Gospel

Great Commission Baptism and Infant Baptism Part 1

“Buried unto death in Christ, rise again to walk in newness of life.” – my pastor when I was baptized thirty-four years ago at the age of thirty-one.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” – Jesus Christ giving the Great Commission to His church in Matthew 28:19-20.

THE BEAUTIFUL PLAN – THE GREAT COMMISSION (MATTHEW 28:19-20)

Almost four years ago, on December 20, 2021, I had posted an article (Post #471) presenting the beautiful picture given to us by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20. In these two short verses, known as the Great Commission, Jesus instructs His church of their responsibilities in making disciples and thus in building His church to the end of the age. The picture is simple and elegant. First, the church is to proclaim the gospel “in Jesus’ name to all the nations” (Luke 24:47), “even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Those who respond in repentance and faith are to be publicly baptized as a testimony of their faith and are then to join themselves to a local church to be taught all that Jesus commanded. And this same pattern of proclamation-unto-faith and then baptizing and then training in righteousness is to continue through the church until the Lord returns. This is the basic blueprint for how Jesus is going to build His church (Matt. 16:18). The purpose of Post #471 was to reveal that blueprint and then display the beauty of Jesus’ disciple-making plan in operation in a local church. (It might be helpful to read that post before reading this one.)

BAPTISM OF DISCIPLES AT THE CENTER

At the very center of this Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), this divine plan for making disciples of all the nations, is the command to baptize disciples. The risen Lord Jesus, to whom has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (28:18), commands His church to baptize disciples. This article will not take the time to explain the reason that Jesus commanded the baptism of disciples, but we will insist on the fact that Jesus commanded the baptism of disciples. The Lord of the church has told us to baptize (i.e., immerse) those who confess Jesus as Lord and our obedience to Jesus requires that we do so.

A DISTORTED APPROACH

Despite the unambiguous command in the Great Commission to immerse disciples, there are many in the Christian church who do not obey the Lord’s command regarding baptism but instead practice a man-made alternative. In this article (Post #719), I will critique one of these “other plans,” namely paedobaptism, which is more commonly known as infant baptism. We will see that ignoring the beautiful pattern that Jesus gave to His church in the Great Commission distorts the entire task of disciple-making. We will also see that an erroneous practice of baptism produces much confusion about salvation.

PAEDOBAPTISM (INFANT BAPTISM)

First, we consider the unbiblical way in which infant baptism (IB) is practiced. (NOTE: I will use the abbreviation “IB” when referring to infant baptism.) As we noted in Post #471, IB is a foundational practice in all Catholic churches and all Protestant denominations that descend from the Catholic Church. In this practice of IB, a minister of the church sprinkles a little bit of water on the head of an infant (or young child) being presented by its parents. After invoking the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the minister declares that the passive, unaware, and sometimes unconscious infant has now been “baptized” and is therefore a member of the church. All of this ceremony is done without the slightest participation by the infant and is done without any biblical warrant.

Now, regardless of how this practice of IB is justified by the church (and the ways of justifying the practice of IB vary widely between denominations and even within the same tradition or denomination), it should be observed that violence has been done to the Great Commission. The pattern for making disciples that Jesus gave His church in Matthew 28:19-20 was “Go and evangelize unto faith and salvation” followed by baptism followed by teaching by the church. But the pattern for the church that practices IB begins with something they call “baptism” and ignores or overlooks the critical starting point of the faith and salvation of the disciple. Having thus ignored Jesus’ prescribed pattern for making disciples (Matthew 28:19-20) and invented their own (Romans 10:3), the church is now also on their own for the other steps in the disciple-making process.

QUESTIONS RAISED BY IB IN THE CONTEXT OF MATTHEW 28:19

In Matthew 28:19, the risen Lord Jesus unambiguously commanded the baptism of disciples. But this command provokes significant questions for the church that “baptizes” (sprinkles) infants. For example, since Matthew 28:19 is explicitly about the baptism of disciples, we should ask the IB church, “Is the infant being presented for ‘baptism’ a disciple?” For if the infant is not a disciple, then, according to Matthew 28:19, this sprinkling-as-baptism ceremony is meaningless, for this is a ceremony which only baptizes disciples. But if, on the other hand, the infant is deemed to be a disciple by the IB church and is therefore eligible for “baptism” (sprinkling), we must ask, “How and when did they become a disciple?” Were they born as a disciple? If they were not born as a disciple, then the infant must have become a disciple between birth and their sprinkling ceremony, because, as we have already seen, Matthew 28:19 is only for the baptizing of disciples. What occurred between the infant’s birth and his sprinkling ceremony that changed him from not-disciple to disciple? There are other questions which could be mentioned here, but the main point is that the practice of IB raises many questions.

But as interesting as these questions are, of far greater significance are questions about how IB relates to salvation. In His Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, we have already seen Jesus presenting the church with her task which begins with the church going (“Go, therefore!”) and proclaiming the gospel message so that some will call upon the name of the Lord and be saved (Romans 10:13-15). Thus, Jesus begins with salvation. Then those who “call upon the Lord” are the disciples who are baptized, and those disciples are then taught obedience in the context of the church. And the church is to be engaged in this task until the end of the age. The Lord’s plan is simple and clear: proclamation results in salvation which is celebrated in baptism which is then worked out with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13) in the local church. Go-Baptize-Teach-Repeat. By this means the Lord Jesus will build His church (Matthew 16:18).

Next time we will see how infant baptism confuses and distorts the New Testament’s clear teaching on salvation as contained in the Great Commission.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 10/10/2025                 post #719

Thoughts on religion (Part 1): Satan’s purposes

OVERVIEW. An essay on religions. This article focuses on the purposes for which Satan has created religions.

“I must admit that I am doctrinally weak.” These were the words that Elisabeth said to me when I had mentioned that some of the beliefs of the Mormons were a bit strange. Elisabeth and I were dating at the time. She was a Mormon, having recently come into that group through her sister’s influence. Through a couple of Mormon “missionaries,” I was being exposed to this group’s teaching and found it pretty hard to believe. And so I made my comment to Elisabeth.

This anecdote serves as an introduction to a series of reflections I had recently about religions and about how these philosophes gain and then maintain their control over men and women. This article is a record of some of these reflections.

BASICS OF RELIGION

Before we get too far along, it will be helpful to establish some basics about religion. All religious systems are conceived by the prince of the demons and are brought into the world as Satan insinuates his ideas into the minds of sinful men.

