypt.
God told Jacob on his way to Egypt that Egypt wasn’t the end, only the beginning (Gen. 46:2-4). God told him he’d “go down” to Egypt, but that he’d bring him “up again” into a promised land. God promised him a resurrection, just like he did for the true Israel, the last Adam, Jesus Christ.
Do you see how the exodus gives us a paradigm for the gospel? We, like Jacob, have descended into Egypt where we wait in Goshen for our resurrection. Jesus, the true and better Israel, descended into death for us, taking our punishment so that we could be brought “up again” into new life with God. God sent Jesus to do this work for you because a dead person can’t raise themselves.
All or Nothing
Why does God do this? God resurrects his Son and his people in order to reveal himself. Exodus, indeed the whole Bible, is about God wanting to be known for who he is, not who we imagine him to be.
In Exodus, God makes himself known as both supreme and good, as Ruler and Redeemer, as Lord and Savior. He’s both. We can’t have half of him. We must take all of him or we get none of him.
If you invite me to your house and say, “Come in John, but stay out Sypert,” I wouldn’t know what to do because I’m John Sypert. I couldn’t even say, “This half is John and this half is Sypert” because I’m all John and all Sypert. I’m both so you either get all of me or none of me.
Sometimes we come to Jesus and we want the loving and helping Jesus, not the holy and powerful Jesus. If you come to him wanting the part of him that wants to help you through hard times but not the part that wants to correct how you think or live, you get no Jesus at all.[9]
Exodus shows us a God who is supreme and good, ruler and Redeemer, Lord and Savior. He’s the great “I am” who has no beginning or end and can bring the most powerful nation on earth to its knees, and the one who has so much compassion that he wants his people to have their coats back before night so they don’t get cold (22:26-27).
This God, the God who created you and who sent Jesus to deliver you from death, wants to be known. He’s written himself into the story so that he can be known. Do you know him? The story of your life won’t make sense until you do.
[1]Alastair J. Roberts and Andrew Wilson, Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 13.
[2]L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption, Essential Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. Benjamin L. Gladd (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 5.
[3]W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 15.
[4]Roberts and Wilson, 14.
[5]Ibid., 15.
[6]Ibid., 16.
[7]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 40.
[8]Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 341.
[9]This illustration comes from Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023), 32.
Recap of Series
This is the final week of a seven-week series on heaven. The first week we looked at Luke 16 and the story of Lazarus and the rich man, where Jesus teaches about the finality of death, the reality of heaven and hell, and how once we die, our fate is fixed.
Then we looked at Ecclesiastes 3 and how the monotonous flow of time is meant to lead us to God because he’s “put eternity in our hearts,” or that he’s put a sense of eternal things in us to tell us that this life isn’t all there is. He created us to live for him, which is why we long for something more than this world.
Then we talked about what the Bible teaches about life after death for those who’re in Christ. I said that when a believer dies, their body goes into the ground and their spirit goes to Jesus where they’ll be until Jesus returns to the earth and their spirit is united with a new body at the resurrection of the dead, with which they’ll live forever in a resurrected universe with the resurrected Christ.
Then we talked about the central and most important reality of the new universe: we will live with God. In Revelation 21-22, John sees a new heaven and new earth but then describes it as a temple-garden-city. His point is that the entire new cosmos is God’s sanctuary, his Garden-like temple city where he lives with his people. The most beautiful part of this new world is that we’ll get to see God’s face, or what’s often called the beatific vision, the “happy-making sight” of seeing God’s face (Rev. 22:4).
Then we talked about how heaven is a world of love and a society of love. Heaven is where the triune God lives, and God is love, so his house is a house of love. We also talked about how heaven will be a new earth where God’s people will live with resurrected bodies and enjoy meaningful work and beautiful singing and never-ending growth and deepening.
Then last week we talked about how heaven is a dynamic place of reveling in the glory of God for all eternity, and part of how that will happen will be through heavenly memories and rewards. God will show us his glory in our lives without pain and we’ll receive what we earned based on how we lived.
These things await everyone who knows they don’t deserve them, those who put their faith in Jesus and turn away from their sins. These promises are what carry us as we travel through the wilderness of this life. With Paul, we believe that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18).
“Aim at Heaven and You Will Get Earth ‘Thrown In’”
Today I want us to consider what our lives should look like now while we wait on heaven. Some say that those who think too much about heaven become useless on earth, or “so heavenly minded that they’re of no earthly good.” In reality, however, those who never think of heaven are probably not of much earthly good.
In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis put it this way:
“If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”[1]
We set our eyes on heaven so we can make a difference on earth. While we wait for heaven, what should we be doing with our lives in order to make a difference on earth? The New Testament directly connects three aspects of our lives to Jesus’ return, showing us how thinking about the next life should shape this life.
So what should we do while we wait on heaven? We should go to work, go to church, and go to the nations.
Go to Work
In Luke 12, Jesus gives a parable about being ready for his return at any time (vv. 35-48). In verses 41-44, Jesus says that, in light of his return, his servants need to be faithfully working. The principle here is that the Master has given his servants work to do while he’s gone and he expects to find them faithfully doing what he gave them to do when he returns. Those who follow Jesus have a responsibility to manage his affairs until he returns.
What things has the Lord called you to “manage” until he comes? Whatever work the Lord has given you is service for the Master. Your schoolwork, housework, paid work, ministry work, parenting work, marriage work must all be done in service to Jesus.
As his servants, our primary assignment is to follow him. Everything else is subordinate to this. The Bible doesn’t depict our lives as a juggling act, where we have to balance everything perfectly. Rather, our lives are more like our solar system, with Christ in the center and everything else orbiting around him (Matt. 6:33).
Many of us are living life like jugglers, trying to keep as many balls in the air as possible without dropping one. We see the goal of life as finding balance. But what if balance is actually impossible? And what does it even mean to be “balanced”? Does it mean spending equal amounts of time on everything we do? What if the goal in our work is faithfulness, not balance?
For all the assignments Jesus gives us, he gives us minimum standards of faithfulness in the Bible, or basic requirements that we must meet to please him. But there are also principles of fruitfulness that we can apply once we’ve met the standards of faithfulness if we’re able.
Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert talk about this in their book The Gospel at Work. They say we should start by determining if we’re being faithful in our assignments, then consider where we could invest for greater fruitfulness, and to avoid the trap of idolatry, where we’re mastered by our work instead of our Lord. They offer excellent practical advice to guide our thinking through these things.[2]
Since Jesus is coming back, we should pursue the work he’s given us with all the faithfulness and fruitfulness we can muster. The promise for those who do so is that, when he returns, there will be blessing and the privilege of managing even more of the King’s estate (vv. 43-44).
What is the blessing? Did you see the promise in verse 37? For those who’re awake and waiting patiently and working faithfully, Jesus will come back and serve them! In heaven, we’ll rest and Jesus will go to work. We’ll “recline at his table” and he’ll serve us. He’ll give us what we need and want. He’ll fulfill our deepest desires for love and connection and belonging and joy and meaningful work and adventure and discovery. In heaven, Jesus will go to work for his workers. He’ll serve his servants.
Isn’t this what he’s already done? “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). Jesus came to serve, to give his life for us on the cross for our sins. He “took the form of a servant” in his incarnation (Phil 2:7), in his death, and again in heaven. Servanthood is the essence of Jesus’ ministry.
Is it any surprise then that this is what he calls his followers to (Lk. 12:43)? Serving Christ in all our callings is what he’s called us to while we wait for heaven. And one day the Christ who we serve will come serve us.
Go to Church
Secondly, while we wait for heaven, we should go to church (Heb. 10:24-25). Did you notice the contrast between “not neglecting to meet together” with “encouraging one another” in verse 25? He’s setting two opposing ideas against one another and drawing a contrast between them. The opposite of not meeting with the church is encouraging the church.
In other words, meeting with the church is encouraging. Our most basic ministry to each other is attendance. One way to battle discouragement is to be present with the church. Isolation and seclusion only bring more darkness and despair.
And all of this is to be done in view of Jesus’ second coming (v. 25c). The “Day” refers to the climatic and catastrophic end of history when Jesus returns and judges his enemies, rescues his people, and sets up his kingdom on the earth.
The reality of that “Day” should compel us to increasingly (“all the more”) stir up and encourage one another. We need each other if we’re going to make it to that Day still fighting the good fight of faith. And one of the ways God intends to get us there safely is through thoughtful and timely words of encouragement that stimulate and sustain our love for God and for one another.
This kind of ministry requires thoughtfulness. Notice that verse 24 begins, “Let us consider how…” We’re to “consider,” or think about, specific ways we can encourage one another. Encouraging words rarely come spontaneously. We don’t need to prepare speeches for each other, but we do need to think about specific ways we can encourage one another.
When you see evidence of faith, hope, and love in someone’s life, call it out! Point it out with specific words of encouragement. This helps us see God’s work in our lives and keeps us going.
Sometimes we think that relationships in the church are more about accountability than encouragement. If all we ever do is correct each other then it can certainly seem that way. But what if encouraging one another is one of the best ways to motivate the kinds of things we’re holding each other accountable for? Are you generally more inspired to pursue love and holiness when you’re scolded or when you’re encouraged? Was it the teachers and coaches that yelled at you or encouraged you that had the greatest impact on your life? Correction and rebuke are part of our life together. But they’re not the only part. And without heavy doses of encouragement, correction will be received begrudgingly, if at all.
Encouragement makes us ready for Jesus’ return. And attending church every week is where we find encouragement. As we attend church regularly and look for ways to point out evidence of grace in each other’s lives, something of the world to come becomes visible. Who can you encourage in the church with specific words that will help them keep going with Jesus?
Go to the Nations
Thirdly, while we wait for heaven, we should go to the nations (Matt. 24:14). In verses 3-13, we learn that things will get worse before Jesus returns. But despite these things, verse 14 says that the gospel will spread around the world. This is a promise, not just a command. It will happen. The gospel of Jesus will spread to every people group on the planet because the Father sent the Son to redeem people in every people group on the planet. He was “slain, and by his blood he ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).
Matthew 24:14 is a promise, but also an encouragement and an incentive. Encouragement because it teaches us that every advance of the gospel is evidence that the Lord’s return is nearing. Incentive because it says that the Lord’s return is quickened by our work to spread the gospel.
There are still thousands of people groups without a vibrant, healthy, reproducing gospel church. How will we know when we’re getting close to finishing the task of reaching all of them? George Ladd says:
“Someone else will say, ‘How are we to know when the mission is completed? How close are we to the accomplishment of the task?…How close are we to the end?’…I answer, I do not know. God alone knows the definition of terms. I cannot precisely define who ‘all the nations’ are. Only God knows exactly the meaning of ‘evangelize.’ He alone…will know when that objective has been accomplished. But I do not need to know. I know only one thing: Christ has not yet returned; therefore the task is not yet done. When it is done, Christ will come. Our responsibility is not to insist on defining the terms of our task; our responsibility is to complete it. So long as Christ does not return, our work is undone. Let us get busy and complete our mission.”[3]
Many people want Jesus to return but do nothing to spread the gospel, not even to their next door neighbor, much less the person from another country who lives down the street or an unreached people group overseas.
You may say, “I’m not a missionary and don’t really want to be one, how can I be a part of the worldwide work of Jesus?” Start right where you are. Start praying with your church for the nations. Give generously to the church so the church can support more mission work. Consider living your life in another part of the world for the sake of the gospel.
And share the gospel! You have no idea how God will use you when you proclaim the gospel. My dad told me this week that he ran into a guy he worked with at Coca-Cola forty years ago, who he’d shared the gospel with. The guy came up to him and thanked him for doing that because he eventually became a Christian and his whole family was changed. As my dad said, “The only thing we can take to heaven is other people.”
“If I Could Have Seen the Shore”
While we wait for heaven, what should we be doing with our lives on earth? We should go to work, go to church, and go to the nations.
One reason I wanted to do a series on heaven is because, as we get a clear picture of what’s ahead of us, we’ll be more faithful and fruitful with what’s right in front of us.
In 1952, a young woman named Florence Chadwick attempted to swim from Catalina Island to the shore of mainland California. She’d already become the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. It was chilly and foggy and she swam for fifteen hours before she gave out physically and emotionally. When she was pulled up on the boat, she realized she was less than half a mile away from the shore. She said, “All I could see was the fog…I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.”[4]
I hope this sermon series helps us “see the shore.” If we can look through the fog of our busy and stressful lives and see the shore of Jesus Christ and the New Earth, we’ll find the comfort and energy we need to keep swimming. As Lewis said, “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in.’”
With our eyes fixed on the shore of Jesus, we go to work, go to church, and go to the nations, with the aim of serving him, and one day he’ll come back and serve us.
Lord’s Supper
Jesus and Paul connected the Lord’s Supper to Jesus’ second coming. Jesus said, “I will not eat (the Passover meal) until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (Lk. 22:16). And Paul says in First Corinthians 11:26, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
The Supper reminds us of what Jesus did in the past and what he’ll do in the future. He died for us so that we can dine with him. Everyone who submits to him as Master now will be served by him later.
As we prepare to take the Supper, let’s pause and take a moment to confess our sins to God, receive his forgiveness, and rest in his love.
- Pray for God’s blessing over the Supper (ushers and musician come forward).
One of the things we teach here is that the Lord’s Supper is for people who’ve trusted in Christ, been baptized, and are members of a local church. This is based on the belief that Jesus took the Supper with those who were following him. Because a follower of Jesus is someone who’s been baptized and is part of a church, we believe that the Supper is only for those who’ve been baptized and are members in good standing of a gospel preaching church.
If you’re not yet a baptized follower of Jesus who’s part of a local church, we’re glad you’re here, but we’d encourage you to refrain from taking the Supper. If you’re a visitor and you’ve been baptized as a believer and you’re a member in good standing at another gospel-preaching church, you’re welcome to observe the Supper with us.
- Pass out the elements.
- The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, preserves your body and soul for everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your heart by faith, and be thankful. (take the bread)
- The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for you, preserves your body and soul for everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for you, and drink on him in your heart by faith, and be thankful. (take the juice)
- Let’s stand and sing “Christ, the Sure and Steady Anchor”
[1]Quoted in Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 21.
[2]Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert, The Gospel at Work: How Working for King Jesus Gives Purpose and Meaning to Our Jobs (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), chapter 6, especially 98-9.
[3]George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), quoted in John Piper, Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 284.
[4]Alcorn, xxii.
Heaven’s Memories and Rewards
Will We Remember Things in Heaven?
Our response to this idea may be something like, “Why would I want to remember this life? There’s so much sin and pain and affliction and brokenness. I thought heaven was where we get to finally escape all that? And doesn’t the Bible say that God ‘will wipe away every tear…(and) there will be no mourning or crying or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’ (Rev. 21:4)?”
But what if there’s a way in which God can make us remember our lives on earth with no pain attached? What if our memories in heaven will be so perfected that all we see in them is God’s glory and grace? I believe this is possible and will indeed be what we experience in heaven.
Heaven is Dynamic, Not Static
Many of us pick up a defective view of heaven that says that heaven is essentially static, that we’re made perfect at death and then spend eternity standing in one place singing songs to God. But is this the biblical view of heaven? Does this view of heaven make you yearn for heaven?
Heaven is a dynamic place of growth and discovery and reveling in the glory of God for all eternity, and part of how that will happen will be through heavenly memories and rewards. We’ll take these one at a time, starting with memories.
Biblical Evidence for Memories in Heaven
We will remember earth’s events in heaven. This is a bold claim. Does Scripture back it up? Let me give you some Scriptures to consider.
Ephesians 2:6-7, “(God) raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
This text says that “in the coming ages” (i.e. “in heaven”), God will show us the infinite dimensions of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ. For this to come true, we would still have to remember that we were sinners saved by grace. A complete memory loss would mean that we wouldn’t be able to praise God for his grace.
Luke 14:13-14, “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
We’ll talk more about rewards in a moment, but Scripture is clear that God will reward his servants, and that heavenly rewards are connected to earthly deeds. Every reward will be connected to a specific story that reveals the glory of God. Without memory of that story, how could we see the glory?
Psalm 111:2-4, “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful.”
Are the great works of the Lord only worthy to be studied now and not in heaven? God will be the best history teacher ever in heaven. “His work” and “his righteousness” in verse 3 are parallel expressions saying that his righteous works will be “endure forever.” This is strong evidence that God’s amazing works will be remembered in heaven.
In heaven, God will say, “Have you seen my glory in the six days of creation, the crossing of the Red Sea, the battle of Jericho, in Gideon’s defeat of the Midianites, in Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, in the raising of the Shunamite’s son with Elisha, in the manger in Bethlehem, on the stormy seas of Galilee, on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem, in the empty tomb, on Pentecost when the disciples were praying, in every triumph of the gospel since, and in your life?”
We’ll see the power, justice, mercy, compassion, wisdom, and glory of God in all his great works for all eternity. If we don’t, then all this glory of God would be hidden and forgotten, but God’s glory is meant to displayed and enjoyed. This is a primary reason why I think we’ll remember things in heaven.
In Revelation 5, Jesus appears as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” who “has conquered,” and as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (vv. 5-6). This passage confirms that Jesus’ death and resurrection will be remembered for all eternity. His resurrected body retains his wounds from the cross, meaning that his redemptive work will be remembered for all eternity.
In Revelation 7, John is given a picture of a great multitude worshiping Christ. The angels and elders fall on their faces and worship, and one of them asks, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” This question in and of itself means that heaven isn’t a place where we lose all earthly memories. God wants the earthly lives of the vast multitude of people who’re his to be remembered, or this question wouldn’t make sense.
Heavenly Visions”
But how will we experience these memories in heaven? Ephesians 2 says that God will “show” us his immeasurable grace in the coming ages. The Greek word for “show” was commonly used to refer to a visual demonstration. So how will God show us visually in the future what he did in the past?
There’s no Scripture that tells us exactly how this will work, so I’m only suggesting what may happen. There are a few places in the Bible where God shows someone something in a “participatory vision,” or a vision in which the subject is active.[1]
For example, Paul says, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body of out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows” (2 Cor. 12:2-3). Paul’s vision was so realistic that he couldn’t tell whether he was physically in paradise or not.
The prophet Ezekiel had a similar experience when God took him in a vision to the temple area back in Jerusalem (he was in Babylon). He says, “The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem…And he brought me to the entrance of the court…Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, dig in the wall.’ So I dug in the wall, and behold there was an entrance. And he said to me, ‘Go in and see…’ So I went in and saw” (8:3, 7-10). Ezekiel wasn’t physically transported to the temple, but he was there and he was even active in the vision.
John was transported by the Spirit to see the coming New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:9-11). It says that an angel “carried me away in the Spirit.” If John could be transported by the Spirit ahead in time to see the earth in its future glory, why couldn’t God take his people back in time to see his glory throughout history in participatory visions?
These participatory visions could be how we view thousands of years of earth’s history in heaven. God will show us his past glory in heaven, and if he chooses, he may do it through vivid visions that make virtual reality feel like black and white silent movies.
Rewards in Heaven
We’ll remember earth’s events in heaven, and we’ll be rewarded for our work on earth in heaven. Let’s look at what the Bible says about rewards and what the rewards are like.
The Bible talks about rewards in heaven in several places:
Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up (or “store up”) for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
This “storing up” of treasures in heaven doesn’t mean we can earn our salvation through good works. It refers to what believers do after they’re saved.
Just before these verses, Jesus says that we should give money to the needy, pray, and fast “in secret” so that God “who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:4, 6, 18). God will reward our secret acts of love and devotion to him and to others.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15, “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
The ways we build up the church are either worthy of reward or not worthy of reward. The “fire” will reveal the genuineness of our work and whether it’s worthy of reward or not. Our work doesn’t determine our destiny, but it does determine our reward.
The author of Hebrews says that knowing God is about believing in him and looking forward to rewards from him. “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (11:6). Then it says that by faith Moses “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (v. 26). Looking forward to heavenly rewards isn’t wrong; it’s what living a life of faith is all about.
Back in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matt. 5:11-12). Enduring attacks because of Jesus will gain us rewards in heaven.
In Ephesians 6:8, Paul says, “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” No good thing goes unnoticed by God. Everyone’s work will be perfectly compensated for. Therefore, “let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9). Jesus specifically says in Luke 14 that our work to serve the poor, or anyone who can’t repay us, will be “repaid at the resurrection of the just” (v. 14).
Repayment on Judgment Day
Alongside rewards will also be judgment. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” When Jesus returns, we’ll be judged for what we did in our lives, whether good or bad.
How can a believer experience this judgment without pain or loss? Because there’s a difference between giving an account to Christ and being condemned by Christ. God put all the judgement we deserve for our sins on Christ on the cross, so we won’t receive judgment on Judgment Day. But we will have to talk to the Lord about what we’ve done.
If we aren’t reminded of our sins on Judgment Day, how could we praise God for his grace? God will remind us of our sins, not to shame us, but to magnify his grace. He’ll cover us with the glorious white robes of his purity. Jesus’ blood will forever wash off the filth from our souls. As the hymn says, “For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim; I’ll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary’s Lamb.”
More of God is the Reward
If there are rewards in heaven, what are they? Is it just piles of stuff? More of all the things we loved on earth?
The Bible doesn’t give us lots of specifics here, but it’s unlikely that our rewards will be material in nature. That’s the way the economy of earth works, not the economy of heaven. In heaven, the most lavish and expensive and beautiful currency is the glory of God. So in heaven, the essence of our rewards is the glory of God.
Heaven is about seeing and enjoying God. This is the central reward of heaven. God has always been the primary reward for his people. To Aaron and the Levites, the Lord said, “I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites” (Num. 18:20). As Psalm 73:25-26 says, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Paul traded everything of worth in this world for the “surpassing worth” of knowing Christ (Phil. 3:8-10). Hebrews says that God rewards those who seek him (11:6).
What more could God give to people who spent their lives seeking him other than himself? Because of this, and because we aren’t given any particulars about the nature of the rewards in Scripture, it seems that the rewards we’ll receive will be more of God himself. Our rewards will be deeper revelations of God, unique shares of God fit for each person who loves him.
Andrew Davis summarizes this well and draws out some astounding implications. He writes:
“This will differentiate one redeemed person from another in heaven – an individualized portion of God given to him or her in a way directly tied to that person’s life on earth. The heavenly reward is ‘more of God’ than others receive. Therefore, we should think of rewards as varying degrees of capacity for heavenly glory. Perhaps we may think of it as access, proximity, or closeness to God. Although all of the redeemed will see God’s face, some will enjoy deeper intimacy with God. I believe all the redeemed in heaven will be perfectly happy, but not all will be equally happy. Rewards are an increased capacity for absorbing and comprehending the glory of God.”[2]
This “more of God” is directly linked to things we did on earth. Just as we have a unique pleasure when our children or our friends do specific things that delight us, God will give us a unique pleasure for our good works on earth.
He’ll even give us special words of praise. Of course, we’ll be praising God, but did you know that he’ll praise us too? Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:5, “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God” (NIV). And John says that some “loved human praise more than praise from God” (CSB).
God praises his people who earnestly seek him and serve him. In Jesus’ parable of the talents, those who diligently and skillfully served their master heard these words upon his return: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).
After a lifetime of serving God faithfully, we’ll see his face and feel the pleasure of his embrace and he’ll say, “I am so pleased with you!” He’ll open the door of his heart to us so that we can see his joy over his kids: “Enter into the joy of your master.”
And this will be a recurring experience, not a one-time moment. As God shows us specific actions in eternity, specific ways we served him, trusted him, or blessed others in his name, we’ll relive his pleasure again and again. Our good deeds will in this sense never die but be rehearsed and delighted in forever. We should therefore “store up” as much treasure in heaven, or praise from God, as possible.
The Lord Left Praise So We Could Be Praised
All of this will be to fulfill Zephaniah’s vision of the restoration of God’s people (3:14-20). God will rejoice and sing over his people. His love will calm our hearts forever. And he’ll make us a people of renown and praise, a people who live safely and joyfully in his acceptance and delight forever.
And all of this is only possible because the Lord himself left the praise of heaven and came to the pit of the earth. He left his glory and embraced our shame. He lost everything so we could gain everything. He perfectly obeyed and served and loved the Father because we haven’t. His bloody garments were stripped off so our white garments could be put on. Jesus was the suffering servant so we could be the praised children.
We’ll never forget these things in heaven, and all those who believe these things now will receive rewards later, most importantly the reward of the Lord himself.
[1]This section is based on Andrew M. Davis, The Glory Now Revealed: What We’ll Discover About God in Heaven (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2021), 57-9.
[2]Ibid., 71.
The Most Important Thing about Heaven
Last week we talked about the central and most important reality of the new universe: we will live with God, or what’s often called the beatific vision, the “happy-making sight” of seeing God’s face (Rev. 22:4). This hope is hinted at throughout the Bible. In the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6, we ask the Lord to “make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you” and to “lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (vv. 24-26). David says that the “one thing he seeks after” is “to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4). And John says that when Jesus appears, “we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2).
Heaven is a World of Love
What will living in this new world with God be like? Let me give you several things. First, it’ll be a world of love. In his little book Heaven Is a World of Love, Jonathan Edwards describes heaven as a place where God’s love overflows from his being and fills the new world.
As Edwards says, “God is the fountain of love as the sun is the fountain of light.”[1] Since “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8), and since God is an infinite being, then God is an infinite fountain of love, making heaven a world of love.
Edwards says that the Father, Son, and Spirit live as one in “infinitely dear, incomprehensible, mutual, and eternal love.” In heaven “this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!”[2]
Heaven is a Society of Love
In heaven, love flows freely from God the Father to God the Son through God the Holy Spirit, from God to us, from us to God, and to each other.
There will be no enemies of God in heaven, only lovers of God. Jesus’ love will flow out to his whole church, to every individual member of it, so that we’ll be united in a holy and pure love for him, our spiritual husband.
The angels and the saints will join together in loving God and loving each other, as “all the members of the glorious society of heaven” unite together in genuine love.[3] There will be no heart that isn’t full of love, not a single person who isn’t loved by all the others.
Edwards points out that in this world, our love is often tainted by unholiness, but in heaven all love will be perfectly holy, never corrupted by selfishness. He talks about how love isn’t always perfectly mutual here on earth, but in heaven we’ll love each other with equal proportions, meaning we’ll never feel slighted by each other. Our love will always be perfectly reciprocated. We’ll always be seen and delighted in and our desire to be loved will always be satisfied. We’ll never wonder whether those we love really love us back. Our love will always be fully returned.
In heaven, our love will never be tainted by jealousy or doubt or inconsistency or misunderstanding or unfaithfulness or betrayal or suspicion or rivalry. Edwards says that we’ll be “perfectly satisfied (with) the sincerity and strength of each other’s affection, as much as if there were a window in every breast, so that everything in the heart could be seen.”[4]
He says every expression of love will come from the bottom of the heart and every expression of love will be received and felt as real. We’ll never doubt the genuineness of each other’s love.
Here on earth we struggle to know how to express our love for each other. We love but don’t know how to show it. In heaven, our love will find perfect expression. Nothing will “clog” our love or our expressions of love.[5]
In heaven, God’s people will live in a society of love. No one will be unsocial or withdrawn or isolated or left out. Everyone will be perfectly included and appreciated and desired and drawn into ever-deepening love relationships. No one will ever feel distant from the ones they love. There won’t be any envy, only rejoicing in each other’s happiness. There will be perfect honesty that draws out our deepest heart and draws us into each other’s deepest heart, the kind of love we feel when someone is vulnerable with us.
The only thing that can create and sustain a society like this is the love of God. And, as I said, the brightness and sweetness of his love will flow freely from himself into his world and his people. As John saw in Revelation 21:23, “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” The light that fills the new world is the light of love, the light of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.
How to Know You If Are Headed to the World of Love?
How do you know if you’re a member of this society? Simple, some of the love of heaven has already been planted in your heart and will therefore be visible in your life. Why do you think John talks so much about loving one another in the church? Those who love the church in tangible, sacrificial ways give evidence that heaven has come to live in their hearts.
This is one reason why joining, rather than just attending, a church, is so important. The church is a family, not an event. What does it say to the family, and to the Head of the family, if you aren’t willing to put yourself in an accountable relationship with a family of believers?
Holiness, as well as love, will also start to flow out of your life. Those headed to heaven start to live like those in heaven. They make war with their sin, honestly calling it what it is and stop minimizing or rationalizing it away. The love of God in their hearts will create a growing desire to be like the God who loves them.
Those who don’t see love and holiness growing in their lives should be alarmed because the world that awaits them is a world of hatred. Everything in hell is hateful. There is nothing good or lovely or pure or loving there. Hell is, in Edwards’ words, a “deluge of liquid fire” for those who don’t turn away from their sins and follow Jesus.[6]
Consider carefully what world you’re headed to because every hour you move closer to the point where your everlasting fate is fixed. Listen to Jonathan Edwards’ appeal:
“We are all of us, as it were, set here in this world as in a vast wilderness, with diverse countries about it, and with several ways or paths leading to these different countries, and we are left to our choice what course we will take. If we heartily choose heaven and set out hearts entirely on that blessed Canaan – that land of love – and if we choose and love the path that leads to it, we may walk in that path, and if we continue to walk in it, it will lead us to heaven at last.”[7]
Heaven Will Be a New Earth
Those who find their way to heaven will find that heaven will be a new earth. This may be a surprising thing to many Christians. Heaven will not be something entirely different from the earth. In John’s vision at the end of Revelation, he sees heaven “coming down” to the earth. The end will look like the beginning.
God remaking the earth in the future is the consistent teaching of Scripture in almost every part of the Bible:
Isaiah 65:17, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.”
Isaiah 66:22, “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain.”
Matthew 19:28, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’”
Acts 3:21, “(Jesus), whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.”
2 Peter 3:13, “But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
Revelation 21:1, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.”
Paul even says that the glory of God’s people after the resurrection demands a glorious new creation to live in (Rom. 8:18-23). Randy Alcorn asks, “Do you ever sense creation’s restlessness? Do you hear groaning in the cold night wind? Do you feel the forest’s loneliness, the ocean’s agitation? Do you hear longing in the cries of whales? Do you see the blood and pain in the eyes of wild animals, or the mixture of pleasure and pain in the eyes of your pets? Despite vestiges of beauty and joy, something on this earth is terribly wrong.”[8]
The creation groans because we groan, and all creation will be set free from corruption when we’re set free from corruption. God will make the whole creation new so that our environment will fit our new bodies.
When Christ returns, he’ll raise us and he’ll raise the earth to new life. As Isaac Watts says in his hymn “Joy to the World”:
No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
God will lift the curse morally in terms of sins, psychologically in terms of sorrows, but also physically in terms of the ground. How far does Jesus’ work reach? “Far as the curse is found.”
Heaven Will Be Where We Live in Resurrected Bodies
Heaven will be a new earth where we’ll live with new bodies. The doctrine of the resurrection makes no sense apart from a new earth, as resurrected bodies aren’t meant to float around space, but call for an earth to live on and work and cultivate.
God made us to live with him on the earth and he hasn’t given up on that plan. Living with God in a physical place is what we were made for. This is why other views of heaven leaves us wanting more. Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven, illustrates this point well. He says,
“We do not desire to eat gravel. Why? Because God did not design us to eat gravel. Trying to develop an appetite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical heaven is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel…What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected earth. Our desires correspond precisely to God’s plans.”[9]
As Paul says, we long to “put on our heavenly dwelling,” and as long as we live in this body “we groan” (2 Cor. 5:2, 4). We long for what Edwards described as “immortal youth and freshness.”[10] We long for a different kind of body, not just the body we used to have.
What will these bodies be like? Our resurrected bodies will be like Jesus’ resurrected body. John says that “when he appears we shall be like him” (1 Jn. 3:2). And Paul says, “(The Lord Jesus Christ) will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).
After his resurrection, Jesus was recognizable to his friends. He walked and talked and cooked and ate in his resurrected body. He also seemingly entered a room with locked doors. Perhaps our new bodies will have abilities that our current bodies don’t. Edwards speculates that the saints may at times be “sent on errands of duty or mercy to distant worlds.”[11] We don’t know all that our perfected bodies will be capable of in the new world, but we do know that they won’t be capable of. They won’t decay, get sick, mourn, or feel any pain of any kind ever (Rev. 21:4).
Working and Singing
What else will we do with our resurrected bodies? Again, the end will look a lot like the beginning. This means there will be meaningful work in cultivating God’s creation. It means having adventures, being with animals, enjoying a natural world no longer in bondage to decay, being surrounded by people from every tribe, tongue, and language with perfect love.
And, of course, there will be music. Revelation 4, 5, and 7 all picture the saints in heaven singing and declaring truth about God. One of the greatest joys of heaven will be the roar of sound coming from perfect people singing in perfect pitch to their perfect God. Every Sunday morning is a dress rehearsal for this concert of praise.
Heaven is Dynamic
We often think that heaven will be static or that it’ll basically be us doing the same thing forever. But that’s not true. Heaven is dynamic. There will be growth and deepening. In Ephesians 2, Paul says that God will show us “in the coming ages…the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (vv. 6-7). And Psalm 16:11 says that in God’s presence “there is fullness of joy” and at his right hand “ are pleasures forevermore.”
In heaven God will continually show us the “immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness” and our joy will grow and increase eternally. As we see more and more of the endless beauty of our triune God, we’ll have a greater and more satisfying joy. As Sam Storms writes, “Our delight in God will never reach a point at which there is no more for us to enjoy.”[12] Or, as Edwards describes it, in heaven there will be “joys that are forever increasing and yet forever full.”[13]
God Will Not Let Go of the Earth
Heaven will be a world of love, a society of love, a new earth where we live with new bodies where we’ll work and rest and sing our hearts out, a place where joy never hits a ceiling and where we never stop discovering and growing and becoming more and more glorious as we behold God’s glorious face.
It’s surprising to many that heaven is so earthy. But it makes since when we remember that God’s incarnation and his death tied him inextricably to the earth and its future. Paul says that in Jesus “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20).
God’s plan in Christ is to rescue people and rescue the earth. As Alcorn says, “In a redemptive work far larger than most imagine, Christ bought and paid for our future and the earth’s.”[14] God will not let go of the earth, even when his hands have to be pierced by nails.
[1]Jonathan Edwards, Heaven Is a World of Love (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 35.
[2]Ibid., 37-8.
[3]Ibid., 49.
[4]Ibid., 61.
[5]Ibid., 63.
[6]Ibid., 98.
[7]Ibid., 104-5.
[8]Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 120.
[9]Ibid., 7.
[10]Edwards, 75.
[11]Ibid., 79.
[12]Sam Storms, “Foreword,” in Jonathan Edwards, Heaven Is a World of Love (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 17.
[13]Edwards, 85.
[14]Alcorn, 94.
We Will Live with God
What is it about heaven that we so desire? Is it the benefits of the place or seeing God’s face? Another way to ask it is would heaven be heaven without God? Or, if God weren’t in heaven would you still want to be there? Do you desire God or his gifts?
Finding God is heaven. Not finding him is hell. We want God more than anything else in the world. If our ultimate desire is for God, then it makes sense that the most important thing about heaven is that it’ll be where we live with God.
This is exactly what we find in the Bible’s fullest description of heaven in Revelation 21-22. This week and next we’ll focus on what this text tells us about our ultimate home. This week we’ll see that our ultimate home is with God. Next week we’ll see that our ultimate home is with God and with each other on a new earth.
We’ll talk next week about some of the specifics about life in the new universe. Today we’re focusing on the central and most important reality of the new universe: we will live with God.
A Garden-Like Temple City
The main point of Revelation 21-22 is that God will dwell with his people in the new heaven and new earth. Or, to say it another way, our ultimate hope and final destiny is living with God.
We see this in several ways in these verses. Notice that in verse 1 John sees a “new heaven and new earth” and then in verse 2 he sees a holy city, the new Jerusalem.
Why does he start by saying he sees a new heaven and earth but then only focus on a garden-like temple city in the rest of the vision? Why doesn’t he see the full panorama of a new earth with mountains and rivers and valleys and forests?
You could say that he sees the new world and then sees a city-temple in the new world, but it seems like he’s equating the new world with the new city-temple. Verse 27 says that “nothing unclean will ever enter” this urban temple. It’s unlikely that John means that nothing unclean will enter the new city but may enter the new world.
Another reason to think that John is equating the new temple with the new world is that verse 3 says that God’s “dwelling place,” or tabernacle, is now with men. God “tabernacles” with his people in a new creation that is the new Jerusalem.[1] The new earth is the new Jerusalem, where God lives with his people. Verse 2 interprets verse 1 and verse 3 interprets verses 1-2.
The new earth is more than just a new earth, it’s a new temple, a new sanctuary where God lives with man, just like the Garden of Eden, the first sanctuary. And the new Jerusalem is more than just a new city, it’s a new temple.
This is how John describes the new Jerusalem in verses 10-21. The precious stones in verses 18-21 reflect Solomon’s temple which was also overlaid with gold and had precious stones on the foundation (1 Kgs. 5:17, 6:20-22).
Notice that John describes the new Jerusalem as a perfect cube (21:16). The only other cube specifically mentioned in the Bible is the holy of holies, or the inner most part of the temple (1 Kgs. 6:20). Both the holy of holies and the new Jerusalem are golden cubes. This means that the new Jerusalem is an expanded holy of holies. John makes this clear in 21:22. By associating the temple with God, John implies that the whole city is a sanctuary.
John sees the new Jerusalem as a temple-city. And if we can equate the new Jerusalem with the new world, then the entire new cosmos is God’s sanctuary, his Garden-like temple city where he lives with his people.
You could summarize this chapter like this: The new world is a new city is a new temple where God lives with his people. Given that this is where history is headed, is it any wonder that our deepest desire is to live with God?
The End Will Look Like the Beginning
The end will look like the beginning. The Bible ends with a vision of a holy garden-like city that fills the new earth where God lives with his people.
The Bible begins with a similar picture. Genesis opens by telling us how God created the earth, on which he places a human couple. The earth is designed to be a divine residence where God intends to coexist with people. God’s plan is disrupted when the first human couple disobey God and are removed from his presence. The entire story of the Bible that follows is about how the earth can once again become a place shared by God and man.
God undoubtedly intended the opening and closing scene of the Bible to match closely in order to frame the entire story of his work in the world.
The Beatific Vision
We were literally made to live with God on the earth. That’s how the story started, and that’s how it ends. It’s easy to think that living on a new earth will be the best part, and it will be indescribably amazing (more on that next week). But the best part is that we will, once again, live with God.
“Living with God” sounds a bit vague and abstract. We sometimes live with roommates we rarely see. But living with God will be deeply personal and intimate. How do we know? Because John says we’ll see his face (22:4).
The moment we see God’s face has been called the “beatific vision,” a term coming from three Latin words that together mean “a happy-making sight.” This will be the happiest moment of our lives.
Do you know the feeling of seeing someone you love after you’ve been apart for a while? The feeling of a longing fulfilled. The feeling of reunion after separation. The feeling of home after being away. This is what it’ll feel like to see God’s face.
Perhaps it’s closer to seeing someone you’ve never seen before but in your heart you love. For example, when your children are born, you see their faces for the first time and the feeling of sheer joy and amazement and honor and blessing and glory leaves you speechless.
Why We Can’t See His Face Now
We long for this moment. We were made for this moment (Gen. 3:8). Our sin has taken us from before his face. We don’t even want to see his face. We’d prefer to look at ourselves. So this promise is shocking in light of our posture toward God, and in light of who he is.
If we understand God’s transcendence and holiness, then being told we can see his face is shocking. In ancient Israel, only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies, and only once a year. When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you…but,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live…while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen” (Ex. 33:18-23).
God let Moses see him, but not his face. Paul says that God “lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16). Seeing God’s face is unthinkable, so when we’re told we’ll see his face in Revelation 22:4, it should be shocking news. For this to happen, something radical has to happen.
How Can We See the Face of God?
We’re not allowed to see his face now, so what gives us access then? The death and resurrection of Jesus is what allows us to see God’s face, and both are alluded to in our passage.
In verse 6, Jesus says, “To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” This reminds us of Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4. She’s had a messy life but Jesus says he can give her water that if she drinks it she’ll never be thirsty again. She thinks he’s talking about physical water, but he’s talking about eternal life. He says he can give her a foretaste of the water in the city of God for free.
How can it be free? Because on the cross Jesus took our thirst. On the cross, Jesus said, “I thirst” (Jn. 19:28). This wasn’t just physical thirst because he also says he feels forsaken by God. On the cross, Jesus experienced the cosmic thirst we deserve so that we could have the water of life without price.
Jesus lost everything he had, took our punishment, and received the cosmic hopelessness that we deserve so we could get a hope that we don’t deserve. He got the cosmic thirst we deserve so we could have the river of life. When you understand that he did that for you, then you’ll begin to see his face.
But Jesus didn’t just die, he was raised again. 21:5 says that he is “making all things new.” That started with his resurrection, which was the firstfruits of the resurrection of all things. Jesus is the beginning of the newness of life, giving hope to all who trust him.
Donald Grey Barnhouse was pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia back in the mid-twentieth century. His wife died when their daughter was around ten. A truck almost hit her while they were walking one day. He picked her up and tried to comfort her. He said, “Did the truck hit you?” “No,” she said. “Just the shadow of the truck hit you. In the same way, death didn’t hit your mother, only the shadow of death hit her. Death hit Jesus and because death hit Jesus and we believe in him only the shadow of death can hit us.”
If you believe in the resurrection, you have hope that death won’t hit you but only take you to Jesus’ face. If the death and resurrection happened, and if you believe it happened for you, you’ll one day pass through death and into life where you’ll see the face of God.
