Interpretation | A People for His Name

Archives For Interpretation

The Remarkable Ending of Psalm 104

August 15, 2012

In Psalm 104, the Psalmist exults in the glories of God for the first 34 of the 35 verses in the psalm:

¹ Bless the LORD, O my soul.

O LORD my God, thou art very great;
thou art clothed with honour and majesty.

² Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment:

who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

³ Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters:
who maketh the clouds his chariot:
who walketh upon the wings of the wind:

⁴ Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:

⁵ Who laid the foundations of the earth,
that it should not be removed for ever.

⁶ Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment:
the waters stood above the mountains.

⁷ At thy rebuke they fled;
at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.
⁸ They go up by the mountains;
they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.

⁹ Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over;
that they turn not again to cover the earth.

¹⁰ He sendeth the springs into the valleys,
which run among the hills.
¹¹ They give drink to every beast of the field:
the wild asses quench their thirst.

¹² By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation,
which sing among the branches.

¹³ He watereth the hills from his chambers:
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.

¹⁴ He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle,
and herb for the service of man:
that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
¹⁵ And wine that maketh glad the heart of man,
and oil to make his face to shine,
and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.

¹⁶ The trees of the LORD are full of sap;
the cedars of Lebanon,
which he hath planted;
¹⁷ Where the birds make their nests:
as for the stork,
the fir trees are her house.
¹⁸ The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats;
and the rocks for the conies.

¹⁹ He appointed the moon for seasons:
the sun knoweth his going down.
²⁰ Thou makest darkness,
and it is night:

wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
²¹ The young lions roar after their prey,
and seek their meat from God.
²² The sun ariseth,
they gather themselves together,
and lay them down in their dens.

²³ Man goeth forth unto his work
and to his labour until the evening.

²⁴ O LORD, how manifold are thy works!
in wisdom hast thou made them all:
the earth is full of thy riches.

²⁵ So is this great and wide sea,
wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
²⁶ There go the ships:
there is that leviathan,
whom thou hast made to play therein.

²⁷ These wait all upon thee;
that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
²⁸ That thou givest them they gather:
thou openest thine hand,
they are filled with good.

²⁹ Thou hidest thy face,

they are troubled:
thou takest away their breath,
they die,
and return to their dust.

³⁰ Thou sendest forth thy spirit,
they are created:
and thou renewest the face of the earth.

³¹ The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever:
the LORD shall rejoice in his works.

³² He looketh on the earth,
and it trembleth:
he toucheth the hills,
and they smoke.

³³ I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live:
I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

³⁴ My meditation of him shall be sweet:
I will be glad in the LORD.

He concludes the psalm by exhorting himself to bless the Lord and then praising the Lord:

Bless thou the LORD, O my soul.
Praise ye the LORD (35c-d).

He thus begins and ends the psalm by exhorting himself in the same way (to bless the Lord).

In the first half of his concluding statement, however, the psalmist expresses his longing for something that at first glance seems remarkably contrary to the tenor of virtually everything else in the Psalm:

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth,
and let the wicked be no more (35a-b).

What are we to make of these remarkable statements in the ending of the psalm? How do we explain that this one who was so taken with the greatness of God and His goodness to all His creation should end this glorious meditation about God with an intense longing for the annihilation of all the wicked from the earth?

Because these words are not just the words of the psalmist but also words inspired by the Holy Spirit, we are to learn from them that having such a longing and praying for God to do so is not inconsistent with having a heart that loves and glorifies God supremely; rather, it is only supreme love for God that elicits such sentiments from the heart of man.

Let’s allow God to renew our minds so that our longing and desire fully reflect His glory of being the One who destroys the wicked out of His earth so that unrepentant sinners are no more (cf. Ps. 119:119).

In Interpretation, Theology

Let’s Profit Fully from Jesus’ Remarkable Dealings with This Very Needy Woman!

August 3, 2012

All the Synoptics record how a woman with an incurable hemorrhage received miraculous healing through her “impersonal” touching of Jesus (Matt. 9; Mk. 5; Luke 8). Jesus’ subsequent remarkable dealings with this very needy woman pertain vitally to an aspect of Christian worship in churches today that many more believers need to profit from fully:

²⁴ And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him.