THE PURPOSES OF RELIGION ARE TWO-FOLD. Since the fall in Genesis 3, when sin entered the world (Romans 5:12-14), all mankind has experienced two great problems from their sin: guilt and death. Religions are Satan’s response to these two great problems, because religions are intentionally designed to deceive people about their guilt from sin and to deceive people about death.

GUILT. One of the purposes of any religious system is to provide its adherents with a way to ignore their conscience so that their guilt is assuaged. Because all men have a conscience and because a complete copy of the Law is written on every man’s conscience (Romans 2:14-15), all people experience guilt every time they violate the moral Law of God. The only way to truly remove the guilt from your sin and to rid your conscience of its shame is by true repentance and by faith in the Lord Jesus. But religions are designed to provide a man-made counterfeit that pretends to remove guilt through man-made works and efforts or through man-made ideas with the result that the religious adherent is deceived into believing their guilt is no more.

DEATH. The second purpose of religious systems is to deceive their adherents regarding the nature of death.

When the LORD God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He warned the man with the most terrifying prohibition possible. The LORD God warned man by threatening death as the consequence of disobedience (Genesis 2:17). Death is the most severe threat man can experience. Thus, the threat of death should be the most terrifying threat to us.

But Satan is the deceiver of mankind. What the LORD God threatens for our good Satan twists so that we will be deceived. And so he said to the woman, “You surely will not die!” (Gen. 3:4). The talking snake convinced Eve that there was some wiggle room in what God had commanded. The snake was persuasive, so the woman was persuaded that the threat of death was not that bad. And, ever since, the serpent of old has been persuading fallen mankind that death is not really that bad and deceiving them that God does not really intend to destroy some of His creatures in the lake of fire. Religion is one of Satan’s primary tools for deceiving man about death.

OBSCURING CHRIST AND THE CROSS

To this point we have spoken of religion as Satan’s means of deceiving mankind about the peril of his situation before a holy God. When presenting the gospel to unbelievers, this explanation of religion as putting a veil over the realities of guilt (sin) and death can be a helpful introduction to proclaiming the atoning death of the Lord Jesus and how it solves our two great problems. So certainly, Satan has created religions for deception and distraction.

But there is an even more significant purpose for the invention of religious systems and philosophies. Satan’s primary purpose for religion is to obscure the cross of Jesus Christ and to remove the glory of the Lord Jesus. Consider 2 Cor. 4:3-4:

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Paul expressly teaches that “the god of this world” (Satan) has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the glory of Christ. Satan hates Christ and he hates the cross and therefore his primary goal is to bury Christ’s triumph on the cross in the deepest depths of Sheol. Religion, consisting in fallen man’s pathetic and futile efforts to achieve his own righteousness, is Satan’s primary means for obtaining this goal. So, religion in all its myriad forms is never a way to gauge your goodness but is, in fact, the primary way Satan blinds your mind and obscures the cross of Christ, which is the only way of salvation (Acts 4:12).

In a future post I will continue my musings about religion and will consider the effects of religion on fallen man. We will also consider ancient religions and “next gen religions.”

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 5/22/2025                 #717

The gospel of Matthew series – Chapter 1:18-25

POST OVERVIEW. A commentary on the conception and birth of Jesus Christ as given in Matthew 1:18-25, emphasizing how these are utterly unique in human history and serve to separate Jesus from all of Adamic humanity.

Matthew 1:18-25. Jesus’ “ordinariness” abruptly ends with the end of His genealogy, for it is exactly in Matthew 1:18 that Jesus is separated from all Adamic humanity. For while Jesus, like every other human being who has ever lived (except Adam and Eve), began His earthly life by conception in a mother’s womb, His conception was completely unlike any other conception. Every other human being is conceived in the womb by the human seed of Adam, but Jesus is twice declared to be conceived by the Holy Spirit (1:18, 20). From this point in the gospel, Jesus will continuously be displayed as the unique Son of God.

1:18. “before they came together (i.e., had marital relations), she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit” (v. 18). Notice that ordinary human conception is explicitly ruled out. Jesus could not have been conceived in the ordinary way because Mary and Joseph had not known one another sexually. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ conception and birth, Mary asks Gabriel, “How will this be (i.e., her giving birth to Jesus), since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). But “before they came together,” Mary was found to be pregnant. Well, how did that happen?

The Bible tells us how this humanly impossible event happened. We need not be in any doubt. The inspired Word of the living God tells us that there was (literally in the Greek) “found possessed/held in her womb by (or ‘from’) the Holy Spirit.” Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb by the work of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity. Jesus, who is Himself God, was conceived in the human by God the Holy Spirit. There is immense mystery here as we consider how God could become Man, but there is no mystery or ambiguity as to how Jesus was conceived. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin’s womb.

1:19. At this point in the narrative, we have information that Joseph does not. We know that the holy Child in Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but Joseph knows of no such possibility. Knowing only about ordinary conception, Joseph wants to send his adulterous wife away secretly and discretely. We can only imagine the emotions that Joseph must have felt when Mary was found to be with child “before they came together.” Embarrassment, anger, thoughts of being betrayed and deceived, disappointment, shock must have flooded his mind. “How could she be so cruel and unfaithful!”

1:20. Ordinarily, these feelings would have been completely justified. But remember, Jesus is no ordinary Man. Even at the very beginning of His human likeness, Jesus manifested His deity. At His conception Jesus was God. And now an angel tells Joseph in a dream about this Child conceived in Mary. “Joseph, son of David, Mary has not been unfaithful! The Child in her womb has been ‘begotten of the Holy Spirit.’” Consistent with the words of the Nicene Creed, “He (Jesus) became incarnate by the Holy Spirit.” Even in His human conception, Jesus is “God from God, true God from true God.”

1:21. The angel goes on to tell Joseph things about this Child which testify that He is the Anointed One (Messiah). “The Child will be a Son, whom you shall call Jesus.” “Jesus” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name “Yeshua.” The meaning of the Hebrew name Yeshua is “Yahweh saves.” So the Child will be named “Yahweh saves.” But from what danger will Jesus save His people? “He (Jesus) will save His people from their sins.”

We must take a moment to consider the profundity of this small and simple sentence. We will do this in three steps. 1) He will save. 2) His people. 3) From their sins.

“HE WILL SAVE.” “Jesus will save.” But if God is sending His Son as a Savior, it must mean that there is some extreme danger from which people need to be rescued. If there were anyone else who could save people, then Jesus would surely have remained in heaven. But Jesus is sent because He and He alone is able to save from sins. 

“Jesus will save.” There is no mention of any other agent of salvation in this verse because there is no other Savior to mention. “There is salvation in no other name” (Acts 4:12). “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). “There is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

“HIS PEOPLE.” Jesus left the glories of heaven for the agonies of the cross in order to accomplish the mission given to Him by the Father, and that mission was to save His people from their sins.