These promises create so much expectation and joy and longing in us. Imagine what it’ll be like when they come true.
After Gandalf returns and is with Pippin at Minas Tirith, Pippin looks at him and is surprised at what he sees: “Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy; a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.”[2]
The eyes of Jesus Christ will light up our faces with joy for millions of years. Our destiny is to live with him and enjoy his smiling approval in a garden-like temple city.
Do You Want to See God’s Face?
Augustine proposed this thought experiment. He says imagine that God appeared to you and said, “I’ll make a deal with you if you wish. I’ll give you anything and everything you ask: pleasure, power, honor, wealth, freedom, even peace of mind and a good conscience. Nothing will be a sin; nothing will be forbidden; and nothing will be impossible for you. You will never be bored and you will never die. Only…you shall never see my face.”[3]
Would you take that deal? Peter Kreeft asks, “Did you notice that unspeakable chill in your deepest heart at those last words?” He says that the deepest part of us knows that what we want more than anything else is God, that our heart is restless until it rests in him. Kreeft says, “You may not consciously realize it because this is the truth the human race keeps very, very busy hiding twenty-four hours a day by a million diversions…we fill our cities, minds, bellies, wallets, and wombs, (but) we remain unfulfilled in our hearts.”[4]
We desire a thousand things, but God is the one we really long for. As Randy Alcorn says, “Our longing for Heaven is a longing for God…Being with God is the heart and soul of Heaven. Every other heavenly pleasure will derive from and be secondary to his presence. God’s greatest gift to us is, and always will be, himself.”[5]
What is it about heaven that we so desire? Is it the benefits of the place or seeing God’s face? If God weren’t in heaven would you still want to be there? Do you desire God or his gifts? Can you say with the psalmist, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you” (63:1)?
The offer of eternal life in the city of God with God is free: “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Rev. 22:17). God made you to live with him forever. All you have to do is admit your thirst and look to Jesus to quench it.
[1]See G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, New Studies in Biblical Theology 17, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 23-25.
[2]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), 759.
[3]Peter Kreeft, Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 49.
[4]Ibid., 49-50.
[5]Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 165.
Recap of Last Two Weeks
We’re in the third week of a seven-week series on heaven. The first week we looked at Luke 16 and the story of Lazarus and the rich man, where Jesus teaches about the finality of death, the reality of heaven and hell, and how the time to choose is now. Once we die, our fate is fixed.
Last week we looked at Ecclesiastes 3 and how the monotonous flow of time is meant to lead us to God because he’s “put eternity in our hearts,” or that he’s put a sense of eternal things in us to tell us that this life isn’t all there is. He created us to live for him, which is why we long for him.
Why did I do a sermon like that, a sermon not on heaven per se, but about how our longings point us to heaven? Two reasons. First, because I want to give you more than a factual overview about the place of heaven. I want you to notice where God is already pointing you to heaven through your longings. I want you to notice these longings so that they’ll push you toward God and toward eternal things so you won’t settle for the world’s cheap fixes. Second, I want you to notice these things so you can use them in your evangelism, to be able to use people’s longings as a bridge into discussing God and eternal things.
Three Dominant Views about Life After Death
This week we’re going to move into what the Bible says about life after death, specifically for the Christian believer. The culture has three dominant views about life after death, and none of them are anywhere close to the orthodox Christian view.
The first view the culture has is annihilationism, or the idea that when we die, we cease to exist. This is the end result of a secular worldview: we came from nothing so we return to nothing.
The second view is the Eastern view, which could be reincarnation (Hinduism) or absorption back into the cosmos (Buddhism). There are many varieties of these beliefs, but they’re all impersonal. We don’t exist as persons after we die. Rather, we’re either reborn into something else or we disappear like a drop in the ocean. Either way, we lose our identity.
The third view is the spiritual or mystical view that we’ll exist in a disembodied state in a place of eternal bliss. It’s a vague and hazy existence. We’re floating in the clouds essentially enjoying a never-ending family reunion or worship service. Millions of Christians believe this.
Another Option
None of these views inspire hope. Rather, they inspire despair, fear, and boredom. Is there another option? There is, and unfortunately many Christians don’t know what it is. Here’s my summary of what the Bible teaches about life after death for those who’re in Christ:
When a believer dies, their body goes into the ground and their spirit goes to Jesus where they will be until Jesus returns to the earth and their spirit is united with a new body at the resurrection of the dead, with which they will live forever in a resurrected universe with the resurrected Christ.
The Christian hope is resurrection! Our ultimate goal is resurrection, but what happens when we die? Are we resurrected immediately?
Our Spirits Live On
Let’s go back to my summary statement about what happens when a believer dies. It starts like this: “When a believer dies, their body goes into the ground and their spirit goes to Jesus.”
Upon our death, our bodies die but our spirits live on. We don’t cease to exist or go to sleep until the resurrection. Our soul or spirit continues to exist. What does the Bible say about what happens to our spirit when we die?
It doesn’t give us the detailed description we’d prefer, but it does make several things clear. Let me read you several passages that speak to this, then summarize what we find.
Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
Ecclesiastes 12:7, “The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
Matthew 10:28, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
John 12:26, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also.”
Luke 23:43, “And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’”
2 Corinthians 5:8, “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”
Philippians 1:21-23, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”
Revelation 6:9, “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.”
Revelation 20:4, “Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God.”
The Intermediate State
Here’s what we know for sure from these passages:
- The Hebrew word for “breath” in Genesis 2 (“nephesh”) is used almost 300 times in the Old Testament to refer to our soul, or the immaterial part of us, our consciousness, or heart, spirit, and mind. We’re “soulish creatures.” We don’t have a soul but are a soul, or rather, an embodied soul. Thus, if the material part of us dies, we don’t die.
- When our bodies die, our spirits go back to God (Eccl. 12:7).
- Our bodies can be killed, but our souls cannot die (Matt. 10:23; Rev. 6:9, 20:4).
- Believers will always be with the Lord (Jn. 12:26; cf. 1 Thess. 4:17, “so we will always be with the Lord.”). “Soul-sleep” isn’t possible because we’ll “always” be with Jesus. There won’t be a long period of unconsciousness between life on earth and the resurrection. And there’s no purgatory, or place where we go to be further refined and prepared for heaven.
- There is a place called “Paradise” where believers go when they die (Lk. 23:43). This is before the resurrection so it isn’t the New Earth. We don’t know much about this place. There’s debate about whether we’ll have some sort of physical body or whether it’ll be a physical place. Paul says that there was a man (probably referring to himself) who “was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows – and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (2 Cor. 12:2-4). Paul isn’t sure if he went there with his body or not, so we should probably leave the question open as well. However, in Revelation 2:7, Jesus says to John, “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” The presence of the tree of life in Paradise suggests that it could contain physical objects. The only thing we know for sure is that there’s at least one physical object there, the risen Lord Jesus.
- Being in Paradise is better than being on this earth. Paul says that when we die, we’ll be “away from the body” but “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), and that this is “far better” than life on this earth (Phil. 1:23). In the intermediate heaven, we’ll see Jesus, interact with him, and enjoy his presence in ways we can’t enjoy now.
Not Our Final Destination
As sweet as it’ll be to be “at home with the Lord,” the intermediate state isn’t our ultimate hope or our final destination. The intermediate state doesn’t actually solve the problem of death. If eternity is us living in a disembodied state, then death, or the separation of our spirit from our bodies, wins.
But death will not win for the people of God. As Jesus says, “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (Jn. 5:28-29).
The ultimate hope for believers is resurrection, or what N. T. Wright called, “Life after life after death.” Paradise will be wonderful but living with new bodies in the New Earth will far exceed the glory and sweetness of Paradise. More on that in the next couple of weeks.
The Second Coming of Christ
But first we need to consider the next part of my summary statement about what happens to believers after death: “When a believer dies, their body goes into the ground and their spirit goes to Jesus where they will be until Jesus returns to the earth.”
Let’s spend a few moments considering the second coming of Jesus. This is when Paradise will come to earth and when the resurrection will happen.
The second coming of Jesus and the final resurrection are, in my view, simultaneous events, so there’s a lot of overlap here. Before we talk about the resurrection, let’s look briefly at one of the clearest passages of Scripture on the return of Jesus (1 Thess. 4:13-18).
The main thing I want us to notice here is in verse 14. When Jesus returns, he will “bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”
When Jesus returns, he’ll be bringing his family with him, all the souls who’ve been with him in Paradise waiting for the redemption of their bodies (Rom. 8:23).
One of the implications from this text is that our hope isn’t just that Jesus will return, but that when he comes he’ll be bringing the Christian dead with him. God didn’t abandon Jesus in death and he won’t abandon Christians in death either. He’ll raise them just as he raised him. He’ll bring them back to the earth when Jesus comes back to the earth.
The Final Resurrection
What happens when the Christian dead come back to the earth with Jesus? Let’s look at the end of my summary statement: “When a believer dies, their body goes into the ground and their spirit goes to Jesus where they will be until Jesus returns to the earth and their spirit is united with a new body at the resurrection of the dead.”
When Jesus returns, bringing “those who’ve fallen asleep” with him, their spirits will be united with a new body. In other words, resurrection is what happens!
This is what we see at the end of verse 16, “The dead in Christ will rise first.” Paul fills this out a little more in 1 Corinthians 15:50-57.
Verse 52 says that “the dead will be raised imperishable.” Then verse 53, “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”
The dead will be raised to life, meaning that their spirit will unite once again with their body, but this time it’ll be an imperishable and immortal body. Paul says a bit more about these resurrection bodies in verses 42-44. In verse 49 he says that our new body will like Jesus’ resurrection body.
John says that “when he appears we shall be like him” (1 Jn. 3:2). And Paul says, “(The Lord Jesus Christ) will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).
When believers die, we go to be with Jesus in Paradise where we’ll wait for his return and the resurrection. This is the biblical view of life after death for those who’re in Christ.
So What?
The point of this sermon, and this series, isn’t to give you facts, but to give you hope. Paul says that we’re supposed to “encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:18). What do we need more than hope?
One of the great hope-killers is the reality of death, the great enemy we all have to face. No matter how old you are, there’s a lot of death in your future. How will you face it with courage and hope? How will you face this great enemy?
In a sermon on 1 Thessalonians 4, Tim Keller talks about the two ways people face death.[1] He says some face it the stoic way. This way acknowledges that death is terrible and there will be anger and grief, but this way says there’s no point in giving into these emotions.
Then there’s the modern secular way to face death. This way denies that there’s anything horrible about death. It says that death is natural and so nothing to be afraid of. You simply lose consciousness and return to the earth.
There was a little boy whose cousin died and he was talking to his mother about it. She didn’t believe in God or an afterlife, so she said, “Your cousin has gone back into the earth from which he came. Death is a natural part of the cycle of life. So when you see the earth putting forth new flowers next Spring you can know that your cousin is fertilizing those flowers.” The little boy looked at her and screamed, and said, “I don’t want him to be fertilizer!” and ran out of the room.
The woman had suppressed the natural intuition that death is unnatural, but her son hadn’t. He still understood that death was unnatural and he was angry about it.
Like this boy, we understand that death isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Far closer to what we feel about death is what the poet Dylan Thomas said, “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”[2]
Rage Against Death
Why do we rage against death? Because it takes from us the most important things in our lives. Love relationships are the best part of our lives, but death takes from us all those we love and then takes us from those we love.
And we rage against death because we’re uncertain about what happens after we die. We dread the undiscovered country that we’re headed into (Heb. 2:14-15). We’re not afraid that death is the end, but that it’s the beginning. Of what we don’t know.
We should rage against and grieve death. Remember Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb in John 11? He’s weeping (v. 35), and he was furious, or “deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (v. 33). Why would he be furious? Because as God he knows that death isn’t natural, that it’s not part of his original design. He knows, as we all do, that we were made to last, to grow stronger and wiser and deeper and more beautiful forever, not to shrivel and get weaker and go away. He knows that we weren’t made to lose the people we love, we were made to keep them.
Jesus isn’t doing what the stoic or the secular person does. He doesn’t shut down his emotions but expresses them. And he doesn’t say, “This is just what happens in the world.” He’s weeping, frustrated, angry, even outraged over the sickness and death that generates so much sorrow in this fallen world.
But he’s not grieving like Mary and those with her. They’re grieving with no hope because they don’t understand resurrection. It’s understandable to grieve over death, but, as D. A. Carson says, “Grief that degenerates to despair, that pours out its loss as if there were no resurrection, is an implicit denial of that resurrection.”[3]
The Christian hope is resurrection. Like Paul said, we’re supposed to grieve, but not like those without hope. Hope of what? Hope of resurrection.
Tim Keller illustrates it like this: In the past, you rubbed salt into your meat so that your meat didn’t go bad. Like that we need to rub hope into our grief so our grief doesn’t go bad. Shutting down our emotions and not grieving isn’t right. It’s not good for you and it’s not what Jesus did.
But you don’t just give into your grief either and let it destroy you. You rub hope into your grief so that instead of becoming more anxious and more angry you become stronger, wiser, more compassionate, and deeper.
Where Is Hope Found?
What hope do we rub into our grief? Hope of resurrection and hope that those who die in Christ aren’t dead but still living, that they’re in Paradise and will one day be resurrected.
Where do we get this hope? It’s in the text we looked at earlier, 1 Thessalonians 4:14, “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again.” This is the irreducible core of the gospel, the message of hope. Jesus died “for us” (5:10) so that we can be saved from his judgment (v. 9) and live with him forever (v. 10).
But he didn’t stay dead. He rose again, defeating death, blowing a hole through the back of death, so that everyone who follows him will follow him out of death and into resurrection.
[1]Much of this section is based on Keller’s sermon: Hope in the Face of Death – Gospel in Life.
[2]Quoted in N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 10.
[3]D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 416.
“Time, Why You Punish Me?”
Time can feel like a punishment sometimes. Darius Rucker and Hootie and the Blowfish captured this well in their 1994 song “Time.” Part of it goes like this:
Time, why you punish me?
Like a wave crashing into the shore
You wash away my dreams
Time, why you walk away?
Like a friend with somewhere to go
You left me crying
Time, you left me standing there
Like a tree growin’ all alone
The wind just stripped me bare
Time, the past has come and gone
The future’s far away
Well, now only lasts for one second
Can you teach me about tomorrow
And all the pain and sorrow, running free?
‘Cause tomorrow’s just another day
And I don’t believe in time
Time without courage, time without fear
Is just wasted, wasted, wasted time
Time, why you punish me?
Or, as Isaac Watts put it in his 1719 hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away.”
For some, time moves way too fast. The moment we figure out one season, we’re on to the next one. Time doesn’t slow down long enough for us to enjoy anything. For others, time moves too slowly. We can’t wait to be done with school, to be out on our own, to get married, to start our career. Time frustrates all of us!
A Poem about Time
There’s actually a poem in the Bible about this, about how time moves from one activity to the next, with a sense of punishing us with its monotonous repetition. It’s in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
Solomon’s poem is about the inevitable monotony and sameness of life. We’re born, live, work, love, and then we die. Nothing really changes for the human race. No wonder our lives can feel so meaningless! We’re here today and gone tomorrow and nothing can change that.
The poem doesn’t evaluate the movement of time as good or bad. It’s merely describing the seasons of life. But in verses 9-15, Solomon reflects on the truth of the poem. Verse 9 restates the question from 1:3. What gain is there in a world where God has imposed a curse on all our activity and toil?
In a sense, the answer is, “Nothing is gained.” The teacher is saying that there’s no gain because everything is nullified by the curse. There’s no net gain because nothing fundamentally changes. There’s just more work to do, more dishes to wash, more wars to fight, and it all ends in death.
The poem of verses 1-8 hints at the great absurdity of life, as each activity cancels out the other. There are fourteen pluses and fourteen minuses, adding up to zero. Every birth ends in death. Every building is eventually torn down. Everything we keep is eventually lost.
One commentator summarizes it like this: “Life is a big nonplus. We seek meaning in all of our activities and come away frustrated.”[1]
“An Unhappy Business”
This is what Solomon says in verse 10. Verse 10 is a restatement of 1:13, where “unhappy business” can also be translated, “miserable, grievous, or (literally) evil business.” This gives the poem of verses 1-8 a negative evaluation.
The “unhappy business” of man is to toil through life. Why? Because God imposed a curse on the world because of Adam’s sin. Our frustration is a “God-enforced burden.”[2] Why? The next verse tells us why.
“Everything Beautiful In It’s Time”
Verse 11 has three clauses. Let’s look at them separately then try to put them together to see why God wants us to toil through life.
The first phrase says that God “made everything beautiful (or appropriate) in its time.” “Time” points us back to the poem of verses 1-8, letting us know that he’s commenting on it. “Made” points us back to the creation account where God “made” everything. God made everything “appropriate” in its time means he made everything good and right and that everything fits into its own place and time.
This first phrase summarizes the poem of verses 1-8 and means that God is the One in charge of these times and activities. It means that he’s ordained all these things as part of his plan for the world.
“He Has Put Eternity Into Man’s Heart”
The next phrase is the famous one, “he has put eternity into man’s heart.” “Eternity” here contrasts with “time,” which was used 29 times in the poem. What does this contrast mean? He’s saying, “Yes, we live in the seemingly meaningless repetition of the mundane, the slow crawl of time. But we live in the smallness of time with something God-sized in our hearts.”
“Eternality” is an attribute of God. God putting “eternity” in our hearts means he put something of himself in us. This is analogous to being made in the image of God. We’re made out of dust, but we have something spiritual in us. God put something big in our little hearts.
Why is Solomon telling us this? To tell us that this is why this life feels so meaningless, why we know that “time” isn’t all there is, why we desire more than this life offers, why we desire to live forever in a world freed from the curse, why we have a longing for what’s beyond this life.
“So That He Cannot Find Out What God Has Done”
The last phrase of the verse is often ignored but it states the problem we all have: “But no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end” (CSB). Our problem is that we can’t fully see or grasp God’s plan. We know there’s more out there, but we can only handle a sliver of what God is up to.
We’re like children who ask “Why” about everything. They question every explanation until finally a parent has to say, “Because I told you so!” We can’t handle all the “whys” of God’s plan, so he tells us to do our best to enjoy this life and to trust him (vv. 12-14).
Trapped Between Time and Eternity
We’re trapped in between time and eternity, with no way of escape, so our only hope is to trust that God is up to something bigger and grander in the mundane and repetitive and seemingly meaningless details of our lives.
We can’t see the whole picture, so we must learn to lean on the One who does. We must learn to trust that God is doing something in our lives whether we see it or not, that nothing is wasted in God’s world.
Our frustration with the way the world works should turn our hearts to God (v. 14). God has given us desires beyond our reach. As one commentator says, “We perceive and long for better things than this cursed misery.”[3]
Our unfulfilled longings lead us into despair, but despair is meant to lead us to God. Only when we honestly acknowledge the meaninglessness of our lives apart from God will we come to him. How did Jesus treat despairing people? With gentleness and love. It was the smug and proud religious people that he rebuked. Jesus knew it was the sick who knew they needed a doctor.
What if our despair is a gift from God meant to lead us to him? God put something big in our little hearts. Why? To life our eyes off of time and onto eternity.
Is There Meaning in Life?
Solomon perceived the emptiness of this world and that God made us for something bigger and better. He believed there was a deeper meaning to be found in the mundane existence of our lives.
Our modern society struggles to come up with reasons for meaning in life that go beyond personal expression. Peter Kreeft, in his book Heaven (written in 1980), explains our society’s condition like this:
“Most people in our modern Western society do not have any clear or solid answer to (the question, ‘What is the point of life?’). Most of us live without knowing what we live for. Surely this is life’s greatest tragedy, far worse than death. Living for no reason is not living but mere existing, mere surviving. As Viktor Frankl found in a Nazi concentration camp, our deepest, rock-bottom need is not pleasure, as Freud thought, or power, as Adler thought, but meaning and purpose, ‘a reasons to live and a reason to die.’ We need a meaning to life more than we need life itself.
Millions all around us are living the tragedy of meaningless life, the ‘life’ of spiritual death. That is what makes our society most radically different from every society in history: not that it can fly to the moon, enfranchise more voters, have the grossest national product, conquer disease, or even blow up the entire planet, but that it does not know why it exists.
For the first time in history, society no longer regards tradition as sacred; in fact, it no longer regards it at all. We are the first tree that has uprooted itself from the universal soil. If we are to find an answer to the question ‘For what may I hope?’ we must find the answer individually; our society simply does not know. The only sound we hear from our noisy society concerning the most important questions in the world is the sound of silence.
How is it that the society that ‘knows it all’ about everything knows nothing about Everything? How has the knowledge explosion exploded away the supreme knowledge? Why have we thrown away the road map just as we’ve souped up the engine?”[4]
Our society doesn’t understand that the meaningless of life is meant to point us to God, so it teaches us to look inward to find what in the past was always found by looking upward.
Kreeft is saying that it’s ironic that a society that prides itself on knowledge can’t figure out the most basic questions about life. But the questions haven’t disappeared. People keep asking the ultimate questions about meaning and existence generation after generation. It’s almost like there’s something hard-wired into us telling our operating system that there’s something outside of us who we’re made for, another world we were designed to live in.
Lewis’s Argument from Desire
- S. Lewis, in his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” lays out what’s called the “argument from desire.”[5] He argues for the existence of another world of glory, heaven as we call it. He says that if we were made to commune with God in Paradise, just as Adam and Eve did in the beginning, then this desire will be in us.
He says that this desire for the “far off country” is an “inconsolable secret,” a “secret we cannot hide and cannot tell.” He says, “We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it.”[6]
He says we wrongly call it beauty when we hear or read or see something captivating. He says it isn’t something in the books or sunset or song but something that comes through them that captures us, “and what came through them was longing.”[7]
What Do You Do with this Longing?
Have you noticed this longing in yourself? Why did we get so excited when the Texas Rangers won the World Series, a team none of us watched all year? Because we long to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We long for meaning in community. We long for joy.
What do you do with that “indescribable something” that beautiful objects become the messengers of? That “old ache” that yearns for healing? Lewis asks, “What would it be to taste at the fountainhead that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy.”[8]
Are you thirsty for water from this fountain? There’s only one thing that will quench your thirst. Jesus says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (Jn. 7:37-38).
You Were Made for God
You were made for heaven, but you already knew that. You were made for God. God made us for himself, and in a world under the curse of sin, he put a desire and longing in us meant to draw us back to him.
When I say, “You already believe in heaven,” what I mean is that God put eternity into your heart so that you’ll sense the emptiness of this life without God, that the deep longing in your heart for a better world means you were made for another world. As Lewis said in Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
What if the desire itself is a gift from God meant to lead us to him? As Paul told the Athenians on Mars Hill: “(God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth…that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:26-28).
God put eternity in our hearts so that we’ll be dissatisfied until we turn to him. You’ll never be satisfied without God. As Augustine famously said about God, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” If God made us for himself, then it shouldn’t be surprising that we get frustrated when we turn away from him.
Your frustration with the punishment of time and your deep ache and longing and desire for something that you can’t quite name, something that nothing else satisfies, is God’s way of calling you to himself. Are you listening?
[1]Daniel L. Akin and Jonathan Akin, Exalting Jesus in Ecclesiastes, Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2016), 41.
[2]Ibid.
[3]Ibid., 42.
[4]Peter Kreeft, Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 12-13.
[5]C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 29ff.
[6]Ibid., 30.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Ibid., 44.
Believing in Invisible Things
Do you believe in the invisible? In things you can’t see? Of course you do if you believe in feelings like anger or sadness. You see the effects of them but you can’t see the emotion itself. Or what about the wind? Can you see it or its effects? Jesus compares the wind to people who’re “born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8). You can see that it’s happened, but you’re not sure how.
We believe in many things that are invisible. But for some reason the existence of an invisible world beyond this one is hard for our modern minds to accept. We only accept what we can see, or what we can explain.
An Invisible World Worth Studying
Today we’re beginning a seven-week series on heaven. This series is built on the premise that there’s a world, a dimension, a reality that exists that’s invisible to us now. To be a Chrisian you have to believe in things you can’t see, in things science can’t measure or explain. “Faith is…the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
In this series, we’ll look at things we can’t see. Here’s where we’re going:
- We Die, Then What?, from Luke 16
- Heaven is Real, But You Already Knew That, from Ecclesiastes 3:11
- Heaven is Not Our Final Destination?: The Intermediate State, the Second Coming of Jesus, and the Resurrection, from 2 Corinthains 5, 1 Thess. 4, and 1 Cor. 15
- Heaven on Earth: The New Heaven and the New Earth, from Revelation 21-22 (two weeks)
- Heaven’s Glory: Rewards and Remembering, from 2 Corinthians 5, Revelation 20
- What Do We Do While We Wait for Heaven?: Go to Work, Go to Church, and Go to the Nations, from Luke 12, Hebrews 10, and Matthew 24.
Why are we doing this series? One reason is that my heart has been longing for heaven more this year than ever before. Another is that it seems wise to study what the Bible says about the place believers will spend the vast majority of their existence. Another is that many of us have false conceptions of what heaven is and isn’t. Another is that I’ve never taught on this for any length.
Another is that living in light of heaven is what Jesus saved us to: Colossians 3:1-3, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1-3).
Thinking about heaven is also how we make it through our days on earth: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
The Finality of Death
We’ll start this series in Luke 16 by looking at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (vv. 19-31). I want us to start here because as we begin talking about the afterlife, we need to understand the finality of death. The main point of this passage is that there’s life after death in either heaven or hell and that the time to choose between these two destinies is now.
Jesus is teaching us many things here, but one of the main things he’s saying is that death is final. When we die, our fate is sealed. There are no do-overs, mulligans, get-out-of-jail-free cards, second chances, or changes of address. When we die, we either go to heaven or to hell.
Two Men
This is a story of two men, a rich man and a poor man. The rich man is wearing purple cloth made from a dye extracted from snails (an expensive and difficult process) and “fine linen” undergarments. He was never hungry, “feasting sumptuously every day” (v. 19).
This isn’t a story condemning wealth. Abraham and Job were very wealthy and very godly men. Lydia, the first Christian in Europe, was “a seller of purple goods” and had a house large enough to host the church Paul planted in Philippi (Acts 16:11-15).
But wealth always comes with responsibility and temptation, which is why Jesus says that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Lk. 18:25). This parable illustrates that principle perfectly. The rich man has no concern for the basic needs of the poor man at his doorstep. He uses his wealth on himself every day, seeing Lazarus but ignoring him, not offering him food or clothing or basic medical care, and he dies and goes to hell.
Jesus intentionally doesn’t give the rich man a name. He may be rich and successful, but in this story, he has no honor. Jesus is saying that those who don’t show mercy to those in need don’t deserve a name.
Isn’t it sad if all that can be said of us is, “She was wealthy,” or “He was well-off and successful.” If all we’re known for is what we have and not what we are or what we do, then we’re like this rich man, not worthy of a name.
Then there’s Lazarus, the poor man. This isn’t the Lazarus who was Jesus’ friend. Lazarus was a common name then. Jesus says he was poor, sick, and hungry. These things often go together, which is why the best mercy ministries take a holistic approach.
Every day someone “lays,” or “drops,” Lazarus at the rich man’s house, and every day the rich man passes by him without seeming to notice. His only companions were dogs, a detail emphasizing his dehumanization (v. 21). Isn’t it true that dogs are more likely to draw near to poor people than we wealthy people are?
Lazarus is just hanging on, surviving day by day. But he has something the rich man doesn’t. He has a name! His name is from the Hebrew “Eleazar,” which means “God has helped.” And indeed, God does help this man even though the rich man didn’t.
These men lived on opposite sides of the tracks in life. But when they died, there was a great reversal (vv. 22-23). Jesus isn’t teaching that the poor go to heaven and the rich go to hell. He is teaching that what we have in this life doesn’t determine where we go in the next life. As New Testament scholar Darrell Bock says, “Callous indulgence in this life will be met with an absence of blessing from God in the next. One reaps what one sows.”[1]
Two Places
When they die, Lazarus goes to “Abraham’s side,” which is another way of saying heaven, and the rich man goes to “Hades,” a place of “torment.” These places aren’t the final destination for believers or unbelievers, that is, “Abraham’s side” is not the same as the New Heaven and New Earth (Rev. 21), and “Hades” is not the same as the lake of fire, or hell (Rev. 20:15). More on that in a couple weeks.
Jesus’ story means that there is conscious existence after we die, both for the lost and the saved. This rules out the notion of soul-sleep, or the view that the soul is unconscious at the time of death, or annihilationism, or the view that unbelievers cease to exist after death.
Secular materialists don’t believe in any existence at all after death. But even some Christians believe that the soul sleeps or is annihilated upon death. Jesus’ story undermines all these views. His point is that we’ll be very much alive after we die.
The rich man ends up in Hades, which is the Greek work for the Hebrew “sheol,” a word usually used as a synonym for conscious existence after death, for unbelievers and believers. Here Jesus uses it to refer to where the unbelieving rich man goes when he dies. It’s not the final destination for unbelievers, or hell. But it’s nonetheless a place of torment, anguish, and loneliness. Hades is the gateway to hell for unbelievers.
Hades, like hell, is a place of conscious torment and anguish. The rich man is very much aware and very much in pain. The only thing about hell that’s different is that it’s eternal. It’s a place of eternal, conscious, torment for all who reject God’s Son Jesus and the forgiveness that he offers. “The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Rev. 14:11). “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2).
Part of the torment of Hades and Hell is that those who’re there will be all alone. There’s a “great chasm” separating the rich man from Lazarus in heaven (v. 26). There are no visitors or visitation hours for those imprisoned in hell.
In hell, the common grace of God is removed, including the common grace of relationships and conversation. You are stuck forever in solitary confinement. T. S. Elliot wrote about this in his play The Cocktail Party: “What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone.”[2]
When we’re lonely now we can call a friend, go to church, join a book club, or go hang out with people. But in hell all your options for connection are removed. You’re stuck with yourself forever. You can’t go get coffee and mingle with people in the breakroom of hell.
Jesus’ teaching here means that there’s no such thing as purgatory, or a temporary habitation from which it’s possible to leave. There’s no highway from hell to heaven. Verse 26, “Those who would pass from here to you may not be able” means that there’s no evangelism in hell after death. And, “None may cross from there to us” means there’s no escape from hell. As Derek Thomas says, “Where we find ourselves after death is where we will be forever.”[3]
Not Caring for the Poor Means You Don’t Know God
The rich man didn’t end up in Hades because he was rich, but because he had no faith. How do we know that? Because he had no deeds that flowed from faith. If he truly knew God, he would’ve done what he could to help the poor. The consistent teaching of the Bible is that God’s people care about the poor. As John said, “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 Jn. 3:17)
If we love our money and possessions more than we love God and the people God made, we may be headed to the same place as this rich man. Again Thomas puts it bluntly: “If money matters more than people, it shows you have an unregenerate heart.”[4]
More Selfishness
In verses 27-31, the rich man seems to accept his fate, but he still has one more request. He wants Abraham to send Lazarus to his family to warn them about hell. This is an understandable request, a request our loved ones who’ve died without Christ and went to hell would send to us.
But it’s also more selfishness. Even in hell, the rich man thinks Lazarus should serve him. He’s still only thinking about himself and doesn’t care about the poor. Yes, he wants to warn his family, but only after he pleads for himself (v. 24). As one commentator says, “Sinners remain selfish in hell.”[5]
The Most Convincing Evidence
Notice what Abraham’s response is in verses 29-31. Jesus is saying that it’s better to send lost people a Bible than a resurrected person. He says if they don’t believe the word of God, they won’t believe a miracle.
What would you think is more convincing, someone coming to you who has already died, or someone bringing you a Bible? If we’re honest, we’d say seeing the resurrected person.
But Jesus, and later Peter, say that God’s word is more convincing than signs and wonders. In one of his letters, Peter is talking about the time he, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured so that they saw his glory and they heard the voice of God saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Then Peter says, “And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention” (2 Pet. 1:16-19). He says that a Bible is more convincing than hearing the voice of God!
The point Jesus and Peter are making is that unbelief and a refusal to repent aren’t the result of the lack of evidence but due to a stony heart.[6] The only way to see the world of heaven is with the eyes of faith in the word of God.
What About You?
What about you? Where will you be five minutes after you die? Will you go to Abraham’s side or to Hades? How much money you have is irrelevant. Whether you put your faith in Jesus, who you can’t see with your eyes, will be all that matters.
You have to decide what you’ll do with the good news of Jesus Christ. There is life after death in either heaven or hell and the time to choose between these two destinies is now. The gospel is only good news if you accept it before you die.
[1]Darrell L. Bock, Luke, Volume 2: 9:51-24:53, in Baker Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament, ed. Moises Silva (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1996), 1360.
[2]Quoted in Derek W. H. Thomas, Heaven on Earth: What the Bible Teaches about Life to Come (Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2018), 24.
[3]Thomas, 25.
[4]Ibid.
[5]Thabiti Anyabwile, Exalting Jesus in Luke, in Christ-Centered Exposition (Nashville: Holman, 2018), 250.
[6]Robert H. Stein, Luke, in The New American Commentary, vol. 24 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 1992), 422.
Complimentary Letters
As we move into 3 John, we’ll see that a similar problem lies behind both letters, namely, how to treat traveling teachers. In 2 John, it was clear that those who come preaching anything but the gospel should not be received. In 3 John, we’ll see that those who come preaching the gospel should be received and even supported.
John’s third letter compliments his second letter, the positive instruction of the third letter balancing the more negative instruction of the second letter. Taken together they provide us with a balanced understanding of the duties and limits of Christian fellowship.
In these short letters we see our need to be discerning and our need to be generous. Out of our love for one another comes a desire to protect the church and to promote the church, to keep false teachers away for the good of our souls and to support true teachers who’re trying to win more souls.
John writes 3 John to commend a man named Gaius and rebuke a man named Diotrephes. One was selflessly serving the church of Christ, the other selfishly using the church of Christ. The main point of this sermon is that we should be more like Gaius and less like Diotrephes (cf. v. 11). We’ll see Gaius’ service in verses 1-8 and Diotrephes’ selfishness in verses 9-15.
Gaius’ Service
In verses 1-8, we see Gaius’ service. Gaius was one of the most common names in the Roman Empire, so we don’t know if this is one of the Gaius’s linked with Paul’s ministry (Acts 19:29, Rom. 16:23, 1 Cor. 1:14). But we do know that he was a leader in the church John is writing to and that John has great affection for him, four times calling him “beloved,” or “dear friend” (vv. 1, 2, 5, 11). John loved Gaius “in truth,” meaning that the truth (ie. the gospel) was the sphere in which their mutual love existed and flourished. In Jesus, our friendships deepen and flourish.
Verse 2 shows us that John cares for Gaius’ body and soul. It’s good to desire the physical and spiritual welfare of our Christian friends. Think of it. Aren’t we most prone to loneliness and anxiety and sadness and despair when we aren’t feeling well physically?
Gaius’ spiritual well-being brought John great joy (vv. 3-4). Notice that Gaius was balanced a Christian, walking in the truth (v. 3) and love (v. 6). He held the truth in love and loved in truth.
John refers to Gaius as one of his “children” in verse 4. He may’ve been so encouraged by how well Gaius was doing because he was his spiritual father, perhaps leading him to Christ. Every parent loves getting good reports about their kids, especially from someone else. A parent’s joy is bound up in the welfare of their children.
Do you have any children in the faith? Do you keep up with them? Do you connect with your parents in the faith?
John is particularly encouraged that Gaius is “walking in the truth” (v. 4). “To walk” is more than to give assent to. It means to orient your whole life around. It means that the truth is changing your entire life. It means there’s no dichotomy between your profession and your practice. Don’t we all long for children who live for Christ instead of just knowing about him?
Gaius’ Faithful Service toward Missionaries
In verses 5-8, we see what Gaius was doing that John is so happy about. Who are these “brothers”? Verse 7 says they’ve “gone out for the sake of the name.” Verse 8 says they’re “workers for the truth” who need support. These “brothers” came to John’s church and told him how well Gaius was doing (v. 3).
These “brothers” were itinerate missionary evangelists. They were “traveling teachers” of the good orthodox variety. They “went out” to spread the gospel and establish churches.
But Gaius didn’t know them. They were “strangers” to him (v. 5). Why would he take care of people he didn’t know? Because they were also family members. They were strangers who were brothers. Jesus’ family is really big, and we don’t know most of our siblings. But when we meet some of them, especially those laboring to spread the family name to orphans still stuck in darkness, we want to do all we can to help them on their way. That’s what family does.
All those who put together and delivered baskets to our homebound members were like Gaius. You did a “faithful thing” for these sisters, “strangers as they are” to you. What a gift of familial love!
In verse 6, John turns from the past to the future and says that Gaius’s work with these brothers isn’t done. These traveling teachers or missionaries must not only be received when they arrive but must be sent on their journey and provided for “in a manner worthy of God.”
Implications for Missions
In his book Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global, Andy Johnson says there are five implications for how we think about and do missions from these verses.[1]
First, he says that concern for missions and missionaries is a normal part of the Christian faith. John says in verse 5 that what Gaius is doing is a “faithful thing,” so not doing it would be “unfaithful.” John concludes in verse 8 that “we ought to support people like these (missionaries).” A desire to support the spread of the gospel is basic to our faith.
John notes that these brothers “accepted nothing from the Gentiles,” meaning that they weren’t earning money through their preaching to the Gentiles, so the church should supply their needs. John isn’t prohibiting taking money from unbelievers. Paul said several times that Christian ministers and teachers have the right to be supported by those who benefit from their service (1 Cor. 9:1-18, Gal. 6:6, 1 Tim. 5:17-18). A Christian congregation supporting its minister is one thing, but missionaries asking for money from unbelievers is another.
In other words, churches should support missionaries because missionaries are trying to start churches and therefore ordinarily won’t have support from those they’re trying to reach. Missionaries have no other means of support. It’s up to the churches, not the world, to support them. There are many good causes we may support, but we must support our brothers and sisters whom the world won’t support.
Second, Johnson says that cooperation among churches is encouraged. These workers went out from another church, probably John’s, were “strangers” to Gaius (v. 5), yet John says that Gaius “ought to support” people like this. John’s church and Gaius’ church were partnering together for the truth. This is what we do through the SBC cooperative program and the Pillar Network.
Third, missionaries should be connected to a local, sending, church. Missionaries aren’t free agents, out in the world doing what they want, when they want, where they want. Every missionary should be accountable to a specific local church. These “brothers” are likely accountable to John’s church in Ephesus. Did you notice the church connection in verse 6? When they returned to John’s church, they reported on how Gaius had taken care of them. Why would they report back? Because they were accountable to the church. Biblical missionaries have always been connected to a local church. This means that the best way to prepare to be missionary is to be an especially fruitful and faithful member of a local church. In a church, you’ll build the spiritual muscles that God may use one day cross-culturally.
The fourth implication from this passage is that support for missionaries should be abundant (v. 6b). Paul tells Titus, “Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing” (3:13). Johnson says we should imagine that we’re supplying Jesus himself. He tells the story of a church that had a “missionary closet” full of used clothes and broken toys, and how a friend of his was taken to this closet as a kid full of excitement, only to be crushed when he saw what was in there. Our support for missionaries should be abundant, so that they can focus on their work. Of course there should be wisdom here, but Johnson says that if we worry that excess money might be wasted by our missionaries, then we need to call them home and send out trustworthy missionaries instead![2]
The fifth implication is that our motivation is the glory of Christ (v. 7). Jealousy for Jesus’ name is “the most compelling of all missionary motives” (Stott). His “name” refers to all that he is and all that he’s done. The needs of the nations are great, but the fame of Jesus’ name is why we go and send.
John commends Gaius for selflessly serving the church through supporting these missionaries. We should follow Gaius’ lead and give our lives to support the cause of Christ among the nations, however and wherever we can, “for the sake of the name.”
Diotrephes’ Selfishness
In verses 9-15, we see the opposite of Gaius’ service. Instead, we see Diotrephes selfishness. One man selflessly serves the church, the other selfishly uses the church.
Diotrephes character and behavior is the exact opposite of Gaius’s. Gaius is portrayed as walking in the truth, loving the brothers, and providing for the missionaries. Diotrephes, on the other hand, is portrayed as loving himself more than others, refusing to welcome the missionaries, and threatening those who do.
These guys may’ve been members of the same church, a church John says that he’s written to (v. 9). But Diotrephes, for whatever reason, doesn’t accept John’s authority. As an apostle, John understands that he has a unique position of authority over all the churches. When he issued orders, he expected them to be obeyed. But Diotrephes wasn’t interested in being told what to do. He claimed an authority of his own, even to the point of kicking people out of the church who disobeyed him (v. 10).
Notice that it’s personal ambition, not doctrinal heresy, where Diotrephes goes wrong (v. 9). Diotrephes’ conduct was the result of pride, not bad theology. He wanted to be in charge. He didn’t want to submit to anyone, not even an apostle like John.
It’s been said that if you can’t submit to authority you can’t be trusted with authority. Diotrephes was unwilling to follow John’s leadership and was hurting people in this church as a result. And John wasn’t going to just sit by and let it happen, “If I come, I will bring up what he is doing.” How would you like to have been at that member meeting!
Two Ways to Be Arrogant
One of the lessons for us from 2-3 John is that churches are hurt by both doctrinal arrogance and by personal pride. There are two ways for us to be arrogant. We can be doctrinally or personally full or ourselves and not full of the truth and love of Christ.
