Archives For Theology

Many believers think that Paul teaches that whether a believer esteems the Lord’s Day above other days is a matter of Christian liberty (Rom. 14:5-6). For several key reasons, this is a serious misapplication of Paul’s teaching in Romans 14:5-6.

Divine Consecration of One Day above the Others

In the beginning, the Lord created light and called it “Day” (Gen. 1:3-5a). He so created the universe that “the evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen. 1:5).

Having finished His work of creating all things in six literal 24-hour days, “God . . rested on the seventh day from all His work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:3). He then blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” (Gen. 2:3). These statements show us that even though God was the One who made all the days, He set apart one day as special above the other days.

Adam, Eve, and all others who were among God’s people prior to the giving of the Mosaic Law would thus have had direct divine activity that would have unmistakably made clear to them that they were to esteem the seventh day above the other days of the week.

Divine Mandate to Esteem One Day above the Others

Through His giving the Decalogue to Moses, God revealed to His people His command that they were to esteem the seventh day above other days:

Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

We should notice that God directly ties His commands concerning the Sabbath day to what He did at creation on and concerning the seventh day. God’s people from this point until the Resurrection of Christ and the birth of the Church on Pentecost had both divine consecration and divine mandate that would direct them unmistakably to esteem one day above the other days of the week.

Divine Possession of One Day above the Others

God raised His Son Jesus Christ from the dead on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1-8) and gave Him glory so that our faith and hope might be in God (1 Pet. 1:21). Apostolic use of Psalm 118:22 in Acts 4:10-11 shows us that the Psalmist’s statements in Psalm 118 about the day which the Lord hath made are not to be taken generically to apply to every day but specifically are prophetic prediction about the first day of the week when God would raise Christ from the dead and make Him the head stone of the corner! God’s people ever after are to rejoice and be glad on the day the Lord has made—the Lord’s Day!

Furthermore, on Pentecost, God birthed the Church on the first day of the week (Acts 2). In obedience to an apostolic command (1 Cor. 16:2a), His people thereafter assembled to worship Him on the first day of every week (cf. Acts 20:7), including giving offerings for helping meet the pressing needs of His saints (1 Cor. 16:1-4). All these facts show that the first day was a special day for His NT people in many respects.

In providing His climactic revelation to mankind, however, God revealed that the first day of the week was now special to Him in a singular way unlike any other day was—it was “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10)! The Greek construction used here reveals a crucial truth:

Rev 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

Rev 1:10 ἐγενόμην ἐν Πνεύματι ἐν τῇ Κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ· καὶ ἤκουσα ὀπίσω μου φωνὴν μεγάλην ὡς σάλπιγγος,

In the expression τῇ Κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ (‘the Lord’s Day’), the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle John to use the Greek adjective kuriakos (“belonging to the Lord,” [Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, 115]) to teach us that the Lord now has possessed this day in a unique way that was and is distinct from all other days.1 Yes, He created all the days of the week at Creation, but through His work of raising His Son from the dead on the first day and giving Him glory, the Lord took possession of that day in a glorious new way!

The Holy Spirit thus teaches all believers that the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day that He distinctively possesses and that His people are to esteem that day above all the other days of the week. Romans 14:3-5 most definitely does not apply to how a Christian should esteem the Lord’s Day, and Christians must esteem the Lord’s Day above all other days!


 

1 I am indebted to my pastor Dr. Mark Minnick for his excellent teaching through which I first learned this glorious truth.

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Some evangelicals use 2 Samuel 6:14 as evidence to assert that many fundamentalists are lacking in their public worship of the Lord. Some even go so far as to imply that fundamentalists try to “put a spin” on such texts about dancing to the Lord in order to resist the supposed force of this record of David’s exuberant and uninhibited worship of the Lord.

For many reasons, 2 Samuel 6:14 is not a text that shows that public Christian worship should include dancing to the Lord.