INCLUSIVE AND EXCLUSIVE. To understand the significance of this, we need to see that His people is both inclusive and exclusive. It is inclusive because Jesus came to save all of His people. Every single member of the group called “His people” is saved by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, He accomplished full atonement for all of His people. There is not a single one of Jesus’ people, from the Garden to the white horse (Rev. 19:11), for whom Jesus failed to propitiate their sins. Jesus’ atonement on Calvary’s cross included all of His people.

But we also need to understand that Jesus atoned for only His people. Notice that the angel of the Lord said, “He will save His people from their sins.” This means that Jesus came to die for a very specific group of people and He did not die for anyone else. Jesus will save all who are His people, but He will not save any who are not His people. His salvation is exclusive in that Jesus’ atonement excludes all those who are not His people.

Who, then, are “His people?” Who are the people for whom Jesus died? Whom did Jesus save by His death on the cross? “His people” must be that group known as God’s elect, those whom God sovereignly chose for salvation before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). By the singular act of His death on the cross, Jesus has “purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). So, the Son of God was conceived in Mary’s womb for the purpose of saving the elect.

“FROM THEIR SINS.” This Child will receive the name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. Ever since Adam disobeyed the Lord and ate from the tree, all of mankind has lived under the condemnation of sin (Romans 5:12). “There is none righteous, not even one.” “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul who sins will die.” And ever since Adam sinned, the question that mankind has sought to answer has been, “How can a man be in the right before God?” (Job 9:2). How is it possible for my sins that are scarlet to be made white as snow (Isaiah 1:18)? Can burnt offerings, thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil remove the guilt of my sin (Micah 6:6-7)? While no work or sacrifice can remove the guilt of even one sin, this One, this Jesus is going to save all His people from their sins. Jesus is the long-awaited Savior.

1:22-23. Matthew now comments on the words of the angel and declares that these events of the birth of Jesus took place to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah made 700 years before when the prophet said, “Behold, the virgin shall be with Child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14), which translated means “God with us.”

Perhaps no more spectacular prophecy exists in the Old Testament than this word from Isaiah that a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and that this Child will be God in human flesh, “God with us.” Virgins do not conceive children, and God does not become Man. But Matthew is testifying that the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem was the literal fulfillment of this entire prophecy in every detail. God the Son was conceived in Mary’s virgin womb.

1:24-25. Joseph proves to be a model of obedience and faith as he believed what the angel told him in the dream and obeyed what he was called to do. Thus “he took Mary as his wife and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.”

SUMMARY – CHAPTER 1. We have presented Matthew 1 in two parts, one talking about His genealogy and one talking about His conception and birth.

First, in His genealogy (1-17), Matthew displays Jesus as the promised Davidic King, as the rightful heir of the throne of David and, therefore, as the King of Israel. Also, by tracing Jesus’ lineage back through forty-two generations, Matthew demonstrates that Jesus is the son of Abraham and the Son of David.

By His divine conception and virgin birth (18-25), Jesus is displayed as being the completely unique Son of God. Although He appears as man in His physical form, this Man is utterly separate from all Adamic humanity, a heaven-sent Savior who is “God with us.”

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 11/22/2024                 #713

The gospel of Matthew series – Chapter 1:1-17

POST OVERVIEW. A commentary on Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17, tracing Jesus’ ancestors all the way back to Abraham through the kingly line of David.

Matthew 1:1-17. Matthew begins his gospel account by presenting the genealogy of Jesus. Ordinarily genealogies are not that exciting, but then this is no ordinary genealogy. While most of our genealogies would go back four or five generations covering 150 years, Jesus’ genealogy covers forty-two generations and approximately two thousand years.

WHY SUCH PRECISE RECORDS? Have you ever wondered why the Hebrews kept such remarkable genealogical records? Why would anyone keep track of ancestors back thousands of years? The answer is that the Hebrews kept these records so that they could validate or invalidate whether someone was authorized to take a role. For example, the only people who could ever become priests in the tabernacle (and later the temple) were males who were physically descended from Aaron. The only people who became kings in Judah were male descendants of David. Land in Israel was allocated based on your genealogical tribe, and so on. But by far the most important person to validate (or invalidate) by their genealogy was the promised Anointed One, the Messiah. The Old Testament contained many genealogical clues about the identity of the Messiah and He, when He came, had to fulfill all of them. Along these lines (pun intended), the Messiah must be able to track His lineage all the way back to Abraham through the line of King David. And we see that Jesus meets that criterion. So, Jesus satisfies the genealogical test for being the Messiah.

There is another very important fact that Matthew establishes by presenting Jesus as the product of a long line of Hebrews all the way back to Abraham. What is that fact? Jesus is a human being! Jesus is not an angel and He is not a myth. Angels and myths do not have genealogies. They do not have ancestors. But Jesus does. He is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12:3, “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” God promised Abraham that the Messiah would be one of his descendants. Jesus, then, is the Seed of Abraham through His genealogy. And Jesus is human.

ONE THING IS ORDINARY. Maybe the reason that Matthew begins his gospel with Jesus’ family tree is to show that there is at least one thing that is ordinary about Jesus – He has a genealogy. After Matthew 1:17 where the genealogy ends, we are hard-pressed to find a single detail of Jesus’ life that could be considered “ordinary.” From Matthew 1:18 on, nothing about Jesus is ordinary. So Matthew quickly dispenses with Jesus’ “ordinary” genealogy.

THE GENEALOGY ITSELF. Now we want to study the contents of the genealogy itself. We might think that the line of the Messiah would be pristine and would be star-studded, but if we thought that way, we would be wrong. Instead we find that Jesus’ genealogy is littered with sinners, people who are expressly revealed in the pages of Holy Scripture to be flawed and fallen. But this is exactly as it should be. Jesus’ family tree is composed of the types of people that He came to save. As we work our way through the forty-two generations, the best we best we find are a few individuals who are relatively a little better than the rest. Then we reach the end of the genealogy and suddenly encounter one who is completely unlike the rest. As we read the name “Jesus,” we can sense the curse of sin being removed. Finally, here at the end of the forty-two generations we read of our Hero, our Savior, our King.

Matthew begins his lineage of Jesus by mentioning David and Abraham. One of Matthew’s themes in his gospel is that Jesus is the promised Davidic King, so he mentions that Jesus is the son of David. (We will see that “Son of David” is also a messianic term that several people use when calling out to Jesus in this gospel.) But Jesus is also the son of Abraham, meaning that He is as Hebrew as He can be and He is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.