Listen to how John Stott describes this: “Self-love vitiates all relationships. Diotrephes slandered John, cold-shouldered the missionaries and excommunicated the loyal believers – all because he loved himself and wanted to have the pre-eminence. Personal vanity still lies at the root of most dissensions in every local church today.”[3]
Therefore, as John says in verse 11, don’t be like Diotrephes and put yourself above others in the church. Rather, be like Gaius and give your life to serve the church. Verse 12 mentions another guy who was doing just that.
Pigs at Church?
The main point of this sermon is that we should be more like Gaius and less like Diotrephes. One was selflessly serving the church of Christ, the other selfishly using the church of Christ.
Mark Dever in his book Discipling provides an illustration to help us think through whether our hearts are oriented toward others in the church, or more toward ourselves. He writes:
“If you have never seen pigs come to a trough for mealtime, you can probably imagine it. Pushing. Shoving. Snorting. Swallowing as much as they can with no thought for others. Here’s a funny question worth thinking about for a moment: Is that how you attended church last Sunday?
No, I’m not calling you a pig. But stop and consider: Where did you park? What time did you get to church? Where did you sit? Who did you speak to? Each one of these decisions provided you with an opportunity to give yourself to others and so join the work of Christ. Or they provided you with an opportunity to look out for yourself, and do what is best for you. So which was it? Did you consciously strategize how to bless others with each one of those decisions?
Being a disciple of Jesus means orienting our lives toward others, just as Jesus did…We set our sights on serving others for Christ’s sake, just as Christ came into the world not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).”[4]
The Perfect Servant
Are we more like Gaius or Diotrephes? The reality is that we’re probably a little like both. We want to serve, but we also want to be seen serving. We want to bless others, but we also want others to like us and affirm us. So we need the perfect Servant to give us new hearts and to continually cleanse our hearts of pride.
In 3 John we see the difference between living for our name or living for Jesus’ name. We’re all living for a name, for a reputation, for a position, for something to give us an identity.
Ironically, it’s only by living for Jesus’ name that our name will be ultimately and eternally remembered. “Whover finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39).
[1]Andy Johnson, Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 38-40.
[2]Ibid., 41.
[3]John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 231.
[4]Mark Dever, Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 27.
Mirrors and Sponges
If you want to know who you’ll be in five years, look at your friends and the books you read and that’s what you’ll become. These things will shape your life more than anything else. We inevitably become what we see and hear. We’re mirrors.
But we’re also like sponges, designed to be filled and formed and cultivated, just like the earth. God didn’t create us as finished products, but as works in progress. This means there’s tremendous potential in every human you know. There’s a powerful God-given potentiality in each of us to become something we never thought we could become. This is amazing!
Walk in Truth and Watch Yourself
Today we’re going to look again at the short letter of 2 John and the main thing I want us to see is that who we let close to us will shape us, one way or the other.
John says that Christians should be picky about who they associate with, about who they let into the “house” of their lives. John tells us to “watch ourselves” so that we don’t lose the things we love the most.
John wants us to know that we can’t start coasting as Christians because there are dangerous deceivers in the world who want to lead us away from the truth. So he says we have to “watch ourselves” so that we aren’t led astray.
John’s main point in 2 John is that Christians should walk in love and watch ourselves. In verses 1-6, we see the exhortation to walk in love. In verses 7-13, we see the exhortation to watch ourselves. Last week we looked at verses 1-8. Today we’ll look at verses 9-13.
Recap of Verses 1-8
In verses 1-8, we saw that, though the letter is primarily written to warn this church about the danger of welcoming false teachers, John starts by talking about love. Why? Because the stronger our love for one another the less likely we’ll leave one another for something else. Love is what strengthens churches, not fear.
John is encouraging them to push forward in their love for one another. John starts with these reminders about loving one another because he knows that a church that keeps walking in love will ordinarily keep walking in truth.
Think about it. If you really love someone, you want what’s best for them. Love is a commitment to the good of someone else. It’s not an emotion. If we didn’t love each other, we wouldn’t care what our brothers and sisters did. We’re not the morality police. But in love we confront one another about clear and repeated sins or inconsistencies in our lives.
John wants this church to keep walking in love because he wants them to keep walking in truth. Christians who genuinely love one another will care deeply about each other’s soul.
The reason I know John is saying this is because of the conjunction that begins verse 7, “For…” John is saying, “I want you guys to keep walking in love and truth, because many deceivers have gone out into the world.” He’s saying, “You can’t start coasting as followers of Christ. You have to keep walking in love and truth because there’s evil out there that wants to take you down.” The church needs to “watch themselves” (v. 8) because the demonic threat is real. Those who don’t give up on the truth or on the church are rewarded in the end.
Don’t Run Ahead, Stay with Christ
In verse 9, John states clearly what’s at stake in denying the basic tenets of the gospel. “Everyone who…does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.” The exclusivity of the Christian view of salvation, one writer says, is “the single most socially offensive aspect of Christian theology; the single most important source of contention between Christians and non-Christians.”[1] Why? Because as soon as you say that your way is the only right way, you’re also saying everyone else’s way is wrong. And no one likes being wrong!
Jesus said, “The one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Lk. 10:16). Those who reject Jesus as the Son of God who died for sinners and rose from the dead do not know God in a saving way. Jesus is the litmus test for every person and every religion.
This should inform the way we interact with people who aren’t believers. They don’t know God and their lives are headed to a tragic ending beyond description.
But sometimes it’s not clear if someone is an unbeliever. Many people are in the church who look and sound like believers, but have actually “moved on” from the gospel in their hearts. Notice that John starts verse 9 by saying, “Everyone who goes on ahead…” Eugene Peterson’s interpretation of this text captures what John is saying well: “Anyone who gets so progressive in his thinking that he walks out on the teaching of Christ, walks out on God” (MSG).
It’s always been tempting for Christians to run toward new teachings, to get bored with the “old, old story,” to believe that the gospel isn’t enough to sustain their lives, to love what’s novel and new. This is the human tendency. Especially today we think that old basically means bad and wrong, and new is good and right. We’re drawn to innovation and repelled by tradition. We like the avant-garde and shy away from things our parents or grandparents believed.
James Davison Hunter, who researched and wrote on sociological trends in American Evangelicalism in the last century, noted thirty-five years ago that, though a lot of younger evangelicals weren’t leaving their faith, there was a “softening of earlier doctrinal certainties.” He said, “Of their own salvation, they are confident. It is with regard to the salvation of others that there is ambiguity and doubt. The certainties characteristic of previous generations appear to be giving way to a measure of hesitancy and doubt.”[2] Why is this happening? Hunter says it’s because “the theological tradition is conforming in its own unique way to the cognitive and normative assumptions of modern culture.”[3] And this was written in 1987!
Why are we so quick to conform our beliefs to the culture? Sometimes it’s the result of external pressure, whether real or imagined. We want to be seen as legitimate and respectable members of society. We don’t want to be seen as backwards and weird. We want to be accepted in the court of public opinion.
But sometimes the “softening” is due to an internal struggle. We sometimes feel dissatisfied with our faith, wondering why it doesn’t make us feel better or why our circumstances aren’t changing. We may think it’s our beliefs that are off and try to loosen them up a little.
The evil one capitalizes on these feelings and will often put a distortion of the truth in front of us that sounds mostly true, something that appeals to our desire for something new and fresh, something we think will put the wind back in our sails.
But John says that “going on ahead” is eternally dangerous. He says that this kind of progressiveness leads to damnation. He says that if we run ahead and leave behind Christ, we don’t have God. And if we don’t have God, we don’t have eternal life.
But the opposite is true too. Whoever keeps running with Christ will have Christ in the end. “Having the Father and the Son” means knowing them and being indwelt by the Father and the Son through the Spirit.
Why would we want to “go on ahead” when what we have in the gospel is so good? What message could be better than the gospel? The promise of the gospel is that we get God and that God gets us!
Don’t Invite Evil Over for Dinner
In verses 10-11, John tells this church to not allow these false teachers into their homes. He could be saying not to provide them with hospitality. Or he could be saying not to bring them into the assembly of a house church. These options aren’t mutually exclusive because in the early days churches met in people’s houses.
John is saying that someone who denies the gospel must not be accepted as a Christian teacher or welcomed into the fellowship of the church. I doubt he’s saying that we shouldn’t invite a Jehovah’s Witness in for coffee so that we can explain the gospel to them with air conditioning and no mosquitos. He’s saying that a church must not knowingly welcome someone into the fellowship of the church who’ll undermine what the church believes. Those who do are associating themselves with their “wicked work” of propagating lies (v. 11).
This is one reason why our elders do membership interviews for those who want to join the church. One of our jobs is to guard the flock from false teaching or teachers, so we want to get an idea where people are spiritually and whether or not they understand the gospel.
Traveling Teachers Today
This brings us full circle to where we began. Because we’ll inevitably become like what we see and hear, because we’re made to soak up and be formed, because we’re mirrors and sponges, John says that Christians should be picky about who they associate with, about who they let into the “house” of their lives and churches.
Who we let close to us will shape us, one way or the other. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’”
You may be thinking, “But there aren’t any false teachers in our church as far as I can tell, and I know to stay away from the prosperity gospel, so how does this apply to me?” It applies to you today because there are more “traveling teachers” today than ever before. And it’s much easier for them to gain a hearing than ever before. They don’t need an invite to a church service or into your home. They just need an internet connection.
Our world is full of people selling us something. A lot of it is innocuous. But the devil hasn’t changed his tactics. He still uses teachers to teach things that sound new and good and true that are actually subversions and twistings of the truth.
For example, social media and YouTube is full of men and women teaching things about gender and sexuality that has some truth in it but is also full of distortions. The guys talking about how true manhood is essentially about authority and not service are wrong. Any view of manhood that demeans women or makes women sound like the inferior gender, saying that they’re not smart, shouldn’t vote, should never work outside the home and should just stay in the kitchen, raise kids, and do what their husbands tell them is wrong. And these guys have millions of followers.
Or the ladies who talk about how feminism is about liberation and rights and equality, who talk like men are just stupid, boorish, harmful, and misogynistic pigs are also wrong.
The internet is selling us a view of parenting that is all over the place. One lady who was a parenting influencer on social media was actually not feeding her kids as a form of discipline. Some of what she said sounded good, but behind the curtain there was evil and a view of authority that was more about control than love.
The cultural conversation on marriage, though it has some truth, is incomplete. The marriage experts who say that you don’t need a piece of paper to prove you love someone are wrong because they understand love in the modern sense of a feeling, not the biblical sense of commitment.
What about the politicians and political commentators who’re shaping the way we think, usually by setting up anyone who disagrees with them as wrong and evil and dumb? If we listen to them for too long, what kind of mindset does that create in us?
What about the Bible teachers who use the Bible to say whatever they want it to say? It’s interesting that Jesus often said when he was teaching, “It is written…” And that Satan came to Adam and Eve in the garden and said, “Did God say?” He also came to Jesus in the wilderness saying, “It is written,” and twisted Scripture. The point is that we need to know what’s actually written!
No Substitute for the Local Church
One of the best ways to do this is to pour your life into your local church and let your church be your primary teachers. We should get our main diet of spiritual nourishment from the teaching and community of our local church. Why? Because these people know us and we know them. We’re in a better position to know whether they’re trustworthy or not. We can ask questions, discuss, and grow together. Podcasters and YouTubers and Social Media Influencers and authors and televangelists are no substitute for the local church.
What “traveling teachers” do you invite into your house? Are you discerning enough to notice when they start saying things that don’t line up with the Bible?
Keep Running with Christ and with Each Other
Who are you going to be in five years? Just look at the company you keep, books you read, people you follow on social media, and videos you watch.
Hopefully we’ll all start to look more like each other as we love each other and push each other deeper into the truth and protect each other from the traveling teachers who evil wants to use to pull us away from Christ.
If we keep running with Christ and with each other, we’ll have Christ and each other in the end.
[1]James Davison Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 34.
[2]Ibid., 40.
[3]Ibid., 46.
Mirrors and Sponges
It’s been said that if you want to know who you’ll be in five years, look at your friends and the books you read and that’s what you’ll become. These things will shape your life more than anything else. The things I’m thinking about and aspiring to and longing for and praying for are in large measure shaped by whatever I’m reading or whoever I’m spending time with.
Of course, if you’re married, your spouse will have the most profound influence on your life because there’s no one closer to you than them. But your friends, whether people or books, are also constantly shaping your thinking. My sermons naturally flow out of what I’m reading and thinking about. Hopefully you can see why a steady diet of reading the Bible and time with Christian friends is so important. We inevitably become what we see and hear. We’re mirrors.
But we’re also like sponges, designed to be filled and formed and cultivated, just like the earth. God didn’t create us as finished products, but as works in progress. This means there’s tremendous potential in every human you know. There’s a powerful God-given potentiality in each of us to become something we never thought we could become. This is amazing!
Walk in Truth and Watch Yourself
Today we’re going to look at the short letter of 2 John and the main thing I want us to see is that who we let close to us will shape us, one way or the other. In 2 John, we’ll see a lot of what we’ve already seen in 1 John. But there’s the added focus on how false teachers will use the kindness of Christians against them in order to gain influence among them.
John says that Christians should be picky about who they associate with, about who they let into the “house” of their lives. John tells us to “watch ourselves” so that we don’t lose the things we love the most.
John wants us to know that we can’t start coasting as Christians because there are dangerous deceivers in the world who want to lead us away from the truth. So he says we have to “watch ourselves” so that we aren’t led astray.
John’s main point in 2 John is that Christians should walk in truth and watch ourselves. In verses 1-6, we see the exhortation to walk in truth. In verses 7-13, the exhortation to watch ourselves. Today we’ll do verses 1-8. Next week we’ll do 9-13.
“The Elect Lady and Her Children”
The “elder” is likely an affectionate and respectful title for someone who was the principal authority in his circle, like we use the word “pastor.” The “elect lady and her children” is best understood as referring to the same thing, a specific local church and its members. “The children of your elect sister” in verse 13 are the members of the church the elder is writing from. I see no good reason to think that the “elder” isn’t the apostle John, who would’ve been advanced in years and who would’ve had a special authority in these churches.
John loved these folks because they were “in the truth” (v. 1), and he says that the truth lives in them and will be with them forever (v. 2). He’s referring to the Holy Spirit (1 Jn. 5:6). So John writes to encourage these people whose faith was unsettled because of false teachers, telling them that they’re in the truth and that Jesus’ presence is with them and will be with them forever no matter what happens.
The Spirit applies God’s grace, mercy, and peace to our hearts, and creates a people who live “in truth and love” (v. 3). A well-balanced Christian life is one where these two things live in harmony.
Love First, Watch Second
In verses 4-6, John says he wants them to keep walking in a relationship of mutual love, which was under threat because of the false teachers.
I really like the NIV’s translation of these verses:
“It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
Interestingly, in a letter primarily written to warn this church about the danger of welcoming false teachers, John starts by talking about love. Why? Because the stronger our love for one another the less likely we’ll leave one another for something else. If you want to build a sturdy ship, you focus on the strength of the materials being used to build it, not on the strength of the waves. Love is what strengthens churches, not fear.
Love is so basic to the Christian life that John says that it’s part of the deal “from the beginning” (vv. 5-6). It’s not a new commandment, but an old one (1 Jn. 2:7-8).
John is encouraging them to push forward in their love for one another. John starts with these reminders about loving one another because he knows that a church that keeps walking in love will ordinarily keep walking in truth.
Think about it. If you really love someone, you want what’s best for them. You don’t want them to pursue harmful things. You want them to grow and flourish and mature and reach all the potential God has put inside them. So if anything comes along that will hinder this growth, you’ll speak up, you’ll do what you can to keep them from harming themselves. You’ll grab them before they step over a ledge.
Love is a commitment to the good of someone else. It’s not an emotion. If we didn’t love each other, we wouldn’t care about what kind of things were influencing us, what things we were believing, what we were doing. If a parent didn’t love their children, they’d let them do whatever they wanted. But real love comes with boundaries, with the willingness to say, “No, this thing will hurt you, and it will hurt us.”
John wants this church to keep walking in love because he wants them to keep walking in truth. Christians who genuinely love one another will care deeply about each other’s soul.
This is one reason we take church membership seriously here. Our church covenant says, “We covenant to walk together in Christian love, to exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require.” Affection and watchfulness aren’t mutually exclusive. We love first, then we watch. Or, better said, we watch over each other because we love each other. It’s not legalism to want, expect, and help Christians to live like Christians. It’s love.
Deceivers and the Deceiver
This leads us to the second section of the letter, verses 7-13, where John says that these Christians need to watch themselves. These sections are connected by the conjunction that begins verse 7, “For…” John is saying, “I want you guys to keep walking in love and truth, because many deceivers have gone out into the world.” He’s saying, “You can’t start coasting as followers of Christ. You have to keep walking in love and truth because there’s evil out there that wants to take you down.”
The “deceivers” who’ve “gone out into the world” were traveling teachers who’d probably left the church. These traveling teachers were denying “the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh” (v. 7), which is a shorthand way of saying that they denied that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, come in the flesh, whose death was an atoning sacrifice for sins. They were driving a bulldozer into God’s house because they were denying the basic tenets of the gospel.
John calls them “the deceiver and the antichrist” (v. 7). By using the singular forms of “deceiver” and “antichrist” John may be implying that, while “many deceivers” have gone out into the world, they’re doing the work of the deceiver, the evil one himself. In Revelation 12:9, John calls Satan “the deceiver of the whole world.” Here in 2 John 7, he’s saying that this “deceiver,” i.e. Satan, is also at work in the churches.
It’s instructive that the way the Deceiver deceives isn’t through subconscious work in the mind, but through teachings. In 1 Timothy 4, Paul says that “some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared” (vv. 1-2).
Paul and John both believed that demonic teachings circulated through churches through real people animated by evil spirits. These teachers present themselves as one thing but are in fact something else. Their consciences are so cauterized that they think they’re teaching truth, or so callous that they don’t care.
Although the “whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 Jn. 5:19), the devil and his demons are actively working to disrupt and destroy churches through false teaching.
Do you see how important it is to pray for the elders and other teachers in the church, for elders to be examined before they become elders? Do you see your responsibility as a church member to guard the church from false teachers? If you ever have to call another man to be your senior pastor, do you see your responsibility to make sure he’s theologically orthodox?
Watch Yourselves
In verse 8, John tells this church to “watch yourselves.” The demonic threat is real so church members need to be awake and watching. Interestingly, he says, “watch yourselves.” Of course, as I’ve said, we’re to watch out for one another. But our watchfulness starts at home.
It’s easy to be the theology police for everyone else while ignoring our own heart. I’d argue that those who’re super passionate about making sure everyone else is correct in their doctrine and applying their doctrine in all the right ways, have pride growing in their heart that needs to be checked lest the evil one targets them and makes them a tool to divide the church. How many churches have been hurt by people who elevated every doctrinal issue to that of “first importance”? By those who assumed they were right on everything and didn’t give other Christian’s space to exercise the freedom of their conscience on secondary and ancillary matters?
Take a look at Andy Naselli’s book Conscience or Gavin Ortlund’s Finding the Right Hills to Die On for help in thinking through these things. Our ability to do “theological triage” and our willingness to honor each other’s freedom of conscience is a primary way we love one another, guard the truth of the gospel, and build unity in the church.
Wired to Resist
No one likes being told what to do. We often don’t like those who exercise authority over us simply because they exercise authority over us, and we’d prefer to be left alone so we can do our own thing. For example, we know we should work hard at work, but we don’t like being told to do so.
We’re wired to resist. Why? The Bible teaches that we’re all born with a nature that prefers to do what we think is best, not what God thinks is best, to keep our own rules rather than Gods, to live without laws. The Bible calls this sin. First John 3:4, “Sin is lawlessness.”
- I. Packer, in his book Keep in Step with the Spirit, defines sin like this: “Sin…is in essence an irrational energy of rebellion against God – a lawless habit of self-willed arrogance, moral and spiritual, expressing itself in egoism of all sorts.”[1] Deep inside us is a principle, an “irrational energy,” “a lawless habit,” of antagonism toward God and anyone else who would tell us what to do. We’re wired to resist and don’t like being told what to do because of sin.
Why Does God Care So Much about Sin?
Why all this talk among Christians about sin? Why does God talk so much about sin in the Bible? Does he just like flexing his moral muscles, keeping us in our place, or shaming us?
What if God talks so much about sin because his deepest heart is to give us something rather than deny us something? What if telling us to do certain things and not do certain things is one of the most loving things God could do? What if “not sinning” is such a big deal because God wants to give us life and keep us from death, like when I tell my children not to play in the street because I want them to not die and enjoy life?
God Wants Relationship, Not Rule-Keeping
Friends, if you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, maybe you think that Christianity is about keeping rules and rituals and becoming a better person and new “you.” The Bible certainly contains rules and commands, but the essence of Christianity is relationship with God, not rule-keeping. God made you so that you could know him and be known by him. He’s after your heart, not your outward moral successes.
God wants relationship, not rule-keeping. But every healthy relationship has boundaries. So the people God enters into relationship with are given commands and then, as God enables us to keep his commands, our assurance that we belong to him increases. We all wonder sometimes whether or not we really belong to God, whether our relationship with him is really real. These doubts are normal and shouldn’t make you think you’re weird or not a good Christian.
In kindness, God helps us grow in obedience to show us that we belong to him. It goes like this: God saves us in Jesus and then helps us grow in obedience to increase our confidence that we really belong to Jesus.
Obedience to God increases our assurance that we belong to God. This is the main point of the text we’ll be looking at today, First John 2:3-6. In these four verses we’ll see that obedience reveals relationship (v. 3), no obedience reveals no relationship (v. 4), obedience proves our love for God (v. 5), and obedience means living like Jesus lived (v. 6). We’ll close with a few thoughts on obedience.
Obedience Reveals Relationship
First, our obedience to God reveals that we have a relationship with God (v. 3). In chapter 1, we learned that our posture toward sin reveals whether we’re in the light or not (1:5-10, esp. v. 6). Then in the first two verses of chapter 2, we’re reminded that God’s people do sin, but God has made provision for their sin in Christ (vv. 1-2).
In these next few verses of chapter two, John moves a step further and says that God’s people don’t just avoid sin and confess sin but are actively obeying God’s commands and living lives that look like Jesus’ life.
In verse 3, John lays out one of the tests we can use to discern whether we know God. This is the moral test. There’s also the relational and doctrinal tests. None of them are meant to be binary, or meant to say you either obey or you don’t, love or you don’t, believe or you don’t. If so, we’d all fail miserably!
The moral test laid out in verse 3 is simple. We know we know him if we obey him. John is insisting that no religious experience is valid if it doesn’t have moral consequences. Other religions create people with high moral fiber, so we have to balance this with the doctrinal and relational tests. But the moral test is in view here. The false teachers were claiming to have fellowship with God while walking in darkness (1:6). John says, “Not possible!”
Knowing God according to John is not knowing facts about him or recognizing his work in the world, but knowing him personally. John is more interested in what this knowledge produces than what it is. His focus here is on the result of this knowledge, namely, obedience.
You may think, “Well then no one can really know if they know God because no one is perfectly obedient to God.” John isn’t saying you have to obey perfectly to know if you know God. If so, no one could know, and John says that we can know! He’s saying that those who strive to conform their lives to God’s commands can know that they belong to God.
This striving is evidence of real knowing. It won’t be perfect, but it will be present. As Packer says, “The Christian’s life must be one of righteousness as the expression of his repentance and rebirth. That is basic.”[2] Obedience to God is basic Christianity. Those who know God increasingly obey God.
John says it’s those who keep “(God’s) commandments” who can know that they know God. What does “his commandments” mean? There’s no hint in this letter that John is concerned about obedience to the Mosaic Law. John isn’t trying to make these Christians into good Jews. He’s after something far more profound.
3:23 helps us understand 2:3. He summarizes God’s “commandment” (singular) as believing in Christ and loving other Christians. This is the essence of what God wants from his people. That they believe in his Son and love his church. Reminds us what Jesus said is the “great commandment”: that we should “love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind…and love our neighbor as ourself” (Matt. 22:37-39).
Loving God and loving others is parallel with believing Christ and loving Christians. Obedience in these things is evidence that we know God. Obedience here reveals relationship with God.
Doing what pleases someone reveals that you actually know them. If you didn’t know them, you wouldn’t know what pleases them.
Obeying God by believing in God’s Son and loving God’s people pleases God. So if you claim to know God, you should be doing the things that please him. This starts by putting your trust in his Son, turning from your sins, and loving his people. “Repent and believe the gospel” is the most important command. Everything else follows from there.
No Obedience Reveals No Relationship
Second, no obedience to God reveals no relationship with God (v. 4). This doesn’t mean that those who sin are liars and don’t know God. It’s referring to those who live a lifestyle of disobedience to God’s commands. The verb “does not keep” is in the present tense, so it’s referring to continuous action (cf. 3:9).
This verse doesn’t mean that we’ll never disobey God’s commands. John obviously knows that we will (2:1). It means that those who know God won’t be characterized by disobedience to his commands. John learned this principle from his teacher. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). God’s people do God’s will.
Those who teach or think that you can truly know God without growing in obedience to God are “liars.” John Stott says, “A person’s words must be tested by his works.”[3]
This is one reason our church takes church membership so seriously. We believe that the church is made up of those who believe the gospel, have been baptized, and give evidence of being born again by the Spirit. The church isn’t those who like Jesus but live however they want. The church is made up of those who actually and actively follow Jesus. How do we know who they are? They’re the ones who’re growing in obedience to God. Membership doesn’t make anyone a Christian, but it does help us know who is a Christian and who isn’t.
This is also why we practice church discipline. If at any time, any one of our members, elders included, start living lives that contradict the Bible, the process of church discipline begins. It’s a process led by the elders but confirmed by the church. It’s for sins that are obvious and unrepentant. Cursing at your friend won’t get you kicked out of the church. But repeatedly lying or gossiping or stealing or looking at pornography without any desire to change will. This feels harsh. But if a Christian is someone who increasingly obeys God, then warning someone who isn’t obeying God of their danger is evidence of love. Telling your friend that the road they’re on leads over a cliff is a really nice thing to do. So the members of the church are responsible to encourage one another toward obedience and pray for one another and warn one another.
Obedience Proves Our Love for God
Third, our obedience proves our love for God (v. 5). John broadens “his commands” to “his word” to refer to God’s will in general. This verse is saying that obeying God’s word, in all that it says, is evidence that we love God.
True love for God is revealed in obedience, not mystical experience, sentimental language, or in using spiritual gifts to serve the church. Packer again, “All through the New Testament, when God’s work in human lives is spoken of, the ethical has priority over the charismatic.”[4] The Bible repeatedly tells us that character is more important than gifts or knowledge. I love how Mark Dever says that if you read a bunch of books on theology but won’t go pick up a widow for church, you may not be a Christian.
John says that “the love of God is perfected,” or “completed,” for those who obey his word. “Love of God” may be better translated “love for God,” as in the NIV, “Love for God is truly made complete.” 5:3 helps us understand what John is saying in 2:5, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” Love for God is revealed by obeying God.
Jesus says this several times in John’s Gospel: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (14:15), “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word” (14:23), “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15:10).
The idea is that our love for God completes its work when we obey his commands. Stott again says it best, “The proof of love is loyalty.”[5] We don’t honor someone if we betray them. We don’t cherish someone if we ignore them. We don’t love someone if we disregard their words.
Obedience Means Living Like Jesus Lived
Fourth, obedience means living like Jesus lived (v. 6). This point begins at the end of verse 5. It’s the moral test of verse 3 said in a different way. “Abides” means “lives,” and “walk” refers to how we live. So John is saying, “We can know that we live in God if we live like Jesus,” that our call is to conform to the commands and conduct of Christ.
Becoming more like Jesus is actually why God saved us. Paul says that God predestined his people “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). God intends to show off the beauty of his Son by making his people look more and more like him by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Those who live in God, live like Jesus. How did Jesus live? He was full of grace and truth. He loved sinners. He moved toward people most people moved away from. He wasn’t afraid to upset cultural or religious norms for the sake of the hurting and lost. He loved and knew God’s word. He spent time in private prayer. He took time to rest. He spoke the truth and lived a life that backed it up. He suffered with patience and courage. He fought against evil with the word of God.
His life can be summarized as a life that loved God and loved others. He lived to please God and to bless God’s people. It wasn’t flashy or popular. In fact, his life led to his death. But his life honored God and forever changed the world.
What is God’s will for your life? To live like Jesus lived. You ask, “What about all the things he doesn’t talk about or speak to?” He gave us a conscience and a church to help us be more like him. If we’re unsure about whether we should or should not do something, ask, “Would Jesus be pleased with this?” And then ask a trusted brother or sister what they think. We need each other’s help because we often don’t see the places in our lives that don’t look like Jesus.
Three Thoughts on Obedience
This text tells us that obedience increases assurance. We can know we belong to God if we obey God and live like Jesus. Let me offer three thoughts on obedience to clear up any potential confusion.
First, we don’t obey God in order to be saved, but because we are saved. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” God accepts you based on Jesus’ obedience, not yours. We cannot obey our way into God’s family, and we cannot disobey our way out. As Tim Keller said, “The central basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.”
Second, not all obedience is created equal. Obeying God is always a good idea, but many times our motivations for obedience are more about us than about God. We want to look good and impress people so we obey to create an image of godliness rather than out of love for God.
This leads to a third truth. Without the Holy Spirit, true obedience is not possible. “We all…are being transformed…from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). We need the Holy Spirit to be truly transformed.
“Three Kinds of Men”
- S. Lewis wrote an essay titled “Three Kinds of Men” where he argues that there are three kinds of people in the world. The first only live for themselves, doing whatever they want. The second knows that there’s a code of conduct outside themselves, whether their conscience, the Bible, or their parents. They try to follow it, but they live in a tension between the external moral claims and their natural desires, going back and forth. Lewis compares this to paying a tax. He says people in this second category try to pay their moral taxes faithfully but hope that there’s something left over to spend on themselves.
But then he says there’s a third kind of person: “The third class is of those who can say like St Paul that for them ‘to live is Christ.’…The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs.”[6]
His point is that it’s too simplistic to say people are obedient or disobedient. We can be obedient but in a tax paying kind of way. Christianity is about more than simply obeying God. It’s about enjoying God. Lewis again, “The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort – it is to want Him.”[7]
We can keep God’s rules without his Spirit. But we need the Spirit to enjoy obeying God, to obey him as a result of love for him. Consider why you’re obeying God, and let the Spirit purify our motives.
A Gift of Grace
As the Spirit helps us live more and more like Jesus, our confidence that we belong to him increases. As we follow Jesus, we’ll see, again as Keller said so well, that we’re “more sinful than we could ever dare imagine and more loved and accepted than we could ever dare hope – at the same time.”
This call to obedience is a gift of grace because God wants us to know that we’re his, and he wants to give us life. Sin brings death, so when God calls us out of sin and into obedience, he’s calling us out of death and into life with him. The call to obey God is an invitation to be resurrected.
[1]J. I. Packer, Keep In Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 20005), 46.
[2]Packer, 49.
[3][3]John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 95.
[4]Packer, 44.
[5]Stott, 96.
[6]Quoted in Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 165-6.
[7]Ibid., 166.
Lots of Trouble
Our lives are filled with lots of troubles. This is the human experience of every age. King David says in Psalm 25, “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses” (vv. 16-17). David’s life was filled with “troubles” and “distresses.”
But what was his greatest problem? He says in the next verse, “Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins” (v. 18). David’s greatest trouble was his sin. He asked the Lord to consider his troubles, but he needed forgiveness for his sins. Why? Because his sins created his greatest problem. He needed them forgiven because they created a debt that he owed to God. He understood that the Lord was holy, hated sin, and that sin put him into debt with the God who made him. So he went to God with his sins.
What Do You Do with Your Sin?
What do you do with your sins? Hide them? Ignore them? Minimize them? Blame them on others? Rationalize them away? Do any of these approaches actually work to remove the guilt and shame our sin creates in us?
One of our problems is that often we don’t even see our sin. Just because we don’t feel bad about something doesn’t mean it isn’t sin. We can do and say and think things that hurt others, ourselves, and displease the Lord all while thinking it’s okay because we don’t feel bad about it. This is why we need other trustworthy brothers and sisters in our lives to be mirrors for us, to help us see. See last weeks sermon for more on how God wants to move our friendships to fellowships through honest and vulnerable relationships with each other.
John Helps Us Address Our Sins
One of the reasons John wrote the letter of First John is to help us know what to do with our sin (2:1). There are lots of things we need help with. But if sin separates us from God and invites the judgment of God, then the most loving thing someone can do is help us address our sin.
The main point of our text this morning is that we can take our sins to God because Jesus took our sins to the cross. First, we take our sins to God (1:8-10). Second, Jesus took our sins to the cross (2:1-2).
The churches John is writing to were being harassed by teachers saying crazy things about sin. In chapter 1 of First John, John lays out three conditional sentences that summarize the views of his opponents, those who were disrupting the churches John is writing to. In verses 6, 8, and 10, John provides three tests for these Christians to use in judging false teachers.
The point of the first test in verse 6 is that claiming to know God and not caring about sin are not mutually compatible or Christian ideas. The false teachers were likely teaching that someone’s spirit couldn’t be touched by sin, because sin only contaminated the body, so it didn’t matter what you did with your body as long as in your heart you loved God. But John says that knowing God with our spirit results in honoring him with our bodies.
Saying We’re without Sin is Self-Deception
First, we take our sins to God (1:8-10). The second test, or conditional sentence, is in verse 8. Here John gives the churches a second aspect of what the false teachers are teaching. It’s unclear whether John is saying that these teachers were teaching that they weren’t guilty of committing sins, or whether they were saying that they had a sinless nature.
Either way, these teachers are saying that those with a special knowledge or special anointing from God don’t struggle with sin like others do. But in the second half of the conditional sentence, John repudiates their claim by saying that those who claim to have no sin “deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them.” These teachers are self-deceived, meaning that they’ve convinced themselves that this is true when it’s not. And not only do they fail to live by the truth, they don’t even have the truth, “the truth is not in them.” If it was in them, they would be aware of their sinfulness.
We may not say that we have no sin like these false teachers, but we can be guilty of a similar thing when we deny the fact or guilt of our sin by seeking to interpret it solely in terms of physiological, psychological, or social causes. In others words, if we explain away our sin as a result of our circumstances, our past, or even our physical limitations, we may be guilty of minimizing our sin or sin nature. It is important to consider the context for our sins to understand why we’re drawn to them and why they hold us like they do. But understanding the context doesn’t negate the sinfulness of our sin.
A Lifestyle of Confession
After describing his opponents’ claim (to be without sin) and the corresponding reality (their self-deception), John moves to a counterclaim in another conditional sentence in verse 9. I want to point out three things in this sentence. First, when John says “if we confess our sins,” he uses the present tense of the verb “to confess,” meaning that this is a continuous action, not a one-time action. He isn’t talking about doing this once when we’re converted. He’s talking about a lifestyle.
The first of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses says, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, said, ‘Repent’ (Mt. 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Following Jesus means constantly acknowledging our sins and turning from them. The Christian life is a life of honestly naming our sins to God and to other believers and turning from them.
Forgiveness and Cleansing
The second thing I want you to see in this sentence is that confessing sins to God results in forgiveness from God. When we confess our sins to God, John says, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Contrary to the false teachers, “walking in the light” doesn’t mean that those who do so never sin, but that when they do they don’t try to hide it from God. The promise for us here is that when we don’t hide our sins from God, when we tell them to him, what awaits us is acceptance not condemnation.
Forgiveness and cleansing is for those who agree with God about their sin. Cleansing, or purification, is virtually equivalent to forgiveness. The two concepts are parallel in Jeremiah 33:8, “I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me.”
But there’s also a distinction between forgiveness and cleansing or John wouldn’t have used both words. “Forgiveness” means that God no longer holds people’s sins against them. When God forgives us, he cancels the debt that we owe him, just as a loan is forgiven when it’s paid off or cancelled. “Cleansing” refers to God washing away the defilement that our sins produce. Our sins make us dirty before God. Confessing them opens his floodwaters of grace over us.
Sin is a debt that must be paid and a stain that must be removed. And it’s a debt that we can’t pay and stain we can’t wash. This is why John says we must take our dilemma to God. Our sin is a God-sized problem. So we must be honest about the fact that we have sins, and then take them to the only One who can do something about them.
“He is Faithful and Just”
The third thing I want you to notice in this sentence is the reason God can do something about our sins is because “he is faithful and just.” The promise of forgiveness and cleansing is based on the faithfulness and justice of God. He is faithful, meaning he will fulfill the commitments he’s made to his people. He gave his Son to atone for their sins, so he will necessarily forgive and cleanse those who confess their sins. Why would he have sent Jesus to die for sins and then turn around and not offer forgiveness and cleansing?
It’s not difficult to see why God is said to be “faithful” to forgive our sins. But why “just”? Justice in our minds is associated with punishment, not forgiveness. The adjective “just” is also translated “righteous” elsewhere in this letter (eg. 3:7). So John is saying in 1:9 that God is righteous when he forgives sinners, that he is acting righteously.
This brings up the problem of how God can be righteous if guilty people are forgiven? Shouldn’t guilty people be punished? Guilty people go to jail, they don’t get to go free. But John says that God is righteous and just to let guilty people go free. How so?
The apostle Paul dealt with the same problem in Romans 3:21-26. Paul’s answer is that God can be both just and the justifier of sinners because Jesus is the “propitiation” (v. 25), or “atoning sacrifice,” for our sins. God can forgive sinners and be just because he poured out his justice toward sinners on Jesus. Jesus drank God’s justice so that sinners who trust in him don’t have to.
John understands the solution to this problem the same way as Paul. In fact, he uses the same word as Paul in 2:2 and 4:10. God is righteous to forgive sins because he sent Jesus to be the propitiation for sins. Jesus earned our forgiveness, so it’s right for God to give it to those who confess their sins.
God is faithful to forgive our sins because he promised to do so, and he never breaks his promises. And he’s just to do so because Jesus died for our sins.
Forgiveness and cleansing is available to everyone who’ll confess their sins to God. The solution to our greatest problem is available for free to people who’ll agree with God about their sins.
Notice that “sins” in verse 9 is in the plural. John is talking about confessing specific sins to God, not just agreeing that we’re sinners generally, but specifically. Acquittal and washing are for those who deliberately call to mind their particular sins, tell them to God, and forsake them. Proverbs 28:13, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
The opposite of denying our sins is to make it a habit of bringing them to God so that we can experience the power and peace of his forgiveness and washing. His faithfulness and justice guarantees this for all who do it.
How to Call God a Liar
The third test, or conditional sentence, is in verse 10. Here John gives the churches a third aspect of what the false teachers are teaching. These teachers were claiming to have not sinned, probably not ever, but at least since they came to know God and received a special anointing from him.
This is the most blatant of their claims. In theory, they could claim that sin would break their fellowship with God if they had any (v. 6), or that sin lives in their nature (v. 8), and yet still deny that we have actually sinned. These teachers were claiming that their superior spirituality made them incapable of sinning.
The seriousness of this claim is seen in the second half of verse 10. To say we haven’t sinned is not just a lie (v. 6), or a delusion (v. 8), but actually to accuse God of lying, “we make him a liar.”
God’s word frequently declares that all are sinful. Psalm 14:3, “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” God says that everyone is a sinner, so anyone who says they don’t sin is calling God a liar.
We probably aren’t bold enough to say we don’t have sin, but as I said last week, if we only acknowledge that we’re sinners theoretically and never specifically, aren’t we close to the same error? We all profess to be sinners, but can we name them? Do we agree that we’re sinful but have trouble finding them? One way to call God a liar is to never get around to naming your specific sins.
We’re not too far from these false teachers if we never get around to naming our sins to God, owning them, and forsaking them. Austin pointed out in our community group last week that not confessing sins in a Christian context is so backwards because ours is a grace-based religion. Every other religion makes you earn it. Christianity says you can’t earn it but Jesus earned it for you. All you have to do is admit your need. Those who do get grace. Those who don’t make God a liar.
Not Too Lenient or Severe about Sin
Second, Jesus took our sins to the cross (2:1-2). In 2:1-2, John gives us the alternative to pretending to live without sin. He says he doesn’t want Christians to sin, but if we do there’s a remedy. Christians should strive to not sin but know where to go when they do.
John is a great pastor. He addresses these churches with such affection, “My dear children.” He loves them and cares deeply for their souls. Because he loves them so much, he doesn’t want to be too lenient or too severe about sin.
It’s possible to lean too far in either direction. Being too lenient can give the impression that sin isn’t that big of a deal and indirectly encourage sin in the Christian by over-emphasizing God’s provision for the sinner. Being too severe, however, can give the impression that real Christians never sin.
John contradicts both positions. He doesn’t want us to think that sin is okay or to be overcome by guilt and shame when we do sin. He doesn’t want us to minimize sin and he wants us to remember that God has made provision for our sins. The Christian life takes sin seriously and takes the cross seriously. Our life is one of battling sin and resting in grace.
Jesus Our Advocate
The nature of God’s provision is stated in two ways in verses 1-2. First, if we sin, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” John says that Jesus is our “advocate” if we sin.” An ”advocate” was someone called alongside you to assist you, a mediator, intercessor, or helper. It was also used in a legal sense to describe the counsel for the defense, or to plead the cause of the person on trial.