²⁵ And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, ²⁶ And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

²⁷ When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. ²⁸ For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. ²⁹ And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

³⁰ And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? ³¹ And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? ³² And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

³³ But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. ³⁴ And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague (Mark 5).

In manifestation of her genuine but not well-developed faith in Jesus, this woman came from behind Him and furtively touched Him in order to be healed of her terrible affliction. Knowing immediately what had happened, Jesus acted in a forceful but gracious manner that compelled her to fall down before Him and acknowledge everything to Him “before all the people” (Luke 8:47).

Jesus thus did not allow her merely to receive her healing in an impersonal transaction that did not require public personal interaction with Him and public acknowledgement of her neediness and testimony to what He had done for her. Only when she had honored Jesus with a public confession of all the truth about what had happened did He give her assurance of her faith and instruction to leave in peace and wholeness.

Jesus’ dealings with this woman to bring about a fitting public response from her supports the proper use of “come forward” style invitations that exhort sinners to come forward and testify publicly if God has ministered graciously and specifically to them in an unmistakable manner to confront them with their sinfulness and minister to them to bring them to Himself.

A number of commentators expound about Jesus’ remarkable dealing with this very needy woman in ways that are consistent with this application:

There is nothing better for those that fear and tremble, than to throw themselves at the feet of the Lord Jesus, to humble themselves before Him, and refer themselves to Him. . . . We must not be ashamed to own the secret transactions between Christ and our souls; but, when called to it, mention, to His praise, and the encouragement of others, what he has done for our souls, and the experience we have had of healing virtue derived from Him. And the consideration of this, that nothing can be hid from Christ, should engage us to confess all to Him (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1787; bold text is in italics in original).

Dumb [in the sense of not speaking] debtors to healing mercy, be rebuked by the narrative of the Lord’s procedure towards this healed woman. He suffered her not, as doubtless she would have preferred, to depart in silence, to pour out her secret thanksgivings, or at some private meeting to testify her love to Jesus. He would have her, in spite of her shrinking modesty, to come forward before all and declare what she had done and how she had sped. Thus, in her own way, was she a preacher of Christ. And such witness will He have from all His saved ones. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (David Brown, JFB, 3:155; bold text is in italics in the original).

She desired secrecy, because an open appeal to Jesus for healing, involving a public disclosure of her condition, would be too embarrassing. . . . The whole ordeal naturally was embarrassing to her, but Jesus knew that it was necessary to give her the assurance that she needed. . . . He required her confession to perfect [her] faith and to give her its full reward” (D. Edmond Heibert, The Gospel of Mark: An Expostional Commentary, 142, 145).

It was not enough to believe in her heart: she must as well confess with her mouth (Rom. 10:9). In front of all the crowd, she must confess, first her great need of healing, and then, the glad fact of her salvation. That it was a costly confession, we can tell from the words in fear and trembling (33). For a woman to speak in public before an Asian crowd, and above all to speak of such personal matters, would be very humbling for her, but humility is an essential within the kingdom of God (R. Alan Cole, Mark in TNTC, 161-62; bold text is in italics in original).

It turns out that the healing does not come free. Jesus forces her to step out on faith and be identified. It will not bankrupt her as the physicians had done, but she must publicly acknowledge her debt to Jesus, that he is the source of her healing. When she does, he blesses her and announces that her faith has made her well (David E. Garland, Mark in NIVAC, 221).

She wants a cure, however, a something, whereas Jesus desires a personal encounter with someone. He is not content to dispatch a miracle; he wants to encounter a person (James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark in PNTC, 165; bold text is in italics in original).

God has inscripturated the accounts of Jesus’ remarkable dealings with this very needy woman for our profit that we might learn better how to honor Jesus in public worship settings. Let’s profit fully from them in this respect by employing and participating in “come forward” style invitations in a proper manner.

In Exhortation, Interpretation

Learning from God's Specific Will about Goats

July 20, 2012

In the many previous times that I have read through the Bible, I have not understood Leviticus 16:5-10 as an important passage about the specificity of God’s will. Recently, however, God granted me illumination about the remarkable nature of its teaching concerning God’s specific will about goats.