We won’t cover every person in the list, but some are of special interest. Tamar is the mother of Perez and Zerah and Judah is the father (v. 3). This is scandalous because Tamar is Judah’s daughter-in-law (Gen. 38). A little farther down (v. 5) we encounter Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho who protected the Hebrew spies (Joshua 2). A Canaanite prostitute in the line of the Messiah? Then there is the widow Ruth, a foreigner from Moab, who is redeemed by Boaz (Ruth 4) and thus is added to the messianic line. When we reach to David, the anointed king, we discover that David’s son Solomon was born by Bathsheba, “her of Uriah,” whom David stole from Uriah through adultery and murder. The lineage then weaves its way through the kings of Judah, both noble and wicked, past the deportation to Babylon and through a number of unknown men before arriving at “Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah” (v. 16).

From the genealogy, then, we see that Jesus is the human descendant (or “seed”) of Abraham through the kingly line of David. Up to this point in the gospel, Jesus is presented as a fairly ordinary Person who has a slightly unusual family tree, but really nothing more. But that “really nothing more” is about to profoundly change. (Next post, Jesus’ conception and birth, Matthew 1:18-25.)

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 11/11/2024                 #712

The gospel of Matthew: An overview to the series

POST OVERVIEW. An introductory overview to the commentary on the gospel of Matthew.

In the last several months, I have been reading through the gospels, including repeated readings through “Matthew.” The frequency of the readings over a short period of time has revealed to me some new and fascinating insights into the life, death and resurrection of our Lord, and I am hoping to publish a series of posts about those insights. As we begin this series of posts, it would be good to make some broad observations about Matthew and set some expectations about what we will discover.

OBSERVATIONS

AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN. One of the things that we notice about the gospel of Matthew (and it is probably true of all the gospel accounts) is that every scene with the Lord Jesus portrays something that could only occur with Jesus. That is, no encounter with Jesus is ever ordinary. In every instance, the action that takes place or the conversation that occurs or the teaching that Jesus does testify to His being utterly unique and in no way like the ordinary people whom He encounters. Mere mortals circle around Him and say and do things that mere mortals say and do. We recognize these actions and words as those of ordinary children of Adam because we are also ordinary children of Adam and we, like them, are beset with the same feeble imperfections.  Whether the people are higher or lower on the human scale of things makes no difference. When ordinary people are in the same space as Jesus, it is blatantly obvious that Jesus is from another realm. He is the One who is completely other. Even though the other characters in the gospel have the same general appearance as Jesus, it is evident that sharing a similar appearance is where the similarity ends. Jesus’ regal other-ness is one of the features of Matthew’s gospel that we will emphasize as we progress through the book.

AN EMPHASIS ON HEALING. Perhaps more than any other gospel, Matthew highlights Jesus’ healing ministry. From the very beginning of His ministry into His passion week, Jesus is actively involved in healing all those who come to Him. And regardless of the disease or demon-possession or even death, Jesus never fails to heal all who come to Him. We will be sure to note this as we make our way through the gospel and seek to determine why Jesus heals so many.

JESUS AS THE PROMISED DAVIDIC KING. The gospel of Matthew has a decidedly Jewish feel and is thought to have been written with Jewish people in mind. One of the characteristics of the Jews of the first century was the anticipation of the soon-appearing Messiah, the Anointed One. For the Jew, the Messiah was expected to be a warrior-king like David who would re-establish Israel as the chief of the nations. Matthew presents Jesus as the long-awaited Davidic King, but not the King that the Jews anticipated. As we read through “Matthew,” we will be alert for those times when Jesus is presented as the promised King.

JESUS TEACHES HIS DISCIPLES. This gospel record has several long discourses in which Jesus teaches His disciples. In Matthew, Jesus trains His disciples for the ministry that they will be expected to fulfill as His followers after He has ascended to heaven. Therefore, He gives instruction about the characteristics of a true disciple, about the real meaning of the Ten Commandments, about prayer, about overcoming anxiety, about the kingdom of heaven, about forgiveness and about the end of the age and His return, among other topics. His teaching is meant to prepare His disciples for their role as His witnesses in the world.

EXPECTATIONS

The apostle Matthew did not write his gospel account of the ministry of Jesus Christ to simply be a biography about a man that he greatly admired so that others could also admire Him. Instead, Matthew writes about a Man who said things that no one else has ever said, who did things that no one else has ever done, and who lived among men as one who in every way manifested Deity. Matthew gives us an eyewitness account of Jesus’ teaching, His compassion and His character. The gospel writer documents Jesus’ predictions of His own death and resurrection and then reports how these predictions were fulfilled exactly by His death on Golgotha and His resurrection on the third day. In short, Matthew tells us the amazing story of Jesus so that his readers will see that Jesus is the Messiah and the Davidic King.

As we progress through this gospel record, then, we expect to frequently read things that lead us also to believe this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. We expect Matthew to give us clear, objective evidence whose only explanation is that Jesus is the heaven-sent Davidic King.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 11/4/2024                   #711

No sin is excusable (from Romans 6:23)

NO SIN IS EXCUSABLE. The believer must realize that no sin is excusable. For the believer, from the smallest sin to the greatest, every sin by itself demands the death of Jesus on the cross. Whenever the believer becomes aware that he has sinned, it should serve as a reminder of what Christ has accomplished on the cross. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23b), and this means that the recompense for any single sin is likewise death. No sin is excusable because, for the redeemed, every sin requires the death of the Son of God.

Man’s fallen natural tendency is to justify their sin or explain their sin away, but this is an act of salvation by works. The one who explains away sin is subtly despising the death of Christ and is saying, in essence, that his particular sin or this particular sin is not that bad and therefore does not really merit the atoning death of Jesus. “I don’t need Jesus to die for this. I can handle this one on my own.” “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who may ascend into heaven?’ (that is to bring Christ down) or ‘Who may descend into the abyss?’ (that is to bring Christ up from the dead)” (Rom. 10:7). Instead of minimizing sin and dismissing a “little” sin as not worth a thought, the believer acknowledges that every sin is inexcusable. There is no justification for sin. At no time and under no circumstances is any sin simply dismissed and brushed away. God will never excuse (i.e., regard as trivial and so forget) even the smallest sin. “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sins will die.” “The day you eat of it (Gen. 2:17), you shall surely die.”

BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS, ALL SIN IS FORGIVABLE. But the believer also knows that, while no sin is ever excusable, all sin and any sin is forgivable. We know that, for the believer, “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). The believer knows that “he has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24) and “has been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) and knows that his “old self has been crucified with Christ in order that our body of sin might be done away with” (rendered powerless; Romans 6:6). For the believer, every sin however “minor” is acknowledged as an act of rebellion against the Holy One of Israel. And, at the same time, every sin reminds the believer that the Savior willingly endured the full wrath of God and died to grant complete forgiveness to the believing sinner. “In Him, we have redemption in His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). Praise the Lord that all our inexcusable sin has been forgiven by the blood of the Lamb.

“But how can a man be in the right with God?” (Job 9:2). How, indeed! By the cross.

“Come now and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). How? By the death of Jesus.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 May 30, 2024.             #704

Mark 3:27 – Who binds the strong man? (Rev. 20:1-3)

POST OVERVIEW. In Mark 3:27 (also Matt. 12:29), Jesus tells of first binding the strong man in order to plunder his house. In Rev. 20:1-3, we see a vision of an “angel” binding the dragon (the devil, the serpent of old, Satan – 20:2) in the abyss for the thousand years. This study compares these two and shows these are talking about the same thing.

In Mark 3:27, in response to the accusations of the scribes that He is casting out demons by the power of Satan, our Lord tells a parable about how to plunder the strong man’s house.

But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. – Mark 3:27

THE MEANING OF THE PARABLE

As a reminder, we know that a parable is a story from everyday life that pictures a spiritual reality. Thus parables need to be interpreted to understand their real meaning.

In the context, the meaning of this parable is quite clear. The “strong man” is Satan, “his house” represents those who are currently in the kingdom of darkness, the one who will plunder the strong man’s house (“he”) is the Lord Jesus, and “plundering his house” means “rescuing us from the domain of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14). In other words, Jesus is declaring that, rather than using the power of Satan (Mark 3:22), His mission is to ruin Satan and to plunder from Satan’s house all those who belong to Him. (See 1 John 3:8b.)

Now the question I want to ask is, “What does Jesus do just before He plunders Satan’s house?” The answer is apparent – He first binds Satan. Jesus first neutralizes Satan and effectively takes him off the playing field. Then Satan must watch helplessly as those who were in his camp are plundered away and joyfully swear allegiance to Jesus. This is what Jesus is here describing in this parable.

Having understood the meaning of this parable, we will now turn our attention to another passage that is similar to Mark 3:27. In Revelation 20:1-3, we read of an angel who binds Satan in the abyss for the thousand years.

1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. – Revelation 20:1-3

As a reminder, we know that Revelation is a book of the genre of biblical prophecy, where the elements of the visions have figurative and symbolic meaning. As a result, the visions must be interpreted carefully to understand their real meaning.

SIMILARITIES AND INTERPRETATION

Before we begin to interpret this vision, we should notice the obvious similarity between this vision in Revelation 20 and the parable in Mark 3. In both cases, we see Satan (“the dragon” and “the strong man”) being bound. It is significant that, in both cases, the original Greek for bind/bound is a form of the Greek verb δέω. This is a strong clue.

In Mark 3:27, we see Jesus binding Satan (“he” binds “the strong man”), while in Rev. 20:2, we see an angel binding Satan. This seems to be a dissimilarity until we realize that “the angel” in Rev. 20 represents the risen Lord Jesus. (Elsewhere I have shown that the “angel” in Rev. 20:1-3 is certainly the risen Lord Jesus. See Post #567, 9/9/2022.) So, at this point in our interpretation, we see that both the parable and the vision picture Jesus binding Satan.

THE PURPOSE OF BINDING SATAN

We will now explore the purpose for which Jesus binds Satan in each case. In Mark 3:27, Jesus binds Satan in order to rescue His own from the kingdom of darkness (see above). In other words, Jesus binds Satan so that He can save His chosen ones. We should note that this parable does not indicate when this will take place, it simply indicates that it will take place. Jesus will bind “the strong man” Satan, then He will plunder his house.

In Rev. 20:3 we read that Satan is bound in the abyss for the thousand years “so that (Greek ἵνα) he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed.” To understand the purpose of this binding of Satan, we need to interpret what is meant by “not deceive the nations any longer.”

NOT DECEIVE THE NATIONS ANY LONGER (REV. 20:3). The first thing we note is that “the nations” (τὰ ἔθνη) in Rev. 20:3 refers to the Gentile nations. In Matthew 28:19, the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus commands His church to make disciples of all “the nations” (τὰ ἔθνη). This speaks of the same group. Now that Christ has come and has died and has been raised, the gospel is to be proclaimed to all “the nations” (τὰ ἔθνη).

The next thing we note is that Jesus bound Satan “so that he would not deceive the nations any longer.” This “any longer” must mean that, up until a certain point in time, Satan had been successfully “deceiving the nations.” But now that Jesus has bound him in the abyss, Satan can no longer “deceive” them. We suggest that, in this context, “deceive the nations” means “prevents them from coming to Jesus to be saved.”

Before Jesus was crucified and resurrected, there was no gospel to proclaim. With no powerful, saving gospel (Romans 1:16) to proclaim, it was easy for Satan to deceive the nations and keep them in darkness. Then Jesus was made flesh in Bethlehem. Then in Matthew 16:18, Jesus declared, “I will build My church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” Then Jesus willingly went to the cross to die for sinners. And then He was raised on the third day to prove that His work had been perfectly accomplished and was fully acceptable to the Father. Then the Lord Jesus commissioned His church to go and proclaim the gospel to the nations.

But what is to be done about the great deceiver, the one who deceived Eve, the one who has been deceiving the nations since the Garden, the one who is a liar and the father of lies? How will the devil be prevented from continuing to deceive the nations while the gospel is being proclaimed? Remember in the parable in Mark 3:27 (above), Jesus had taught that he was going to bind Satan and then plunder his house. This parable in Mark 3:27 anticipates the binding of Satan that we see described in Rev. 20:3 when the risen Lord Jesus binds Satan in the abyss for the thousand years so that the nations will not be hindered as they come to faith in Jesus through the gospel. Thus this “binding of the dragon” in Rev. 20:2-3 is figuratively describing when Jesus neutralizes Satan and effectively takes him off the playing field for the thousand years of the gospel age. Being bound in the abyss, Satan must watch helplessly as those who were in his camp are plundered away and joyfully swear allegiance to Jesus. This is the meaning of the vision that John saw in Rev. 20:1-3.

SUMMARY

In the end, we see that Mark 3:27 and Revelation 20:1-3 describe the same event. Both Scriptures are telling of the time when the victorious Lord Jesus binds Satan in “the abyss” to prevent him from hindering the spread of the gospel and the growth of the church during the thousand years.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 2/2/2024                     #691

Deut. 21:10-14. The gospel in taking a wife from the captives.