The word for “advocate” (parakletos) used here to describe Jesus is used in John’s Gospel to describe the Holy Spirit. Jesus says in John 14:16, “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper (or “Advocate”), to be with you forever.” Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is “another” advocate,” implying that he’s the first advocate. Jesus is our advocate in heaven while the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ advocate on earth. The Spirit pleads and promotes Jesus’ cause on earth. Jesus pleads and promotes our cause in heaven and “with the Father” (1 Jn. 2:1). J. I. Packer says, “Jesus, the original Paraclete, continues his ministry to mankind through the work of the second Paraclete.”[1]
Notice that Jesus advocates for us before God as Father, not as Judge (v. 1). Everyone in Christ is now God’s child and no longer under God’s judgment. As Jesus said, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (Jn. 5:24). Once a sinner has been justified by God his Judge, they enter the family of God and become related to God as Father. This means that if we sin as Christians, we don’t need another justification from God the Judge. As children of God, we need the Father’s forgiveness.
And this is exactly what we’re promised because “Jesus Christ the righteous” is our advocate. When we sin, we have a perfect advocate in heaven who speaks up in our favor. Romans 8:34, Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Calvin explains how this works: “Christ’s intercession is the continual application of His death to our salvation. The reason why God does not impute our sins to us is because He looks upon Christ the intercessor.”[2]
To increase our confidence in this reality, John names our advocate as “Jesus Christ the righteous.” Jesus is “the righteous.” He knows or does or thinks or says no wrong. Only right, all the time. So the one who speaks up for us in heaven never loses a case. One who always acts righteously speaks up for us who have not acted righteously.
Jesus the Propitiations for Our Sins
Then in verse 2, John goes on to say that Jesus is more than an advocate who intercedes for those who’ve sinned. Verse 2 says that our advocate is also the “propitiation” for our sins. This word is only used a few times in the New Testament, but it’s extremely important for how we understand what happened on the cross.
The word was used to refer to the appeasement of a deity’s wrath or anger through an offering. It must be understood that the God of the Bible isn’t like the fake gods of the nations. His anger isn’t arbitrary or capricious. He doesn’t have unpredictable mood swings and personal vendettas. Instead, his wrath is his controlled and settled and holy antagonism to all evil. And his wrath isn’t averted through bribes by us or a third party. Instead, the God of the Bible takes the initiative in his propitiation. It was God’s idea to avert his anger from deserving sinners (Isa. 53:10).
Notice that it says that Jesus “is the propitiation.” He’s not the propitiator, making use of something outside of himself to avert God’s anger. He is the propitiation. The righteous one is also the offering. And he “is (not was) the propitiation,” not because he continues to offer his sacrifice, but because his sacrifice has eternal virtue which is effective still today to all who believe.
And notice that John then says that Jesus’ propitiation is “for the sins of the whole world” (v. 2). This doesn’t mean that Jesus’s death absorbed God’s wrath for everyone’s sins, or that all sins are automatically pardoned because of Jesus’ death. If that were the case, then all would be saved and go to heaven. But all are not saved, so this has to mean something else. It simply means that a universal pardon is offered for the sins of the whole world and is enjoyed by those who embrace it. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Whoever believe in the Son can rest assured that Jesus drank all of God’s anger toward them for their sins. Anyone in the world who comes to cross of Christ in faith will leave forgiven and cleansed.
Go to the One Who Took Your Sins
So what do you do with your sins? Saying we have no sin or don’t sin, or minimizing, blaming, hiding, or lying about our sins won’t work to clear our guilt, remove our shame, and wash our consciences. John says, rather, that when we agree with God about our sins, we’ll experience his forgiveness and cleansing. God is “faithful and just” to offer this to us because of Jesus’ righteous character, his propitiatory death, and his advocacy for us in heaven.
The only place to take your sins is to the One who took your sins. When you go to Jesus with your sins, you’ll only leave with forgiveness and cleansing.
[1]J. I. Packer, Keep In Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 20005), 19.
[2]Quoted in Colin G. Kruse, The Letters of John, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020),78.
Life in the Light
Without light, there would be no life. If the earth didn’t receive light from the sun, there would be no life on earth. Our planet would lie in utter darkness. It would be cold and lifeless. If the light and warmth of the sun’s rays didn’t reach our planet, there would be no possibility for life.
The next few verses in First John tell us that the light of God creates life in the church. We’ll see that God is light and that walking in his light necessarily means walking in life-giving relationships with one another.
The main point of this text is that God’s light creates honest relationships among God’s people. Our two points will be that God is light (v. 5) and God’s people are honest (vv. 6-7).
My hope for this sermon is that God would create in our hearts and our church a commitment to a type of relating to one another that will seem counterintuitive and feel scary but will create a depth and love among us that is life-giving, that God’s light would draw us out of the darkness of image management and into the light of truth and honesty.
God is Light
First, God is light (v. 5). The “message” is the link between this passage and the one before. In 1:1-4, John said that what he experienced is what he proclaimed (v. 3). Now he tells us what that message is. First he points out that he didn’t invent the message. Rather, he “heard it from him,” namely, Jesus. The message of the apostles came from Jesus. His message was their message.
What is the “message” that John received from Jesus and proclaimed to these churches? Verse 5, “That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” John condenses the message of Jesus into one affirmation: “God is light.”
This is an absolute statement about the being and nature of God. It reminds us of other ways John describes God, “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8, 16), and in his Gospel when he recounts Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well, “God is spirit” (Jn. 4:24).
God Wants to be Known
What does it mean to say, “God is light”? It means that God wants to be known and that God is holy. Let’s briefly take these one at a time. To say that “God is light” is to say that God wants to be known. “God is light” means that it’s his nature to reveal himself, just as it’s the nature of light to shine. Light cannot help but be seen. There’s no such thing as unseen light. Light, by definition, shines and exposes and reveals. God as “light” shines, exposes, and reveals.
The God of the Bible desires to be known and has revealed himself so that he can be known. God has revealed himself so clearly through the wonders of the world that Paul says that we have no excuses for not honoring him (Rom. 1:19-21). This is called general revelation. God has revealed himself generally to everyone everywhere at all times through the beauty and intricate design of the world so that we would honor and thank him. God has not hidden his power or nature from his creatures but put them on full display in the universe because he wants to be known.
But knowing God through his creation can’t take away our sins, so God became a man in Jesus and lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose again from the dead so that everyone who agrees with God about their sin and puts their hope in Christ alone will be forgiven of their sins. God’s revelation of himself in Jesus, and his revelation of himself in the Bible, is called special revelation.
God so wants to be known by his creatures that he entered the space they live, took on their form, walked among us, breathed air and ate food and drank water he created, so that he could die for the sins of people made in his image who would rather live for things he made than him the Maker. The God revealed in Jesus and the Bible is a God who loves people who don’t love him.
“God is light” means that the God of the Bible desires to be known and that he’s revealed himself so that he can be known. Do you know him? Not know about him, but know him?
No Secret Knowledge Needed
The reason John summarizes the message of the gospel with “God is light” is because the false teachers were claiming to have special or secret revelation. John Stott summarizes this well, saying, “(The false teachers) could never have laid claim to a private, esoteric (knowledge) into which they had been initiated if their conception of God had been of one who is light, diffusive, shining forth and manifesting himself, in whom there is no darkness at all, no secrecy, no hiding in the shadows.”[1]
To say that “God is light” is to say that he can be seen by anyone, that the knowledge of him isn’t for a select few but for all. Through creation and in Christ and his word, God has revealed himself to all equally. There’s not a secret to knowing God. You must simply look to his Son Jesus in faith and his light will fill your life.
We may not say things like this to our friends, but when we think that people need to believe or do x, y, or z to be a real Christian, we’re committing the same error. Christians are those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God and his sacrifice for their sins and follow him. You don’t have to be a Calvinist or complementarian or Baptist to be a Christian. You don’t have to dress a certain way, be a stay-at-home mom and homeschool your kids, get a college degree, read your Bible and pray every day for an hour, or read lots of theological books to be saved. The Bible says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). God isn’t hiding in certain theological traditions. He is light and is therefore available to all who trust his Son.
God is Holy
The other thing “God is light” means is that God is morally pure. Light and darkness are used metaphorically in Scripture in an intellectual sense, meaning that light is truth and darkness is error, and in a moral sense, that light is purity and darkness is evil. Paul says, “Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:8-10). Light doesn’t just make us see but also enables us to walk. The benefit of light is clear vision and clear direction.
The light of God reveals the truth about God and the purity of God. John connects light and purity and darkness and evil in John 3:19-21, “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” Truth and purity is the result of walking in the light of God because God is true and pure. Again Stott says, “We are not just to know the truth, but to do it, just as we are not only to see the light, but to walk in it.”[2]
Saying that God is light and therefore morally perfect and pure means that the claim of the false teachers to know God and yet be indifferent to morality is completely illogical and ridiculous. You can’t know a morally pure God and not care about moral purity.
When God summarizes his message as, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,” he’s saying that God wants to be known and that God is pure. “Light” signifies revelation and holiness. In this one phrase to describe God, John is saying that the essence of Christianity concerns truth and life, doctrine and ethics. He’ll say throughout this letter that it doesn’t matter what you believe if you don’t love holiness and love people, and that it doesn’t matter that you love holiness and love people if don’t believe the truth about Jesus. Christianity is a message that creates a certain kind of life.
God’s People are Honest
John applies this teaching in the next of verses and says something foundational about the kind of life God’s light creates. Secondly, God’s people are honest (vv. 6-7).
Verses 6, 8, and 10 are tests for these Christians to use in judging false teachers. Remember, in this letter his goal is to comfort Christians and increase their assurance, not confuse them and fill their hearts with doubts. These three tests are meant to encourage these believers by telling them that if someone’s teaching and behavior aren’t consistent with each other, then they shouldn’t be believed.
The point of the first test in verse 6 is that claiming to know God and not caring about sin are not mutually compatible or Christian ideas. The false teachers were likely teaching that someone’s spirit couldn’t be touched by sin, because sin only contaminated the body, so it didn’t matter what you did with your body as long as in your heart you loved God. John says, “No, that’s not true.” He says that knowing God with our spirit results in honoring him with our bodies.
We may not believe the things those false teachers were teaching, but many do believe that knowing God doesn’t have anything to do with how we live. But, as I said earlier, since God is light, this claim is illogical. Knowing God who is pure without pursuing purity is an illusion. The Bible says that sin is always a barrier to fellowship with God. Isaiah 59:2, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
Walking in the Light is Honesty with Other Believers
In verse 6, he says if we walk in darkness but claim to know God, we’re liars. Then in verse 7, he tells us what walking in the light means. If I asked you to tell me what “walking in the light” means, what would you say? You’d probably say something about living a morally pure life, and that wouldn’t be unreasonable. But John says something quite different in verse 7.
God is light and morally pure, so this sounds like a call to purity. But John is after something else. We’d expect him to say something like, “Walk in the light as God is in the light, and you’ll have fellowship with God.” But he doesn’t say that. He takes it one step further. He says that walking in the light results in “fellowship with one another.”
What is John talking about? The emphasis of the surrounding verses is confessing sin. Verse 8, “If we say we have no sin…” Verse 9, “If we confess our sins…” Verse 10, “If we say we have not sinned…” “Walking in the light,” therefore, in verse 7 is about being honest about our sinfulness with other Christians. John is saying that to walk in the light is to walk in honesty with other Christians.
When this happens, our relationships move from friendship to “fellowship.” Because God light, we’re called to walk in the light, meaning we’re called to know and be known by each other in such a way that nothing is hidden. The result is a depth of relationship not possible otherwise.
Dane Ortlund, in his book Deeper, says it this way: “You are restricting your growth if you do not move through life doing the painful, humiliating, liberating work of cheerfully bringing your failures out from the darkness of secrecy into the light of acknowledgement before a Christian brother or sister. In the darkness, your sins fester and grow in strength. In the light, they wither and die. Walking in the light, in other words, is honesty with God and others.”[3]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it this way in his book Life Together: “He who is alone is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.”[4]
Do you see what he’s saying? He’s saying that, although our doctrine of sin tells us that everyone’s a sinner, we remain quiet about our sin because churches don’t have room for real sinners, only theoretical sinners. Real fellowship never grows because we’re afraid to be honest.
What Does “Walking in the Light” Look Like?
We say we’re sinners but never get around to opening up to each other about exactly how we sin. Sometimes we’re explicitly dishonest, saying things like, “I didn’t lie at work,” when we did lie at work. More often, we’re implicitly dishonest. This is the self-projection of moral success when the truth is different. It’s image management, or saying and doing things to make ourselves look as good as possible.
“Walking in the light” is the opposite of this. It’s stopping the mask-wearing and framing even our sin in the best possible way in order to keep up our appearance. It’s rather an utter collapse into transparency.
None of us want to do this. We’d rather die than tell people the truth. Walking in the light feels like a kind of death. Our impressive appearance is dying in front of another Christian. But what would you say to a baby terrified of being born, wanting to stay in the warmth and darkness of the womb? You’d say: If you stay in there, you will die. The way into life and growth is to come out into the light.[5] Life is in the light. Death is in the darkness.
You might have an amazing grasp of theology and doctrine, obvious gifts in the church, great performance at work or school, but your relationship with Jesus isn’t deepening. It may be because you’re trying to grow spiritually in the dark.
Is there anyone in your life who knows you’re a sinner not only theoretically but specifically? Someone who knows the concrete sins you struggle with? Someone who you don’t keep any secrets from?
Developing the kinds of relationships where confessing sins is normal feels counterintuitive, but actually leads to life. It feels scary, but leads to healing. Surgery is scary but it’s worth going through because on the other side of surgery is healing and restoration and health. James 5:16, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Confessing specific sins to another Christian should be a normal part of our Christian life, and the result is healing, not more shame.
Of course we should confess our sins to God first and foremost, as verse 9 says. We confess vertically and horizontally. And this doesn’t mean we need to confess our sins to a priest or a pastor. James says to confess to “one another.” Pick a trustworthy brother or sister in the church and start there. And this doesn’t mean you need to tell everyone everything. The goal isn’t width but depth. For example, if five people know you struggle with lust but you haven’t told anyone about your sexual addiction, you need to pick one trustworthy person and tell them. Or if you’ve told several people that you struggle to manage your finances but no one knows about your gambling or online shopping addiction or lack of giving to the church, then you should pick one trustworthy person and tell them. Or if a few people know that your marriage is struggling, but no one knows that you verbally and emotionally abuse your spouse, you need to find a trustworthy person and tell them.
Ortlund offers wise counsel here. He says, “For most of us, the greater difficulty is under-confessing our sins to one another rather than over-confessing them…what if each one of us determined to find one person – someone of the same gender, to head off any possibility of unhealthy attachments – who knew who we really are, inside and out?”[6] And I would add that if you’re married, this includes your spouse. True intimacy won’t grow in a marriage as long as there are secrets. The things you think you could never tell your spouse are probably the exact things you need to tell them. Life grows with light.
Let the Walls Come Down
We long for real relationships, for depth, for true togetherness, to be known completely and still loved. God made us for a deep and rich life together. John in verse 7 is inviting us into a feast of fellowship together as we pursue honesty with each other, and we’re no longer alone, realizing that we struggle and battle sin in the same ways as others. In these kinds of relationships, we’re actually able to enjoy each other instead of comparing and competing against each other. When we get out of impress mode, we can finally start loving each other, and we can finally find healing and freedom in the light.
A song by Tenth Avenue North called “Healing Begins” describes this beautifully:
So you thought you had to keep this up
All the work that you do
So we think that you’re good
And you can’t believe it’s not enough
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside
So let them fall down
There’s freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We’re here now
This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark
Afraid to let your secrets out
Everything that you hide
Can come crashing through the door now
But too scared to face all your fear
So you hide, but you find
That the shame won’t disappear
So let it fall down
There’s freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We’re here now
We’re here now
This is where the healing begins
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark
Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don’t fight
This coming light
Let this blood come, cover us
His blood can cover us
This is where the healing begins,
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark
Cleansing
God made us to enjoy life together, as brothers and sisters. In the gospel, we have a resource that can create that life because it brings us boldly into the light of God. Any sin we confess is already covered by the blood of Jesus. And this is the second result of walking in the light mentioned at the end of verse 7.
This verse isn’t saying that we’ll only be cleansed if we confess our sins. It’s saying that, because we all keep sinning in lots of ways, we continually feel dirty. Some may feel irredeemably dirty. We know God loves us and Jesus died for our sins and we believe the gospel. But we live under the oppression of shame, feeling like no one is as dirty as us.
But John is saying that if you’re in Christ, heaven has bathed you. It doesn’t matter how dirty you feel, that doesn’t define you. Jesus took on our dirtiness so that we could have his cleanness. He died on the cross to free us from our defile status and our defiled feelings. It doesn’t mean we won’t feel dirty. It means that we grow as we bring our feelings in line with the decisive once and for all eternity cleansing we have in the blood of Jesus. It says “cleansing from all sin.” This is a comprehensive and decisive cleaning. If you’re in Christ, you are clean. Period.
Therefore, we’ll never confess a sin that isn’t already covered by the blood of Jesus. So we’re free to be honest. We don’t need the approval of other people because God has already justified us in Christ and made us pure by clothing us in his righteousness.
When we start being honest with others about our specific sins, we will start to feel the reality of the forgiveness we already have in Christ. Our hearts begin to relax as we experience the acceptance and love of a brother or sister in Christ as an echo of the acceptance and love of the Father.
[1]John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 75-6.
[2]Ibid., 77.
[3]Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 114.
[4]Quoted in ibid., 114-5.
[5]Ibid., 115-6.
[6]Ibid., 117.
“I Believe; Help My Unbelief!”
Since the beginning of time, people have believed in God and struggled to believe in God. Even among believers, there’s often a tension between faith and doubt. We’re like the father of the boy possessed by a demon in Mark 9, who says to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (v. 24)
Struggling with doubt is a normal part of the Christian life. For more on this see Barnabas Piper’s book Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith. He talks about the tension that marks our lives as believers. He points out that we’re sinners yet called to be holy, we believe God is everywhere though we can see him nowhere, we have one God in three persons but not three gods, we live in this world but are told that its not our home, we’re saved by faith not good works but faith without good works is dead faith, we’re called to follow the teachings of a book that’s clear in some parts but mysterious in others.[1]
Sometimes this tension between faith and doubt is so strong that we wonder whether we’re really Christians at all. Another way to say this is that we all struggle with assurance. We wonder whether we’re really in Christ or not, really saved or not, really going to heaven one day when we die or not. Every one of us has faced and will face these thoughts, and at times they can be agonizing.
Why Do We Struggle with Assurance?
Though there are lots of tensions within Christianity, perhaps the greatest tension we live with isn’t so much about teachings outside of us but rather feelings inside of us. In other words, many of us struggle with assurance because of inner turmoil, not outer teaching, or because of feelings of guilt or shame or fear or anxiety that we can’t shake, not because of some intellectual conundrum.
Why do we struggle with assurance? Many of struggle with assurance because we struggle to believe that being in right relationship with God has nothing to do with our performance. This is understandable because no one on this planet loves us like God does, unconditionally. We get pretty close to that with our kids or spouses. But kids and spouses can do things that sever the relationship. We struggle to love unconditionally but a holy and perfect God puts up with so much stuff from us and still keeps loving us.
Our world is built on performance. In the world, you have to deliver results to get the love. For example, we love our favorite sports hero or musician or actor or politician until they do something we don’t like and then we don’t love them anymore. So it’s hard to imagine a relationship where performance isn’t required to keep the love going. When we screw up, it’s hard for us to believe that our standing with God isn’t changed. We think we need to perform for his love, and we desire to have control, both of which make trusting God’s promise of unconditional love counterintuitive.
Our struggles with assurance are less about intellectual problems with the Christian faith and more about how we view God, how we view ourselves, and how we understand the offer of the gospel. We assume that the gospel is mostly about sin and death rather than grace and life, so we don’t know what to do with utterly free and unconditional kindness from God given to us in the gospel. We know how far we fall short, and we hate ourselves for it and we subtly assume that God does too. Self-contempt, which is another way to describe shame, suffocates our assurance by making us believe that we’re so bad that not even God can love us. So we work our hands to the bones to prove to ourselves, to others, and even to God that we’re good enough to be his. All the while, Jesus waits patiently for us to feel the weight of his words from the cross, “It is finished.”
John about Salvation, First John about Assurance
Christians have struggled with assurance for two thousand years. God, being the kind and wise Father that he is, knew this would happen, so he put a book in the New Testament with the main purpose of helping us know that we’re in the faith. That book is First John, and we’ll be studying it over the next few months.
The same apostle who wrote the Gospel of John wrote this letter, but he had two different purposes in each. The purpose of the Gospel was evangelistic, to help people believe in Jesus. John 20:30-31, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
The purpose of First John was pastoral, to help people know that they belong to Jesus. 1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” The Gospel of John is about salvation. First John is about knowing that you’re saved, or about assurance.
Why Was First John Written?
Why did John need to write this letter to the churches he was connected to about the issue of assurance? Because the believers in these churches were being hounded by false teachers, leading many of them to start questioning whether they really knew God or not.
Some had left these churches (2:19) because they’d been led by false teachers to take different views of Jesus’ person and work (4:1-3) and to believe that keeping God’s commands was optional for Christians (2:4), namely, the command to believe in God’s Son and to love one another (3:23). These teachers were still trying to influence the churches (2:26), and were undermining people’s confidence in the gospel, so John writes to increase their assurance (5:13). These teachers insisted that they had a special anointing which led them to go beyond the gospel and made the people in these churches wonder whether they lacked that anointing and therefore lacked the spiritual insight these teachers had. John wrote to say, “No, you have the only real anointing from God” (2:20, 27).
John loves these people dearly. He calls them “beloved” (2:7), “brothers and sisters” (3:13), and “children” (2:1, 12), terms of endearment. He wants to help his friends see that they’re in the truth, not try to make them think they’re not. The purpose of First John is therefore to comfort Christians, not confuse Christians. This book is not polemical, but pastoral, meant to encourage, not rebuke, to reassure and reestablish troubled saints in the gospel.
This means that we need to read this book hope-fully, looking for ways it confirms the work of God in our lives, not fear-fully, looking to confirm the deep-seated lies we believe about ourselves, that we don’t measure up and never will or can. This book is meant to encourage, not discourage!
In this book, John says that we can know we belong to God by looking at our faith, our lives, and our loves. He gives us a doctrinal, moral, and relational test. These tests aren’t binary: “I either believe or not, obey or not, love or not.” If so, we’d all fail miserably! Rather, they’re meant to show Christians areas where we need to grow.
A Real Person, Known by Real People, Who Proclaim Real Life
The place John begins his letter is doctrinal because our lives flow out of the things we believe in our hearts. John knows that theological error has ethical implications, so he starts his letter by reminding his readers of some foundational theology. In 1:1-4, John says that the gospel is about a real person, known by real people, who now proclaim real life. There’s a lot of overlap in these verses, so we can’t neatly divide them.
As we’ll see throughout this letter, John doesn’t write like Paul. Paul writes like a builder building a tower. John writes like a bee buzzing around three flowers. He keeps coming back around to what we believe, how we live, and how we love. This makes the book repetitive and hard to outline, but it shows us how important these three things are for us to grapple with.
A Real Person
In these opening verses, John highlights the realness of Jesus, the “word of life.” Verses 1-3 is a long and disjointed and confusing sentence! But John’s basic point is that the “word of life” has unmistakably and definitively come into the world, been tangibly experienced by John and others, was proclaimed to the readers of the letter, so that they could have fellowship with God and the people of God.
John wants his readers to know, first of all, that “the word of life,” is “that which was from the beginning.” This reminds us of John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Here “the beginning” means before the creation of the world. In First John 1:1, however, the meaning is slightly different. John is describing the “word of life” as it was incarnate, or enfleshed, in Jesus Christ. So this verse is closer to John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
In this opening verse of the letter, John is recalling what he’s previously written in his Gospel, namely, that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the “word of life,” is coequal with God, is “very God of very God,” as the Nicene Creed says.
But John wants to show us not just the divinity but also the humanity of Jesus. He “heard” him, “saw” him, even “touched him.” Jesus is completely God and completely man. Perhaps the most profound miracle in Christianity is that God was born, that God took on flesh. As The Ligonier Statement on Christology says, “Truly God, he became truly man, two natures in one person.”
Jesus is God in the flesh, a real person, not a nice idea. Dane Ortlund begins his book Deeper by reminding us who Jesus is. He says, “We need to begin by getting clear on who this person is in whom we grow. And we start just there – he is a person. Not just a historical figure, but an actual person, alive and well today. He is to be related to. Trusted, spoken to, listened to. Jesus is not a concept. Not an ideal. Not a force.”[2]
Do you ever meditate on the humanity of Jesus? I often try to visualize what Jesus looks like. One day we won’t have to wonder any more. First John 3:2, “When he appears…we shall see him as he is.”I told Suzy recently that I can’t wait to see Jesus’ face. Do you long to see his face and be embraced by him? Or are you living to impress him instead of enjoy him? Jesus is, not was, a real flesh and blood person, and one day we’ll see his face.
How do you think of Jesus? Is he a nice add-on to your life, someone who’s come to make your already okay life a little better? Or is he the God who made you and wants to know you and walk with you and relate to you?
Known by Real People
Secondly, Jesus was known by real people. Notice the plural pronouns throughout these verses. The Son of God who came in the flesh was experienced by real people. He’s not just a legend or a story handed on to give people something to hope in. John says that he was “seen with our eyes.” He’s writing as an eyewitness. His proclamation of the “word of life” can be trusted because he saw and heard and experienced it first-hand. His account can be trusted over the false teachers because he wasn’t communicating his ideas, but things he’d personally heard and seen.
Did you see the astonishing thing he says in verse 3? He says that he’s preached what he experienced in Jesus to these churches “so that” they can have fellowship with the apostles and with God. The purpose of John’s preaching is fellowship. John Stott says, “The purpose of the proclamation of the gospel is, therefore, not salvation, but fellowship. Yet, properly understood, this is the meaning of salvation.” And another writer says, “Christian fellowship is not the sentimental and superficial attachment of a random collection of individuals, but the profoundly mutual relationship of those who ‘remain’ in Christ, and therefore belong to each other.”
John is making a distinction between the apostles and the false teachers. He’s saying, “Who you’re with determines where you’re going. If you’re with us, as those who’ve physically experienced God in the flesh, then you’re with God because we’re with God.”
This means that those who deny the basic Christian truths about Jesus’ person and work are not part of the people of God. A church isn’t a church just because it says “church” on the building. And a person isn’t a Christian just because they say they are. Only those who have fellowship with the apostles, who have accepted their testimony and staked their lives on it, have fellowship with God. Those who deviate from the apostles do not have fellowship with God.
This is one reason joining and being a part of a local church is so important. Local churches are where we fellowship with the apostles, where we hear their words and seek to live out their instructions together. It’s where we most clearly see the life of Jesus in the world, as we listen and serve and pray and give and worship and grow together into a maturing body of Christ.
“That Our Joy May Be Complete”
Another gift of being in a church is that you have opportunities for more joy. Giving ourselves for the good of others in the church is also a way that God wants to complete our joy (v. 4). John recognizes that his joy in Jesus isn’t complete if his friends in the faith are in danger of leaving the faith and joining false fellowships. So he writes to help their assurance and to increase his joy.
It’s not wrong to do things for others for your joy. Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” It’s not wrong to seek your joy in the joy of others. Jesus came so that our joy would be full (Jn. 15:11). John is saying that one way Jesus’ joy grows in us is by seeking our joy in the good of others.
Do you serve others begrudgingly looking for compliments from them, or humbly looking for joy for you? What kinds of things bring you lots of joy when you do them for others? For me, I like studying the Bible and reading books and putting words together that will hopefully encourage people to love Jesus more. I enjoy wrestling with my kids or getting Suzy a snack at bedtime because it makes her happy. Seeking my joy in theirs isn’t wrong. It’s really right.
Proclaiming Real Life
The gospel is about a real person, known by real people, who, thirdly, proclaim real life. Notice how many times “life” or “eternal life” is mentioned in these verses. Verse 1, “concerning the word of life.” Verse 2, “the life was made manifest…and (we) proclaim to you the eternal life.”
This “eternal life” that was “with the Father and made manifest to us” (v. 2) isn’t an impersonal quality of life that comes from the Father, but refers to the “word of life” (v. 1), the Son of God who was with the Father before his incarnation. John is saying that eternal life is found in Jesus because Jesus is the Son of God who came from the Father, and the Father is the epitome of eternal life. God is eternal life, literally. So God’s Son comes bringing the only kind of life that God has, the eternal kind. Having Jesus, then, is having eternal life. Being in Christ means being caught up into the very life of God, into a quality and quantity of life that is unlike any other.
The message John proclaims is a message that has been embodied in a person – the person of Jesus Christ. For the apostles, Jesus was the message and the message was Jesus. For true churches, Jesus is the message and the message is Jesus. Real Christianity is about Jesus, about who he is and what he did, not about our best ideas about God or about trying to live impressive lives.
Our goal as a church is therefore really simple: stay on message, and the message is Jesus. Our goal isn’t numbers and buildings and programs and baptisms and being cool. Our goal is Jesus. “To live is Christ” Paul says. Our life together, our fellowship, is built on and sustained by Jesus. Not me or Jared or music or location or age demographics or money. Our life together must orbit around Jesus, just as the earth orbits around the sun. If we stop orbiting around him, we die. Apart from him we have nothing and can do nothing.
Do You Have Life?
The gospel is about a real person, known by real people, who now proclaim real life. Do you know Jesus as a real person? Have you accepted what his apostles say about him? Do you have the life of God in you? “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have Son of God does not have life” (1 Jn. 5:11-12).
Having the Son doesn’t mean you won’t have any doubts. Having eternal life doesn’t mean that you won’t struggle with assurance. We aren’t the first ones to live in the tension of “I believe, help my unbelief!”
We’ll spend the next several months considering what having the Son looks like from First John. For now, let me say that having the Son most simply means loving the Son. Those who love Jesus are in Jesus and have Jesus and are held by Jesus. And Jesus in them creates a deepening faith, a more joyful obedience, and stronger loves.
God gave us this letter to comfort us and help us along the narrow road of faith, not to make things more confusing and difficult. So read ahead and pray for these sermons on First John to create life and joy and assurance in your heart. Next week we’ll see how John connects our honesty about sin with our assurance that we’re forgiven.
[1]Barnabas Piper, Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2015), 28-9.
[2]Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 22.
“Sorrowful, Yet Always Rejoicing”
One of my favorite summaries of the Christian life is when Paul says that he is “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). In contrast, I wonder if we’re more likely to walk around pretending to rejoice while we bury our sorrows? Quick to appear happy, slow to reveal sorrow?
This imbalance wreaks havoc in our spiritual, emotional, and physical lives. Why do you think we all binge on media and food and sleep and compulsively buy things we don’t need and work too much and avoid depth and honesty in our relationships?
It’s easier to create an image that is put-together and strong and pretty and capable. Perhaps we prefer to live a lie because we don’t want to face the truth.
I think this is why many of us find praying to be difficult and confusing. We assume that prayer is supposed to be super formal and religious sounding when, if you read the Psalms, prayer is supposed to be honest conversation with God. When was the last time you had an honest conversation with God? Exulting in his love and stating your complaints and giving him the unedited version of how you feel? When was the last time you told God what you really think?
Why We Need the Psalms
The Psalms are honest reflections about the full range of human emotions and experiences. They’re written by people not afraid to admit their fears and doubts and loneliness and sins and struggles and anger and heartache and confusion and frustration.
We resonate with what they’re saying because we often feel the same way they do and we’re drawn to people who aren’t afraid to speak with surprising frankness and honesty. This kind of honesty is often lacking among Christians. We’re say that we’re “fine” and everything is “going well,” even though it isn’t.
Given the existence of a book like Psalms in the Bible, why do we prefer to pretend we’re okay all the time? Is hiding your sorrows and pretending to rejoice helping you walk in the fullness God has for you? Is it creating depth in your relationships?
The Psalms are God’s way of saying to us his people have been a struggling people for thousands of years, and that he’s not intimidated by our questions and complaints.
A Psalm of Utter Despair
The Psalm we’re going to be looking at today – Psalm 13, is about suffering. More specifically, it’s a lament, or crying out, to God by someone who’s on the verge of utter despair. We don’t know all the circumstances behind King David’s words, and it’s probably better that we don’t because if we knew exactly what he was dealing with, we’d think that this Psalm only applies to people who’re dealing with that. The Psalms are purposefully vague on the historical events they’re referencing so that they can be applied to any situation.
What we do know is that David is feeling things in this Psalm that we have all felt and asking questions we’ve all asked. If you’ve ever wondered if God has forgotten you, felt like God was far away, wondered why there was so much turmoil in your heart and if it was ever going to go away, felt that you can’t endure any longer, that it’d be better if you just weren’t alive, you’re not alone. King David – Israel’s king and a forefather of Jesus Christ, struggled with these same thoughts. The Enemy loves to convince us that we’re the only ones who feel or think or struggle with certain things in order to keep us isolated. He knows that the Bible says that there’s nothing you’re dealing with that we all haven’t dealt with at some point. But he tells us we’re the only ones. He tells us that we’re the only ones with that kind of darkness and despair. But God, in mercy, challenges that lie and through the Psalms tells us that some of the greatest saints were some of the greatest sufferers. Isn’t it refreshing to know that inspired writers of Scripture weren’t perfect and put-together, that they were jars of clay like the rest of us?
As we begin a new year, my hope is that this psalm will encourage greater depth and honesty in our prayer lives, that perhaps for the first time in your walk with Christ, you start talking with him with honesty, that our prayers as individuals and as a church would be quickened by a sense of our utterly desperate need for God. My prayer is that God would make us honest in prayer.
David’s Problem
In Psalm 13, we’re going to see three things: David’s problem, David’s petition, and David’s resolution. David’s problem in verses 1-2 can be summarized like this: David thinks that God has abandoned him and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on. He’s on the verge of total despair and he wonders if he can keep going.
Did you notice the question David asks God four times in these two verses: “How long…?” David is growing tired of waiting for God to intervene. “How much longer God do I have to endure this?” “How much longer till you act?” “How much longer till I feel your presence again?” Haven’t we all asked these questions? Have you ever voiced your impatience with God?
Implied in the question is the thought that God has forgotten or abandoned us. We think, “If God was with me then I wouldn’t be feeling this way for so long. So because I do feel this way then God must’ve forgotten about me.” This is how we try to reason our way through the despair and darkness that we feel.
Two Kinds of Darkness
There are two kinds of darkness we all face: internal and external. Internal darkness is when we have no sense of God’s presence, when we think his love and care is absent: “Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?…How long must I…have sorrow in my heart all the day?”
External darkness is when circumstances are not what we want, when we’re mistreated, or when we’re dealt a hand in life that we don’t like. Verse 2, “How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”
Having internal and external darkness at the same time creates the most intense despair. This is where I think David is in Psalm 13. He’s facing suffering externally and internally, which leads him to this place of utter despair.
David knows how to handle this despair, as we’ll see at the end of the Psalm. But many of us don’t, especially when it comes to internal darkness. Many of us suppress, ignore, minimize, lie about, explain away, and are generally naïve about internal suffering.
One of the reasons for this is that we have wrong expectations about the Christian life. Our expectations control how we process and handle what comes to us, how we deal with the experiences of our lives. If I lead you blindfolded to my study and say, “This is a honeymoon suite,” when I take off the blindfold and you see where you’re at you’ll be disappointed. But if I say, “This is a prison cell,” you might say, “Oh, this isn’t so bad.” Expectations control how we process our circumstances.
We think, or expect, that if we’re a good person, if we go to church, if we’re a Christian, then God won’t let bad things happen to us. But that’s a naïve way of thinking. Jesus was a good person and look what happened to him?
So if we think, “God loves me, therefore I’ll never suffer, I’ll never want for anything, I’ll never have bad days, I’ll never have paralyzing doubts and fears and anxieties, I’ll never have turmoil and sorrow in my heart that seems to never go away,” then we’re setting ourselves up for frustration and despair.
We can do everything right and everything can still go wrong – for a long time. So if we have wrong expectations about following God, then we’re likely to end up in really dark places. We may even end up leaving God altogether.
The psalms are showing us a better way. Honest prayer is one of the means God intends to use to keep us. Honest prayer will buoy and secure our souls. Honest prayer sets us free. Honest prayer heals our hearts. And honest prayer glorifies God because he loves the truth.
One reason many of us struggle with this kind of honesty is because we’re busy assessing everyone else. But as long as we’re looking at everyone else, we’ll find it hard to stop and look in the mirror and be really honest with what we see. Spotting specks in other people’s eyes and ignoring logs in our own is a sure way to have a shallow prayer life and miss deep communion with God. But honest prayer starts to free us to truly love others and rescues us from the bondage of comparing and competing and constantly assessing their lives. This kind of honest prayer to God begins with honestly assessing ourselves, our marriages, our purity, our thoughts, our anger, our conflict, our self-righteousness. We won’t be honest with God until we’re honest with ourselves.
David’s Petition
David was in a dark place. That was his problem. How did he respond? Notice David’s petition in verses 3-4.
Notice first of all that David’s complaints and questions in verses 1-2 led him to prayer, “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God.” His despair and frustration led him to God, not away from God. When the darkness sets in, we’re all tempted to stop praying, stop going to church, stop going to community group, stop hanging out with Christian friends, stop reading our Bibles – which are, of course, the things we need the most in times of darkness. David knew this. His despair led him to God in prayer because he knew that God was his only hope for survival.
In verse 3, he asks God for three things. First, he asks God to “consider him,” or to “Look on him” (NIV). Do you think he asks this because God had misplaced him, that he couldn’t see where he was? No, of course not. But when we aren’t getting the relief that we want, we conclude that God must’ve lost interest in us, that he must not see us anymore.
So David says to God: “Look at me,” “consider me.” He’s saying, “I’m over here trying not to die God, can’t you see me, don’t you care?” Even a plea like this is evidence of faith in David’s life. How so? Because David is crying out to God! He hasn’t concluded that God doesn’t exist and gone about his life; he’s crying out to God because he believes God is there and he knows he has nowhere else to go.
The second thing he asks God is that God would “answer him” (v. 3). David began this Psalm with questions and he wants answers. They weren’t just rhetorical devices. These were legitimate questions that David wanted answers to. It’s okay to want God to answer our questions. But we must understand that God’s answers may not be what we want or may not come when we want.
The third thing David asks God is at the end of verse 3 into verse 4. What does he mean when he says, “light up my eyes”? Bringing light back into the eyes signifies bringing new life back to a person. Strength and joy in life is found in the brightness of our eyes.
Then he says that if this doesn’t happen, he’s going to die. David is in so much darkness that he feels like he’s on the verge of death. He’s saying, “God give me light or I’ll die!” His pain created such great agony that he wondered if he could keep on living. I don’t know if he’s suicidal, but he at least feels close to death. And I think that many of us feel this way, we’re just too afraid to talk about it because we want to preserve an image of strength. But brothers and sisters, if your pain has brought you to a place where you despair of life itself, you’re not alone. Suicidal ideation is common among even the people we assume have it all together. I’ve struggled with this. I know how David feels. And I think many of you do as well. I pray that you would find the courage to talk about these things with a trusted friend, pastor, or counselor. One way to bring light back to our eyes is to bring our thoughts into the light. Honesty brings light.
David asks for God to restore this inward light to the eyes of his soul. He says that if God doesn’t do it, he’ll be as good as dead and his enemies will think that they’ve defeated him and they’ll rejoice and taunt over him (v. 4).
Our great Enemy, Satan himself, rejoices to see Christians who live in perpetual and paralyzing despair because he knows that they won’t have any desire to know or serve Christ. May God “light up our eyes” and take away any reason for our Enemy to boast over us, to think that he’s defeated us. Micah 7:8-9 has repeatedly restored and inspired this kind of hope in me.
David’s Resolution
After David has stated his problem and his petition, he concludes with a resolution (vv. 5-6). Despite his despair, David is resolved to rejoice in the salvation of the Lord. His prayers turn to praises. He’s resolved to worship God in the middle of the darkness.
His sorrow and pain didn’t just disappear between verses 4 and 5. Notice the word “but” at the beginning of verse 5. He’s contrasting what he’s said with what he’s about to say. He’s saying, “Despite all I’ve said in verses 1-4, despite my pain and my sense of abandonment, I’m choosing to trust in God and rejoice in his salvation. I will not let myself stay in the darkness.”
Where does the strength for David’s resolve come from? Verse 5, “I have trusted in your steadfast love.” The term for “steadfast love” is a powerful and rich word. It’s the Hebrew word hesed, and it refers to God’s unchanging, unfailing, and loyal love to his covenant people Israel. It’s the redeeming and specific love that God has for his people.
As David remembers the mercy and love of God toward the people of Israel, how he loved them and redeemed them and provided for them despite their sin, David’s heart rejoices. God’s saving love toward Israel was why he could trust in God while being frustrated with God.
David’s trust in God’s love even created joy, “My heart shall rejoice” (v. 5). And his joy led to singing, “I will sing to the Lord” (v. 6). Singing is one of the primary means that God has given us to express our joy in God’s love. Singing in church is a result of trusting and rejoicing in the love of God.
Looking to the Past for Strength in the Present
David’s confidence in God was rooted in things that happened in the past. Verse 6, “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” God’s “bountiful” dealings with David in the past are enabling him to worship in the present, despite the darkness he’s in. David is looking backwards to God’s acts of grace in the past in order to find strength to face his present.