The Lord directed Moses to instruct Aaron about the offerings that he was to make as an atonement for the people of Israel:

Lev 16:5 And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. ⁶ And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.

⁷ And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. ⁸ And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.

⁹ And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD’S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. ¹⁰ But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

Aaron was to take two male goats (see Heb.) from the people for a sin offering (16:5). The people would have brought to him goats that met the requirements for the sin offerings (Lev. 4-5), and Aaron would receive them to present to the Lord at the door of the tabernacle (16:7).

Having brought the two goats to the door, he then had to cast lots for them to determine which one would be offered as the sin offering to the Lord and which one would be the scapegoat (16:8). Aaron thus was not left to his own wisdom to decide which one to use in which way.

Because the Lord was the One who determined the outcome when lots were cast (Prov. 16:33), this instruction makes clear that it was the Lord who thereby specified to Aaron which goat he would use for which purpose. The Lord, therefore, had a specific will for each goat and a specific will for Aaron about how he was to use each one.

This passage teaches us that the Lord had a specific will about matters (choice between the goat to be used for an offering and the one to be used for a scapegoat) that we would otherwise surely have thought that there would have been no difference in the choices that were to be made. If the Lord had a specific will about these goats and a specific will about which one Aaron was to use for each purpose, how credible is it to assert that He does not have a specific will for clearly important matters for us today such as who a person is to marry?

In Interpretation, Theology

Is God's Love for a Believer Unconditional?

July 12, 2012

Jesus taught His disciples in the Upper Room Discourse, “At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God” (John 16:26-27). He seems in this teaching to say plainly that the Father Himself loves the disciples because they have loved Jesus and have believed that He came out from God.

If God’s love for a believer is unconditional, as nearly almost everyone argues that it is, how do we explain Jesus’ teaching at this time to His disciples that the cause of the Father’s love for them was that they had loved Him and had believed that He had come out from God?

In Interpretation, Theology

Learning Interpretation from an Examination of Jonah 3

July 9, 2012

The evangelistic accounts in Scripture have often been handled in ways that obscure a proper understanding of apostolic doctrine and practice. A close look at Jonah 3 brings out a key point that many believers need to pay more attention to when they handle such accounts.

Jonah “began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown’” (3:4). He briefly records their response to his preaching: “So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them” (Jon. 3:5).

Jonah also informs us that the king had heeded his warning properly: “For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes” (3:6). Not only did the king respond rightly himself, but he also directed his people to do so as well:

⁷ And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: ⁸ But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. ⁹ Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

Jonah ends the account by recording that God graciously spared Nineveh: “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not” (3:10).

Several points about this account that are easily overlooked instruct us about how we should handle other evangelistic accounts as well.

First, Jonah makes clear that the people’s right response was the result of their heeding a decree from the king (and his nobles) that instructed them about what they were to do in response to Jonah’s preaching: “So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth . . . For word came unto the king . . . and he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let . . .” (3:5-7a).

The people’s response, therefore, was not just due to their own response to what Jonah had preached to them; it was due both to their believing his preaching to them and to their heeding the directive they were given by the king about how they were to respond.

Second, Jonah informs us that the king directed the people to respond in at least four specific ways:

(1) Fasting – “Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water”;

(2) Covering with sackcloth – “But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth”;

(3) Praying to God – “and cry mightily unto God”;

(4) Turning from evil – “yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands” (3:7b-8).

This four-fold response may be summarized as their needing to repent and pray to God.

Third, Jonah explicitly records that the people heeded three of the four aspects of the king’s decree: fasting (“proclaimed a fast” [3:5]); covering with sackcloth (“and put on sackcloth” [3:5]); and, turning from evil (“God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way” [3:10]). He, however, provides no explicit indication that they obeyed the aspect of the decree that commanded them to pray to God.

How this lack of an explicit record of their praying should be interpreted points to a vital aspect of interpreting this evangelistic account properly: Does the lack of explicit mention of their praying to God mean that they disobeyed the king’s directive to pray? Or, did they heed his directive to pray, and the writer expects us to understand that they did so even though he does not bother to mention it explicitly?