POST OVERVIEW. A careful exegesis of Deuteronomy 21:10-14 reveals that the gospel of Jesus Christ is foreshadowed here.

(Scriptures covered: 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:10; 3:4, 5; Eph. 2:12-13; 4:19; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 6:3, 4; Phil. 3:19, 20-21; 1 John 3:2; Rev. 7:9; 20:11-15)

Deuteronomy repeats much of the Law that has been revealed in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, but the book also adds laws that are only declared in Deuteronomy. In Deut. 21:10-14, we encounter one such law as Moses gives instructions about the lawful procedure for taking a wife from a captive people. As I read and re-read this passage carefully, I began to see in this situation and in these procedures a clear foreshadowing of the gospel.

BEGINNING AND ENDING SITUATIONS. The law in Deut. 21 concerns what happens when Israel defeats its enemies in battle. When the LORD delivers an enemy into Israel’s hands, the enemy will be made captive. Now, among the captive people there is a beautiful woman. This woman is an orphaned (21:13) member of a defeated people, a people who do not know the LORD. She has no reason for hope. Yet by the end of this short passage, the woman has a husband and has been enfolded into the covenant people of the LORD. When we see such a turn of events in the Scripture, we should sit up and pay attention and see if there might be hidden here a picture of the gospel of our salvation.

We will explore several New Testament passages to see the gospel here.

FROM GODLESS PEOPLE TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD

1 Peter 2:10a. Peter says of those who reside as aliens (1:1; figurative for all disciples of Jesus), “you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” The woman is part of an unnamed people who have been defeated and made captive to Israel. She is part of “not a people.” Her people have no laws, they have no tabernacle, they have no knowledge of the LORD. They have no past and they have no future. They are a people who are “not a people.”

And so are we before we know the Lord Jesus. No matter what Genealogy.com tells us about our ancestors, we are part of “not a people.” We have no glorious past and we have no idea of our future. We are “not a people” heading nowhere. But then the Lord calls us by His grace and we are made part of the people of God. Now we are part of the covenant people. We are now those who will be gathered around the throne praising the Lamb (Rev. 7:9f) rather than those who will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11-15).

In Deut. 21, the woman once was not a people, but now she was part of the people of God. In the gospel, this is our story as well.

FROM NO MERCY TO IMMENSE MERCY

1 Peter 2:10b. “You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” The beautiful captive woman in Deut. 21 was a part of a conquered people. Beautiful women who are part of a conquered people do not anticipate mercy from their conquerors. So this woman expected the worst. Defeated people receive the consequences of being defeated. In these situations, being beautiful was a curse. But instead of abuse and humiliation, she is adopted into the midst of the conquering people. Instead of the shameful treatment usually given to conquered women, she becomes the wife of one of the people of the LORD. She had not received mercy, but now she has received immense mercy.

And so it is with everyone who has come to faith in Jesus. Before we know Jesus as Lord, we are among the condemned, justly deserving the LORD’s wrath. We are guilty of the crimes of which we are accused and expect to receive a just recompense for those crimes. But instead of the judgment we deserve, we hear the amazing words of the grace of God contained in the gospel. From the ranks of the condemned we are raised to new life, are cleansed from our filthy sins and are adopted into the kingdom as members of the true church, the bride of Christ.

FROM EXCLUDED, HOPELESS STRANGERS TO WASHED AND SANCTIFIED SAINTS

Ephesians 2:12-13.

12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

In her captive state, the beautiful woman was “separate from Christ.” She had no knowledge of a Messiah or a Savior. Her people were separated from the Holy One of Israel. No connection. She was “excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.” She was not a Hebrew and therefore could not enter into the covenant with the LORD. She was not just separated from Christ by her ignorance, but she was excluded from Israel because of her people of birth. She was a Gentile, and so she was excluded from Israel. And she was a “stranger to the covenants of promise.” Because Israel was in the covenant with the LORD, they had access to all the amazing promises that the LORD has given to His people, but this captive woman had never heard one single promise from the LORD. She was a stranger to all the riches of the LORD’s grace. She knew nothing about forgiveness, salvation, joy, fellowship, holiness, grace, mercy, hope or peace. As a captive these were beyond her imagination. She had no hope and was without God in the world.

But when she was chosen out of the captives and brought into the house of the covenant people and had been cleansed from her former uncleanness and had been given a new identity, then she had been brought near to the LORD.

And this is exactly our story, for in this passage in Ephesians 2, Paul is writing to Gentiles like you and me. We were separate from Christ and we had no hope and were without God in this world. But then the Lord brought the gospel to our ears and He graciously chose to open our hearts to Christ and to His salvation (Acts 16:14). Spiritually He brought us into His house and shaved our head and trimmed our nails (Deut. 21:12). We removed the old filthy clothes of our old life (Zech. 3:3-5; Col. 3:9) so that “we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).

NEW IDENTITY

2 Cor. 5:17. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” Formerly this woman identified with a rejected, outcast people who “did not know God and were slaves to those which by nature are no gods” (Gal. 4:8). Her past identity was full of superstition and idol-worship and confusion; peace and joy and hope were not even possibilities. But then she was taken captive by someone who followed the LORD and her past identity was put to death and forgotten. Notice that she shall “mourn her father and mother a full month” (Deut. 21:13). This period of time is given for her old identity to die. This mourning indicates that her old life and her old identity are irretrievably gone. The mourning punctuates closure and finality. Mourning here serves the same purpose as burial. Whatever is appropriately mourned will never come back again. “The old things passed away.” But now a new life replaces the old life, the life of a member of the people of the LORD. Now she identifies with the covenant people of God who enjoy His blessings and hold to His promises. Her new identity includes hope, joy, and peace and now she can be among “the holy women who hoped in God” and “adorn themselves with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4, 5).

Again, this picture is a foreshadow of what we who worship Jesus have received in Christ. Before we knew Jesus as Lord, our identity was to “glory in our shame and to set our minds on earthly things” (Phil. 3:19). We were trapped in a life of “giving ourselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness” (Eph. 4:19). We had been born in Adam, our failed federal head, who had given us our slavery to sin. We carried the guilt of sin and wore the label of “sinner.” Our identity was a shameful identity, yet there seemed to be no escape. “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). It seemed that the only out was our death.

“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death” (Romans 6:4a). “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” (Rom. 6:3). Since the only way out of our trap was to bring about our death so that we could rise again to “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4c), the Lord made our death possible through the gospel. “Now if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5). The old things of sin and shame have passed away and, in the future, we have been promised an eternal glorified body with which to worship Jesus forever (Phil. 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2).

SUMMARY

One of the delights of carefully and thoughtfully reading the Old Testament is the discovery of these foretastes of the gospel sprinkled throughout. We have seen that in Deuteronomy 21:10-14, in this story about the law of marrying a beautiful captive, the gospel is displayed in the mercy that this woman received and also in her new identity with the privileged people of God.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 12/26/2023                 #686

Who is “most excellent Theophilus?” (Luke 1:3)

POST OVERVIEW. An investigation into how to correctly understand the identity of this person Luke calls “most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3; also Acts 1:1).

AN OFFICIAL OF PROMINENCE?

Luke, the beloved physician and the author of both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, dedicates both of his divinely inspired books to “most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3). This prompts the question that I want to address, namely, “Who is this person Theophilus?” The common teaching that I have heard most often is that Theophilus was an official of some prominence and, from the context of Luke’s dedications, a personal acquaintance of the beloved physician. But before we agree with this idea that this description applies to an individual named Theophilus, we must first resolve a number of problems that are raised by this idea.

PURPOSE. The purpose of this article is to present the difficulties with the common teaching that Theophilus was “an individual official of some prominence” so that it becomes apparent that Luke is addressing his two great works to anyone and everyone who is a “lover of God” through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, Theophilus, the person addressed in Luke and Acts, is any and every believer.

THE DIFFICULTIES PRESENTED

Before stating the difficulties, let me make a few comments. First, the correct identity of Theophilus is not a major issue. I am writing this article more as an exercise in thinking biblically than as a matter of great importance. Second, these difficulties are not presented in any particular order. Some points may be “thornier” than others, but the fact that there are many difficulties with “Theophilus as a specific official” gives evidence that there is a genuine weakness with this interpretation. Third, there is some overlap between these points that I am making and this overlap may lead to a feeling of redundancy. I apologize in advance if it seems that I am making the same point multiple times. So, on to the difficulties.

THEOPHILUS IS UNKNOWN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. Other than Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1, there is no mention of this person in the New Testament. There is no record of him and no reference to him. Also, Luke gives no information about him to suggest he is a specific individual. Luke is an historian of the first rank and, when he is relating the events of his gospel or the events of Acts, he usually provides detailed descriptions of virtually every character in these stories. For example, note the descriptions of Barnabas (Acts 4:36), of Lydia (16:14), or of Apollos (18:24). Yet with Theophilus, Luke provides no information at all except to indicate that Theophilus “has been taught” (Luke 1:4) and is, therefore, a believer. Even the assumption that Theophilus is some sort of official is based solely on Luke’s appellation of “most excellent Theophilus.” The only thing we know about him for sure is that he is a believer in Jesus.

THE AUDACITY OF THE PARENTS. Theophilus is a Greek word that means “lover of God.” We can deduce that his parents were certainly Gentiles and not Jews since they gave their son a Greek name. Imagine the audacity of naming your son “lover of God.” If they were pagans, then you would need to wonder, “Lover of which god?” On the other hand, if they were God-fearing Greeks, they would never have had the nerve to name their son, “lover of Elohim.” What would their Jewish friends at the synagogue think of that? All this means that it is very unlikely that there was an official of some prominence who had the actual name Theophilus.

THE PROBLEM OF DATES. There is the problem of the timing of these events. Let’s assume that “most excellent Theophilus” was thirty-five years old when Luke began writing the gospel of Luke to him. Scholars believe Luke’s gospel was written around AD 60. That means that his parents named this “official of some prominence” “lover of God” around AD 25 (AD 60 minus 35 years old), which was two or three years before Jesus began His earthly ministry. Thus Theophilus’ parents could not have been believers in Jesus Christ when they named their son. We thus need to ask why a Greek couple living in AD 25 would name their son “lover of God?”

This “date problem” is related to the next problem.

THE ASSOCIATION/RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM. Luke was a physician (“the beloved physician” Col. 4:14), which I assume means he was a doctor of some sort. Based on what we read in Acts, he probably was from the city of Troas. Luke’s main “claim to fame” was his close friendship with the apostle Paul. He traveled with Paul on the apostle’s second and third missionary journeys. As far as we can tell, there was nothing else special about Luke as a person. This, however, raises some questions when we consider the personal relationship that needs to have existed between Luke and “most excellent Theophilus.”

  • Why would “an official of some prominence” befriend a random physician from the town of Troas?
  • For that matter, why would Luke, a simple physician from Troas, befriend some random “official of some prominence?” It just seems hard to imagine the circumstances of their meeting. Doctors and prominent officials rarely travel in the same circles today, and I suspect it was the same in the mid-first century.
  • When would Luke have had time to make the acquaintance with this Theophilus and then have had more time to establish a fairly close relationship with him? We have no reason to believe that Luke met Theophilus before he met and joined Paul as the apostle took the gospel to Europe (Acts 16). We can be confident that Luke did not meet Theophilus during his missionary journeys with Paul, for Luke would certainly have mentioned such a meeting in the book of Acts to give a connection to Theophilus. Therefore, Luke and Theophilus must have met and become close acquaintances AFTER the events of Acts 28. But this, too, seems difficult to imagine. How would their meeting come about and why would Luke feel he wanted to dedicate his books to him?
  • In the first century, people did not travel much and distances were much greater than they are today. Practically speaking, this means that Theophilus would have needed to be geographically near Luke. Daniel developed a relationship with Nebuchadnezzar because he was his advisor for fifty years or so and lived in the king’s court (Daniel 1-4). Paul was acquainted with Felix because Paul was his prisoner and they chatted from time to time (Acts 24). If it had not been for these God-ordained circumstances, Daniel would never have known Nebuchadnezzar and Paul and Felix would never have known one another. In the same way, Luke and Theophilus must have been located near one another. Was there a prominent official named Theophilus near Troas in AD 60-65 who wanted to get to know a believing physician? Seems unlikely.

ANOTHER POSSIBILITY TO CONSIDER

Perhaps no single one of these difficulties is enough to discredit the notion that Theophilus was a flesh-and-blood acquaintance of Luke, but the cumulative effect of all these questions suggests that, if there were another possible understanding of Luke’s intended audience for his gospel and for Acts, we should explore that possibility.

And there is another possibility that is so apparent that it might be overlooked. What if Theophilus was not the proper name of a little-known official in mid-first century Asia Minor who was acquainted with Luke the physician, but instead “theophilus” was the word that Luke chose to describe every one of his intended readers? In other words, what if Luke carefully researched all the details of his gospel and organized all the events of Acts so that every “lover of God,” every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, “may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (Acts 1:4)? What if Luke’s intended audience was not one specific believer named Theophilus but was instead any and every believer who identifies himself as a “lover of God” through Jesus Christ? I believe this is the correct way to understand Luke’s dedications.