We also must look to what God has done in the past in order to find strength to face the present. When the dark days seem to never end, we must remember the dark day when the Son of God was put to death for our sins. On that day, Jesus was forgotten by God so that we might be remembered by him. God hid his face from his Son so that he might shine his face on us. Jesus’ enemies prevailed over him so that our enemies of sin, Satan, and death might not prevail over us. Jesus slept the sleep of death in order that our eyes might be brightened eternally.
Because of what Jesus did, we must never think that God has forgotten us. We may feel that he has abandoned us, that he has stopped loving and caring for us, that he has given us over to our enemies, but we must not let our feelings have the last word. We must be resolved, like David, to remember the steadfast love of the Lord, to remember that, in Jesus, God has dealt bountifully with us.
The cross of Jesus Christ is God’s way of telling you every day, “I have not forgotten about you.” If you’re feeling any of what David felt, may God give you grace to be honest with him and with others, strength to run to him and not away from him, and resolve to trust and rejoice in his love. May 2023 be the year when you start talking honestly with God.
Prayer is Like Breathing
John Onwuchekwa, in his book Prayer, talks about the turning point in his prayer life. Just before he planted the church he pastored, his thirty-two-year-old brother died suddenly. There was no explanation, no cause of death, nothing conclusive in the autopsy, no foul play. He was gone, just like that. He said it was like the air was knocked out of him and he couldn’t breathe.
John said that for the first time in his life he understood that honest prayer was like breathing. Listen to how he describes the way his pain changed his prayers, “My filter vanished as my tongue was unhinged in prayer. I was both shocked and relieved, ashamed and angry at the words coming out of my mouth. I called God a liar. He seemed cruel and uncaring. Then in the same breath, I asked him to shower me with grace. I felt disdain, anger, hatred. And I told him. I couldn’t help but tell him. It all just kept coming out. Pain felt like a truth serum that forced me to confess all of my unworthy thoughts of him. And he took it. Every ounce of it. He corrected my negative view, not with words of rebuke but words of consolation. While I was drowning in sorrow, he emptied my oxygen tank to force me to come up for air. When I came up to him, I wasn’t met with the cold shoulder I deserved, but with open arms. Whatever I was doing before wasn’t praying. It was formal, cold, sterile, rehearsed, and rote. For the first time in my life, I felt like I knew what it was to pray, to commune with God. When I offered the cares of my heart to God – every one of them – I met a God who wasn’t scared to take those cares on as I was to share them. God transformed my brother’s final breaths into some of my first. As a result, my whole life pivoted…(I finally understood that) prayer is like breathing.”[1]
“Pain was like a truth serum,” making all his true thoughts come out. God intends to use our pain to draw us in closer and take us deeper with him. Our prayers often feel “formal, cold, sterile, rehearsed, and rote” because we aren’t actually talking honestly with God. We’re role-playing, pretending to be something we’re not, putting our best foot forward, when all the while God knows exactly where we are and wants to meet us there with open arms, not stern looks and words of rebuke. When has God ever desired religious duty over truth?
This can be the year you start talking with God like David in the psalms, talking to him through prayer like your life depended on it, realizing that prayer is like breathing, understanding that your pain is exactly where God wants to meet you and that pretending all is well when it’s not is going to continue to suffocate your soul. Maybe this is the year that God empties your oxygen tank of self-reliance so that you’ll come up for air in his presence.
[1]John Onwuchekwa, Prayer: How Praying Together Shapes the Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 21-2.
In Genesis 34, something objectively evil happens and the response to it by the “good guys” is also objectively evil and reprehensible. Moses doesn’t include this story because he approves of what’s done here, or because he just wants to teach us something about family honor. He includes this story to remind us that God’s relationship with his people is built on grace, not his people’s stellar moral abilities.
In this chapter, we see transgression (vv. 1-7), negotiation (vv. 8-24), and retribution (vv. 25-31).
Transgression
In verses 1-7, we see a terrible transgression. Shechem, like many men today, saw a beautiful woman and assumed it was his right to have her and do what he wanted with her. Verse 2 may not use the word rape, but how else would you describe a man “seizing” a woman to sleep with her, leaving her “humiliated”?
Then we read verses 3-4 and we think, “Oh, Shechem loves her and wants to marry her, so what he did to her is okay.” No, it isn’t. He doesn’t love her or he wouldn’t have raped her. He would’ve gone to her family first and told them he wanted to marry her and they could’ve settled on a price. But Shechem didn’t want to take “no” for an answer. He saw what he wanted and he took it.
This is a picture of the kind of possessiveness that often follows sexual assault. After an incident like this, there’s often a “honeymoon” period where the abuser wants to pull the person in and make them think that they’re great. An abusive and controlling person will often do something horrible and then make it seem like everything is alright and that they aren’t a bad person and if the victim disagrees, then they’re blamed for not loving or forgiving the abuser.
Shechem took what he wanted, and then he told his father to go and get him what he wanted. In verse 2, he was physically overpowering. In verse 3, he tries to be verbally overpowering. But words and actions can’t undo the violation and harm he’s committed against Dinah.
Skeptics read stories like this in the Bible and say that the Bible affirms the abuse of women. But, as we’ll see, this is actually a story that teaches the very opposite. As one writer says, “We must distinguish between what the Bible reports and what it supports, between what it asserts and what it authorizes…(just) because the Bible reports something does not mean that it supports what it reports.”1 Verse 7 says that this kind of behavior is never to be condoned in “Israel.”
Interestingly, the sequence of “seeing” then “seizing” her is the same sequence in the episode of the sons of God taking the daughters of men in chapter 6, and the same order of Eve and the forbidden fruit in the Garden. First comes the desire, then the action when the lust is not checked. This pattern lives in our hearts and minds when we see something we want but know we shouldn’t have but take it anyway.
Satan is busy trying to convince us that the thing we need is the thing that God forbids. He offers promises for our joy that contradict God’s promises for our joy. And then when we follow him, he turns it around on us and accuses us for believing his promises.
To make matters worse, when Jacob finds out what happened, he doesn’t do anything (v. 5). Why doesn’t he respond with shock and outrage, like his sons do in verse 7? In Genesis 37, when Jacob finds out about Joseph’s apparent death, he tears his clothes and puts on sackcloth and mourns for a long time, even refusing to be comforted by his other children. There’s none of that here. Perhaps this is further evidence of Jacob’s favoritism. What we do know is that a non-reaction is a reaction, and that it’s extremely hurtful and even more damaging to a victim if the people closest to her don’t fight for her.
Then Hamor comes in verse 6 and starts the conversation about Shechem marrying the girl he raped. Then in verse 7 Jacob’s sons come home and they respond in the opposite way Jacob did. They’re “indignant and very angry” over this “outrageous thing” that was done to their sister. This is the way every man should feel when they learn of a woman who’s been abused.
Negotiation
In verses 8-24, Hamor and Shechem start negotiating with Jacob and his sons over Dinah. Hamor seems to think that since Shechem “longs” to be with Dinah, then she should be given to him to be his wife. Their thinking is, “Okay, so there was a forcible rape, but that’s nothing a follow-up marriage can’t fix.”
This kind of sexual immorality and evil is what characterized the pagan Canaanites and should be seen as “outrageous” among God’s people. Men, just because you want something doesn’t mean that you must have it. Desires are not rights. Husbands, if you start manipulating and pouting and whining when your wife doesn’t give you what you want, your actions reflect the pagan Canaanites.
Hamor and Shechem offer lands and marriages and a great bride price. Their offer seems generous, but did you notice the one thing they forgot? There’s no mention of Shechem’s humiliation of Dinah. No apology. The offer doesn’t contain one hint that what Shechem did to Dinah was evil and reprehensible. They aren’t interested in making things right. They’re only interested in making things go away.
Then in verses 13-17, the sons of Jacob make a counteroffer. Verse 13 says they answered “deceitfully because he had defiled their sister Dinah.” This isn’t the way to do things. Fighting fire with fire just makes bigger fires. Notice that it’s Jacob’s sons, and not Jacob himself, who take the lead in these negotiations. Jacob’s passivity in this whole account is baffling and wrong.
Their offer is simple: we’ll let you have Dinah if all the males among you are circumcised. In chapter 17, God gave Abraham and his family circumcision as a sign of the covenant people and their separation from the rest of the nations. But the way Jacob’s sons are trying to use it is a reversal of God’s intention. They offered circumcision as a means for these two families to become “one people” (v. 16). Using the covenant sign as a ploy to kill your enemies is wicked. It’d be like using baptism to drown people.
In verses 18-24, Hamor and Shechem convince all the males of their city to be circumcised. I would loved to have heard that conversation! Nowhere do they tell the men why they need to do this. There’s not a word about Shechem’s defilement of Dinah and how this is the way for him to have her as his wife. They focus on the material gains that intermarrying with Jacob’s family will have for them (v. 23).
Jacob’s sons are being deceitful with Hamor and Shechem, and Hamor and Shechem are being deceitful with their city. The deceivers are themselves being deceived.
Retribution
In verses 25-31, Jacob’s sons bring retribution on Hamor and Shechem and their city. Dinah had six full blooded brothers, but only two, Simeon and Levi, went into the city to kill all the males.
We’re not sure why, but it’s likely that Moses gives us these details to show us why the second and third born sons of Jacob have disqualified themselves from kingship. In the next chapter we’ll see why his firstborn son Reuben also disqualifies himself. Moses is making a case for why the king must come through the line of Judah, Jacob’s fourth born son. Judah, at the end of Genesis, is portrayed as the exact opposite of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi.
There may also be some anticipation of the way that the descendant of the seed of Jacob will visit wrath upon his enemies through his victory on the third day (v. 25). On the third day after the circumcision, the pain from the operation would’ve been the most intense and fever would’ve set in, making the men totally incapacitated and unable to fight back.
The killing is followed by pillaging (vv. 27-29). It appears that all the other brothers came at this point, finishing what Simeon and Levi started.
Jacob’s response to all this in verse 30 is more of the same from him. Jacob’s concerns are pragmatic, not moral or ethical. He’s more interested in peace than honor. As one commentator notes, “It is ironic to hear Jacob venting his disgust over Simeon’s and Levi’s failure to honor their word…for he had done exactly that on more than one occasion.”2 Just one chapter earlier, he told Esau he would meet him in Seir but went into Canaan.
Simeon and Levi get the last word in verse 31. Moses lets their rhetorical question stand as a fitting end to this tragic event.
Should We Treat Our Enemies Like This?
Is this story meant to teach us how we should treat our enemies? Of course not. Israel was meant to enact God’s justice on the earth. But things shifted when Jesus came. He, as the new and perfect Israel, came to defeat even greater threats to God’s people, namely, sin, Satan, and death. He did this by dying on the cross and then rising again on the third day.
Jesus will come again to kill all of God’s enemies, but Paul makes it clear that our job until that day is to “repay no one evil for evil” and to “never avenge ourselves.” Rather, we’re to “leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:17, 19). We don’t have to pay people back because one day God will.
Then Paul says something surprising, “To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (v. 21). He says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (v. 22). This coming from the guy who killed his enemies, the first Christians!
Something shifted in Paul after he saw the glory of Jesus and received the grace of Jesus. And so it is with us. We may feel like hurting those who hurt us, and that’s understandable. Suppressing those feelings is neither healthy nor wise. If you’re not processing those thoughts, they’ll start to own you and turn you into a something you don’t want to be. But no matter what we feel, we must remember that God in Christ gave us mercy instead of death. He could’ve hurt us for how we’ve dishonored and defiled his holy name, but he gave us grace instead.
So we’re marked as people who do the same. When we’re hurt, we bless. When we’re abused, we pray. When we’re sinned against, we forgive. If we don’t forgive our enemies, we’ll start to become like them. In his new book on forgiveness, Tim Keller says, “If you don’t deal with your wrath through forgiveness, wrath can make you a wraith, turning you slowly but surely into a restless spirit, into someone who’s controlled by the past, someone who’s haunted.”
When we forgive, we show the world what the true Israel, Jesus Christ, is like. This means that the local church should be known for its mercy, not its muscle, known for our love not our score-keeping, known for our forgiveness, not our revenge and grudge-holding.
A Son Not Like the Other Sons
This is one of the darkest chapters in the Bible. One thing this chapter is doing is setting up the problem that will be resolved in the next section of Genesis on Joseph. Jacob’s sons are violent and unrighteous men, and their sin risks tearing the family apart. The story of Joseph is the narrative where God provides a response to Israel’s own wickedness. Joseph redeems and transforms his family by not being like his family. He’s not a man of vengeance, not a man of violence. He transforms his family by forgiving them.
This chapter is showing us just how unrighteous God’s people are. The resolution to this problem is coming in the next section. Someone from within the family must be unlike the family in order to redeem the family.
This redeemer, Joseph, of course points forward to another member of Jacob’s family who was unlike all his family members. All of Israel and all the world has acted unrighteously. Yet there is One who hasn’t. This one, Jesus Christ, seed of the woman, offspring of Abraham, the true and greater Israel, stepped forward to redeem his family by not being like his family.
He’s not a man of violence, but a man of peace. He’s not a man of vengeance, but a man of forgiveness. He’s not a man of deceitfulness, but a man of truth. He’s not a man of sin, but a man of righteousness. He’s not like his brothers but came to save his brothers. Praise God for the Son of Israel who’s not like Israel’s other sons.
Lord’s Supper
In the Lord’s Supper, we remember and give thanks to God for his Son, the Son of Israel who’s not like Israel’s other sons. He’s the righteous One who came to save unrighteous ones like us.
God, man, Christ, response.
Those who’ve trusted in Jesus remember what he did on the cross by observing the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is for Christians, for baptized believers who belong to a local church. If you’re not yet a baptized follower of Jesus who’s part of a local church, we’re glad you’re here, but we’d encourage you to refrain from taking the Supper. If you’re a visitor and you’ve been baptized as a believer and you’re a member in good standing at another gospel-preaching church, you’re welcome to observe the Supper with us.
Let’s pause and confess our sins to God, remember the cross, and prepare our hearts for the Supper.
- Pray for God’s blessing over the Supper (ushers and musicians come forward).
- The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, preserves your body and soul for everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your heart by faith, and be thankful. (take the bread)
- The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for you, preserves your body and soul for everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for you, and drink on him in your heart by faith, and be thankful. (take the juice)
- Let’s stand and sing “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”
A New Car!
Imagine that you’re just out of college and about to start your first job and your car is on its last leg. It’s way past time to replace it with something more dependable. So you go to the car dealership and pick out a new car and start filling out the paperwork. But then one of the managers walks over to you and says that you’ll be getting the car for free. It just so happens that this is the 500th car the dealership has sold since opening and the owner wants to mark the occasion by giving away a free car.
What would you feel in that moment? You would probably feel a strange mixture of confusion and relief wash over your body. You would wonder, “Is this a joke? This can’t be happening. This is too good to be true, but if it is true I’ll never forget this.” Tears of joy well up and you walk out of the dealership with a new hopefulness and confidence about life.
Too Good to Be True?
Someone has said, “The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about the Christian’s faith is that it obviously presumes far too much. It is too good to be true.”[1]
What does this mean? It means that when we present the gospel to someone who doesn’t yet believe it, it should seem unbelievable. It should strike them as an impossibility, as something that’s made up because offers like that just don’t exist in the world.
The good news of the gospel is that God is like the owner of that car dealership. Out of the abundant wealth of his love, he gives us mercy when we least expect it and when we don’t deserve it. That the God who created us would want to live with us when we’ve done nothing but ignore and minimize him since birth is beyond explanation. It sounds too good to be true.
Unexpected and Extravagant Love
This too-good-to-be-true sensation is what we find in Genesis 33 when Jacob finally meets his brother Esau. In a way that no one sees coming, especially Jacob, Esau lavishes love on Jacob, showing us the unexpected and extravagant nature of God’s love.
The main point of this text and this sermon is that God’s love, like Esau’s for Jacob, is unexpected and extravagant and that it can be trusted. First, we’ll see Jacob meeting Esau (vv. 1-11) and second, we’ll see Jacob leaving Esau (vv. 12-20). My prayer is that this text reminds us that God loves giving us more than we deserve.
Jacob Meets Esau
In verses 1-11, Jacob meets Esau. This is an amazing scene. Jacob and Esau are finally meeting after twenty years. The air must’ve been electric.
When Jacob sees Esau and his entourage approaching, in verse 2 he divides up his family again, just as he had done the day before (32:7). His favoritism toward Rachel and Joseph is evident by Jacob putting them last in the company, ensuring that they’ll have the best chance to escape if things go sideways with Esau.
Verse 3 says that Jacob “went on before them.” The night before it appeared that Jacob was sending his family first while he stayed at the back (32:22-23). But this shows us that the new Israel is triumphing over the old fear-dominated Jacob. His wrestling match with God left him with a new limp and with a new courage.
Verse 3 also says that Jacob “bowed himself to the ground seven times” as he approached Esau. Jacob surely remembers the words that his father Isaac spoke over him, the blessing meant for Esau. Part of that blessing was, “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you” (27:29). By bowing before Esau, it seems that Jacob is trying to undo his great act of deception when he took the blessing that rightly belonged to Esau.
Throughout this scene we see Jacob trying to give gifts to Esau, attempting to return the blessing that should have been Esau’s. Perhaps this was done out of fear and self-preservation. Or perhaps the all-night wrestling match with God broke something in Jacob’s heart and not just his hip. Like Zacchaeus, perhaps God’s love was leading him to make restitution to the person he’d hurt (Lk. 19:1-10).
An Unexpected Embrace
No one, least of all Jacob, expects Esau’s greeting (v. 4). Jacob expected revenge from Esau, or at least heavy bargaining to appease him. We the reader have no reason to think that Jacob’s fears aren’t well-founded. Jacob had stolen the birthright and the blessing from Esau, and Esau wanted to kill him (27:41). We’d understand if Esau killed him on the spot. Nothing prepares us to see Esau running and embracing and kissing and weeping with his brother. Esau has obviously had a change of heart.
Why are we surprised when this is what Jacob prayed for in 32:11? Oh how often do we ask the Lord to do things that we don’t actually think that he can do! Esau’s posture is the result of Jacob’s prayer. As the hymn says, “Lord, now indeed I find thy power and thine alone, can change the leper’s spots and melt the heart of stone.”
Jacob is approaching with seven bows; Esau is approaching with hugs and kisses. All of Jacob’s plans and schemes to appease his brother pale in comparison to his brother’s joy upon his return. Esau lavishes unexpected and extravagant love on his wayward brother.
This is not what we’d expect from Esau, the son who’s outside the covenant promises of God. But it’s Esau, not Jacob, who reveals something of God’s heart in this moment. Even Jacob realizes this, for he says in verse 10, “For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.” In his brother Jacob sees something of his God.
Another Prodigal Son
The language used here is picked up by Jesus in one of his most famous stories, the parable of the prodigal son. Remember what happens? A father has two sons. One of them chooses to take his father’s wealth and run away and squander it in foolish living. Eventually, he comes to his senses and decides to return home and make things right with this father.
But then the unbelievable happens. Jesus says, “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him (sound familiar?). And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found’” (Lk. 15:20-24).
This father doesn’t wait with folded arms and furrowed brow on the front porch. As soon as he sees his son coming home, compassion wells up in him and he takes off running and grabs his son and kisses him before he can even get his apology out.
The God Jesus is describing loves sinners so much that he runs to them in their shame. He even goes after the self-righteous older brother who’s upset that dad has been so extravagantly kind to his brother and begs him to come into the celebration (vv. 25-32). Jesus, like Esau, moves toward sinners, whether self-righteous or unrighteous. Jesus isn’t repelled by sinners.
“The Friend of Sinners”
Remember what Jesus’ enemies called him? “The friend of sinners” (Mt. 11:19, Lk. 7:34). This accusation, though laced with contempt, is a deep comfort for those who know themselves to be in this category. Is this you? These are the people who were drawn to be around Jesus. Luke says that “sinners were drawing near to hear him” (15:1). Those who knew themselves to be sinners felt safe around Jesus.
It’s the self-righteous who don’t want to be around him. They assume that he’s more like an employer than a friend. So they work their hands to the bone building an edifice of moral superiority and religious zeal so that others will assume that they’re good with God, when all the while their hearts are hard and empty and angry and devoid of grace.
But those who feel the weight of their shame and guilt are drawn to Jesus. Listen to how Dane Ortlund describes Jesus as “the friend of sinners”:
“What does it mean that Christ is a friend of sinners? At the very least, it means that he enjoys spending time with them. It also means that they feel welcome and comfortable around him…They are at ease around him. They sense something different about him. Others hold them at arms’ length, but Jesus offers the enticing intrigue of fresh hope. What he is really doing, at bottom, is pulling them into his heart.”[2]
Jesus, as Paul understood, came into the world to save sinners, not people with assumed righteousness. Jesus lived a life of perfect fulfillment of God’s law, hung on a cross in agonizing pain, and rose from the dead so that sinners can be reconciled to the holy God who made them, so that God’s judgment will be turned away from them, leaving only mercy and love for them.
Everyone who acknowledges their sin and Jesus’ sufficiency to forgive it will be forgiven. Like Esau, God runs toward those who understand their need and lavishes the abundant riches of his love on them, leaving them thinking, “This seems too good to be true!” But it is true. In Jesus, God surprises us with his vast and free and steadfast love.
The end of verse 4 says, “and they wept.” Esau’s approach broke something in Jacob. Jacob knew what he’d done. He knew that he deserved to die, to pay severely for what he’d done. But when approached with the warmth and love and affection of his brother, emotion welled up in him that he probably didn’t expect. And so it is with the love of God. It often touches us and breaks us in places we aren’t prepared for.
Jacob Returns the Blessing to Esau
The ice is broken between Jacob and Esau. The would-be murderer has become a reconciled brother. Now they can start their conversation.
In verse 5, Esau is curious, wondering, “Who are these people?” Jacob introduces his family, who all bow themselves before Esau just like Jacob did (vv. 6-7). Then Esau asks about the barrage of livestock he’s met on the way in verse 8. Jacob honestly admits that it was a gesture to secure favor from Esau. In verse 9, Esau says he doesn’t need the gift, but in verse 10 Jacob insists that he have it and in verse 11 Esau finally complies.
Perhaps Jacob insists that Esau receive his gift because he couldn’t be sure of his forgiveness if he refuses his attempt to make amends. Perhaps he insists because he wants Esau to receive the blessing that he’d stolen from him (note the word “blessing” used in verse 11). Either way, Jacob wants to give rather than take a blessing away from Esau.
Jacob Leaves Esau
Their meeting is unexpectedly warm, and unexpectedly short. In verses 12-20, we see Jacob leaving Esau. Esau invites Jacob to come with him to the land of Seir (v. 12). But Jacob courteously declines the offer, saying that his children and herds can’t keep up with Esau and his band of warriors (vv. 13-14).
Ironically, in verse 15, it turns out that the men who came with Esau aren’t for battle with Jacob but to help Jacob in the final leg of his journey. But Jacob again refuses and Esau returns south to Seir while Jacob turns west to Succoth (vv. 16-17).
At the end of verse 14, Jacob says that he’ll eventually “come to my lord in Seir.” But it appears that he never had any intention of doing so, as verse 17 indicates. What’s going on here?
Perhaps Jacob doesn’t trust Esau. Maybe he thinks that Esau’s charity wouldn’t last and conflict would eventually rise between them. But there could be a theological reason why Jacob doesn’t go to Seir with Esau. Jacob wants to go home (30:25) and the Lord told him to return home to the land of Canaan (31:3, 13; 32:9). Seir is not in Canaan. Jacob’s father is in Canaan. Maybe this is why Jacob turns toward Canaan instead of Seir. Either way, he says one thing but does another.
“Character Glitches” in Martin Luther
It shouldn’t surprise us that Jacob acts in a somewhat slippery way here. The reasons why people do things aren’t always clear to even the people doing them. Don’t we see “character glitches” in all of God’s servants in the Bible? There are disappointing inconsistencies that, given their allegiance to the Lord, shouldn’t be there.
This is true for all of God’s people, even our heroes. Martin Luther, for example, was not a model Christian in his health-impaired later years.[3] Biographer Roland Bainton says he became “an irascible old man, petulant, peevish, unrestrained, and at times positively course.” Luther refused to recognize Zwingli and the Swiss reformers as Christians. One contemporary of Luther’s said of him, “Since he has lost control of himself, he believes that the greatest sin and the most unfair act in the world is to criticise him. We have here a miserable creature who smashes heaven and earth because we have told him that he too, as a man, might err.”
Luther was a champion for the gospel and for God, but this kind of behavior shouldn’t mark those who serve Christ. Ironically, earlier in life Luther had counseled the Christians in Wittenberg to be patient with their enemies. While he was away, they were going around smashing Catholic altars, images, shrines, and stained-glass windows. The town leaders asked Luther to come back quickly and he did, telling the radicals who were trying to “push reforms down the throat of the community that they needed to ‘give people time.’ It took Luther three years of study to see what needed to be done. How could people be moved to welcome reforms in three months?” Luther said, “You are wrong to think that you get rid of an abuse by destroying the object which is misused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we prohibit wine and abolish women? Sun, moon, and stars have been worshipped. Shall we pluck them out of the sky? Your haste and violence reveal a lack of confidence in God.”
We need to remember that Jacob, or Luther, or ourselves, don’t drop out of the sky fully formed in the image of Christ. We don’t excuse deviousness or inconsistencies. We call things what they are. But we need to, as Luther said, “give people time,” not expecting people to be where we are when it’s taken us a lifetime to get there, and not to be shocked when sinners sin. As a church, we need to be a place where sinners are helped, not scolded.
Jacob teaches us that even people who wrestle with God and walk away with a limp and a blessing also walk away with a sin nature and an everyday need for sanctifying grace.
Home At Last
There’s a detail in the last few verses of this chapter I don’t want us to miss. In verse 18, it says that Jacob “came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan.” In his commentary on these chapters called God’s Rascal, Dale Davis says that the clause “in the land of Canaan” “ought to be in blinking neon lights.”[4] This detail means that God has fulfilled the promise he made to Jacob in 28:15.
It’s amazing how subtly God’s faithfulness appears in this text. We would walk right by it if we weren’t reading carefully. It’s hidden away in a little prepositional phrase, “in the land of Canaan.” Sometimes God’s faithfulness is big and obvious for all to see. Sometimes it’s quiet and unnoticed but clear to those who experience it.
When God made that promise to Jacob, it looked highly unlikely because Jacob was headed out of the land of Canaan and would face, as Davis says, “a scheming uncle and bickering wives and daily drudgery and threat of fraternal vengeance and some twenty years.”[5] But God’s word held firm “through many dangers, toils, and snares.” God’s amazing grace came to Jacob in the embrace of his brother Esau and in his safe arrival to his home in Canaan. God gave him more than he could’ve hoped or imagined.
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
This isn’t an accidental or incidental part of the Bible’s story. As Jesus’ disciples, we need to know whether our God is faithful to his people or not. This text, and thousands more, tell us that he is. This truth gives us hope when we hear Jesus say things like, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you?” (Jn. 14:2) We can hang on to these words because they come from the lips of One who speaks with complete candor and absolute reliability. We can rest all our weight on his promise: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (v. 3).
God did what he told Jacob he would do, and he’ll do what he tells us he’ll do. Jesus will come back for us and bring us safely to his house to live with him. This is why we sing, “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee, Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not, as Thou has been, Thou forever will be.”
A Beautiful and Mysterious Text
In this text, we’ve seen Jacob meet Esau and then leave Esau. We’ve been reminded of God’s unexpected and extravagant love.
This is a beautiful and mysterious text. It shows us how Jacob’s wrestling match with God prepared him to meet his brother. Courage has replaced cowardice, humility has replaced arrogance, and penitence prompts Jacob to give back the blessing that he’d stolen from Esau. Jacob has truly been reborn as Israel.
But we see that Esau has also changed. The would-be murderer receives his prodigal brother with over-the-top affection. He even invites Jacob to come live with him in Seir. Such an invitation after so many years of hatred makes this offer sound too good to be true. The full and free forgiveness that Esau gives his deceitful brother is a picture of God’s surprising love, as Jacob even seems to understand (v. 10). This is why Jesus uses the language of this scene when describing God’s extravagant welcome for anyone who realizes their need for him.
This text also shows us that Jacob’s new birth at Peniel didn’t obliterate his past or completely change his character. The new Israel still has features of the old Jacob. He doesn’t seem to entirely trust Esau’s acceptance of him. His old fears and suspicions still lurk in his heart. Even though he says he’ll join Esau in Seir, he never makes that journey. This reminds us of our reluctance to trust God entirely despite the extravagant displays of his love and faithfulness toward us, and we’re encouraged to keep journeying with God because he’s for us, not against us.
By the end of the chapter, we may think that the story of Jacob’s life has reached its conclusion: Israel is finally at home in the land promised to Abraham. But, as we’ll see next week, what looks like a great resolution proves to be the beginning of another crisis.
[1]Gavin Ortlund, Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t: The Beauty of Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), viii.
[2]Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 114-5.
[3]See Dale Ralph Davis, God’s Rascal: The Jacob Narrative in Genesis 25-35 (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2022), 104-5, for these accounts from Luther’s life.
[4]Ibid., 107.
[5]Ibid.
More Hiding
In Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve broke God’s word, realize their nakedness, and hide themselves because of shame, God comes to them and draws them out of hiding with grace, rather than driving them out with fear. God comes to sinners in their shame and, instead of driving them away with threats, he draws them out with mercy.
In our text this morning, 3:11-13, we see God continue to draw Adam and Eve out of hiding with questions. But unfortunately, God’s questions lead to more hiding on Adam and Eve’s part. This time it’s verbal hiding. Instead of directly answering God’s questions about their guilt, they run behind excuses to evade their responsibility and minimize their guilt.
Adam’s Sin is Our Sin
Before we examine the exchange of questions and answers between God and Adam and Eve, lets all collectively confess that we are no better than they. We do what they did all the time. Our lived experience of this is evidence that we all shared in the first sin. Adam, as the first man, stood in the position of the head of the whole human race, meaning that he acted as the representative for us all.
The Bible teaches this in the New Testament, but we also experience it because we do exactly what he did, following him in excuse-making rather than honest confession. So as we study this ancient exchange, we must see it as a mirror meant to show us ourselves, specifically how we typically respond to our guilt.
Our study this morning will follow the order of the exchange between God and Adam and Eve. We’ll look at God’s two questions to Adam (v. 11), Adam’s evasive response (v. 12), and then God’s question to Eve and her evasive response (v. 13). If you want a more catchy outline: God’s questions (v. 11), Adam’s answer (v. 12), God’s question and Eve’s answer (v. 13).
God’s Questions
In verse 11, God responds to Adam with two more questions. The fact that God comes and calls Adam and Eve at all is an act of grace. He could’ve destroyed them immediately. But it’s also an evidence of grace that Adam is able to hear God’s voice and respond, that though sin had so polluted his heart that he didn’t want to face God, he was nonetheless still able to hear his voice.
Adam’s response in verse 10 elicits two more questions from God. The first one is a bit strange, “Who told you that you were naked?” This is strange because nakedness is not a condition that we need to be made aware of! No one has to tell you if you’re naked – you know!
The question behind the question is, “Why are you ashamed of your nakedness?” It’s a rhetorical question meant to show Adam that no one is necessary to point out his shame because his guilt is what caused it. He didn’t need Eve or the serpent to point out his nakedness. It was his guilt, not stumbling across his reflection in a pool, that told him he was naked.
Sometimes we may be quick to assume that our feelings of shame are arising from someone or somewhere else, when they’re actually God’s way, through the means of our conscience, of speaking to us about our guilt. False guilt from friends is not cool. But true guilt from God is a gift that makes us ready for grace, because without guilt we’d never know there was a problem or see our need for grace.
There’s no commentary from God after he asks the first question. He follows it immediately with a second question, “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” God gets right to the real issue. Like a good prosecutor, rather than charge the defendant with law-breaking, he allows him to acknowledge his own crime. With this question, God is urging confession, not condemnation.
With these back-to-back questions God is trying to show Adam that his shame is because of his sin. He’s trying to show him that his knowledge of his nakedness is a result of breaking God’s command.
The issue for God is clear. He wants Adam to see and own his guilt. He’s giving him opportunity to confess his sin and ask for forgiveness. He’s inviting Adam to give an honest assessment of what happened: “Did you break my command?”
Confessing Sin to God and Each Other
We don’t know what would’ve happened if Adam came clean and confessed his sin. But we do know what happens when we confess our sins to God: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9). God will forgive and cleanse everyone who’s honest with him.
And we know what happens when we confess our sins to other Christians: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (Js. 5:16). This is one of many “one another” commands in the New Testament telling us how members of the church are supposed to live together. This verse says that it should be normal for church members to be honest with other church members about their sins.
You’re either confessing or suppressing your sins. And only one of these strategies will actually help you. Psalm 32:3-4, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”
Keeping silent about your sin zaps your spiritual energy. Confessing your sin refreshes and recharges you in the Lord. Ray Ortlund explains:
“Confessing your sins to Jesus alone isn’t that hard, is it? It’s a good thing to do, don’t get me wrong. But does private confession to him alone free you all that much? Confessing your sins openly to brothers you respect – that’s different. It’s like dying. It destroys the false self you’ve been projecting. But when you start revealing the sin-sick man you really are, Jesus himself becomes more real. And you become more real. And brotherhood becomes more real. You exhale and relax, because you finally belong.”[1]
Walking in the light leads to life. Hiding in the darkness leads to despair and death. You have to choose whether you’re going to be impressive or be known, but you can’t be both.
Those who obey this command and find a brother or sister to confess sin to and pray with “will be healed.” Healing, not scolding, is what we need, and it’s what Jesus promises. Yes, James 5 is about literal, physical healing, but there’s no end to the kind of healing God can give. What if you started doing this and the healing came in the form of feeling forgiven by God, feeling clean inside like a kid again, getting excited about your future again, or quieting the shaming voice within telling you you’re worthless and hearing the Holy Spirit’s voice telling you you’re a child of God no matter what.
This is the kind of healing God can work in those who start living to be known rather than living to be impressive. This begs a simple question, who are you confessing your sins to?
Confessing our sins to another Christian is a marker of spiritual maturity. Immature Christians have a PhD in other people’s sins but are still in Middle School about their own. Mature Christians see and own and confess their sins to God and other Christians. Immature Christians are quick to assign labels to all the people they disagree with, but slow to assign labels to their sins. Mature Christians realize that we all stumble in many ways (Js. 3:2) and that they’re beset with weakness (Heb. 5:2), so they’re slow to condemn and quick to extend charity. Growing in the Lord results in less focus on other’s sin and more focus on our own.
God’s two questions aren’t a sign of his ignorance but are rather an invitation into his mercy. As the all-knowing detective, he’s prodding the criminals to come clean.
Adam’s Answer
Unfortunately, the graced arrow of God’s questions doesn’t elicit a simple and honest acknowledgment of guilt from Adam. Rather, verse 12 shows us that his answer is more of a deflection than a confession.
Adam’s answer isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s not right either. Instead of a simple, “Yes, I ate of the tree you told me not to eat,” he rehearses what happened as if God had forgotten.
What’s he doing here? He’s trying to excuse himself by blaming the woman and implying that God was also at fault because he’s the one who gave him the woman.
Adam’s answer reveals how quickly sin had corrupted his heart. Instead of a simple “yes,” he becomes devious and defensive. He says that the woman and God are the real instigators in what happened. The criminal paints himself as the victim. He plays up their part and plays down his, not mentioning his involvement until the end of the verse, “I ate.” Yes, he finally admits the truth, but he’s minimizing his part in what happened. His confession of sin is delayed by his attempts to wiggle around the truth.
The divisive effects of sin are on full display in his response. As soon as the heat was turned up, man turned on his dearest companion, “The woman whom you gave to me, she gave me fruit of the tree.” Adam suggests that Eve is the real offender. He goes from sheer ecstasy over Eve in 2:23 to throwing her under the bus. The man betrays the woman with cold and calculated words. Turns out that their sin didn’t unite them but divided them.
Adam’s words focus on the woman, but he blames God for providing the woman, “the woman whom you gave to be with me.” It’s as if he’s saying, “You put this dangerous creature by my side, I couldn’t help myself, this is your fault.” Adam implies that a better God wouldn’t have given him Eve. He’s becoming like Satan, who argued that a better God wouldn’t withhold anything from his people. Like the serpent, Adam says that God’s good gift is actually malicious. He’s minimizing and criticizing the goodness of God. He says that God’s good gift is the source of his trouble.
Men still do this all the time. When they’re caught in some impropriety, men will often say that it was the woman’s fault. We see this when men justify their lust as a result of the immodesty of women. Men say, “She caused me to lust because of what she was wearing.” But Jesus says, “No, your adulterous thoughts came from your heart” (Mt. 5:28).
Yes, though all-but-forgotten today, modesty is good and godly. Paul says that “women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control” (1 Tim. 2:9). But, men, what you do with the immodesty of women is your responsibility. Modesty is praiseworthy and men are responsible for their self-control and purity.
Adam says that the Lord “gave” him the woman who then “gave” him the fruit, implying that God is ultimately responsible for what happened. He tries to subtly place the guilt on God. He’s trying to exonerate himself by pointing away from himself to the woman and to God.
Is God Guilty?
Is God guilty for what happened here? The Bible is not slow to assign divine responsibility to all kinds of human affliction. For example, Lamentations 3:38, “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” Amos 3:6, “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?”
But nowhere does the Bible say that God is responsible for what happened here, or for human sin in general. The key text is James 1:13, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” Sin was, and is, the deliberate choice of men and women.
In Genesis 3, man hopes to evade responsibility for his autonomous actions by shifting blame to the woman and to God. But God, or the woman, is not responsible for what Adam did. Many speculate why God would allow the serpent to do what he did. This narrative doesn’t address that question, but it does state clearly that man, not God, was responsible for what happened.
Adam’s Excuse Backfires
Adam’s excuse-making backfires on him. God tells him that his excuse is actually the reason everything went sideways (3:17). Adam says he sinned because he listened to the woman. God says, “Exactly.” What Adam uses as an excuse God uses as an indictment. His excuse is the ground of his condemnation. Because he didn’t lead and protect his wife, choosing rather to follow her in passivity, the relational order God established was inverted and the fallout was catastrophic and irreversible.
Adam’s response to God’s questions are his continued attempts to hide from God. This time it’s verbal hiding. Instead of a simple, “Yes, I did what you said not to do,” he paints the woman and God as the real problems before he finally gets around to confessing his sin. These are the words of a man who is spiritually dead.
God’s Question and Eve’s Answer
In verse 13, God turns his attention to Eve. God’s question to Eve carries the force of “What in the world have you done?!” Her explanation, like Adam’s, is factually correct, but it doesn’t excuse her disobedience. She does confess her sin, “I ate,” but only after bringing up what the serpent did.
Eve’s answer is similar to Adam’s. Both are quick to explain the circumstances of their sin. But neither are showing any signs of contrition.
Eve’s answer, however, does lack some of the more devious aspects of Adam’s answer. She’s still subtly defending herself, but she’s not blaming God or Adam. And she admits that she was deceived, or tricked, that the serpent fed her a line, and she gullibly took it.
Like Adam, she shifts blame. Unlike Adam, she can rightly claim to be the victim of deception. More importantly, she doesn’t attribute what happened to God. She’s humble enough to admit that she’d been fooled, kind enough to not throw Adam under the bus, and wise enough not to impugn God’s character.
Nonetheless, verses 12-13 show us that both of them try to shift blame onto someone else. They show us just how much the serpent has influenced them, as they’re both distorting the truth and accusing one another and God and the serpent.
Ways We Evade Responsibility
As I’ve said, their behavior here is what we all do. We all make excuses for our sin. When confronted with our guilt, we’ll run through any loophole we can find as fast as we can. Wiggling out of responsibility for our actions is endemic to the human race.
We do this in more ways than you may realize. Cornelius Plantinga, in his book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, describes several ways we try to evade our responsibility.[2] He talks about conforming to our peer groups, where we’re pressured to act, or not act, in ways that the group expects us to act. For example, when a family chooses to not challenge abusive behaviors because that would disrupt the peace and stability of the family, the family is shirking its responsibility to do what’s right by conforming to their own standards.
When we shut our eyes to an injustice, look the other way, and pretend to be ignorant of evil, we could be conforming, but Plantinga also says that this is a form of conniving. Connivance isn’t always active conspiracy. It can also be simply looking the other way when other employees or leaders or pastors or Presidents or anyone is obviously doing something that’s wrong.
Sometimes we neglect our responsibility by “leaving town,” or by literally leaving a situation we’re called to stay and face.
We also use our specializations to deny our responsibility. We’ll say things like, “I’m just here to do my job.” Or we’ll use our specializations to justify the wrong we do, like when an attorney manipulates the technicalities of the law while avoiding questions about the guilt or innocence of their clients. Jesus indicted the Pharisees for being specialists in certain aspects of the law while neglecting the more important matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matt. 23:23).