The flow of thought from verse 5 to verses 6-10 shows that we are to hold the latter understanding as the correct one. Verse 5 is the writer’s summary statement of their response; it is not exhaustive, as verse 10 plainly shows. Verse 6 explains that what they did was because of the directive they had received from the king, which Jonah explains in verse 8 as having including direction to pray to God.

We, therefore, should hold that the Ninevehites did pray to God as part of their response to Jonah’s preaching. Furthermore, verse 10 says that God responded graciously to them, which would not have been the case had the people refused to “cry mightily unto God.”

On this reading, Jonah 3 teaches us that evangelistic accounts that say that the people believed and/or repented should be understood as summary statements that indicate that they also prayed to God, whether or not the passage records explicitly that they did so. This interpretation has important ramifications for many NT passages that some see as evidence that the people who were saved did not pray as a part of their salvation experience.

Support for this approach to interpreting evangelistic accounts is provided by a comparison of Acts 9 and 26. Acts 9:20 inform us that Paul preached in the synagogues of Damascus that Christ is the Son of God. Luke provides no information about Paul’s preaching repentance to them; should we then hold that Paul did not tell the people in Damascus to repent?

Acts 26:20 states that Paul did preach repentance in Damascus, which indicates to us that Luke did not intend for us to conclude from the lack of mention of that content in his report of Paul’s preaching in Acts 9:20 that Paul in fact did not preach repentance in Damascus. The comparison of these two passages instructs us not to interpret the lack of mention of specific content in an evangelistic account as evidence that no testimony to that content was in fact given on that occasion.

Based on the evidence from Jonah 3, we should hold that evangelistic accounts that record people’s getting saved but do not say that they prayed to do so are not evidence that they did not pray as an aspect of their salvation experience. Rather, we should hold that they did pray, and that the Scripture writers expect us to understand that they did do so in spite of the lack of explicit statements in the accounts that inform us that they did pray.

In Evangelism, Interpretation

Hope for the USA Based on the Amazing Parallel between 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Jonah 3!

July 6, 2012

Hearing Jonah’s proclamation of the upcoming destruction of Nineveh (Jon. 3:4), the Ninevehites responded with faith (3:5a) and repentance (3:5b-c; cf. “And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way” [3:10a]). Because they did so, God relented of the punishment that He had purposed to bring upon them (3:10b).

The people’s right response to the warning of impending judgment was brought about by the proper response of their king (and his nobles) to that warning (the causal connection is clear from the word for that causally links 3:5 with 3:6-9):

Jon 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

⁶ For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

⁸ But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

⁹ Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

The king humbled himself (3:6) and directed that the entire city be given specific direction about what they were to do (3:7-8). In addition to fasting (3:7b), all were to cover themselves with sackcloth (3:8a), which would be an outward act of humbling themselves in keeping with their humbling themselves in their hearts.

The king also decreed all to “cry mightily unto God” (3:7c) and turn each one “from his evil way” and from their violence (3:7d). He explained that the intent of the decree was that they might not perish if God perhaps would relent from punishing them for their wickedness (3:9).

God did spare them from His judgment, and this analysis shows that He did so because they believed, repented, and prayed to Him (3:10).

Moreover, the decree by the king of Nineveh strikingly parallels the instruction that God had given to Solomon many years earlier:

Instruction to Solomon	Instruction in the Decree by the King of Nineveh
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves,	“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. . . .He [the king] arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. . . . , Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth”
and pray, and seek my face,	and cry mightily unto God:
and turn from their wicked ways;	yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14).	And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not” (Jon. 3:5-10).

This parallel shows that the truth of 2 Chronicles 7:14 was fulfilled for a pagan nation that very likely had never heard anything about that great promise of God to His own people! How much more would the truth of 2 Chronicles 7:14 be fulfilled for the USA, a country which has had far more knowledge of God than the Ninehevites ever had, were we to believe God, repent, and pray to Him, as they did!