As we consider this second possibility, we notice that all the difficulties and problems associated with the first view disappear. If Luke is writing to all lovers of God everywhere, then we no longer need to search for an individual with a highly unusual name. The fact that Luke gives no personal information about “Theophilus” now makes perfect sense, because “theophilus” now includes the three thousand people on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and includes Samaritans (Acts 8), an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8), Cornelius and his family (Acts 10), Lydia and the jailer (Acts 16), barbarians, Scythians, slaves and freemen (Col. 3:11), Paul and Peter and the rest of the apostles, and the hundreds of millions of lovers of God who have been taught (Luke 1:4) about Jesus and who have believed since Christ rose from the dead in AD 30. We now understand that theophilus is not a proper name but is rather a description of every disciple of Jesus whom the Lord will raise up on the last day (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54; 11:24).

CONCLUSION

After considering the difficulties presented by the view that “Theophilus” (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1) was the name of a specific individual who lived in the mid-first century, and after investigating the other possibility that “theophilus” (translated “lover of God”) was the way Luke described any and every believer who would read his gospel or the book of Acts, we have concluded that Luke addressed his great works to all believers in the Lord Jesus. If you are a lover of God through faith in the Lord Jesus, Luke wrote his gospel and Acts for you “so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:4).

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 12/22/2023                 #685

Number 31: Judgment and grace in the slaughter of Midian

POST OVERVIEW. A careful exegesis of Numbers 31 when the LORD commanded the sons of Israel under Moses to execute His full vengeance on Midian.

In Numbers 31, we read of the LORD’s judgment of Midian through the sons of Israel. Because this story is both largely unknown by believers and is misinterpreted by those who “do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions” (1 Tim. 1:7), the episode can cause problems when it comes up for discussion. In this article, I will attempt to show, first, that there is nothing here in the judgment of Midian that should surprise the believer, and second, that there is a surprising element in this story as the LORD once again displays His grace.

SITUATION. As this episode opens, the Midianites are known to be a wicked people. In the recent past, they had caused Israel “to trespass against the LORD” (31:16). [The full account is in Numbers 25.] As a result, the LORD commands Moses to “take full vengeance on the Midianites” (31:2).

COMMENT. The LORD is commanding Moses to bring recompense on the Midianites for their wicked acts. This is temporal judgment for their sins. The LORD’s “patience toward these vessels of wrath” (Rom. 9:22) has ended and He is executing His vengeance (31:3) through Israel. So, there is nothing surprising or confusing about this judgment. Midian willfully committed great wickedness against the LORD and against His people, and they are now receiving the due penalty of their sin.

A STORY OF THE LORD’S JUDGMENT

This story, then, is clearly one of judgment. The LORD is bringing His wrath on Midian because, by their wickedness, Midian has merited the LORD’s full vengeance. We therefore fully expect there to be no mercy for Midian but instead, a complete destruction.

ASIDE: WHEN THE LORD SUSPENDS JUDGMENT

As an aside, I want to comment on how the world views the Lord’s judgment and His mercy. The Lord is a merciful God and, because of His mercy, He is constantly withholding His wrath from being poured out on man. In Romans 1:18, Paul begins his magnificent gospel treatise with a statement about God’s wrath: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” God’s wrath is revealed, but it is very rarely dispensed, even though “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

But ironically, because the Lord suspends His judgment of sin, the world presumes upon the Lord’s kindness and forbearance and patience (Rom. 2:4). Because people sin and the Lord does not bring prompt judgment, people begin to assume He will never judge. Once they are convinced that God will never judge, they go beyond that to think that He has no right to judge. The world then begins to defy God and sin with vigor because they assume they can sin with impunity. Then, when God brings a just recompense for man’s sins, the world is outraged at what they claim to be the Lord’s petulance and cruelty. Rather than praising the Lord for His kindness and forbearance and patience and repenting of their sin (Rom. 2:4), the world blasphemes Him when He brings upon them the just consequences of their sin.

BACK TO MIDIAN. We return to Midian, where the sons of Israel have been charged with the task of rendering “full vengeance” on Midian. Yet even here, where the LORD’s justice is on display and where Midian has merited a complete destruction, even here the LORD demonstrates His unmerited favor. For the Scripture says:

“The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and great in lovingkindness” (Psalm 145:8)

and the LORD answers His people when they cry,

“In wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2).

A STORY OF THE LORD’S MERCY AND GRACE

Earlier we had said, “There is nothing surprising or confusing about Midian’s judgment.” All sin merits a just recompense (Heb. 2:2) and the sinner has “a terrifying expectation of judgment” (Heb. 10:27). But while there is nothing surprising about the Lord’s judgment, there is everything surprising about His mercy and grace. Numbers 31 is, therefore, a very surprising chapter. What do I mean?

Notice that, while Midian’s wickedness would be justly punished by a complete destruction, the LORD does not destroy them completely. Midian is a condemned people, but some from Midian are spared. A small remnant of Midian received mercy and grace. Yes, all the men are killed (Num. 31:7, 8) and all the boys are killed (31:17a). “Every woman who has known man by lying with a man” is also killed (31:17b). All these receive the judgment they deserve. “But all the female children who have not known man by lying with a man, keep alive for yourselves” (31:18). Amazingly, the LORD commands Moses to spare all the female virgins so they can become wives for the sons of Israel. In Numbers 31:35, there were 32,000 Midianite virgins. These 32,000 received mercy from the LORD, for they did not receive the punishment due to a condemned people, but they also received the LORD’s grace, for these female children, instead of being executed in judgment, could now become wives to husbands from the sons of Israel and could thus be enfolded into the company of the LORD’s covenant people. From condemned to member of the covenant people of God – all by God’s grace.

SUMMARY

First, there are times when God’s patience and forbearance run out and He chooses to execute His temporal judgment on an individual or, as in this case with Midian, on a group of people. His judgment is always warranted and His justice is always righteous.

But second, we have seen that the LORD is inclined to mercy and is free to dispense His grace. Although we have all merited His wrath (Rom. 3:10-18, 23; Ezekiel 18:4; etc.), the Lord now suspends His wrath and judgment and instead extends to us the offer of forgiveness and free righteousness through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The mercy and grace shown to Midian in Numbers 31 is but a faint foreshadow of the mercy and grace that God now grants to all who will bow the knee to Jesus and confess Him as Lord. These will be saved.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 12/18/2023                 #684