Another way we evade responsibility is through what Plantinga calls “cocooning.” We retreat into the small world of our family, a few friends, our work and church and busy ourselves with things that are part of that small circle. Plantinga describes several ways we do this:
“We do not welcome strangers into our lives or homes, and we do not go out to meet them. We do not inform ourselves of events abroad and cannot locate them on maps or in context. We dismiss the needs of future generations. We have never dealt seriously with a homeless person. We do not grieve over news stories of poverty or starvation, and we make only token efforts to relieve such suffering by our charity. Claiming allegiance to the Christ who speaks in active imperatives (Go! Tell! Witness! Declare! Proclaim!), we Christians nonetheless prefer to keep the bread of life in our own cupboard and to speak of it only to those who already have it. Do we subconsciously suppose that in such inbred silence we can keep our dignity, and unbelievers can go to hell where they belong?”[3]
Plantinga then talks about how we use amusement to evade our responsibility. He says that, while it’s good to take a break from work and laugh a bit, our culture is obsessed with amusement. Just look at what entertainers and athletes make compared to everyone else. It’s clear that amusement has become, for many, an evasion of the main business of life. He says, “When people begin to focus their lives more on amusement than on doing their work well, raising their children securely, gaining an education, and helping those in need, they begin to evade responsibility.”[4] When we know more about the performers in the Super Bowl halftime show than we do about our neighbors, something’s off.
Taking Responsibility Doesn’t Mean Ignoring Our Past
Wiggling out of responsibility for our actions is endemic to the human race. We all do this. We learned it from Adam and we’re good at it. Rather than take responsibility for our actions, we’re prone to find a circumstance, a person, a mood, or even God to blame.
A caveat is in order here. This doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to dig into the reasons for our actions. Being honest about our stories, diving into them with the courage and humility to name what’s true is not the same as finding excuses for sin. Understanding why we’re prone to sin in particular ways helps us know where we need Jesus’ particular help and healing. But it doesn’t remove our responsibility for our actions.
For example, I struggle with anger at home. I’ve confessed this and continue to confess this to a few close brothers and my wife, and healing has come, albeit slower than I’d like. It’s tempting to justify my anger as a result of the home I grew up in. But I’m called to own it as my own. Yes, I need to and have taken the time to sit with professional counselors, brothers in Christ, and Suzy to consider how my past is shaping my present. But processing my past doesn’t exonerate my present. Explaining the context of sin is not the same as denying guilt. It’s possible for me to say at the same time that I grew up in an angry and abusive home and that in my anger I have sinned. The former helps me understand how I arrived where I am. The latter helps me move forward through confession, repentance, and healing in Jesus’ name.
What part of your past are you ignoring that may be shaping your present? Where do you need to own your guilt? Where do you need to start taking responsibility?
Jesus Took the Blame
The good news for sinners and strugglers like us is that God comes to us, like he came to Adam and Eve, to draw us in with mercy, not drive us away with threats. God’s invitation for confession is not to shame us, but to free us. Not to condemn us, but to heal us. Not to embarrass us, but to change us.
The ground for God’s posture toward us is the cross of Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus took the blame for people who don’t take the blame. Jesus is the one person in history who didn’t try to pass the buck to someone else. The sinless God-Man stood before Pilate and hung before the crowds like a man, taking all the blame for things he never did. He said, “Give me the blame for my children. I know what they’ve done, and I know what they’ve done to cover up what they’ve done. But I love them so much that I’m going to take the blame for them so they’ll be free.”
Our guilt for our sin is ours alone. But we don’t have to carry it. We can pass it on to Jesus by trusting in him to take it. Because of the cross, he can take the blame for you so that you can be free from trying to impress God and man, free to live in open and honest relationships, and set on a new path of healing in his name.
The cross shows us that Jesus wants to take the blame for everyone who comes out of verbal hiding and comes clean before him.
[1]Ray Ortlund, The Death of Porn: Men of Integrity Building a World of Nobility (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 90.
[2]Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 180-93.
[3]Ibid., 189.
[4]Ibid., 191.
Feel-Good and Feel-Bad Jesus
If you don’t get your idea of who Jesus is from the Bible, you may end up believing in a false Jesus. For example, as Ray Ortlund explains, many believe in the “feel-good Jesus.” He always agrees with you and never disapproves. He’s always smiling and just so grateful that you come to church every now and then. This Jesus tells you that everyone is going to heaven because everyone is basically good at heart. This Jesus is small enough to fit anywhere, but he’s not fit to be King, which is why your conscience tells you that your problems are more serious than this Jesus Jr. seems to realize.
There are others who believe in the “feel-bad Jesus.” This Jesus is really serious all the time, always pointing out your failures, making you feel that your best is not good enough. He’s harsh, so when you fail again, he rolls his eyes and says, “Seriously! You did it again?” But he keeps dangling a carrot in front of you, saying, “If you just try harder and do better, you’ll be okay and make it to heaven. Keep working hard and you’ll be better than those other sinners.” People who believe in this Jesus seem miserable, but they seem to like their miserable religion, probably because it makes them feel better about themselves. But “feel-bad Jesus” is no King either. He’s a smug dictator who would rather beat you down than build you up.[1]
Glimpses of Jesus in the Garden
Who do you think Jesus is? Are your ideas about him ones that just rubbed off on you from your parents or the church you grew up in or images of him in the media? Or did you meet him on the pages of the Bible?
In Genesis 3, we meet a God who isn’t a “feel-good God” or a “feel-bad God.” Rather, we meet a good and wise King who responds to human sin with judgment and grace.
In Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve broke God’s word, realize their nakedness, and hide themselves because of shame, God comes to them and draws them out of hiding with grace, rather than driving them out with fear. The main point of our text is that God comes to sinners in their shame and, instead of driving them away with threats, he draws them out with mercy. He doesn’t come to make them feel good or feel bad. He comes to save them.
Our text this morning is Genesis 3:8-10. We can outline it like this: God comes (v. 8), God calls (v. 9), and Adam responds (v. 10).
God Comes
In verse 8, God comes to the Garden seeking Adam and Eve. They wanted knowledge, now they have it. But when God comes, there’s nowhere to run. God, the Gardener, comes into his Garden because he cares deeply about the welfare of what he created. He’s not the distant God of the deists, but a close God who involves himself with his creation.
The Hebrew suggests that this was perhaps a normal, daily appointment when the Lord would come and connect with Adam and Eve personally, “in the cool of the day.” After a long day of joyful work cultivating the garden, they would end the day communing with their Maker.
This scene reminds me of one of the most formative experiences of my life. I lived across the pasture from my grandparents, and on many summer evenings we’d go over and sit with grandma and papa on lawn chairs in their driveway. In the shade of their house, with the cool evening breeze blowing, we’d sit there talking, laughing, shelling peas, eating peaches, and connecting and communing with one another. Those moments were sheer delight for me. Can you imagine doing that with God in paradise at the end of each day?
It wasn’t God’s walking in the garden that was unusual, but Adam and Eve’s reaction. Now, instead of communing with God, their plan is further concealment. “The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God.” The last time we saw the phrase “the man and his wife” was 2:25. A complete transformation has happened. Trusting innocence is replaced by fearful guilt.
Verse 7 says that the first result of sin was loss of child-like innocence. They were suddenly ashamed of their bodies and hid themselves from each other.
Verse 8 says that the second result of sin was loss of communion with God. Connection is replaced by alienation. They were suddenly afraid and hid themselves from God.
Rather than obtaining deity like the serpent promised, they’re afraid to even be with God. I wonder if this is why many people, even Christians, stay away from church? Their stated reason is often, “Christians are all hypocrites!” But, ironically, it’s their own hypocrisy, their own failure to measure up to God’s standards that drives them away from God’s presence. Sometimes we’ll skip church because we know what we’ve done and we don’t want to come before the Lord.
God’s people have been doing this for thousands of years. The Israelites did the same thing at Mount Sinai. When they heard the sound of the Lord, they were afraid and stayed at a distance (Ex. 20:18-19). Their fear kept them away from the Lord.
The picture of Genesis 3 is of fearful children hiding in shame from their father. It’s not clear why they thought the trees could hide them from God. But don’t we also try all kinds of silly ways of hiding from God. We max out our schedules and let busyness keep us from communion with him. We sit in front of our screens for hours at the beginning and end of each day, rather than sitting before God’s face. We even try to hide from God in church, assuming that faithful church attendance and ministry will conceal us before God.
How are you trying to hide from him? Remember Hebrews 4:13, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” And David asks in Psalm 139, “Where shall I flee from your presence?” (v. 7).
If you belong to God, the knowledge that he sees you isn’t meant to scare you. If you’re his child, it should free you from the exhausting bondage of hiding from him. Our sin and shame and guilt drive us away from the Lord, but the Lord hasn’t been driven away from us.
But for those who don’t know the Lord, running from him is an understandable impulse because they stand under his judgement. In the book of Revelation, we see how people who don’t know God react when he comes looking for them. “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb’” (6:15-16).
Those who don’t know God would rather have rocks fall on them and be buried alive than face him. Friends, if you haven’t turned away from your sins and trusted in Christ, I urge you to do so today. You can’t hide from him when he comes. You aren’t even hiding from him now. He sees you, and you will see him, and when you do, you’ll have to give an account for your life. If your sins aren’t covered by Jesus’ blood, you’ll want to run, but there’ll be nowhere to hide.
Run to him today and you’ll receive pardon and forgiveness and new life. Those who run to Christ will no longer be afraid of seeing him but will rather long to see him. When Jesus returns, as Paul says, he’ll be “marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thess. 1:10). With new bodies in a new earth, “we will see his face” (Rev. 22:4). Looking into Jesus’ eyes on that day, stunned by his beauty, we’ll marvel at the relief and rest that he’s brought to us.
Only those who understand their nakedness and shame will get to look into those eyes. Back in Genesis 3, the fact that Adam and Eve felt shame over what they’d done was a positive sign, indicating that there was hope for their salvation. Where there’s no guilt or shame, the only remedy is judgment. But where there’s conviction of sin, the grace of God is stirring.
God Calls
In verse 9, God calls out to the man. Don’t miss how amazing this verse is! It’s amazing because God comes to sinful man with a question, not with threats. He wants to draw him out of hiding by grace, not drive him out by fear. Adam is already afraid of God (v. 10). His sin made him guilty and he knows it, so he fears God. But amazingly, God doesn’t capitalize on his fear. His approach is to shock him with grace. Yes, judgment and consequences will come (vv. 14-19). And yes, Adam will die physically just as he’s died spiritually. But the first thing God does when he approaches sinful man is to draw him out of hiding.
Adam and Eve started a game of hide and seek with God, but they were the only ones playing. God’s question, “Where are you?” is rhetorical. God knew where they were because he knows everything. Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has never occurred to God? God never learns anything. He always knows everything.
He comes into his Garden, not like an angry father yelling and screaming, but like a gentle father seeking his children. He approaches Adam and Eve with tenderness, not toughness. When we play hide and seek with our kids, we’ll often call out, “Where are you?,” not because we don’t know where they are, but because we want to draw our kids out.
Adam’s reply in the next verse shows us that he understood God’s question as an invitation to come out and talk to him. God’s question invites confession because he wants to reconcile, not retaliate. He knows that reconciliation is never possible if the guilty don’t own their guilt.
God comes to them with questions, here and in verses 11-13, which allows them to witness against themselves by their own admissions. He comes with questions, not statements. This is instructive for us as we seek to share the gospel with unbelievers. Blanket statements are easily dismissed and shut down conversation quickly. But good questions draw out information, point out contradiction, and reveal what’s true. For example, instead of telling someone, “There’s only one true religion,” ask instead, “Is it possible for everyone’s ideas about God to be true?”
In evangelism, we can be quick to make people feel guilty because of sin, but slow to show people the glory of grace. This may especially be true in newer believers, who’re anxious to see people come to faith but struggle with a desire to prevail in every conversation, rather than desire to help people see what’s true. This can come across in a sharpness and pointedness in tone, in desiring to preach rather than persuade. Both may be necessary at some point, but it’s instructive for us that God came to the first sinners with questions, not statements, and with a gentleness to his questions that drew them out of hiding rather than driving them away in fear.
Notice in verses 8 and 9 that the narrator Moses has reverted back to calling God, the “Lord God.” He wants us to see that the God who created the universe is also the God who goes after sinners. God the Creator is also God the Redeemer. Even after sin, God still wants to be in covenant with his people.
As Redeemer, he goes after the lost, reminding us what Jesus said he was about time and time again. He said, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Lk. 19:10), “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mt. 9:13), and “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?” (Mt. 18:12).
In the garden, God is doing what Jesus came to do, namely, to seek and save the lost. God hasn’t changed. He’s always been the Good Shepherd who goes out into the night to find his lost sheep and bring them home. And when he goes after them, he goes with tenderness, not toughness.
It’s noteworthy that he doesn’t ask Adam, “Why are you hiding?,” but rather, “Where are you?” “Why are you hiding?” would only heap on more shame by pointing out the silliness and stupidity of their actions. He doesn’t come with a tone of frustration or accusation. When he goes to Cain in chapter 4 and Hagar in chapter 16, he does the same thing. He doesn’t need information from them. He’s inviting them to come to him and say what’s true. He’s inviting confession. The only thing Adam needed to qualify for God’s mercy was an honest assessment of his need.
God also invites us to come to him and confess what’s true. His heart for his people, for all who’ll come to him, is to give them beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, and praise for despair (Isa. 61:3). As Jay Stringer says, “There is no depth of shame that the love of God cannot reach. There is no story he cannot redeem.”[2] The paradox of the gospel is that our sin and shame condemn us and then connect us to grace. We’d never taste the sweetness of grace if we never tasted the bitterness of shame.
God approaches Adam and Eve for their redemption and joy, not out of retaliation and judgment. The first thing God says to fallen man has all the marks of grace. To help them, God must draw them, not drive them, out of hiding.
This is what Jesus did with the Samaritan woman, with the woman at the well, with Matthew the tax collector, and he wants to do it with you too. He’s moving toward you in your sin. Come out from behind the trees and move toward him and taste the sweetness of his mercy.
Adam Responds
In verse 10, Adam responds to God’s call. Because God made man first and because he gave him his word first, he comes to the man first (vv. 9-12), then the woman (v. 13), then the serpent (vv. 14-15), inverting the order of the Fall. Man was most liable and most responsible because God created him to protect the garden and promote his word. So when that didn’t happen, it didn’t matter who’s fault it was, Adam was responsible.
In his response to God, Adam isn’t necessarily lying, but he’s not admitting his sin. He’s trying to turn the conversation to what happened after he sinned. But his excuse is evidence of his sin. The reason he realized he was naked was because of his sin. The shame of nakedness was the result of the guilt of sin. His sense of shame, which he admits to God, was created by his guilt.
He struggled to tell God everything that happened, as if God didn’t know. So he just tells him about what happened after he sinned. He wanted his sin to escape the notice of One whom nothing escapes, or, as Augustine says, “to conceal his flesh from one who is the inspector of the heart.”[3] Adam was trying to hide the unhideable. God came to talk about what happened in his heart, not why he was wearing a sweater made out of fig leaves. God wants to talk about what’s less obvious but more important, namely, his guilt. Adam wants to talk about what’s more obvious but less important, namely, his shame.
Adam mentions the symptoms of his sin, fear and shame, but not the cause. He answers the question God didn’t ask. He answers the “Why are you hiding” question, not the “Where are you” question. But he partially avoids the real answer. It wasn’t his nakedness that made him hide. He was clothed with fig leaves before he hid. He was naked, but now he’s clothed. It was the fear of the Lord that led him to hide. A new emotion came over him, fear, and he didn’t know what to do except hide.
Notice that he and Eve hide before God speaks to them (v. 8). The presence of the Lord was enough to make them panic. Why? Because they knew that they were guilty. Felons who know they’re guilty will do everything possible to avoid going to trial.
Why do you think that people who’ve never heard the gospel or read the Bible are afraid to die? Because they know that they’re not ready to meet God. This is why perpetual anxiety plagues mankind.
Ever since Genesis 3, shrinking away from God in fear, rather than running to him in faith, is part of the human condition. The Bible says, “No one seeks for God” (Rom. 3:11). It could just as well say, “Everyone hides from God.” But the Bible also says that we all know he’s there (Rom. 1:18-21), that we all know that we’ve broken his rules (Rom. 2:14-15), and yet, instead of running to him for help, we run away from him and suppress our knowledge of him with anything we can get our hands on.
Why do we do this? Because we, just like Adam and Eve, have believed the lies of the serpent. We assume that God isn’t good and that he only wants to control us rather than set us free.
So we have to come to the Bible and learn how God relates to people like us. And in Genesis 3, we learn that God came to sinners with gentleness and grace, that he wanted to help them by drawing them, not driving them, out of hiding. That despite their massive failure, he didn’t kill them on the spot, but rather engaged them with his mercy.
This is the God of the Bible. This is the nature and character of God toward sinners.
Jesus, Friend of Sinners
Have you ever wondered why people felt so comfortable around Jesus? Why were immoral people drawn to a moral man?
Because he drew them in with tenderness and acceptance. He blessed them with grace and kindness. He saw them when most ignored them. He touched them when most stayed away. He knew what he would do on the cross to set them free, so he was joyfully drawn to them. To the religious people, Jesus’ crime was that he was a “friend of sinners,” an accusation he never denied.
The “feel-good Jesus” isn’t honest with you, and the “feel-bad Jesus” isn’t kind to you. Both are fake Jesuses. The real Jesus, like God in the garden, moves toward his people with gentle words meant to draw them out of darkness and despair, out of hiding and fear and shame, and bring them to himself so that he might redeem them and start fixing what they broke.
Jesus, by his Spirit and through his Word, is running through the world right now gathering up people just like Adam and Eve, people who’ve done unimaginably stupid things, people suffocating with shame, people struggling to own their guilt, people hiding from him because they’ve never been told what he’s really like, people like you and me.
Because of Jesus, we can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
In Jesus, God has come to you and is calling you. Have you received and embraced him with childlike faith?
[1]Ray Ortlund, The Death of Porn: Men of Integrity Building a World of Nobility (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 55-6.
[2]Jay Stringer, Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2018), xx.
[3]Augustine, On Genesis, The Works of Saint Augustine, I/13, trans. Edmund Hill, ed. John E. Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2002), 456
The Dialogue
Last week, we began studying Genesis chapter 3. This chapter tells us how the world went from “very good” to “very broken.”
In verses 1-5, we saw the dialogue between the serpent and the woman. The serpent’s goal in the conversation was simple: to undermine God’s word. His first words were, “Did God actually say?” With this question he gave the first humans a new category to think in, namely, that God’s word could be subject to human judgment.
The serpent’s first question was an assault on God’s generosity (v. 1b). He’s trying to make God look like a greedy and strict miser. He wanted the first humans to think that God was not good.
Eve responded by revising God’s word, adding and subtracting words from God’s original command (vv. 2-3). She minimized God’s generosity, magnified his strictness, and removed the certainty of his judgment. Her mishandling of God’s word changed the world forever.
In verses 4-5, Satan again leads Eve to question God’s goodness. This half-truth is his way of telling her that God is holding out on her. He wants her to think that God is using the threat of death as a scare tactic to keep them in their place, that God is repressive and doesn’t want them to know too much or have too much, that God is against them, not for them.
This is an absurd assault on God’s character in the middle of a garden that screams of his goodness. Eve is standing in the middle of paradise, surrounded by a thousand good things that God created for her. And yet she went along with Satan and doubted God’s goodness.
An Intoxicating Promise
The power in Satan’s lie was that it carried the lure of divinity (v. 5). He was saying to her, “Do this and you will be like God.” The irony here is that they already were like God because they were created in his image (1:26). He was offering them something they already had.
Nonetheless, this promise was intoxicating to Eve. The serpent promised her a promotion, a God-like raise to another level of existence.
The way the serpent framed his promise was to cast God’s command as an option, not a given. The serpent relativized the rule of God. In this conversation, God is treated like a third person. The conversation isn’t with him or to him, but about him. The One who created the paradise they were standing in is completely ignored. Satan wants Eve to think that God can be minimized with no consequence, “You will not surely die” (v. 4). Divinity could be hers if she sidestepped everything she knew to be true. One theologian says, “The serpent is the first in the Bible…to practice theology in the place of obedience.”[1] The serpent’s scheme was to get Eve to doubt God’s character so that she would break God’s command.
A Dirge of Death
Isn’t this what we still battle every day? Obedience doesn’t seem like the thing that will bring us joy. So we come up with new versions of God, new ways of understanding what’s clear in his word to fit what we think will make us happy.
The allure of the serpent’s scheme was that it promised Eve moral autonomy. If she followed him instead of God, she’d become wise and, like God, be able to autonomously decide what was right and wrong. The allure was that God would no longer tell her what to do. She would make the rules. She could do things her way.
This remains an intoxicating promise. Frank Sinatra’s 1969 song, “My Way” is ironically a favorite song played at funerals. It goes like this:
And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way
Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way
Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all, and I stood tall
And did it my way
I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside
I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh, no, oh, no, not me
I did it my way
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way
Yes, it was my way
These are the lyrics of autonomy, about doing everything our way. This could easily summarize how our entire culture views life, a modern mythology of sorts, the unquestioned assumption that we can do things our way with no consequences.
Celebrating this idea at a funeral is actually quite fitting. Sinatra’s song is a dirge of death. The reason any of us die in the first place is because our first parents did it their way, not God’s way, and we follow them. Ironically, funerals that use this song celebrate the satanic spell that’s killing us.
The Descent
In verses 6-7, we see the result of the dialogue between the serpent and Eve, the descent into sin. Satan leaves the scene. The temptation had come. Now Eve has a decision to make. She’s standing on the edge of the abyss, looking over the chasm to what appears to be a life of freedom from rule and restraint. The serpent told her that if she steps toward that life, she won’t fall into the abyss of death but will make it over the chasm unscathed.
Verse 6 tells us what’s going on in Eve’s mind the moment before she steps. It says that she “saw that the tree was good for food,” meaning that it was physically appealing, that it was “a delight to the eyes,” meaning that it was aesthetically appealing, and that it was “to be desired to make one wise” – perhaps the greatest enticement, meaning that it was spiritually appealing. The idea that she could have wisdom apart from God’s word was just too attractive to pass by. So “she took of its fruit and ate.”
Moses expresses no shock here. He tells us plainly what happened, “she took of its fruit and ate.” He describes this horrific event as simply and unsensationally as possible. It reminds us how the Gospel writers describe the death of Jesus, “and they crucified him.” The Bible stands apart from other religious books as a book with no desire to be sensational. Rather, over and over again, it simply tells us what happened.
But make no mistake, what Eve did sent shockwaves through the universe. It changed everything everywhere. Her sin, like ours, effected more than herself. It brought with it collateral damage that she couldn’t have imagined. In Romans 8, Paul says that creation “was subjected to futility,” is in “bondage to corruption,” and “has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (vv. 20-22). And, he continues, “not only the creation, but we ourselves…groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (v. 23).
Thinking of Romans 8, John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost: “Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, that all was lost.” The world and our bodies are collectively groaning because of what Eve did. Earth feels its wound and sighs and shows us signs of its injury everywhere we look.
Kindness for Hurting People
This is why you and everyone you know is hurting, is reeling from a wound we struggle to find words for. Is all hope lost? Are we to just grit our teeth and push through? No, kindness is the way to healing. It’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). And it’s our kindness that can help someone find their way toward healing.
Kindness means we stop talking long enough to try to understand people’s stories. It means that we’re curious about our own stories. The approach of many is to ignore, minimize, push down, and make excuses for their pain, or to say things like, “I’ve already dealt with this stuff,” when their bodies and their stress levels suggest otherwise. Or to say, “What’s past is past, there’s nothing I can do about it now.” But King David believed that it was possible to “look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps. 27:13). And Jesus said that he came to bring freedom to captives (Lk. 4:18).
The effects of the Fall will never totally leave us, but the resurrection of Jesus means that sad things can be undone, that healing and life are possible. But this healing and life come when we get honest enough to say what’s true and then press into Christ for his healing touch.
The Failure of Adam
Speaking of honesty, I love that the Bible includes the detail at the end of verse 6. Adam was there with Eve. In verses 1-5, when Satan is tempting Eve, he addresses her in the plural every time. “You (plural) will not surely die.” Adam was there listening and watching and doing nothing the entire time.
Adam stood passively by as his wife was lured away by Satan. The apostle Paul refers to this moment in 1 Timothy 2:11-14 in order to make a point about roles of men and women in the church. His point is that Eve reversed the order of creation by leading her husband. He’s drawing a parallel between Eve and the women in the church at Ephesus who were seeking to lead, rather than follow, the men in the church. His point is that the sin in the Garden of Eden is repeated when men and women don’t live out their God-given roles.
Adam abandoned his God-given responsibility to lead his wife spiritually. This was the first instance of a husband and wife forgetting their roles. Eve led; Adam followed. Ray Ortlund, in his chapter on this text in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, writes, “Both were wrong and together they pulled the human race down into sin and death.”[2] Ortlund also notes, “Isn’t it striking that we fell upon an occasion of sex role reversal?”[3] Oh how much has gone wrong because men and women haven’t been what they were supposed to be!
The order of creation goes like this: God, man, woman, and the beasts (including the serpent). What’s happening in Genesis 3 is a tragic reversal of the order of creation, when “the woman listened to the serpent, the man listened to the woman – and no one listened to God.”[4] Everything was upside-down, and everything broke as a result.
In 1 Timothy 2:14, when Paul points out that it was Eve who was deceived, not Adam, he’s making a really important point. He’s saying that Adam sinned willfully, that he knew exactly what he was doing, that he sinned with his eyes wide-open.
God had honed Adam’s powers of reasoning by having him name the animals – a vigorous intellectual exercise. Augustine said that Adam’s mental powers surpassed the great philosophers as much as the speed of a bird surpasses a tortoise.[5] Yet here he is watching in fascination as his wife eats the forbidden fruit, wondering if she’ll die. He lets his wife take the first step into the abyss to see what’ll happen to her. Then, when it appears that nothing happened to her, he also took and ate. What a loving man!
The most brilliant man to ever live reasoned that breaking God’s command could be done without consequence, and then thought it a good idea to let his wife go first. Oh the folly that Satan leads us into! Eve follows the snake, Adam follows Eve, and no one follows God. And everyone is still paying for this folly.
Open Eyes, Naked Bodies, and Man-Made Coverings
Verse 7 tells us what the initial result of their foolishness was. What Satan told them was half true. They did not die that day. Adam would live 930 years. Yet Adam and Eve did die that day in the sense that their communion with God and each other died.
Their eyes were opened, and they received the knowledge they sought. They suddenly saw their nakedness as shameful and sought to cover themselves. Their innocence was gone. Now, instead of love, it was fear and guilt and shame that gripped their hearts. Loving God or each other would no longer be easy.
The shame was so overpowering that they felt the need to cover their bodies for the first time: “They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” This is the standard way we try to get rid of shame: concealment.
We do this by looking at the outside of things instead of what’s within. We compare ourselves with others, using these superficial comparisons to cover up who we really are.
We conceal sin by focusing on corporate sin rather than individual sin. There are no doubt societal and structural things that are sinful. But structures haven’t emerged apart from individuals. Every structure or institution or government or business is a projection of what we are. They’re all broken because we’re all broken. Sin starts in our hearts, not at the office or the halls of congress.
Another way we try to conceal our shame is the safety in numbers approach. We think that, because everyone has done what we’ve done, our evil is excusable. Our logic is that, since everyone has failed the exam, the exam was too hard, and the teacher will excuse our grades. But this isn’t the way God grades us.
We also assume that time will conceal our sin and cover our guilt. James Montgomery Boice’s words are too good to not share with you:
“We see this in the way we talk about some wrong done in childhood or some nearly equally distant period in our past. We act as if this is of no present concern. At times we even laugh about it. Is God laughing? Is God unconcerned? One of our problems is that we are creatures of time, who possess highly selective memories. Thus, although we may remember the wrong itself, we tend to forget the hurt it caused other people. God is not a creature of time. Everything, including the wrong that we so easily dismiss, is present to him and is an abomination to him. Time does not eradicate it. The only thing that does is the blood of Christ, which ‘purifies us from all sin’ (1 Jn. 1:7).”[6]
What wrongs done by you or to you from your distant past have you filed away as “not relevant anymore”? What ways have you hurt people or been hurt by people that you haven’t dealt honestly with? What sins in your family history have yet to be named? Why do you assume that the passing of time has made them any less relevant to your life, much less to God? As novelist William Faulkner said, “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” Meaning that the things driving your present are rooted in your past. The fig leaves of time don’t cover the truth. Name what is true and let Christ come in and cover it up with his redemptive power. Let him heal the things you’ve been stuffing down for years.
All our attempts to conceal our shame are as ineffective as Adam and Eve’s. Eventually, we have to face reality. Eventually, we have to tell the truth. Eventually, we have to stare our painful past in the face. Eventually, we have to be honest about our nakedness before God.
The Ultimate Downer
The serpent wants us to live under the weight of shame we carry from our past and into our present. He wants shame to paralyze us so that we’re unable or unwilling to serve the Lord or help others.
Shame is the ultimate downer. It leads us to think that giving up is really the best option. It makes us want to hide, to curl up in a ball and die, to not take risks for God, to not take risks for the sake of love. Shame devours our souls from the inside out. How much of our suicidal ideation is fueled by satanically induced shame?
Can anything heal our sickness of shame? Listen to Psalm 69:19, 20, 29, 32-33, “You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor…Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair…I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high!…You who seek God, let your hearts revive. For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.”
The Lord knows our shame, our broken hearts, our despair, our pain, and he hears us and does not despise us for being prisoners to shame. He wants our hearts to be free and alive.
If shame is paralyzing you, please listen to the voice of Jesus. Through faith alone, you are his. You wear his garments of purity. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you’re his child no matter what.
The only way our shame will ever be truly covered is if God covers it. This is what he did for Adam and Eve in the Garden (v. 21). Blood had to be spilt in order for their shame to be sufficiently covered. God had to make the garments that would actually cover them.
Man-made attempts at concealment never work. God sees through them. But those who wear the righteous robes of Christ’s righteousness have nothing to hide, all their ugliness is covered. They’ve descended with Christ into death and been raised to a new life. Does this describe you?
[1]Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 48.
[2]Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., “Male-Female Equality and Male Headship,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, eds. John Piper and Wayne Grudem, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006), 107.
[3]Ibid.
[4]R. Kent Hughes, “Satan in the Garden,” in Our Ancient Foe: Satan’s History, Activity, and Ultimate Demise, ed. Ronald L. Kohl (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2019), 2.
[5]Ibid., 9.
[6]Ibid., 182.
The Reason Everything is Broken
Everything in the world is broken. The entire world lies under a dark shadow. Like cancer, evil is spreading to and through everything and everyone it touches. And everything it touches is wounded. This is why the whole world and everyone in it is hurting to one degree or another.
The evidence of this worldwide brokenness is everywhere. We see it in the natural realm in hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires, floods, droughts, accidents, sickness, disease, and disability.
We see it in the relational and societal realm. Friendships sour, marriages fail, children are abused, people hurt people for no apparent reason, churches split, politicians lie, business owners cheat, rich people are greedy and poor people covet, and all of us have a nagging discontentment, a feeling that if our circumstances would change, then we would be happier.
We see it in the personal realm in selfishness (why do we gravitate toward using people instead of serving them?), sadness (why is so hard to hang on to joy?), pride (why do we assume that we don’t need God or anyone else?), despair (why is anxiety so hard to shake?), depression, loneliness, rage, confusion, lust, gossip, slander, malice, envy, gluttony.
Take 10 minutes this afternoon to sit in silence and look within yourself and notice how much pain and negative emotions you see there, how much regret, how much struggle, how much heartache, and then try to convince me that you’re not a broken person.
We see it in the spiritual realm. God’s greatness and goodness is ignored, minimized, and not believed. Jesus is seen as a good person rather than God. The Bible is mocked as ancient mythology or moral fable. Then, of course, there’s humanity’s great enemy, death.
Everything in the world is broken. In his book Providence, John Piper summarizes this well: “Nothing escapes the brokenness of the world…Things are painfully frustrating, again and again. Just when you think you have one thing fixed, another breaks. When one relationship is healed, another breaks down. When one disease is under control, another strikes.When one accident is avoided, another comes from a different direction.”[1]
The apostle Paul says that the whole world is in “bondage to corruption” (Rom. 8:21). The world is a slave to suffering, in the prison of pain, shackled to a shadow of darkness. And, Paul says, this isn’t the creation’s fault and it isn’t Satan’s design. It’s in bondage “because of him who subjected it” (v. 20). God is the one who subjected the world to evil. And he did it as a result of what happened in the Garden of Eden.
When the first man and woman broke God’s command, a cancerous corruption filled their hearts and started spreading through the world. What happens in Genesis 3 is why everything and everyone we know, ourselves included, is dysfunctional, hurting, and broken, why we pursue self-destructive behavior even though we know what’s right and wrong.
What happens in Genesis 3 is why it’s hard to love God and easy to sin. When sin came into the world it seeped into every pore of our hearts and touched every point on earth. The world is broken because Adam and Eve sinned against God.
As we start studying Genesis 3, we need to approach this text with a sober mind and a humble heart. The world’s first sin gives us an anatomy of all sin. What Adam and Eve do here in Genesis 3 we also do every day of our lives. The sobriety that this chapter brings isn’t meant to lead us to despair. Amazingly, there’s hope, there are promises (3:15), there’s healing for the wounded and forgiveness for sinners.
Context of Genesis 3
Before we look at Genesis 3:1-5, let’s try to set this text in its context. 2:4 starts with, “These are the generations.” This is a phrase used eleven times in Genesis. It’s always followed by an account of what happened from the starting point named. It’s like saying, “This is what became of _______.”
So 2:4 is introducing the account of what happened to “the heavens and the earth.” This section (2:4-4:26) describes what happened to the world that God created. Chapters 1 and 2 say that God created a wonderful world out of chaos. Chapters 3 and 4 are about God’s wonderful world devolving into chaos again because of sin.
Chapter 2 expands on chapter 1. In chapter 2, Moses double-clicks on 1:26 and enlarges it. Chapter 1 tells us that man was created. Chapter 2 tells us how. Chapter 1 is like saying, “There was a parade on the sixth day of creation.” Chapter 2 tells us in what order the floats passed by.
Chapter 2 is a massively important chapter because it prepares us for what happens in chapters 3-4. Chapter 1 is about the creation of the universe. Chapter 2 is about man’s creation. Chapter 3 is about the entrance of sin. And chapter 4 is about how sin spreads and expands in the world.
Chapter 2 serves as the link between creation and corruption. In chapter 2, we saw that God created man out of the dust, put his breath in him, put him in an abundant garden to protect it and cultivate it, made woman to help him rule God’s world and take care of God’s garden, told them they could do anything they wanted except eat from one tree, and gave them a shame-free intimacy with himself and each other.
At the end of chapter 2, they were “naked and unashamed.” They were spiritually naked before God. They didn’t have anything to hide. They rested in the love of God without effort. God was first in their hearts and thoughts without any disciplined devotion. Loving God and loving each other was as painless and natural as breathing.
They were naked before each other. Clothing never crossed their minds. There was no inward pull of selfishness or shame. Their life looked outward, not inward, toward God and each other, not toward self.
For the fall of chapter 3 to make sense, we need to understand what we fell from. To understand the horrors of sin we need to understand the beauty of creation. This is why the gospel message starts in Genesis 1 and 2, not Genesis 3.
The Serpent
How did the cancer of sin start spreading in the world? Genesis 3:1-7 tells us. Moses sets the scene by introducing a new character in verse 1, a talking serpent. The text says that it was “more crafty” than all the other creatures. This is true of snakes in general. They’re guarded and cautious, knowing where dangers lurk. They’re naturally shrewd creatures. I don’t like snakes, but snakes are good creatures just like everything else God made.
Before sin came into the world, snakes or serpents were not bad. This serpent was just a serpent. It being “crafty” doesn’t necessarily mean that it was evil. It’s just how snakes are. But when Satan took control of this snake, it became a tool for evil. The apostle John identifies the serpent as Satan in Revelation 12:9, “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (cf. 20:2).
Satan is using this serpent to undermine the Creator. Verse 1 also notes that the serpent is in the same category as everything else “the Lord God had made.” There’s no dualism here, no battle between good and evil where each side is equal in strength and status. In the Bible, there’s God in one category as Creator and then everything else in another category as created, including snakes and Satan.
Satan’s Scheme
We have lots of questions about this serpent, what it is and where it came from. There’s much that we don’t know. But there’s one thing we do know: from the very beginning, the serpent scheme was simple: attack God’s Word.
The serpent’s method of attack wasn’t random but was carefully planned. His goal in this dialogue was simple: to attack and discredit the word of God. Verse 1b, “Did God actually say?” Satan opens with a surprised and incredulous tone. His attack on God’s word is shrewd and subtle at first. He doesn’t directly deny God’s word. But he smuggles in the idea that God’s word is subject to human judgment.
Eve had never heard or considered such a thought. She’d never thought she could judge God’s word for herself. The word of God had been the source of everything she enjoyed: the blue skies and brilliant sunshine, the extravagant food and her precious husband. She had no reason to doubt the word of God until Satan planted a seed of doubt in her heart. But now, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, this was an alluring idea for her.
Notice that Satan uses the more generic name for God, Elohim. He refuses to use God’s personal name, the “Lord God,” preferring a more remote and generic and impersonal name for God. The god he wants Adam and Eve to reject is manipulative, secretive, and malevolent. He’s hiding the truth about God in overt and covert ways. This is a studied distortion of God’s character.
His first line of attack is an assault on God’s generosity (v. 1b). God had actually said the opposite, telling them, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (2:16-17). God told them they could have anything he created except one tree. Satan’s scheme was to undermine God’s abundant goodness and generosity.
His question was subtly denying everything Eve knew and experienced. But a seed of doubt had been plated in her heart. She was now pondering new thoughts about God. Was God withholding good things? Was he a stingy and strict miser whose word couldn’t be trusted?
Satan’s schemes haven’t changed. He works every day to convince you that God isn’t good. In what ways are you doubting God’s goodness? The cross of Jesus Christ shows us just how good God is.
Eve’s Revisions
Instead of setting the serpent straight, Eve added her own revisions to God’s word. First, she leaves out the word “every” when she says, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden” (v. 2; cf. 2:16). Her inexact quoting of God’s word was a shrinking of God’s generosity. Perhaps unconsciously, she nodded in agreement with the serpent’s claim that God was too strict. The cancerous cells of unbelief were starting to form in her heart.
Second, she added to God’s word when she said, at the end of verse 3, “neither shall you touch it.” Satan’s poison was starting to take effect. God never told them not to touch the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve is magnifying God’s strictness, saying that God is so harsh that even an inadvertent slip would lead to death.
We do this all the time. For example, if we’re struggling to get to work on time, and our boss reminds us that we need to be on time, we walk out and tell our friends, “My boss is so mean that he said if I’m late again, he’ll fire me!” In other words, as one pastor says, “When we dislike a prohibition or warning, we magnify its strictness with additions that make it sound unreasonable.”[2]
And third, Eve softens God’s word by only saying, “Lest you die” at the end of verse 3, whereas in the original command in 2:17, God said, “you shall surely die.” Eve removed the certainty of God’s judgment as originally stated in God’s command.
In one sentence, Eve revised God’s word by subtraction, addition, and removal. The way Eve handled God’s word changed the world forever.
May God make us a people that take God’s word so serious that we give ourselves to know it through careful and patient study. Reading our Bible is not about being religious. It’s about fending off Satanic attacks. Oh how many Christians and churches have fallen away because they neglected the Word of God!
Find another church member to read the Bible or a good book about the Bible with. It will do more spiritual good to your soul and your church than you realize.
God’s Judgment Under Attack
Her response to his initial question emboldened Satan to then make a patently false claim in verse 4, “You will not surely die.” This is a direct contradiction to what God said in 2:17. God told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Satan is saying to Eve, “God’s a liar, he can’t be trusted, he won’t really judge you if you disobey him.” This is an in-your-face blasphemous statement about God’s word and character. It’s Satan saying that God isn’t really that holy, that sin really isn’t that serious, and that judgment isn’t real.
The first doctrine to come under attack by Satan is the doctrine of divine judgment. He tells Eve that God won’t do what he said he’ll do if his word is disobeyed. Satan knows that if he can get us to believe that there’s no judgment, then we’ll live however we want. No judgment means that we don’t have to live with reference to God. If there’s no judgment, why do we need God anyways?
But if there’s a judgment, then everything changes. If there’s a judgment, then we need to think carefully about how we live. If there’s a judgment, then we have a deep and abiding need. We all know we haven’t lived up to God’s standards, and that we stand guilty before him. We intuitively know that we can’t save ourselves. The reality of judgment reveals our need for a Savior, for a Substitute, for someone to take our place because we know that we don’t have what it takes to survive God’s judgment.
Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” The reality of a coming judgment changes everything. God will judge you after you die. If your sins aren’t covered by the blood of Jesus through faith, you will go to hell. If your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus through faith, you will go to heaven. There isn’t another option.
God’s Goodness Under Attack
After this bold-faced lie, Satan again leads Eve to question God’s goodness in verse 5. Like every good lie, this one is partly true. Their eyes will be opened and they will know good from evil. But again Satan is subtly leading Eve to question the character of God. He’s saying, “God is holding out on you. He’s using the threat of death as a scare tactic because he wants to keep you in your place. He’s really not good. He’s repressive and jealous and doesn’t want you to have too much or know too much.”
This is an absurd assault on God’s character in the middle of a garden that screams of his goodness. Eve is standing in the middle of paradise, surrounded by a thousand good things that God created for her, not to mention that God had made her and Adam the rulers of the earth. And yet Eve was buying it. She went along with Satan and doubted God’s goodness.
Satan’s lie was so powerful because it carried the lure of divinity. He was saying to her, “Do this and you will be like God.” The irony here is that they already were like God because they were created in his image (1:26). He was offering them something they already had.
He doesn’t have any new tricks. He’s still trying to convince you that God is holding out on you, that his commands negate his goodness, and that his word can be broken without consequence. Do you pray for protection from his lies and schemes and attacks?
Thirty Seconds that Changed the World
This thirty second conversation between Eve and Satan changed the world. In this thirty second conversation, Satan led Eve to put his word against God’s. She could’ve corrected the serpent in five seconds. She could’ve run screaming to Adam for help. Adam could’ve stepped forward and done what God put him there to do in the first place.
But none of this happened. Eve bought what the serpent was selling. She was entranced by the prospect that God was holding out on them. She was flushed with excitement over what would in just another moment consume her, what would eventually consume the whole world. Namely, a desire to follow the word of Satan over the word of God, to believe the lies of Satan rather than the truth of God, to doubt God’s goodness and generosity and judgment.
Is There Any Hope?
This is the cancer that has consumed the world, and your heart. This fateful conversation in paradise is why the world descended into chaos again. A shrewd Satan attacked God’s good word, and everything and everyone broke. This is brokenness that our education, religion, work-ethic, government, or money can’t fix.
Is there any hope? Oh yes! This “bondage to corruption” can only be undone by one who lived outside of it, by One never touched by it, by One who defeated Satan by obeying God.
The second Adam, Jesus Christ, is ready to save those who’ve descended with Adam and Eve into the chaos of sin, self-destructive behavior, and unbelief. Everyone who turns away from their sin and puts their trust in Christ alone will be “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14).
[1]John Piper, Providence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 502.
[2]R. Kent Hughes, “Satan in the Garden,” in Our Ancient Foe: Satan’s History, Activity, and Ultimate Demise, ed. Ronald L. Kohl (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2019), 6.
We Will Be Remembered for What We Loved
What you love is what people will remember about you. At your funeral, people will stand up and talk about the things that made you tick, the things you were passionate about. What you celebrated in life will be part of the celebration of your life.
What we’re passionate about is what we’re remembered for. You’ll forget 99% of what I say to you, but you’ll remember 100% of what I celebrated. What we rejoice in reveals our truest heart, who we really are.
Two Things Worthy of Celebration
This is also true for God. What God takes pleasure in, what he’s passionate about, what he celebrates reveals his truest heart. God delights in many things, his own glory most of all.
But at the end of Genesis 2, we see two things that God delights in that we may not have thought of before, two things that God celebrates. In verses 18-25, we see the first woman and the first wedding.
Verse 23 is Adam’s celebration of Eve and verse 24 is Moses’ summary of marriage. Behind Adam’s and Moses’s words is the God who inspired them, meaning that God delights in women and in marriage. If God preserved Adam’s jubilation over Eve and Moses’ instruction about marriage, then he also wants us to see what they see in the creation of woman and the creation of marriage.
For many, women and marriage have fallen on hard times, seemingly forgotten by God. But this text tells us that he made both and that he’s really happy about what he’s made, so happy that he brings the creation of the cosmos to a close by telling us about them. They’re not useless and broken relics to be stored in the attic. They’re beautiful and priceless pieces of furniture that deserve to be in the front room of the house of God’s creation.
The First Woman
Let’s look at the creation of each of these pieces of priceless “furniture” one at a time. First, let’s consider the creation of the first woman (vv. 18-23). None of Israel’s neighbors had a separate account of the creation of woman. Her creation was always subsumed under the creation of the man, if she was even mentioned at all. This text, along with 1:27, was a surprising claim in the ancient Near East. No one was talking like this when the Bible was written. The world wasn’t slowly improving its view of women with each passing generation.
The God of Israel, however, wants to make it clear that he made woman, that he made her and the man to have a partnership, and that women deserve the same kind of respect as men, because she’s just as much in the image of God as a man. This was and is a bold claim in an abusive world where many men think they can take what they want from women, as if women owe it to them, as if women are less than them.
The Bible, on the other hand, celebrates the royalty, dignity, and equality of women. Genesis 1:27 is the first poetry in the Bible. Moses writes this verse as poetry to capture God’s joy over creating men and women.
The God of the Bible has a much higher view of women than anyone in the ancient Near East, and today. The charge that the Bible is sexist or misogynistic just doesn’t hold up when you look at what the Bible actually says about women.
One example is that, in chapter 2, the creation of man gets one verse (v. 7), the creation of woman gets six (vv. 18-23)! Another is that God says Adam needs a “helper” in verse 18, but then makes him name the animals in verses 19-20. Why? Because God didn’t want to squander the precious gift of woman on someone who was unappreciative. Her appearance deserved a long build up because she would be the capstone of God’s world. Far from being inferior, she was the crest of the wave of God’s creative power in the world.
In 2:18, it says that the woman is made as “a helper fit (for the man).” The Hebrew literally reads that Eve was created “as in front of Adam.” She corresponds to him, neither superior nor inferior, but equal, one half of a polarity. Just as the South Pole corresponds to the North Pole, so woman corresponds to the man. They are equal in value. No misogyny here.
But, as one commentator points out, “Their sameness does not mean exactness.”[1] Those who lobby for “exactness” between men and women end up minimizing the unique abilities of women. This is why allowing transgendered men to compete in women’s athletics is unfair and unloving toward women.
Adam’s Outburst of Joy
The creation of both man and woman is celebrated with a poetic outburst in 1:27, but in 2:23 the poetic outburst is reserved for the woman alone. These are the first human words in Scripture. It seems significant that the first time a man talks in the Bible, it’s to celebrate a woman. This is Adam’s outburst of joy over the creation of Eve. It’s his, “Oh my goodness! You have to be kidding me! I can’t believe this is happening right now!” moment.
Adam’s mention of “bones” and “flesh” may be yet another indication of the equality of the woman. He most obviously means that she was literally taken from him. She’s of the same “stuff” as him, and therefore just as much an image bearer of God.
But it may also refer to the fact that man and woman share the entire spectrum of human characteristics. “Bones” often refer to one’s strength, “flesh” to their weakness. It’s our bones that survive the decay of death. Woman is not weaker or stronger than man, but the same.
This “bone” and “flesh” language may also be a statement of covenant loyalty, similar to what many say in their wedding vows today, that we’ll remain true to each other “in weakness and in strength,” in “flesh and bone.” In other words, Adam may be subtly declaring his loyalty to Eve, saying that circumstances will not alter the depth of his commitment to her.
Then he calls her “Woman” (issa), a title that echoes his own, “Man” (is). He doesn’t say that she’ll be called “female” because she was taken out of “male.” Rather, he uses two words that sound alike to emphasize their interconnectedness and equality. This play on words celebrates and anticipates their deep intimacy.
The Puritan Matthew Henry said that Eve was “not made out of (Adam’s) head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”[2]
When Adam first sees Eve, he welcomes her with relief (“at last”) and identifies with her personally. He’s not threatened by her equality; he’s thrilled by it. She has his heart from the moment he sees her. She’s not property or a prize of war or even the mother of his children yet, and his response is joy and delight. All because, in and of herself, she’s worthy of praise and honor and dignity and embrace. She’s what he is, an image bearer of Almighty God.
Women Should be Celebrated, not Tolerated
The first man celebrated the first woman. In and behind his celebration of woman, is the smile and delight of God. Surely Adam’s joy didn’t exceed God’s. Surely God rejoiced in the joy of his first son when he saw his first daughter. What father doesn’t smile when they see their children laughing?
Remember I said that what we celebrate reveals our truest heart. God celebrates the creation of woman. In and through Adam’s joy is God’s delight in his creation of the woman. God delights in his creation of his first daughter.
Ladies, sisters in Christ, how do you think God sees you? What do you think he sees when he sees you? Do you think he looks at you with disgust over some of the decisions you’ve made? Do you think he’s waiting for you to get married and have kids before he starts valuing your life? Do you think he’s mildly displeased with you because your house isn’t as clean as it could be? Or because your kids aren’t as well-behaved as they could be? Or because your marriage isn’t as deep as it could be? Or because your schoolwork isn’t as good as it could be?
The truth is that when God sees you, he sees beauty, because he sees a reflection of himself. You bear his beautiful image. You represent the High King of heaven as one of his queens of the earth. With men, you reign and rule over God’s world. You’re uniquely and magnificently made. Your beauty is stunning, and it has nothing to do with your waistline, your figure, your hair, your face, or your skin. Your beauty is rooted in a reality beneath your skin. Your beauty reflects the God whose image you bear. You are intrinsically beautiful and you have so much to offer this world besides your looks.
One day we’ll all see just how radiant you are. When Jesus returns, he won’t merely upgrade our current existence. He’ll bring us into “a new heaven and a new earth” where we’ll reign with him forever (Rev. 21:1; 22:5). In that new universe, every redeemed woman, no matter how she has sinned or been sinned against in this world, will stand with a royal glory that will radiate from her forever and ever.
What C. S. Lewis said of every person applies to every woman:
It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities…that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people.[3]
Many are blind to the true glory of women. But there’s no excuse for those in the church who know the truth about them. Men, do you celebrate the women in your life? Do you see them as objects for your lust or sisters made for glory? Do you pray for them and encourage them and spend time getting to know them? Or do you unconsciously demean them by always talking to them and never listening to them? Do you assume that you’re their teacher and they’re your students?
Brothers, if you want a lady to be impressed with you, stop talking and start listening. Be curious about their story, their ideas, their thoughts, their hopes and dreams. Women are looking for men strong enough to consider someone else’s interests as more important than their own.
The First Wedding
The first beautiful and priceless pieces of furniture that God created and celebrated here is woman. The second piece of priceless furniture that God created and celebrated here is the first wedding (vv. 24-25).
I say “celebrated” because verse 24 is an explanatory comment from Moses, not a continuation of Adam’s song in verse 23. Verse 24 is like a short epilogue after the curtain has fallen on the drama of the creation week. It tells us what the whole narrative of chapter two has been about. The word “therefore” at the beginning of the verse tells us that Moses is interjecting this summarizing statement to tell us why God created man and woman the way he did. Because God created man and then woman and brought her to the man, “Therefore….”
Yes, this first marriage was unique. It took place before sin entered the world in a garden-temple, by far the best wedding venue the world has ever seen! But Moses interjects verse 24 in order to apply the principles of the first marriage to every marriage that will follow.
Exclusiveness
There are three things, according to this verse 24, that happen in marriage. There’s an exclusiveness, a permanence, and a togetherness.
First, there’s an exclusiveness, a “leaving” of the parents. In that culture, the husband didn’t actually leave his parents – the new couple usually stayed with the husband’s family. So this “leaving” needs to be understood in a relative sense, not an absolute sense. The man’s loyalty to his wife is to be so great that he “leaves” his family even though he stays with them.
The point is that the marriage relationship is more important than every other familial relationship. When a man and woman marry, their priorities change. Before marriage, their first obligations are to their parents. After marriage, they’re to each other.
Many marriages struggle to get off the ground and many end up failing because first loyalties are never established. The call to “leave father and mother” doesn’t negate the call to “honor your father and your mother.” But it does change whose opinions you care about the most, who you seek counsel from first, and who you share your deepest struggles and hopes and dreams with.
Husbands, your best friend and most trusted confidant is supposed to be your wife. Wives, your best friend and most trusted confidant is supposed to be your husband.
Permanence
Second, there’s a permanence, a “holding fast” to the wife. “Holding fast” can literally mean “stick to.” This is covenantal language describing God’s relationship with Israel throughout the Old Testament. Just as Israel must “leave” the idols of the nations, and “stick to” the Lord, so also must a husband and wife forsake all others and “stick to” one another.
The covenantal nature of marriage also means that marriage isn’t a private deal. It’s a public declaration before God, other people, and the state that you’re giving your life to each other. Marriage as a covenant means that the vows that husband and wife exchange, whether before a pastor or priest or in a civil court, are what forms the marriage. This means that a marriage isn’t consummated, or achieved, on the wedding night, but rather when the vows are exchanged.
In other words, marriage is bigger than sex. The idea that a marriage truly begins when sexual relations occur rather than when vows are taken is foreign to Scripture. If this were so, then I’d be lying when I, at the end of a wedding ceremony say, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” I believe that I’m telling the truth in that moment because sex doesn’t make a marriage. Covenant makes a marriage. Vows form and constitute a marriage.
This also means that if you want to get married just to have sex, you don’t understand what marriage is. When you’re ready to commit your life to someone no matter how you feel, then you’re ready for marriage. Not just when you’re ready for sex.
There’s much that could be said here about divorce and remarriage. For more on these topics, see my sermon on Mark 10:1-12, “Divorce and Remarriage According to Jesus” on the PHBC website.
Togetherness
Third, there’s a togetherness, a oneness in marriage when two “become one flesh.” The exclusive and permanent nature of the marriage relationship is the soil where this oneness grows. Cohabiting is a cheap substitute for this oneness, and it often poisons the relationship and hinders it from growing into the depth of God’s design.
This oneness is more than sexual, but not less. Marriage is where men and women should experience each other sexually (v. 25). It’s where sex becomes a win-win. It’s not just for the pleasure of one person or the other.
I love how Ray Ortlund puts this: “Marriage is sealed, celebrated, and refreshed through sex…Inside the circle where only a husband and wife fully belong, they cultivate safety and honor, so that sex is unashamedly joyful for both of them equally…Are the man and woman still vulnerable? More than ever. But for that very reason, their intimacy is all the more wondrous.”[4]
Because of sin, we’ve become sexual users and consumers. Anything goes because in our culture our feelings have imperial status. But God made marriage to be an expression of the exclusive and permanent and shame-free oneness that creates true sexual freedom. The sexual freedom preached by our culture is a cheap knock-off that ends up breaking us down, rather than building us up.
A Husband to Rejoice In
We’ve seen two things that God delights in, two things that God celebrates, the first woman and the first wedding. Women and marriage may be denigrated by some, but they’re celebrated by God. His joy in them reveals something of his deepest heart.
Interestingly, in the New Testament, Paul quotes verse 24 and says that marriage is a picture of Jesus’ marriage to the church (Eph. 5:31-32). He’s saying that marriage is a human window into how Jesus and his bride relate. Jesus isn’t loosely, or unofficially, connected to his bride. No, there’s formal connection of deep intimacy and total acceptance.
When we begin to see Jesus in this light, as a faithful husband who scoops up his unfaithful wife with a joyful embrace, with no strings attached, we’ll sing like Adam when he met Eve.
When we see Jesus with eyes of faith, in all his glory, all his welcome and acceptance, all his tender forgiveness, all his gentle and fierce love, we become like Adam and burst into song and rejoice that God would give us such a One!
Have you received Jesus as your spouse who’ll never cheat on you or leave you or minimize you or hurt you or demean you or take advantage of you? Have you been wed to the One who celebrates women and weddings? Have you trusted his promise of unbreakable love?
[1]Kenneth A. Matthews, Genesis 1-11:26, The New American Commentary, vol. 1a (Nashville: B&H, 1996), 220.
[2]Quoted in R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 60.
[3]C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 14-15, italics original.
[4]Ray Ortlund, The Death of Porn: Men of Integrity Building a World of Nobility (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 42-3.
From the Cosmic to the Personal
The first chapter of Genesis gives us an overview of God’s creation of the cosmos in six days. At the end of Genesis 1, Moses slows down and zooms in on the most beautiful diadem of God’s creation: man and woman (vv. 26-27). The creation of humans at the end of day six is the climax of the six days of creation. Moses uses more words to describe what happens here than any other day. What happens here is so important that Moses comes back to it in more detail in chapter two in order to give us a 3-D view of what God does here in chapter one.
In chapter 2, Moses double-clicks on Genesis 1:27 to tell us more about God’s creation of man and woman. In 2:4-17, we’ve seen that God created man out of the ground, breathed into him the breath of life, placed him in the Garden of Eden, told him to work it and keep it and to enjoy its abundance while avoiding only one tree.
Verse 7 is one of the most intimate scenes in the Bible. The God who spoke galaxies into existence stoops down and gently breathes his breath into him. Like lightning turning sand into a diamond, the Lord makes something beautiful out of the dust. This was a holy moment.
Where’s Eve?
At this point in the narrative, you may wonder, “Where’s Eve?” 1:27 says that God created “male and female,” but so far in chapter 2, the woman isn’t there when God shapes man from the ground. She misses the first view of God’s garden. She doesn’t hear the voice of God telling Adam he can have anything he wants except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The man and woman appeared together in 1:27, but when Moses double-clicks on that verse and expands on how God did it, we learn that God made the man first and added the woman later.
Why would he do it that way? Our text today (2:18-25) doesn’t explicitly tell us, but there are hints and clues that begin to unveil the beautiful picture of God’s design for man and woman, a picture of oneness yet difference, of unity yet diversity, of beautiful complementarity without competition.
Your experience is going to color how you hear what I have to say today. If you grew up in an abusive home, or have been in an abusive relationship, or seen the Bible used to justify behavior that harmed women, I am so sorry. Men who twist Scripture to abuse and harm and demean women are wrong and will talk to God one day about their actions.
The ugliness of many men’s actions doesn’t negate the beauty of God’s design. The Bible’s teaching on gender roles is beautiful and freeing and life-giving, but it’s a touchy topic because many men have used it to do Satanic things in God’s name.
The topic of male-female roles is littered with landmines around every corner. If there are any questions about anything I say, please reach out to me.
Man’s Need and God’s Provision
The main question for us to answer here is: Why did God create Adam first and Eve second? There are at least two reasons. First, God wanted to reveal man’s great need and his great gift to meet that need. All through chapter 1, we heard God say, “And it was good, good, good, and very good.” Then in 2:18, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”
This doesn’t surprise God. He could’ve made Eve simultaneously with Adam. But he chose not to in order to show the man his great need. He wanted Adam to sense his problem so that he could savor God’s solution to it. God’s solution is found at the end of verse 18, “I will make him a helper fit (or “suitable”) for him.” Literally, “a help corresponding to him.”
But first Adam must name the animals in order to discover that there’s no helper suitable for him among them (vv. 19-20). We don’t know how much Adam understood about his aloneness. The focus of the text isn’t on Adam’s feelings. It doesn’t say he felt alone. The problem with his aloneness was something else. There’s no record of Adam complaining about his aloneness. Instead, the text says that God thought his aloneness was “not good” (v. 18).
God is the one driving this story. The point of the story is God’s care for his creatures. The point is that God is out for our good. God is showing man his great need and his great provision to meet that need. God sees his aloneness and acts to solve his aloneness.
This is the great theme of Scripture – God knowing our need and then moving heaven and earth to meet it. The Scriptures will later tell us what God did to solve our greatest need and remove our eternal aloneness through his Son Jesus Christ.
Verses 21-22 tell us what God did to provide the helper suitable for the man. Adam can’t hold back his joy. Verse 23 has the first recorded words of man, and it’s a poem about the woman. He was one, now they’re two, perfectly matched, completely naked, and totally free of shame. Adam’s need has been met by God’s provision of a helper.
Many women chafe at the idea of being a “helper” to a man (v. 18). Even though chapter one clearly teaches the equality of man and woman, many think that the word “helper” implies that the woman is a second-class citizen. We’re prone to think this way because we use the word “helper” to refer to someone less important, but the word “helper” simply refers to someone who brings someone help. To bring help doesn’t demean the helper. A helper is actually praised and prized as someone who can do things we can’t do.
If you’ve been overseas and had to use a translator, you understand how helpless you feel to communicate. The translators who help are heroes. Their expertise in maneuvering from one language to another is amazing. We’re the ones lacking, not them!
God is even referred to as a “helper.” Psalm 118:7, “The Lord is on my side as my helper.” The Holy Spirit is called the “Helper” in John 14. The woman as a “helper” is an extension of God’s strength and help for the man. She is his way of turning “not good” into “very good.” The creation of the “helper” is the climatic completion of God’s “very good” creation. Being man’s helper is an honor, a sign of strength, an admission that man needs help, and a God-given role for the woman.
God’s Order
The first reason why God created Adam first, then Eve, was because he wanted to reveal man’s great need and his great gift to meet that need. The second reason is that he wanted to establish order in humanity.
This isn’t surprising given what we saw in Genesis 1. In all that God created, he sovereignly made divisions and distinctions, handed out responsibilities, and delegated dominion. Every other aspect of creation had its counterpart. The sun rules over the day, the moon over the night. The waters have fish, the air has birds, the ground has animals. These are divisions set in stone and roles that aren’t interchangeable. It therefore shouldn’t surprise us to find order and distinctions between man and woman.
These distinctions aren’t listed out as explicit rules in the text. But there are patterns and clues in the text that point to distinctions between man and woman. The picture that begins to come into focus is that God’s design for man and woman is that the man is the head of the woman, and that the woman is the helper of the man. Let me give you seven textual pointers that unveil this picture of beautiful complementarity.
Man Created First
First, God created man before the woman. This doesn’t mean that “first equals best,” as if God were picking players for his soccer team. If that were true, then jellyfish, earthworms, and buzzards would all be better than men and women because they were created before us. No, the point is that the order of Adam and Eve’s creation indicates that Adam is the head of the garden and Eve is meant to help him in the work of cultivating the garden. This reality is why Paul prohibits women from teaching men in the church: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim. 2:112-13).
Man Received God’s Word
Second, the man was created first, so he first received God’s word, therefore he bears the responsibility to keep it and pass it on. This is a priest-like task. The man must maintain the holiness of the garden. He was responsible for establishing God’s commands in the earth. Adam is the spiritual head and representative of the couple. God gives him his commands first, and after they sin, he also comes looking for him first, even though Eve committed the initial sin. The Lord said to the man, “Where are you?” (3:9) because Adam was the designated leader of the couple.
Man Names the Creatures
Third, God gives the task of naming every creature to Adam (2:19-20). He was given this command and able to fulfill it prior to the creation of Eve. Adam also names Eve, twice (2:23, 3:20). That God gave this job to Adam indicates his leadership of Eve and the creatures.
Man is Leader, Woman is “Helper”
Fourth, the man’s leadership is hinted at in 1:27 when God calls humankind “man,” but is made clear in chapter 2 when Eve is called Adam’s “helper.” This is a functional term, not a demeaning one. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:8, “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”
We might interpret “helper” to mean “friend” or “companion,” someone to comfort Adam in his aloneness. This is certainly one aspect of Eve’s role. But “helper” must also be interpreted in light of the creation mandate, where God told the man to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (1:28). God could’ve provided Adam with another man to help him till the soil and provide friendship, or with a fraternity of manly friends to work and play with. But he wouldn’t have been able to fulfill God’s creation mandate of “filling the earth,” or producing and rearing children, without a woman.
There’s undoubtedly an interdependence between man and woman, as even the Hebrew words ish (man) and ishah (woman) suggest (2:23). The woman came from the man, but the man will be irreversibly connected to the woman. “In the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman” (1 Cor. 11:11-12). This interdependence doesn’t negate different roles as they seek to rule the earth together.
Man and Woman Created in Different Places
Fifth, the man and woman were given different tasks, corresponding to the realm in which God created them. Adam was created outside the garden and tasked with protecting and cultivating it (2:15). Eve was created inside the garden, which suggests that she was meant to have a special relationship to the inner world of the garden. Kevin DeYoung summarizes this well:
“The creation mandate – filling the earth and subduing it – applies to both sexes, but asymmetrically. The man, endowed with greater biological strength, is fitted especially for tilling the soil and taming the garden, while the woman, possessing within her the capacity to cultivate new life, is fitted especially for filling the earth and tending to the communal aspects of the garden.”[1]
Man and Woman Created in Different Ways
Sixth, that Adam and Eve were created in different ways also points to a specific ordering of roles between them. The Lord formed Adam from the dust of the ground (2:7), while he formed Eve from the rib of the man (2:21-22). It’s thus not surprising that man is tasked with tending the ground from which he came, while the woman is tasked with helping the man from whom she came.
Eve was created from man (v. 22) and for man (v. 20). They’re equal in worth but different in function. The way God created each one points to the special work he designed them to do in the world. Generally speaking, man was created to cultivate the external world of industry and the woman was created to cultivate the inner world of the family.
Man and Woman Experience Curse in Different Ways
Seventh, the fact that men and women experience the curse of sin in different ways, each in their fundamental areas of responsibility, also indicates that God created each for a specific realm. Man’s unique domain, the ground, is cursed (3:17). And woman’s unique domain, childbearing, bear the effects of the curse (3:16a). Each are subjected to frustration in their unique and God-given spheres of responsibility.
“Who You Are” is Not “What You Do”
The idea of unique “spheres of responsibility” sounds foreign to us because our social imaginary teaches us to equate “who we are” with “what we do.” Some say that to be truly free as a woman you must do what men do. Others say that you can’t be fully a woman if you’re not a wife or a mother. Both views are wrong because both views locate identity in “what we do” rather that “who we are.”
Professor Alice Matthews says, “Whenever we confuse roles with identity, we imprison people in roles that represent only a small part of who God made them to be. For women to love themselves and others, they must realize that who they are is not the same as what they do.”[2]
Ladies, your identity is firmly fixed, image bearer of God is “who you are.” You were made co-rulers of God’s world. And, if you’re in Christ, you’re also a new creation (2 Cor, 5:17) a daughter of the King, an ambassador for Christ, a citizens of the eternal city of God. Your marital status or number of children is not your identity. Your identity is given, not received.
Household Managers
Once our identity is firmly rooted in God and Christ, then our minds and hearts open up to the various roles that God calls us to have. As I’ve tried to show from Genesis 2, God’s design is that the man is the head of the woman, and that the woman is the helper of the man. This pattern flows through the whole Bible, indeed, through the whole world.
This God-ordained pattern is why Paul says that the older women in the church must train the younger women to “love their husbands and children” and to be “working at home” (Tit. 2:4-5). This can be translated “to be good managers of the household.” Paul gives similar counsel to young widows in 1 Timothy 5:14, “I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.”
This instruction doesn’t relegate a women to only work in the home. Proverbs 31 makes this clear. But the principles in Genesis 2 and the instructions from Titus 2 mean that women are primarily responsible for the domestic oversight of the home. They’re the managers, directors, administrators, or supervisors of the home. This is not a demotion! Only the most skilled and wise and diligent people are called upon to manage organizations. Is there any more important organization than the family? Caring for young souls and creating spaces of warmth and peace and organizing a home that will bless others in Jesus’s name is arguably the most important work on earth. Think about the homes you’ve been in. Which ones exuded peace and joy and harmony and life? Is it the ones with no order, or inverted and confused order? Probably not.
In a culture that chafes at the notion that God designed men and women with different roles, the church has the opportunity to show the world a better and more beautiful way. We have the opportunity to create homes where kids and parents are deeply connected, homes of peace and productivity instead of chaos and consumption.
Husbands, are you willing to do whatever it takes to make it possible for your wife to cultivate the inner world of your “garden”? Wives, is your desire to build a career or a home? Single men, are you looking for a wife with biblical convictions about the home? Are you willing and able to provide for a wife and children? Single women, are you looking for a husband with biblical convictions about the home? Are you wanting to build a career or a home?
Celebrating, Not Tolerating, Roles
I know that this part of God’s design is hard to understand and accept, especially in our cultural climate. Let me read some words from Kathleen Nielson, one of the finest Bible teachers out there. In her book Women and God, she says, “If you’re like me, you might instinctively chafe against this order. You may accept it as true, because the Bible teaches it – but how can you or I celebrate it as good?”[3]
Her answer is that we wrongly associate difference in role with difference in value. As soon as we say that man is the leader and woman is the helper, assumptions begin to fly. We assume that the leader must be more important, and the helper must be less important.
Why do we make this assumption? Genesis 3 will help us understand, but just think logically for a moment. Does anyone really equate role with value? Does anyone here think that the CEO of a big company is more valuable than a disabled person out of work? Or that the President is more valuable than an illegal immigrant? Or that a mother is more valuable than her daughter? Or that a pastor is more valuable than a church member?
We may be tempted to think this way, but deep down we know better. Deep down we long for our value to not come from roles we play or positions we hold, but to come from something beyond those things. This longing is met in the truth of Genesis 1-2 – in the revelation that God made us in his image and therefore we’re inherently valuable. Only in his eyes is ultimate value measured.
God’s design for man and woman is that the man is the head of the woman, and that woman is the helper of the man. Though counter-cultural, this teaching is a good gift that helps us get our eyes off what we do and onto the God who tells us who we are. Only in him will we find the value and affirmation and reassurance and support that we need.
[1]Kevin DeYoung, Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 26-7.
[2]Alice P. Matthews, Preaching that Speaks to Women (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 146.
[3]Kathleen Nielson, Women and God: Hard Questions, Beautiful Truth (The Good Book Company, 2018), 42.
A Sacred Assembly
The Why and What of Local Church Worship
A Picture of Heaven
Do you ever daydream about what heaven will be like? What kind of images and sensations and experiences come to mind? Is there any place on earth where you see something of what you hope to see in heaven?
If you have ever worshipped God with a local church according to the Word of God, you have seen something of heaven on earth. I would even dare to say that what’s happening in this room this morning is a picture and taste of heaven on earth.
How can I say that? Because the church is where God lives on the earth. The God of heaven, who needs no home, has chosen to live with his people on the earth. His people are his temple, the place where his Spirit dwells.
Local churches show the world what heaven looks like because they’re little outposts of the kingdom of God on the earth. The world is full of despair and fighting and doubt and fear and hate and selfish promotion. But, in a healthy local church, people can find peace and joy and hope and faith and love and righteousness. They find something of God’s kingdom on the earth.
As our culture continues to darken and fracture, the opportunities for the gospel only increase. Carl Trueman says, “In a world where the old ways of community have collapsed, people still want to belong. The church can be a stellar example of community to those crying out for love and a place to belong. The church can be an attractive place to those who are lost or wandering.”
A Sacred Assembly
Today I want to talk to you about what the church is and how it that relates to its worship.
The church is God’s house and the bride for whom Christ died. The church is the corpus, or body, of Christ. The church is the visible presence of Jesus in the world. The church is made up of those who’ve joined their lives to Jesus through faith and joined their lives to other believers out of love.
The church is made up of sinners who’ve been declared righteous by God through faith in Christ. The church is a “holy nation” made up of all the nations. God’s people are his holy people, not because of intrinsic purity, but because of an alien purity that God has clothed them with.
God’s people have been called out of the world and into the family of God. God has made us family, brothers and sisters, bringing us together from a wide variety of backgrounds, making the many one.
This oneness is most clearly displayed when the church gathers. The word “church” literally means “gathering” or “assembly.” The church is therefore God’s sacred assembly, called out of bondage to sin and Satan and death and the world, and called together to God.
These truths mean that the church isn’t a building to be opened or closed, not an event to watch online, but a community that gathers regularly around the word of God. Churches aren’t content providers, they’re families. The church isn’t what happens on stage but is the gathering of God’s people. The church isn’t some sacred space to go to so that we can experience some mystical power. Rather, the church is a group of people who come together to worship God and encourage one another. The church isn’t a building we want to be in but a people we want to be with.
Some people think of Christianity as an experience like a monk would have, thinking that our individual religious experience is the essence of being a Christian. Many Christians think that their faith is private and personal, an interior thing that they practice by themselves. But this way of thinking is not found anywhere in the Bible. In Acts, the first Christians wanted to be together. They began their week by gathering together and met in homes throughout the week.
From the beginning, the gospel has called people together to worship God and serve one another. God’s intent is that these gatherings or assemblies be the clearest reflections of his character and presence on the earth. The local church is meant to be a slice of heaven here and now.
Connection between Doctrine of Church and Worship
In the Old Testament, God’s presence dwelt in the tabernacle and temple, in a specific geographical spot. But Jesus’ coming changed all of that. In the new covenant, the Lord’s house is his people, not a spot with a tent or temple. Jesus stresses this to the Samaritan woman in John 4 and to his disciples in Matthew 18 in the context of church discipline.
God’s presence, and therefore where God should be worshipped, is no longer tied to a spot or structure, but to a gathered people. The special presence of God is now with the gathered body of believers, wherever that may be, in a storefront, a living room, under a tree, or in a massive auditorium.
When we understand what a church is, we’ll no longer see the church as an optional add-on to the Christian faith, or just a place where all the super-spiritual believers get together to hang out, or an evangelistic rally designed to attract as many people as possible.
When we understand what a church is, we’ll see that there’s a connection between how we understand ourselves to be a church and the way we worship as a church. In other words, our understanding of the church helps our worship as a church.
It’ll also protect us from approaches to worship that aren’t biblical, like the “liturgical pragmatism” that says churches must do whatever works to get as many people in the doors in order to evangelize unbelievers. Or things like a consumer mindset that gives us the attitude of a customer rather than a worshipper, an attitude focused on preferences rather than God, an attitude that leads us to say things like, “I didn’t really like the music today” or “I didn’t get much out of the sermon today,” rather than considering whether the congregational singing was filled with truth or whether the sermon was faithful to the Bible or not.
This is nothing new. Eighty years ago, in his classic book on spiritual warfare Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis has Screwtape tell his demon student Wormwood that if he can’t get someone to stop going to church, then he should try to make him into a taster or connoisseur of churches, saying, “the search for a ‘suitable’ church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.”[1]
A good understanding of what a church is helps us avoid these postures and also helps us see that there’s a connection to who we are and what we do when we gather. We don’t just come together as a group of Christian friends. We come together as brothers and sisters in a covenant relationship with God and one another. We come together for God’s glory and our good and so that the world might see something of heaven in our midst.
How Do We Know What To Do When We Gather?
So what should we do when we gather as a church? Should we just do whatever John or the elders tell us to do? Should we do whatever will get the most people here? Should we do what all the “successful” churches are doing?
Again, our doctrine of the church helps us answer this question. God is the one who gathers us, so our worship is a response to his grace. God is the central actor in the church, so he gets to decide what happens when the church meets.
Remember, by definition, the church is a corporate phenomenon. To be in Christ means to be in his body. To be in his body means to gather with his body. As Matt Merker says, “A church service is not a bunch of individual Christians who happen to be standing next to one another, offering their own worship to God through a private portal of praise. It’s a family gathering.”[2]
This means that when pastors plan worship services, we must ask ourselves if we have warrant to require the whole church to engage in each aspect of the worship. Pastors must decide each week what their church members will do when we meet together on the Lord’s Day. This could leave the church open to doing things that go against their consciences, or only doing things because they’re aligned with the pastor’s preferences.
How does the God protect the church’s worship from these things? How does God help pastors shepherd their people through worship? As in everything else, he does it through his Word!
The Regulative Principle
God governs the worship of his church with his Word. This principle has been called the “regulative principle” and it’s been practiced by Protestant churches for 500 years. You may not know it, but it’s the principle I’ve worked from since I became pastor here in 2014. It’s a simple principle that says that Scripture should regulate the church’s worship. It’s based on a conviction that God hasn’t left it up to us to decide how the church should worship, that he has revealed these things to us in his word.
The regulative principle is more like a posture than a list of rules. It doesn’t mean that Scripture dictates every detail or form of worship. It simply says that Scripture tells us what we should do in public worship, not that it gives us every detail about how to do it. It’s concerned with the essential elements of worship, not so much with the forms. It says that churches should do what Scripture commands us to do when we gather for worship.
It’s important to note, as D. A. Carson does, that those who adhere to the regulative principle and those who don’t “often have more common content than either side usually acknowledges.” He also points out that “there is no single passage in the NT that establishes a paradigm for corporate worship.” This is undoubtedly true.
But those who use the regulative principle believe that, when we lead God’s people in worship, we’re in some sense binding their consciences to participate in each part of the service. And the only thing that should bind our conscience is Scripture, so we seek to do what it says.
The Old and New Testaments are full of examples about God caring about the “how” of his people’s corporate worship. There’s Aaron and the golden calf incident in Exodus 32, where Aaron led the people of Israel to worship the Lord by bowing to the golden calf. Or the incident of Jeroboam setting up two golden calves in Israel so that the people could worship the Lord there without going to Jerusalem (1 Kgs. 12). These are wrong ways to worship the right God.
Or, in the New Testament, when Jesus taught the woman at the well, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4:24). Jesus was saying that true worship is not just sincere, but also must be consistent with who God has revealed himself to be. She thinks that God should be worshipped on a particular mountain. Jesus tells her, no, God must be worshipped through the Spirit. In other words, Jesus says that there’s a right way and wrong way to worship God. Worship must be regulated by revelation.
Even in the Garden of Eden, before sin came into the world, Adam and Eve needed God’s instruction to know how to engage with him (Gen. 2:16-17). God is transcendent and incomprehensible, so all we know about him we know because he revealed it to us. Why should we trust our ideas for how to praise him when we gather with his people?
The regulative principle keeps us from planning worship services by asking, “What would we like to do?” or “What do we assume would ‘reach’ people?” Rather, it leads us to ask, “What has God called us to do?” When planning our worship services, thankfully, I don’t have to start with a blank canvas. God has already written in permanent ink on that canvas, showing us how we’re to engage with him when we gather together.[3]
How Should We Order the Gathering?
So what are we supposed to do when we gather for worship? What elements of worship should be included in our church’s liturgy, or “order of service”?
Our church has followed the Reformed Protestant tradition here. In our worship gatherings, we want Scripture to give our services shape and be our substance. Scripture guides us and fills us. So, in our worship gatherings, we seek to read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.
Read the Bible
We read the Bible out loud to one another because Paul says to Timothy, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13). Not counting the Scripture that will be read during the sermon, we have three different “public readings of Scripture” in our services. We call the church to worship with Scripture because we want to remind ourselves that God takes initiative in our services, that he calls the meeting to order. We read a longer portion that corresponds to the sermon in order to train our minds to see the unity of Scripture. And we read a closing benediction, or blessing and exhortation, from Scripture.
Preach the Bible
We preach the Bible because, again, Paul says to Timothy, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). Pastors are commanded by God to preach Scripture to the church. Expository preaching, or preaching through specific books or sections of Scripture, making the main point of the text the main point of the sermon, is normally how pastors should do this. The people of God need meat, not just milk to survive (Heb. 5:11-14). The church needs to hear the Bible explained and applied every week. If it’s not explained, it’s not expository. If it’s not applied, it’s not preaching. God creates and sustains his people through his Word. We can’t live if we don’t eat.
Pray the Bible
We pray the Bible by offering public prayers of different kinds during the service. Prayer is part of our worship because, by definition, prayer is a looking away from ourselves and looking to God. Pray is one of the clearest ways we express our faith in God together. Our public prayers are also a part of the teaching ministry of the church. Our prayers of praise, confession, thanksgiving, and petition are meant to show you the different kinds of prayers we find in the Bible. We want to pray so much in our church that, as Mark Dever says, “nominal Christians will grow bored talking to the God they only pretend to know.”[4]
Sing the Bible
We sing the Bible by obeying Paul’s command that we should, “Address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph. 5:19). In a parallel verse in Colossians, Paul connects our singing with the teaching ministry of the church, saying, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (3:16). Our songs should reflect the “word of Christ” and “teach and admonish us” in sound doctrine. In other words, our songs should be more about God and less about our experience of God. So we seek to sing songs that are rich in theological and gospel content, not just ones that are popular or familiar. The church is built up and encouraged as we remind ourselves of the great truths of the gospel, and as we sing to “one another.” One of the best ways to encourage your brothers and sisters is to sing in worship like you really mean what you’re saying! My faith is probably the strongest it is all week when we’re singing together. Singing reminds us that we’re not alone, that the truths we believe aren’t just ideas in our heads but realities that have gripped our hearts and changed our lives. Singing unlocks the emotions God gave us to glorify and enjoy him with. So when we close our service with “Oh, How Good It Is,” sing to King Jesus and to one another like you mean it!
See the Bible
Finally, we see the Bible in our services through the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Each of them are dramatic presentations of the gospel. They’re pictures meant to reveal the realities of the gospel. The bread and juice portray Jesus’ body and blood, given for the forgiveness of our sins. The water of baptism portrays our dying and rising with Christ and his cleansing us of our sins. The ordinances are where the gospel is spoken to us in tangible form, the visible signs and seals of the new covenant, the physical reminders that we belong to God and to God’s people.
Why This Sermon?
I struggled in deciding whether to preach this message today. After talking to Nick and Jared, I decided to do it because I wanted to give sustained attention to the why and what of our worship because your worship this year will have a life-shaping effect. You’ll be formed and shaped and discipled by something this year. Your friends, family, coworkers, roommates, the news cycle, and the world want to train you in a certain way. Regularly worshipping God with your local church according to Scripture is a defense against bad training and a spring of living water in a desert. Give yourself to God and your church this year and watch where he takes you.
I also decided to preach on this because I want you to know why we do what we do. I want you to have a model to follow after I’m dead. And I want to help you to know what to look for in a church if you leave this one.
A Life-Giving Gathering
We need God and we need each other. The primary place we find him is when we gather together to read, preach, pray, sing, and see his Word. This gathering is not incidental, but fundamental to what it means to be a Christian. This gathering is life-giving. This gathering is unlike anything else on the earth. This gathering is a glimpse of heaven, of what life with God and his people looks and feels and sounds like. This is a sacred gathering. May it become an even deeper part of who you are in this new year.
[1]Quoted in Matt Merker, Corporate Worship: How the Church Gathers as God’s People (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 16.
[2]Ibid., 79.
[3]Ibid., 84.
[4]Quoted in Bobby Jamieson, The Path to Being a Pastor: A Guide for the Aspiring (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 107.
Blessings and Boundaries, Part Two
Genesis 2:8-17
The Good Life
In the second chapter of Genesis, we see a portrait of Paradise, a picture of the good life. The good life of Genesis 2 is God blessing his people with spiritual and material abundance. But he also gives them something else, something we don’t usually consider part of the “good life.” God’s blessings came with boundaries. The “good life” in paradise didn’t exclude obedience to God’s word. Part of enjoying God and his abundance was honoring his rule over their lives.