In the hope that the amazing parallel between 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Jonah 3 provides for us who are alive today in the USA, let us all humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways while there is yet time. Let us also make known to as many other people as we can the great hope that God holds out for our country if we all will believe Him, repent, and pray to Him!

In Evangelism, Exhortation, Interpretation

Are We Overlooking an Important Element in Our Understanding of the Health Problems That Some People Face?

June 22, 2012

Scripture speaks in a number of places of people who suffered severe physical affliction that did not have “natural” causes (e.g. unhealthy lifestyle, accidents, or advanced age):

—Job had no idea that his physical affliction was caused by Satan (Job 2:7).

—Luke provides no indication to us that the woman who had been crippled for 18 years knew that her infirmity was caused by Satan, but he does record that Jesus made known (after He had healed her) that it was (Luke 13:16).

—Herod “was eaten of worms” and died because the angel of the Lord had smitten him (Acts 12:23), but we have no indication that he knew of the supernatural cause of his fatal illness.

Given this data (and other related biblical teaching), it seems to me that we need to consider more often than we probably have been doing that the serious physical afflictions that some people suffer from may be the direct result of supernatural activity that they have been the objects of without their having any knowledge of such activity.

In Health, Interpretation

The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David

June 1, 2012

In His dealings with certain Sadducees who denied the resurrection of the dead (Matt. 22:23-33; Mk. 12:18-27; Luke 20:37-38), Jesus cited God’s statement to Moses as proof that the dead do rise:

Mar 12:26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

²⁷ He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

When God spoke these words to Moses, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for many years, yet God spoke of His being their God:

“God implied that the patriarchs were still alive and that He had a continuing relationship with them as their covenant-keeping God, even though they had died long before. This demonstrates, Jesus concluded, that He is not the God of the dead, in the Sadducean understanding of death as extinction, but of the living. He is still the patriarch’s God which would not be true had they ceased to exist at death, that is, if death ends it all. And His covenant faithfulness implicitly guaranteed their bodily resurrection” (BKC: NT, 163).

Based on Jesus’ use of the OT in His dealings with the Sadducees, it seems that we should also regard three earlier statements as testimony to the resurrection of the dead.

First, in Beersheba, the Lord appeared to Isaac “the same night, and said, ‘I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake’” (Gen. 26:24). Abraham had died some time before this appearance (cf. 25:8), but God spoke of Himself as being Abraham’s God.

Second, in Haran, Jacob had a dream in which he saw a ladder “and, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, ‘I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed’” (28:13). Like the earlier reference, this divine utterance testified to the Lord’s being the God of Abraham, who had been dead by this time for some time.

Third, after his father Isaac had died, Jacob came to Beersheba. God appeared to him “in the visions of the night” and said to Jacob, “I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation” (46:3).

After God’s repeated testimony to Moses about His being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 3:6, 15, 16; cf. 3:13), some other divine statements occur that likely should be taken as also at least implicitly communicating the same truth, including the following:

Exo 4:5 That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.

2Ki 20:5 Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD (cf. Isa. 38:5).

2Ch 21:12 And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah.

In the NT, aside from Jesus’ dealing with the Sadducees, Stephen’s citation of God’s statement to Moses at the burning bush served to proclaim at least implicitly the truth of the resurrection of the dead to his hostile audience (Acts 7:32).

From the biblical data about our God’s being the God of those have been physically dead for many, many years, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, we should realize the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead in Scripture.

In Interpretation

Did Jesus Love a Man Who Was Not One of the Elect?

May 28, 2012

Mark informs us that Jesus evangelized a rich young ruler who asked him what he should do that he might “inherit eternal life” (Mk.10:17). After Jesus’ initially challenged him (Mk.10:18-19), the man showed by his response that he was yet lacking full understanding of his sinfulness (Mk.10:20).

In response, Jesus “beholding him loved him” (Mk. 10:21) and proceeded to evangelize him further but to no avail. Given that this encounter was not some chance event that just happened to take place, we must hold that God sent Jesus into the world to love this sinful man as He did and confront him with the exact information that he needed to be brought to repentance.