  1. The passage is not a record of a normative occasion of public Israelite worship. It records what one man did on a once-in-a-lifetime occasion of immense national significance—moving the Ark of the Lord from the home of an individual to Jerusalem to put it in the middle of the Tabernacle of the Lord.
  2. The passage does not provide definitive proof that David’s public worship of the Lord routinely included such dancing because we do not have other unambiguous accounts of David dancing as part of his worshiping the Lord publicly. David does testify elsewhere of the Lord’s turning for him his mourning into dancing (Ps. 30:11), but the passage is not explicit that David is here testifying of his dancing publicly before the Lord in a worship context.
  3. The passage does not include any explicit divine commendation of David for what he did.
  4. The Old Testament does not anywhere record even one other spiritual “giant” of the faith who danced before the Lord as part of his worship of the Lord. Neither Job nor Samuel nor Hezekiah nor Josiah nor Daniel is ever recorded as dancing before the Lord in worshiping him.
  5. The Old Testament does have two references that record commands to worship the Lord with dancing (Ps. 149:3; 150:4), so we must hold that dancing was a proper and necessary part of Israelite worship of God at least in some manner on some occasions. Key passages, however, that record faithful Israelite worship of the Lord on pinnacle occasions of divine worship in Israel’s history make no mention of such dancing (for example, 2 Chronicles 5; 29:20-36; 35:1-19), which suggests that these commands in Psalms 149 and 150 were in some unstated manner of limited scope for specific settings.
  6. The New Testament does not even once record that dancing was a part of Jewish or Christian worship of the Lord. Nor are there any commands or instruction in the NT about dancing as part of proper worship of the Lord.
  7. Biblical passages that reveal information about heavenly worship never mention dancing as a part of the worship of heaven.

Based on these points, it is illegitimate for evangelicals to assert that fundamentalists are willfully resisting unmistakably clear implications of 2 Samuel 6:14 as a text that shows that faithful worshipers of the Lord should dance before Him when they worship Him publicly.

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

A glorious day is coming in the new heavens and the new earth when God will have made “all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Based on what other Scripture passages say, however, we know that there are five things that God will not make new:

  1. God will not make new the serpent, which will still eat dust (Gen. 3:14; Micah 7:17) in the Millennium (Isa. 65:25). Whether the serpent will be made new in the new heaven and the new earth is unknown because Scripture does not provide any revelation about animals in the new heaven and the new earth.
  2. God will not make new all the unredeemed humans of all the ages who failed to repent of their sins and believe in Him. They will all perish eternally in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15).
  3. God will not make new the seas that He created as good (Gen. 1:10). In fact, there will be no sea in the new earth (Rev. 21:1), which proves that there will not be a “restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21) without any exceptions.
  4. God will not make new the lake of fire, which He prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41).
  5. God will not make new Satan and his demons who have sinned against God. They will never be renewed to their unfallen state (cf. Ezek. 28:15). They will be punished eternally in the lake of fire (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:10).

Scripture, therefore, does not teach that God will make all things without any exceptions new.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

On a Facebook thread, a friend of mine posted in June the following assessment of fundamentalism:

Music is a clear instance where fundamentalism teaches a Manichean (an ancient heresy) view of the world by dividing everything into good or evil – good styles vs. bad styles, worldly music vs. Godly music. Augustine and other orthodox Christians rightly saw this as a faulty cosmology. It calls evil what God has created and declared as intrinsically good.

If you believe, as this friend does, that fundamentalists who reject certain musical styles are “Manichaen” heretics and hold “a faulty cosmology,” please show us “heretics” point-by-point from the Bible alone how we are calling “evil what God has created and declared as intrinsically good.” Where and how exactly does the Bible itself teach that God created all musical styles and declared them as intrinsically good?

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

This morning, I finished teaching an 8-week Sunday school series, Beginnings at the End: Creation, Fall, and Redemption in the Book of Revelation. The series featured a thorough comparative analysis of Genesis 1-4 with the book of Revelation.

In the final lesson this morning, I presented to my class that there are at least 25 clear parallels between Genesis 1-4 and Revelation 19-22 that show how important and fit it is to study these passages comparatively. By carefully studying the following references concerning the stated subjects, you will be able to see just how closely these two passages correspond to each other!

 

creation Gen. 1-2 Rev. 21:1, 2, 5, 10
night Gen. 1:5, 14, 16 Rev. 21:25; 22:5
sea Gen. 1:10 Rev. 21:1
sun and moon Gen. 1:14-18 Rev. 21:23; 22:5
humans ruling for God Gen. 1:26, 28 Rev. 20:4, 6
blessed Gen. 1:22, 28; 2:3 Rev. 19:9; 20:6; 22:7
humans with direct fellowship with God Gen. 1-4 Rev. 21:3; 22:4
the tree of life Gen. 2:9; 3:22-24 Rev. 22:2, 14
river/ (water of life) Gen. 2:10-14 Rev. 21:6; 22:1-2; 17
gold Gen. 2:12 Rev. 21:18, 21
human service for God Gen. 2:15 Rev. 22:3
marriage Gen. 2:18-25 Rev. 19:7-9; 21:2; 21:9-27; 22:17
demonic deception of human beings Gen. 3:1-5; 13 Rev. 20:3, 8
the devil Gen. 3:1-5; 15 Rev. 20:1-10
curse Gen. 3:14, 17; 4:11 Rev. 22:3
death Gen. 3:19; 4:8 Rev. 20:6, 14; 21:4
fallen human beings Gen. 3-4 Rev. 21:8, 27; 22:15
divine evaluation of human beings Gen. 3:9-13; 4:4-7; 9-10 Rev. 20:11-15
divine punishment of sinful humans Gen. 3:16-19; 3:22-24; 4:11-15 Rev. 19-22
divine provision of clothing for humans Gen. 3:21 Rev. 19:8, 14
divine redemption of humans Gen. 3:15, 21; 4:1, 4, 26 Rev. 19-22
vital role of righteous angels in ministering to humans Gen. 3:24 Rev. 19:17-18; 20:1-3; 21:9-21; 22:6, 16
false worship Gen. 4:3 cf. 4:5 Rev. 19:10, 20; 22:8-9
true worship Gen. 4:4 Rev. 19:10; 22:9
a city Gen. 4:17 Rev. 21:2; 22:19

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

The word redeemer occurs 19x in Scripture. Incredibly, the NT never calls God the Redeemer even once!

Of its 19 occurrences in the OT, 15 are in statements that explicitly speak of God as the Redeemer of national Israel: Psalm 78:35; Isaiah 41:14; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7, 26; 54:5, 8; 59:20; 60:16; 63:16; Jeremiah 50:34. Furthermore, as the preceding listing shows, 13 of those 15 occurrences are in Isaiah 40-66.

What’s more, the glorious ending of the book of Isaiah has at least 13 other explicit statements about God’s redemption of national Israel: Isaiah 43:1, 3, 4; 44:22, 23; 48:20; 51:10, 11; 52:3, 8, 9; 62:12; 63:4. A careful examination of these 26 explicit references about redemption in Isaiah 40-66 (and many other passages in both Testaments, including Jeremiah 31:35-40; 33:14-26; Ezekiel 20, 36; Zechariah 14; and Romans 9-11) shows beyond any doubt that God is yet going to redeem national Israel for His own eternal glory!

As Christians, therefore, we need to understand that God as the Redeemer in Scripture preeminently concerns God’s future redemption of national Israel!

 

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

God is the only One who has existed forever. When God, therefore, created the first angel(s), there were no other created beings in existence.

Because all angels are created beings, they must believe what God has told them about His having created them and that they have not always existed, as God has. Since no angels were around to witness God’s creating at least the first angel(s) who was/were created, righteous angels exercise faith in what God tells them about their origin.

It makes sense to think, however, that some or perhaps all fallen angels reject what God has told them about their origin. Given this demonic rejection of the truth of their being created beings, it would naturally follow that some or all demons have played a leading role in influencing humans around the world to reject the biblical doctrine of creation.

I think that we would do well to present this biblical line of reasoning to those who reject the biblical doctrine of creation and challenge them that their rejection puts them in line with evil supernatural beings. What do you think?

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

None of the many articles that I have read recently concerning biblical marriage has mentioned Genesis 6-9 as a relevant or important passage about the subject. An examination of several facets of the passage shows that Genesis 6-9 is a key passage that provides decisive information that corroborates what Genesis 1-2 teaches about biblical marriage.

A Profound Emphasis on Male and Female in Genesis 1-5 and 6-9

Genesis 1:27 reveals that God created man as male and female and blessed them and instructed them to be fruitful and multiply. Genesis 2:18-25 corroborates that passage and states that God brought Adam and Eve together as the first humans and united them to be husband and wife. Their union was blessed of God, and there was no shame involved in their being united as one flesh.

Genesis 5:2 reiterates that God made man male and female and blessed them. This key statement shows that Genesis 1-2 records factual history concerning biblical marriage.

In Genesis 6, we learn that mankind had so completely corrupted itself that God decreed that He would annihilate all people and animals from the earth (Gen. 6:5-17). By the favor of God (cf. Gen. 6:8), only Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives would be spared from that worldwide destruction (Gen. 6:13, 18). God thus spared mankind only as pairs consisting of a male and a female who were married to each other.

In addition, God would spare certain numbers of animals from that destruction. God profoundly emphasized that he would spare these animals only as pairs that were specified to be male and female (Gen. 6:19; 7:3, 9, 16).1

He even speaks of these pairs of animals as being “a male and his female” (Gen. 7:2 [2x]; emphasis added). After the Flood, God instructed Noah to bring out all the animals “that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth” (Gen. 8:17), making clear that the animals that were spared were male and female animals that were spared as pairs.

Following the Flood, the whole earth was “overspread” by the children (and further descendants) who were born as the fruit of the marriages of each of Noah’s three sons with his own wife (Gen. 9:19). Although not directly stated, the same was the case with all the earth being filled with animals through the unions of each male animal and his female.

Based on all these statements in Genesis 6-9, we learn that God has profoundly emphasized that He had ordained for humans that their marriages were to be between a man and his wife because He only spared four pairs of humans, all of whom were married according to the pattern that He had established at Creation (Gen. 1-2). Furthermore, the profound emphasis in this passage on even the animals being pairs consisting of a male and his female shows that God’s pattern for all these living beings that He created, both humans and animals, was from the beginning to be the uniting of males and females into pairs that were comprised only of humans with humans and animals with animals respectively that were of opposite gender.

Conclusion

For Christians who believe fully that the entire Bible is the perfect Word of God, Genesis 1-2 is not the only key early passage that reveals to them what biblical marriage is. As discussed above, Genesis 6-9 profoundly confirms what Genesis 1-2 teaches such believers about biblical marriage.


 

1 Of the clean animals and birds, God instructed Noah to bring in a seventh animal, which was later offered in sacrifice to God (Gen. 7:2; 8:20).

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Not a few believers today probably regard the book of Revelation as largely an obscure prophetic book filled with apocalyptic symbolism and a book that is not really of much contemporary importance for how we are to live our lives. A striking observation about the book shows that its relevance for our lives could hardly be overstated.

Number of Occurrences of Forms of the Word “Worship”

Through reading through the book of Revelation 11 times in the past four months, I have discovered many truths about the book that I had not seen before. Today, after reading through the book this morning, I examined how many times the word “worship” occurs in its various forms in the book compared to other books of the Bible.

In the OT, the seven books with the most occurrences of forms of the word “worship” are the following: Exodus – 7; Deuteronomy – 7; 2 Kings – 12; Psalms – 16; Isaiah – 10; Jeremiah – 9; and Daniel – 12. In the NT, 23 books have fewer than five occurrences of the forms; four books have 13 or more occurrences: Matthew – 14; John 13; Acts – 13; and Revelation – 24.

These figures show that the book of Revelation has far more occurrences of forms of the word “worship” in it than any other book of the Bible does! Based on this data, we learn that this book stresses the importance of worship in a profound way that is probably little appreciated by many believers today.

Conclusion

The book of Revelation is far more than just an obscure prophetic book filled with apocalyptic symbolism that has little relevance for how we live our lives. At least through its surpassing use of forms of the word “worship,” the book of Revelation challenges us more than any other book of the Bible does that we must worship God aright for who He is and what He has done and will yet do.

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

1. Jesus is the beginning of the creation of God—He is the “first cause” (Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament) of all that God has created; as the agent of God the Father, Jesus created all things.

Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

2. God must be worshiped because He is the Creator.

Rev 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

3. True belief in God as Creator is displayed by worship that glorifies Him as the Creator.

Rev 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

4. Every created being will one day honor God and the Lamb.

Rev 5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

5. An angel will one day swear a key truth by the eternal Creator.

Rev 10:6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer.

6. Worshiping God as the Creator is an essential dimension of the everlasting gospel.

Rev 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

 

 

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.