Our text last week and today is Genesis 2:8-17. The main theme of this text is God’s extravagant blessing toward man and his sovereign rule over him. There are blessings and boundaries.
God puts Adam in a well-watered Garden that has two special trees. He says he can eat from any tree except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If he disobeys, death will be the consequence. Our main take away from this text is that God created us to bless us with life and joy, but this life will only be found in obedience to him.
In this text, we see one garden (v. 8), two trees (v. 9), four rivers (vv. 10-14), and two rules (vv. 15-17).
Four Rivers
In verses 10-14, we see four rivers. There’s a lot of debate about why these verses about the four rivers are here. Scholars have tried to figure out exactly where this region is or was. The search for the Garden of Eden has come up empty, and no one really knows for sure where to locate these rivers and regions, especially the Pishon (v. 11) and the Gihon (v. 13).
What is clear is that Moses wants to place the Garden of Eden within the geography of the Ancient Near East in order to show that this narrative is historical, not mythical.
Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham says that there’s a reason why we can’t locate where Eden was. He says that the names of these rivers “affirm that there was a garden there, but maybe the insoluble geography is a way of saying that it is now inaccessible to, even unlocatable by, later man.”[1] In other words, Moses is saying that there was a real garden in Eden, but because of what happened there we aren’t meant to know where it is or be able to enter it (cf. 3:24).
We may not know where these rivers were or are, but we can see that these rivers that bless the world originate from the blessing of the garden. The garden is portrayed as a center of blessing for the whole world. God’s beauty and blessing overflowed out of the garden and into the world.
“Everything Will Live Where the River Goes”
Another life-giving river will one day flow from God’s presence. God gave the prophet Ezekiel (47:1-12) and the apostle John (Rev. 22:1-2) a vision of this. This “river of the water of life” (Rev. 22:1) will create luscious trees that’ll provide food and nourishment and healing, and “everything will live where the river goes” (Ezek. 47:9).
The psalmist tells us that this river has streams that “make glad the city of God” (46:5). The water that flows from God’s presence creates life and joy wherever it goes. It nourishes, sustains, grows, and brings life to all the arid places.
The rivers flowing out of the garden of Eden are meant to point our attention to this more important river. They symbolize the river of the New Eden that will give abundant life and everlasting joy to the people of God.
A River of “Living Waters”
The promise of the gospel is that these “living waters” are even available now. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive” (Jn. 7:38-39). Those who put their trust in Christ are given the Spirit of God, meaning that the very presence of God comes to live in them. Not with them, but in them.
Christian, the water of God, so to speak, is already in your mouth and in your belly. The life of heaven has come to live in you. The well-spring of Eden flows through your heart.
Friend, if you’re not yet a Christian, we love you and are so glad you’re here. But we want you to know that you can’t do anything to earn this water. The only thing you have to have to get this water is thirst. Jesus cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (Jn. 7:37). Only those who understand their need for God get the nourishment of God.
Jesus came to quench your deepest thirst, that thirst you have for love and mercy and welcome and friendship and forgiveness and freedom and righteousness and healing. Jesus’s water is better than any Berkey or Brita filtered water, better than every other thing you’re drinking. “Everything will live where his river goes.” Jesus is a water that brings life to all the dead places, all the forgotten and forgettable places, all the dry and dark places.
The Bible says that apart from Christ we’re dead, not just sick. Jesus came to make us alive not just make us better. His “living water” creates life and then whatever he touches starts coming to life as well. This is why true Christians and true churches start looking more and more like Jesus.
Two Rules
The four rivers of verses 10-14 point us to the River of Life that flows out of God’s presence creating bounty and blessing everywhere it goes. Then, in verses 15-17, we come to God’s two rules for man in the garden.
Each of these verses could be summarized by one word. Verse 15: vocation. Verse 16: permission. Verse 17: prohibition. Unfortunately, as one commentator points out, “In the popular understanding of this story, little attention is given the mandate of vocation or the gift of permission. The divine will for vocation and freedom has been lost. The God of the garden is chiefly remembered as the one who prohibits.”[2]
These verses show us that God isn’t just a God of “No!” God is a God of “Yes!” and “No!” He’s a God who created us to enjoy his creation and to cultivate his creation. Yes, the prohibition of verse 17 is given too. But the prohibition must be read in light of man’s vocation and freedom.
Vocation
Let’s go through these verses one at a time. Verse 15 is one of the most important verses for your life because it helps you understand the sacredness of the thing you’ll do with most of your time on planet earth.
God put man in the garden to “work it and keep it.” This word for “work” is often used for tilling the ground, but also simply means “to serve.” God put man in the garden to serve. He’s there not to be served but to serve.
The word for “keep” means “to guard” or “to exercise great care over” and even “to protect.” The same root word is used in chapter three to describe the angels who’ll guard the entrance of the garden (v. 24).
These words tell us what God’s intentions for man in the garden were. The garden was to be “worked” and “protected.” As one Old Testament scholar says, “Eden is certainly not a paradise in which man passes his time in idyllic and uninterrupted bliss with absolutely no demands on his daily schedule.”[3] Adam and Eve weren’t given a lounge chair and a margarita. They were given a rake and a chain saw, a wheelbarrow and work gloves, or a laptop and some spreadsheets.
Work Is a Blessing, Not a Curse
And none of this was toil or painful or frustrating! Physical labor was a gift and command of God, not a result of sin. Work was a God-given blessing, not a curse. God himself was working at the beginning (2:2) and so those created in his image would work. Before sin entered the world, man’s work would be all joy and no pain, all fun and no frustration.
Man didn’t have to work so his material needs would be met. God met them all abundantly. The essence of work wasn’t survival but enjoying God’s world, like a son working with his father to make something wonderful. Man was free to be creative without worrying about how the bills would be paid.
When sin came into the world, what changed wasn’t that man had to work, but that his work would now be marked with pain and frustration (3:17-19). When man rebelled against God, God gave them what they wanted: self-reliance. From then on, God says that they’ll only eat through toil and sweat. The curse isn’t that we have to work, but that work comes with weariness and anxiety and unmet expectations and a sense of futility.
In this fallen age, in our work we must work against the obstacles that make work hard. We can’t pick fruit from someone else’s garden anymore. Some Christians in the early church were making this mistake. They believed that Jesus would come back any moment, so they thought they didn’t need to work (2 Thess. 3:10-12). Some people who were able to work were choosing not to, living off the work of others, eating the fruit produced by someone else’s sweat.[4]
God’s design is that those who’re able are to “earn their own living” and not live off the work of someone else. Work is inherently good, but under a curse, so now we must work to eat, not just for fun. One implication of this is that, when we’re considering a job opportunity, it’s perfectly appropriate to talk about the financial side of things. If a job can’t pay you what you need to support yourself or your family, then you need to look for another job. This means that you may have to do something that you don’t enjoy as much.
The objective responsibility that we have to support ourselves and our families is more important than the subjective desire to do things that we enjoy. Of course, doing what we enjoy while getting paid enough to support ourselves and our families is wonderful, but it’s not always possible. Men especially need to think through this, as God has created us to be the providers for our families. Providing food for our family is more important than enjoying our job.
Permission
Verse 16 is God’s permission. Notice that it says “the Lord God commanded…” God not only permits but even commands man to enjoy “every tree of the garden.” God’s will is that we enjoy his world!
His provision in the garden was plentiful. There’s no lack at all. Nothing ran out or spoiled or was lost. God wants to bless his creatures. He wants his world to be enjoyed liberally. Those who reject God because he’s too strict haven’t understood him properly. In the garden, there was only one “no.” Everything else was a “yes.”
What Does this Command Have to do with Parenting?
I’ve thought about this a lot as a parent. We should have clear boundaries for our children, but if our house is full of “nos” and only very few “yeses” then we may be more concerned about our kid’s behavior than their hearts. Yes, obviously behavior is important. But what I’ve noticed in me is that I’m usually concerned about my kid’s behavior because of how it’ll make me look. I want them to behave well so that I look like a dad who’s got everything under control. But the reality is that most of the time I feel like the inmates are running the asylum!
We must discipline our children, but discipline is no substitute for regeneration. As parent’s we’re called to teach and model the gospel for our children. We pray for faith, remembering that faith is a gift from God. And we look for fruit. But one way to undermine the whole process is to have a home marked by demands rather than delight.
In her novel Gilead, Marilynne Robinson says, “Prohibition loses its force if it is invoked too generally.”[5] Later in the book, Robinson makes an observation that still makes me think. The main character, minister John Ames, says, “It is the consistent example of parents in the Bible that they honor their children. I think it is notable in this connection that it is not Adam but the Lord who rebukes Cain. Eli never rebukes his sons, or Samuel his. David never rebukes Absalom. At the very end, poor old Jacob rebukes his sons as he blesses them. A remarkable thing to consider.”[6]
The point is not that parents shouldn’t discipline their children. Paul makes it clear that they should in Ephesians 6. The point is that “the consistent example of parents in the Bible (is) that they honor their children.” If it’s true that children ordinarily honor parents they respect, or that they won’t respect parents who don’t honor them, then parents who’re overly critical, excessively negative, always competitive, easily annoyed, and anxious to exert their rule over their children shouldn’t be surprised if their children fail to honor them. These kinds of parents cast a dark shadow over their homes, a shadow that lingers throughout their children’s lives.
Instead, a godly parent aims at the discipline and delight of their children. They want them to fear and enjoy the Lord. They remember that the garden was a place of innumerable blessings and only one boundary. They remember that everything except one thing was lawful in the garden, that the garden was characterized by permission, not prohibition, by delight, not demands.
As we establish our family rules and set appropriate boundaries for our children, we must remember that grace, not law, is what changes hearts, that God’s kindness, not his severity, is what leads to repentance, that what we’re after in our kids’ lives is the blessing of faith, not socially acceptable behaviors that make us look like successful and spiritual parents.
Sabbath is for Enjoying God’s World
God commands man to enjoy “every tree of the garden.” God wants to bless his creatures through his creation. He wants his world to be enjoyed liberally. One way we can do this today is by practicing a regular sabbath. Since I preached on this about a month ago, I wonder how you’re doing with sabbath? Have you established a routine of regular rest? Do you take a 24-hour break from work, paid and unpaid, in your weekly schedule? If not, why not?
A regular sabbath gives us a window of time to enjoy the miracle of this world with our senses. Peter Scazzero says, “As part of observing Sabbath, God invites us…to enjoy and delight in his creation and all the gifts he offers us in it. These innumerable gifts come to us in many forms, including people, places, and things.”[7] What gives you joy and delight? What refreshes you? For me, it’s parks and trees and running and books. For Suzy, its good food and tennis and good conversation.
Sabbathing isn’t a self-help technique. It’s a God-given gift to his image-bearers for their refreshment. If you neglect it, you’re refusing one of God’s gifts and you’ll reap what you sow.
Prohibition
This brings us to verse 17, the one prohibition that God gave to Adam. Even this prohibition can be seen as evidence of God’s goodness. Out of mercy, God tells Adam that there’ll be severe consequences if he eats of this tree. God’s warnings are evidence of grace because they’re meant to keep us from the brink of destruction. If God didn’t love us, he’d never warn us. He’d just let us stumble over the cliff of destruction without ever telling us that there was a cliff there.
The reason he must not eat from this tree is because if he does, he will “surely die.” This is a super serious command. But it must be seen in light of the preceding two verses. God has put man in a garden of beauty and bounty and given him satisfying work and said he could have anything he wants, except the fruit from one tree. The prohibition is meant to protect and preserve the blessing of God in man’s life. God’s rules are meant for our joy, not our misery.
Interestingly, the serpent totally ignores verse 16 and makes no reference to God’s abundant provision and permission. He only magnifies God’s prohibition. He wants Adam and Eve to see God as harsh and as holding out on them, when in reality the exact opposite is true.
There’s no reason stated for the prohibition. We don’t know why God put this tree there and told them not to eat from it. What’s at stake here is whether or not man will choose to trust God’s words. Old Testament scholar John Sailhamer summarizes this beautifully:
“The inference of God’s commands in vv. 16-17 is that God alone knows what is good for man and that God alone knows what is not good for him. To enjoy the ‘good’ man must trust God and obey him. If man disobeys, he will have to decide for himself what is good and what is not good. While to modern man such a prospect may seem desirable, to the author of Genesis it is the worst fate that could have befallen him. Only God knows what is good for man. Only God can know what is good.”[8]
The “good life” that we were made for only comes by trusting in the word of God. God created us and God is good, so only he knows what is truly good for us. If what were good for us was left up to us, who’s definition of “good” would we use? The terrorists? The rich and famous? The politicians? Who gets to decide what’s good? God does because he’s God, and because he’s good.
True Life for Those Who Obey the Gospel
In 2:8-17, we’ve seen one garden (v. 8), two trees (v. 9), four rivers (vv. 10-14), and two rules (vv. 15-17). God put Adam in a well-watered Garden that had two special trees. He said he could eat from any tree except one and if he disobeys, death will be the consequence. In the garden there were blessings and boundaries. For us, this means that God created us to bless us with life and joy, but this life will only be found in obedience to him.
Hard work, humble parenting, and a regular sabbath can greatly bless our lives. But the truly blessed life begins when we obey Jesus’ word in the gospel. Jesus says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him” (Jn. 3:36).
From the beginning, breaking God’s rules meant death. We’ve all broken God’s rules, so we all deserve death. But Jesus came and offered his life as a substitute for ours, so that everyone who trusts him and obeys his word will be saved from eternal death and given eternal life.
The principle of the garden hasn’t changed: those who obey God get to live, those who disobey him die. Those who obey the gospel are saved from death and brought back into the paradise of God where they’ll enjoy the river and tree of life forever. Jesus came into the world to bring sinners back into the Garden.
[1]Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987), 66-7.
[2]Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 46.
[3]Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 171.
[4]Much of this section is from John Piper, Don’t Waste your Life, in The Collected Works of John Piper, vol. 5, eds. David Mathis and Justin Taylor (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 497-9.
[5]Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (New York: Picador, 2004), 68.
[6]Ibid., 136.
[7]Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 147-8
[8]John H. Sailhamer, “Genesis,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 45.
The Creator Comes Close
Genesis 2:4-7
Christmas Apologetics
At this time of year, we start to hear Christmas music everywhere we go. We even hear Christmas hymns about Jesus’ birth, like O Holy Night or Away in a Manger, in businesses like Starbucks that aren’t very friendly to the Christian message.
I wonder if this is because many in our culture believe that the Christian message is not fundamentally different from every other message? Many in our culture believe that God is at the top of a mountain and there are many paths to the top of the mountain, and as long as you do your best on your path, you’ll get to him in the end. This is the belief that all religions are fundamentally the same, just superficially different.
When people stop and listen to those hymns playing in Starbucks, they’ll realize that there’s something unique about the Christian message. They’ll realize that Christianity says that the God at the top of the mountain didn’t wait for us to find our way up to him, but rather he came and met us where we are. God didn’t leave us alone but rather came to us in Jesus.
Every other religion is built on the idea that we have to do something to get to God. The uniqueness and beauty and mystery and wonder of our message is that the Creator of the cosmos came into his creation, not to destroy it, but to redeem and remake it. At Christmas, we remember, reflect on, and rejoice in the Creator who’s come close.
Hints of Christmas in Genesis 2
As we continue our study of Genesis chapter 2, we’re going to see hints of Christmas realities in the second chapter of the Bible. Genesis 1 was focused on God as a transcendent Creator. Genesis 2 is focused on God as an imminent Creator. The God of the Bible is both high and holy, and low and accessible. He’s merciful and mighty. He’s outside creation and inside creation. He’s far and near. He’s to be feared and enjoyed. He’s Creator and Redeemer.
These realities find their perfect and fullest combined expression in the person of Jesus Christ. But, as I said, these truths about God’s character show up in the opening chapters of the Bible.
In Genesis 2:4-7, we’re going to see a new name for God (v. 4), an untended earth (vv. 5-6), and a holy moment (v. 7).
The Importance of Genesis 2
First, let’s try to set this text in its context. Verse 4 starts with, “These are the generations.” This is a phrase used eleven times in Genesis. It’s always followed by an account of what happened from the starting point named. It’s a heading that announces the historical development of the subject mentioned. It’s like saying, “This is what became of _______.”
Here in verse 4 it’s introducing the account of what happened to “the heavens and the earth,” echoing 1:1. This section (2:4-4:26) describes what happened to the world that God created. 1:1-2:3 is about God taking chaos and creating a wonderful world. 2:4-4:26 is about a wonderful world devolving into chaos again because of sin. One commentator says, “This text focuses on human persons as the glory and central problem of creation.”[1]
Chapter 2 isn’t a second creation account, but rather is an expansion of what we’ve already been told in chapter 1. In chapter 2, Moses double-clicks on 1:26 and expands on it. Chapter 1 tells us that man was created. Chapter 2 tells us how. Chapter 1 is like saying, “There was a parade on the sixth day.” Chapter 2 then tells us how and in what order the floats passed by.
Chapter 2 is a massively important chapter because it prepares us for what happens in chapters 3-4. Chapter 1 is about the creation of the universe. Chapter 2 is about man’s creation. Chapter 3 is about the entrance of sin. And chapter 4 is about how sin spreads and expands in the world. So Chapter 2 serves as the link between creation and corruption.
Without chapter 2, the disaster of chapters 3-4 wouldn’t be seen as the tragic and horrific events that they are. Here’s how Old Testament scholar Allen Ross puts it, Genesis 2 “provides the necessary introduction to the record of the fall and the resultant curse. The magnitude of that sin and destruction can be fully understood only when the nature and purpose of humankind is understood. To know what God had invested in human life and what he had expected of it is to know what was lost at the fall.”[2]
In other words, for the fall of chapter 3 to make sense, we need to understand what we fell from. Falling off your bed and falling off a cliff are two very different things. One may injure you. One will kill you. We’ll never understand the horrors of sin until we understand the beauty of creation. This is why the gospel message starts in Genesis 1 and 2, not Genesis 3. Sin will only make sense within a worldview of an omnipotent God who created us in his image to know him personally.
A New Name for God
2:4 begins with a heading telling us that this section is about what happened with the “heavens and earth” that God created. And what happened centers on God’s image bearers, in their unique creation and their unthinkable rebellion.
This brings us to the end of verse 4 where we see a new name for God, “the Lord God.” This is the pairing of two Hebrew names for God, Yahweh and Elohim. Genesis 1 exclusively uses Elohim. This name for God highlights his transcendent power and glory, his role as Creator.
But then in verse 4, Moses starts calling God Yahweh Elohim, or “the Lord God.” Yahweh is the personal name of God. It’s the name he gives to himself at the burning bush with Moses (Ex. 3:13-15). His name is linked to his covenant (v. 15). It’s the name that connects God to his people and his promises.
So when Moses calls God Yahweh Elohim in Genesis 2:4, he’s making a massive theological point. He’s saying that the transcendent Creator God of Genesis 1 is also the personal redeeming God of the exodus. He’s saying that the God who creates is also the God who relates. He’s saying that Israel’s God is both Creator and Redeemer.
Moses uses this name for God twenty times in chapters 2-3. Interestingly, the only place he doesn’t is 3:2-7, when Satan tempts Adam and Eve. The god they’re talking about is manipulative, secretive, and malevolent, a character so different from Yahweh Elohim that Moses avoids using this name in their dialogue.
Moses begins this section of the narrative by making it clear that the one true and living God is both transcendent and personal. He’s Creator and Redeemer, Mighty and Merciful, Lord and Savior.
The God of the Bible is Yahweh Elohim. His image-bearers were made to rule his world and relate to him as sons and daughters. He made us to rule for him and to walk with him. He created us to rule and to relate.
A Covenant at Creation
The nature of this relationship is often expressed in terms of a covenant. A covenant in the Bible is a relationship between two parties that involves “permanent and serious commitments of faithful, loyal love, obedience, and trust.”[3] A marriage is often referred to as a covenant relationship because two parties make binding promises to each other. A covenant isn’t a business contract, but a relationship with blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.
Many scholars believe that, though a covenant isn’t explicitly mentioned in Genesis 1-2, God enters into a covenant relationship with Adam and Eve upon their creation. Following Professor Tom Schreiner, let me give you several of the reasons why many believe that there’s a “covenant of creation” in the early chapters of Genesis. First, the word “covenant” doesn’t have to be present for a covenant to exist. God enters into a covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7, but the language of “covenant” isn’t used. Second, Hosea 6:7 seems to say that there was a covenant with Adam. It says, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.” Third, the elements needed for a covenant are present at creation: two parties, God and Adam/Eve, and there are requirements to keep. Fourth, in Genesis 6:18, God says that he will “establish” his covenant with Noah. This language of “establishing a covenant” is used when a covenant is being renewed, not created. So God’s covenant with Noah is a renewal of his covenant with Adam and Eve at creation.[4]
Why does all this matter? If God did enter into a covenant with Adam and Eve in the Garden, then it gives us yet more reason to believe that the transcendent God of Genesis 1 is also a personal God who wants to be in relationship with the people he made. We can get there without a covenant at creation, but this covenant further solidifies what I’m trying to say is the main point of Genesis 2, namely, that the transcendent God is also a personal God. He’s Yahweh Elohim, the Creator and Covenant-making God, the God who creates and relates.
Why Prayer is So Amazing
The God we approach in prayer as individuals and as a church is the God who created the universe, and he’s a God who wants to hear from us. He enjoys listening to and responding to his people’s cries for help. David says, “In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me” (Ps. 86:7). In prayer, God invites us to talk to him. And in prayer, we can take our praises and petitions, our confessions and laments, our joys and complaints, to the God who created everything and calls us friend.
An Untended Earth
In Genesis 2:5-6, we move to Moses’ description of the earth when man was made. The picture here is of an untended earth. These verses describe the land when God formed Adam. The “noes” in verse 5 tell us why it was untended: no bush, no small plant, no rain, no man to work the ground. The earth needed man to come and rule it, subdue it, and cultivate it. The picture is of the world waiting on the arrival of man.
This verse reminds us of 1:2. When God created the earth, it wasn’t initially a hospitable place. The plants and animals needed to be cultivated. There wasn’t any rain. Verse 6 says that a “mist,” or “spring,” was watering the face of the earth. It reminds us of the watery wasteland of 1:2.
The earth, in a sense, needed man to bring order and shape to it. Yes, God created it all, yet he designed man to bring what he started to completion. As one scholar says, “If plant life is to grow in this garden, it will be due to a joint operation. God will do his part and man will expedite his responsibilities. Rain is not sufficient. Tillage is not sufficient. God is not a tiller of the soil and man is not a sender of rain. But the presence of one being without the other guarantees the perpetuation of desertlike conditions.”[5]
In other words, for things to work right in God’s world, man has to show up and do what he’s supposed to do. This is so instructive for us! Those with a high view of God’s sovereignty can sometimes minimize man’s responsibility. Yes, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1). But the Lord won’t build if we didn’t bring the materials.
In the context of the church, this means that we must be faithful to preach and teach his word because his church won’t be built on anything less or anything more. We must devote ourselves to prayer because God moves through the prayers of his people. We must love one another and serve one another, or we won’t grow into the image of Christ. We must share the gospel with the lost or they won’t be saved. We must give generously to the church so that the ministry of the church can be propelled forward. We must show up to church or we’ll never be ministered to or minster to others. We must worship with God’s people, or our hearts will grow cold, and our faith will weaken, and doubts will grow. We must practice meaningful membership and church discipline, or the church will start to look like the world. We must apply ourselves to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord or we’ll stay like infants in the Lord instead of growing into strong and mature adults.
Only God can send the rain. But if his rain falls on a field that hasn’t been cleared and cultivated and planted, nothing will grow. It’s presumptuous to want God to do great things in your life, your family, your church, your school, or your office while you sit on your spiritual tush and do nothing. God designed his world to flourish through men and women who “work the ground.” The Creator created us to create something out of his creation.
A Holy Moment
This brings us to verse 7, one of the most intimate scenes in the Bible. The God who spoke galaxies into existence stoops down and forms and fashions man out of the ground, like a potter skillfully working the clay, then he gently breathes his breath into him, animating him and bringing him into conscious awareness of who he is.
It says that the Lord God “formed” man from the dust. This word “formed” tells us that man was carefully designed and that there was intentionality in what God was doing. The same word is used later in Genesis 6:5 to refer to the “intentions” of man’s heart. There was intention and purpose in what God was doing. God’s creative hands – not blind biological reactions and natural selection over millions of years, fashioned and shaped and molded man.
Yes, the text says that man was made from the earth, or “of dust from the ground.” Man is a creature made up of common chemicals with everything else. Man (Hebrew adam) is made from the dust of the ground (Hebrew adama), so the “dust of the earth” is imbedded in his name – it’s part of who he is. As one commentator says, “Dust is the womb from which man emerges and the receptacle to which one day he will return (3:19). It defines the beginning and end of his life.”[6]
We’re raised from the dust to reign over the earth. We should rejoice and be thankful that we have a dignity that other creatures don’t have, but we should also be humbled when we remember that we’re from the dirt. John Calvin says, “The body of Adam is formed of clay and destitute of sense; to that end no one should exult beyond measure in his flesh. He must be excessively stupid who does not here learn humility.”[7] We must never forget who we are or what we are. We reflect God himself, and we’re made out of dust. So next time you’re at the gym standing in front of the mirror and boasting in how great your body looks, remind yourself that you’re made out of dirt. God made us in a way that creates amazement and humility.
It says that God breathed “the breath of life” into the man’s nostrils. 1:30 says that the creatures of the earth also have the “breath of life,” so some suggest that mankind is fundamentally the same as the animals. Yes, animals and humans are living and breathing beings. But the way we arrived there is very different. Verse 7 says that God himself breathed into us the “breath of life.” It’s this act that makes us the image of God. It’s what gives us a soul. It’s where our capacity to hear God’s word, to create, to think logically, to know right from wrong, and to have complex emotions come from. We’re not less than dust, but we are so much more. We’re given breath by God himself.
This word “breathed” paints a deeply intimate, warm, and personal picture of this scene. The Lord God, who’d just used his mouth to speak the universe into existence, now stoops down and gets face to face with this lump of dust. He uses the same mouth that created galaxies to breathe life into man. This was a holy moment. The Creator came close to his creation.
This reminded me of how I spoke to my children when they were babies compared to how I speak to everyone else. I would get down on the ground, lay beside them, and speak to them gently and tenderly. The same voice I use to preach God’s word I used to speak to my babies. In the same way, the creation of man is a picture of how a holy God stoops down and speaks words of life to clay vessels.
A Pattern of Self-Giving Love
God created us through giving of himself. The way Yahweh Elohim created man foreshadows how he will later create his bride, the church. On the cross, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16).
After his resurrection, Jesus gives his Spirit to his disciples in a way that reminds of us Genesis 2:7. When he meets them in the upper room, he says, “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Jn. 20:21-22).
Jesus breathes his presence into his people, eternally uniting them with himself and empowering them for their mission in the world. This pattern of creating his people through self-giving love goes all the way back to Genesis 2:7, when God raised Adam out of the dust by his breath. God creates his people by giving himself to them. What grace!
Created in Adam, Raised in Christ
Interestingly, Paul quotes Genesis 2:7 in 1 Corinthians 15 to tell us that God will one day give us a resurrection body like Christ (vv. 42-49). Paul’s argument is simple: Just as the natural preceded the spiritual in God’s creation of Adam, so also there’s a spiritual body represented by Christ that comes after the natural body represented by Adam. All those who’re united to “the man of heaven” are “of heaven.” And, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (v. 49).
In other words, just as we’ve been like Adam, we’ll be like the second Adam, Jesus Christ. The natural precedes the spiritual. And if the natural is true, then the spiritual will follow. Those who’re created like Adam will be raised like Christ.
This is the promise for everyone who turns from their sins and puts all their hope in Jesus, those who believe that God is Yahweh Elohim, Creator and Redeemer, those who know that only he can save them and that they must put their faith in him in order to be saved, and those who treasure a relationship with him above everything else.
[1]Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 40
[2]Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 117.
[3]Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 165.
[4]Thomas R. Schreiner, Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Short Studies in Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 20-3.
[5]Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 153-4.
[6]Ibid., 158.
[7]Quoted in R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 52.
God Rested, So Should You
Genesis 2:1-3
Do Less to Do More
Do you ever wish you could get more stuff done? Do you ever feel like you’re always behind the 8-Ball and never caught up with work or always worrying about how you’re going to get all the stuff done that you need to get done? Do you ever get so stressed about how much you have to do that you just throw in the towel and binge the latest Netflix series?
God, in his mercy, has actually designed us to get more done by doing less. He didn’t make us to reflect his glory and represent his rule on the earth by being stressed and anxious all the time. He made us to work in a way that reveals his character and blesses his world. But we usually try to do this while neglecting one of the most important things he’s given us to help us do what he made us to do. We try to work without rest.
An Evangelist for Rest
I’ve told several folks that my sabbatical turned me into an evangelist for rest. You don’t know how good rest is until you really rest. And once you’ve tasted the goodness of something, you want others to taste it too.
I didn’t plan to read much on rest when my sabbatical started, but when I asked my counselor if there was one book I must read during my sabbatical, he pointed me to The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero.[1] There’s a chapter on “Practicing Sabbath Delight.” It was by far one of the best things I read during my sabbatical. Let me give you a little taste of what Scazzero says about Sabbath in the chapter:
“(Christian leaders) can’t stop…(because) they’re terrified. They’re frightened to death of what they’ll see inside themselves if they slow down…Something so much deeper is driving them; they just have no idea what it is” (144).
“On Sabbath…for a brief moment in time, we reorient ourselves away from this world in all its brokenness and anticipate the world to come – how things on earth are meant to be. In a very real sense, the practice of Sabbath joins heaven and earth, equipping us not merely to rest from our work but also to work from our rest” (149).
“There are some things God can deposit into our souls only when we unplug completely from work and rest” (163).
“(Sabbath) is the one day of the week I most believe – and live out – a fundamental truth of the gospel. How? I do nothing productive, and yet I am utterly loved” (169).
“If we do not keep the Sabbath, we are incurring a deficit and God himself will stop us, through a crisis, a health issue, an emergency, or anything that gets our attention” (171).
On this point, in his book Reset, David Murray quotes another author, saying, “If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath – our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us.”[2] The point is that not having a routine of regular rest is, as one pastor says, a “deathstyle,” not a “lifestyle.”[3] There are consequences if we decide to live our lives according to our wisdom rather than God’s.
My sabbatical was God’s way of showing me that I’ve consistently neglected one of the most basic commands of God and consistently not received one of the most beautiful gifts from God, namely, a regular routine of rest.
A Rhythm of Rest Woven Into the Fabric of Creation
All of this sounds good in principle, but is it biblical? Is taking a day to rest a modern self-help technique or an ancient God-given gift?
As we continue our study of Genesis, we come to the beginning of chapter 2, where we learn that a rhythm of rest is woven into the very fabric of creation. Verses 1-3 tell us what happens on the seventh day of the world’s history.
God Finishes What He Begins
Verse 1 is a summarizing and concluding statement to chapter 1. This verse echoes 1:1. What God started, he has now finished. God always finishes what he begins. Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” God’s work in your life will never stall out. He never quits on the job of making you more like Jesus and bringing you safely home.
A Greatness That Speaks for Itself
It’s amazing how nonchalantly Moses says in verse 2, “God finished his work that he had done.” And in verse 3, “All his work that he had done in creation.” The one, true, and living God has just spoken an entire universe into existence, formed it and filled it, made all of its constituent parts, everything from atoms to Adam, from planets to people, from Jupiter to Junipers, from the Milky Way to megalodons, from supernovas to slugs, from dark matter to dalmatians, from black holes to blackberries, and all Moses says is “God finished all his work in creation.” It’d be like spending four grueling years to get your college degree and your biographer one day summarizes it by saying, “They finished college.”
Commentator Gordon Wenham points out that this brevity is meant to “evoke the silent awe that is appropriate before the grandeur of the work that has been accomplished.”[4] In other words, Moses doesn’t need to say much because the magnificence of what God made speaks for itself. We’re to look at what God made with the same kind of quiet reverence that art galleries require.
God’s power and nature and glory is everywhere seen in what he’s made. Do you see it? Do you consistently put yourself in a position to see it and enjoy it?
Hints of the Sabbath
One way to do this is by setting aside regular time every week to be refreshed by the goodness of God’s creation. This pattern of regular rest is woven into the very fabric of creation, as God punctuated the first week with a day of rest (v. 2).
God didn’t rest because he was tired. He’s God, he doesn’t get tired (Ps. 121:4). God rested on the seventh day out of exhilaration, not exhaustion, out of triumph, not tiredness (1:31). He was so pleased with what he’d made that he wanted to step back and enjoy it. On the seventh day of world history, the Father, Son, and Spirit inhaled the satisfaction of a job well-done.
In verse 2, the Hebrew word for “God rested” can mean “to cease to be,” “to desist from work,” or “to observe the sabbath.” The second sense is clearly the meaning here. God isn’t ceasing to exist and the sabbath isn’t explicitly mentioned.
But the sabbath idea is on Moses’ mind, even if not mentioned by name. The word for “work” used twice in verse 2 and once in verse 3 is the word used for ordinary human work. This is interesting because Moses is using a word to describe the kind of work we do to describe an obviously different kind of work God did by creating a universe out of nothing. Moses may have chosen this word to indicate that man should stop his work on the seventh day.
Because Moses wrote the Pentateuch, it’s safe to say that he has the sabbath in mind when he writes 2:1-3. He says later in the Ten Commandments that the Sabbath idea goes back to creation (Ex. 20:8-11). When God’s people practice sabbath, they’re reflecting and revealing something of God himself.
“Blessed” and “Holy”
In Genesis 2:3, we see two striking statements that suggest that God has the Sabbath in mind for the seventh day. Verse 3 says that God “blessed the seventh day” and “made it holy.” Again, the seventh day isn’t called the sabbath here, but it is blessed and hallowed, or declared holy, both of which are “striking terms to apply to a day.”[5]
“Blessing” is not usually applied to inanimate things like a day. It’s not clear how a day can be “blessed,” but it is clear that God blessed this day. Back in chapter 1, God’s blessing on the animals and humans meant fruitfulness and multiplication (vv. 22, 28).
I may be spiritualizing the text here, but I find it very interesting that since Suzy and I have started practicing a regular sabbath, I’ve been able to get more done in less time. During my sabbatical, my reading, writing, praying, exercising, and family time were all more fruitful. As I leaned into rest, a fruitfulness and multiplication happened in my life.
The day that God stops working is the day that he blesses. It may be “blessed” because it’s
“holy.” Or it may be that God intends to bless those who observe the sabbath.
It’s also unusual for a day to be declared “holy.” God is holy and, in the Old Testament, anything described as “holy” derives its holiness by being chosen by God and given to him in a prescribed way. The seventh day is the first thing to be declared holy. The first thing that receives a status that belongs to God alone is a day. This means that neglecting a regular rhythm of rest is profaning something God has made sacred.
This language of blessing and holiness applied to the seventh day alerts us to a sacredness, a specialness, a uniqueness of the seventh day. Though the sabbath isn’t mentioned explicitly here, there are textual pointers that Moses wants us to see to prepare us for the Sabbath command.
Are Christians Commanded to Keep the Sabbath?
God rested after working, blessing and hallowing the seventh day, which Moses says is the reason for the fourth commandment. But how do these Old Testament principles and laws apply to Christians today? More specifically, are Christians commanded to keep the Sabbath?
God’s Sabbath Rest in Jesus
Interestingly, the Sabbath command is the only one of the Ten Commandments not explicitly repeated in the New Testament. What is made explicit is that Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath laws for us. Hebrews 4:2-3, “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest.” And then verses 8-10, “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”
Jesus’ work was for our eternal rest. By working hard to live a perfect life and by laying down his life for our sins and raising from the dead on the third day, Jesus fulfilled the law and grants eternal rest to everyone who puts their trust in him and turns from their sins. Those who know they can’t work their way into heaven are given “God’s rest.”
Remember Jesus’ offer, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).
Jesus’ call for us to come to him for rest comes before his command to go and do for him (Matt. 28:19-20). Jesus calls us to be in him before we do for him.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t ask us if we have a good reason to be tired or not. Maybe it’s our fault we’re so tired and weary and overwhelmed all the time. Even so, Jesus still wants us to come to him. He calls all tired people to him, no matter how or why they’re tired.
So whether you’re working hard to make your life look better than it actually is (“labor”) or finding yourself weighed down by things beyond your control (“heavy laden”), Jesus wants to give you rest. He sees you. He understands what you’re doing, what you’ve done, and what’s been done to you. His heart is tender, welcoming, willing, and open to receive you. All you have to do is be honest with yourself and with him about your need.
You don’t have to pay anything for God’s rest. Jesus says, “I will give you rest.” His rest is a gift, not a reward for good behavior, not a transaction. If you’d like to talk more about what coming to Jesus for rest means, talk to someone around you or me after the service.
The Sabbath is a Gift
While it is clear that God’s sabbath rest is only truly found by coming to Jesus in faith, it’s not as clear what Christians should do with the Sabbath laws of the Old Testament. The two things that are clear in the New Testament about the Sabbath are that it’s a gift from God and that it’s a disputable matter that Christians are free to disagree on.
First, it’s a gift from God. Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for us. Mark 2:27, “And he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’” In this verse, Jesus is interpreting for the Pharisees a passage he’d just quoted to them about David eating the bread from the Tabernacle when he was hungry. Jesus is saying that, though they knew the letter of the story, they didn’t understand its spirit, and the same was true of their understanding of the Sabbath. They were making the Sabbath a burden instead of a blessing. So Jesus tells them that the Sabbath is a gift from God, “The Sabbath was made for man.” The rabbis had taken the gift and made it a burden by adding all sorts of regulations to it. The work it took to keep all the regulations undermined the point of the Sabbath. The rabbis’ version of the Sabbath made people tired when God wanted to give people rest.
The Sabbath is a Disputable Matter
The second thing the New Testament says about the Sabbath is that it’s a disputable matter that Christians are free to disagree on. Paul addresses this issue directly in Romans 14:5, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” And Colossians 2:16, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.”
In other words, Christians shouldn’t judge one another if we have differing views on the Sabbath. For example, some Christians have taught that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, but our church believes that binds the conscience in a way that the Bible doesn’t. So we don’t teach that Sunday is the new Sabbath day. However, if someone believes Sunday is the Sabbath, that’s fine! They just can’t require other church members to believe the same or make them feel bad for not agreeing with them.
Those in Christ are free to not observe the Sabbath laws, free from the specifics of the Old Testament commands. This doesn’t mean that we’re free to ignore the wisdom of the principle of the Sabbath. Pursing a pattern of regular rest is wise, not slavish law-keeping. Adam Mabry says, “If you’re concerned that by embracing regular Sabbath rest you’re in danger of coming under some harsh legalism, simply ask yourself how not observing Sabbath rest is going for you. It’s not rest that threatens to oppress you, but your refusal to.”[6]
When Should We Rest?
When should we sabbath? Whenever is best for you and your family! Find what works for you and your family and your stage of life. Talk to another brother or sister in Christ and see what they do. Suzy and I made a plan for our sabbath toward to the end of my sabbatical and it’s served us really well. It’s not law and we tweak it as we go, but it helps us guard the sabbath.
What Should We Do When We Rest?
What should we do when we rest? Two things. First, do anything that’s not work. This doesn’t mean inactivity. It means do something that’s not part of your regular work. One of the stated purposes of the Sabbath was refreshment. Exodus 23:12, “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.”
God gives us the Sabbath to refresh us. If you’re exhausted physically and emotionally, it may be because you aren’t tapping into the gift that God has given you to charge your batteries. God doesn’t want you to be miserable all the time. He wants to refresh you.
Second, we should worship when we rest. Sabbath is “a time of rest, holy to the Lord.”[7] Sabbath means setting apart time to rest in and with the Lord. This means that you need to open your Bible and pray during your time of rest. The point is to rest with Jesus, not from Jesus. Binging on Netflix on your day off isn’t Sabbathing. Pursue things that will fill your soul, not numb your mind.
You may object that you don’t have time or ability to rest for a whole day. I’m sure there are situations where this is genuinely the case. But for many of us, we can do this, we just don’t know how or don’t think we need to. Perhaps we don’t trust that God will take care of us if we stop working for a day, or we’re desperate to build an identity of success and strength, or we’re convinced that our situation is unique and that these things don’t apply to us.
Friends, please hear me: you will reap what you sow. If you sow a life of incessant work with no routine of regular rest, you will reap a life of exhaustion, anxiety, depression, fatigue, health problems, lower levels of productivity, and a lack of depth with the Lord.
Sabbathing isn’t a self-help technique. It’s a God-given gift to his image-bearers for their refreshment. If you neglect it, you do so to your own peril.
God Will Give Us Rest Even if We Don’t Rest
Even if you choose to ignore God’s wisdom about rest, he won’t remove his promise of Sabbath rest from you. He will bring us home to rest even if we fail to rest here and now. We don’t earn his eternal rest. God gladly gives it.
And like every good Father, he also gladly gives good gifts to his kids. Sabbath is one of those gifts. Sabbathing is our way of responding to his grace and saying to him that he is Lord of life, not us, that we need him and trust him, and that he’s the deepest refreshment of our lives. God rested, so should you.
[1]Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015).
[2]David Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 100-1.
[3]Ibid., 101.
[4]Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987), 36.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Adam Mabry, The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops (The Good Book Company, 2018), 48.
[7]Ibid., 24.