Although Jesus confronted this sinful man in love with his need to repent (Mk.10:21), the man left the encounter unrepentant and unconverted (Mk.10:22). Scripture does not give us any more information about him, which leaves us with no indication that he was ever saved. Based on the available data, it seems that we should hold that he was not one of the elect.

On that reading, this passage provides explicit biblical teaching that Jesus loved a man who was not one of the elect. Those who hold that John 3:16 and other similar biblical teaching about the love of God for sinners only applies to the elect should thus at least adjust their theological systems to account for Jesus’ loving this man who from all that we are able to know was not one of the elect.

In Interpretation, Theology

Would the Psalmists Approve of CCM?

May 22, 2012

Many professing Christians today approve of the use of CCM. This article evaluates the propriety of that approval by directing attention to a question that every believer would do well to consider carefully—whether the authors of the Psalms would approve of CCM?

To answer this question, we should keep in mind some facts about the book of Psalms: God inspired a number of men to write the Psalms: David (75); Asaph (12); Solomon (2?); Ethan (1); Heman (1), and Moses (1); [no information or unclear information about the authors of the other 58 Psalms]. Together, these men have given to us the only inspired sacred songbook in existence.

Of these men, at least four were also instrumentalists (David, Asaph, Ethan, and Heman; cf. 1 Chron. 15:19). These four men produced at least 89 of the Psalms, so more than 59% of these inspired songs were written by men who also played musical instruments themselves. The Psalms, therefore, were not merely the product of poets or songwriters inspired by God to write lyrics for inspired songs.

If these inspired songwriters (and sacred instrumentalists) were somehow to hear the CCM of our day, would they approve? To answer this question, we should consider what God has taught us through them.

The first Psalmist teaches us that a man will be blessed (i.e., uniquely favored by God), if he will be characterized in the following dual manner:

1. Negatively, he does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful.
2. Positively, he delights in the law (Heb. instruction) of God and meditates therein day and night.

Because the Psalmist begins by characterizing the blessed man negatively with three expressions of what is not true of him, we must understand that these statements are the right place for us to start in answering our question.

To be blessed, we must not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Our lives must not be lived influenced in any essential way by any ungodly advice, viewpoints, priorities, objectives, and practices.

How does this truth apply to the music that we use for our worship? It teaches us that we must not get our music perspectives or practices from those who are not like God.

CCM, however, was created by professing Christians who chose to incorporate into Christian music a style and type of music invented by ungodly people who created that style specifically for the purpose of promoting ungodliness. Because CCM was therefore created by those who acted contrary to the teaching of Psalm 1:1, which directs us not to live under the influence of the ungodly, we should hold that the Psalmists would not approve of CCM.

Confirmation of this assessment is seen by applying to our question David’s teaching in Psalm 2 about the counsel of the ungodly:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us (2:1-3).

To understand the importance of these statements, we note that the first Psalmist provides no specific information about the counsel of the ungodly. David here thus gives to us the first specific information about that counsel when he teaches us that ungodly men (especially the kings of the earth and the rulers) have taken counsel together to promote rebellion against the authority of Yahweh and His Messiah.

From taking the teaching of Psalms 1-2 together, we learn that the inspired songwriters preeminently warn people about following ungodly counsel that incites and promotes rebellion against God. Applying this principle to music means that these two (if David did not write Psalm 1 as well) Psalmists would not approve in any way of music created by ungodly people for the purpose of promoting rebellion.

The people who created and advanced rock music have openly and repeatedly testified that the music itself—apart from the lyrics—was created for the purpose of promoting rebellion. Rock music, therefore, regardless of what words are sung along with it, is ungodly music because it was created by the ungodly to promote rebellion.

Those who created CCM—as well as those who have since promoted it—have thus advanced the use of music of which the Psalmists clearly would not approve. Because David wrote at least half of the Psalms, he is by far the most important musician spoken of in Scripture. Hence, we do well to give special regard to applying his teaching in Psalm 2 to this issue.

The believer, therefore, should heed the godly counsel of the first Psalmist and of David and categorically reject CCM as well as all other music that weds Christian words with ungodly music styles.

In CCM, Interpretation, Music

Archives For Interpretation

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: