Preacherwin’s Weblog

“To preach release to the captives…”

Isaiah 61:1e

            In the context of Isaiah’s ministry, this statement would have had a very specific promise, recognizing that at this point in history, the northern Kingdom of Israel has fallen and the people had been taken and scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire.  In addition, the southern Kingdom would, within 100 years, fall as well.  To those who would hear this prophesy, that would speak of the hope of the return of the people from exile with the advent of the Messiah’s coming.  When Jesus spoke these words of his own ministry, the people would have responded in a similar way, not only thinking of the return of the various Jewish people who had been scatted all over the Roman Empire, but also of the lifting of Roman oppression in the Holy Land.  Yet, Jesus had an entirely different bondage in view—one that was far more dangerous than the taxation and oversight of the Romans.  Jesus was dealing with our bondage to sin. 

The language used by Isaiah echoes this great promise that Jesus has come to fulfill.  The word that we translate as “release” or “liberty” is the Hebrew word, rArD> (deror), which specifically has in view the release that God commanded in conjunction with the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee (which is where verse 2 picks up—also see Leviticus 25:10).  Essentially, God commanded that every 7^th year was to be a Sabbath year set aside for himself.  During this year the fields would be left fallow, Jewish slaves would be set free, and debts would be considered satisfied.  In the Year of Jubilee (every 50^th year), even the family lands that had been sold to pay off debts would be returned to their rightful owners for the purpose of preserving the family in the land.  It was to be a time of celebration and deliverance from economic and social bondage.  Yet, do not miss the purpose of the Year of Jubilee and Sabbatical years, or you will miss what Isaiah is doing by referencing it and you will miss what Jesus is doing by applying it to his own Messianic ministry. 

Leviticus 25, a chapter devoted to the release that was to be associated with the Sabbatical Year and with the Year of Jubilee, ends with God’s explanation for instituting these events:

“Because, to me, the sons of Israel are servants;

they are my servants which I brought out of the land of Egypt.

I am Yahweh, your God.”

(Leviticus 25:55)

In other words, God is saying that the reason for these Jubilees is because the people of Israel belong to no one other than to himself.  He did not share them with Egypt, but delivered them, and he will not share them with those who would exploit them in their own land.  God’s people are God’s servants and a perpetual bondage means that he is forced to share with one who is an illegitimate owner.  God brought his people from Egypt to be his own; he is not going to let them go.

            Do these words not also ring true with the language of our Lord? 

“All that the Father gives me will come to me; I will definitely not cast out.”

(John 6:37)

“Also I give them eternal life, and they shall never be destroyed; no one will snatch them from my hand.”

(John 10:2

Yet, this language echoes even more strongly with the language of the writer of Hebrews:

“Remember those who are bound as ones bound with them; and the ones who are tormented, as they are in the body.  Let marriage be precious to all, and the marriage bed be morally pure; for the sexually immoral and adulterous God will judge.  Let your lifestyle not be covetous, being content with what is at your disposal.  For he has said: “I will never send you back, nor will I ever leave you behind.”  Thus we can say with certainty, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.  What can man do to me?”  (Hebrews 13:3-6)

Okay, let’s put the puzzle pieces together in light of what the writer of Hebrews teaches.  We know from Leviticus that God has delivered his people from their bondage in Egypt for the purpose of making them his own servants.  In light of that, God instituted the Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee in Israel’s governmental law for the purpose of ensuring that the people would not sink back into bondage.  The writer of Hebrews builds on this idea and asks us as Christians to look at several things that will lead us into different kinds of bondage.  We are to remember believers who are in actual chains—why?  Because God hears the cries of his persecuted people (Exodus 2:23-25).  We are to preserve the sanctity of our marriages—why?  Because in marriage, one man and one woman are bound covenantally together to the point that they are seen by God as one flesh (Genesis 2:24).  Thus, this binding must always be a holy one—one that does not detract from the couple’s ability to serve God, but instead aids it (1 Corinthians 7:2-7, 26-28).  We are not to defile our marriage bed with sexual immorality or adultery, why?  Because not only does this sinful activity ruin the holy nature of the marriage, but it also enslaves the person who entered into such sin to the sin and to the one with whom he or she has committed said immorality and adultery (1 Corinthians 6:16).  Our lifestyles must not be covetous (more than just the love of money, but the 10^th commandment includes coveting your neighbor’s house, wife, servants, and/or property—Exodus 20:17).  Why?  Because this places you in bondage to the lust of material things—things that belong to this world, and not to the things of God (1 John 2:15-17).  All of these things that the writer of Hebrews mentions are things that binds us in servitude and slavery to things or persons other than being bound in service to God.

            Thus, it is in this context that the writer of Hebrews quotes Jesus as saying, “I will never send you back, nor will I ever leave you behind.”  While this is likely a reference to Jesus’ promise to his Apostles in John 14:18, it picks up the language of the passages quoted above from John above as well as other promises of Jesus that he will be with us always, even to the end of eternity (Matthew 28:20).  All of these statements must be understood in the context of God’s calling of us to be his own.  Why will Jesus not allow us to be left behind?  Because in being left behind, we are left in bondage to the things of this world, to sin, and ultimately to death.  As the Apostle Paul writes:

“You were bought with a price; do not become slaves to men.”

(1 Corinthians 7:23)

            So, we return back to Isaiah 61:1 and to Jesus’ proclamation that he is the fulfillment of this prophesy (Luke 4:21).  Our Lord came to proclaim, and thus the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims, that we are released from our bondage to the world—Egypt has no more claims on us; sin has no more claims on us; the kingdoms of the world can do nothing to us for we are eternally bound to the risen Christ.  Oh, beloved, how is it that we so often bind ourselves to the world even in light of this great truth!  Loved ones, let us live in service of Christ, for he is our only master—the chains of this world have been loosed, and we have found our freedom in him!

Redeemed how I love to proclaim it!

Redeemed by the blood of the lamb;

Redeemed through his infinite mercy,

His child and forever I am.

-Fanny Crosby

“He has sent me to bind the heart which has been shattered…”

Isaiah 61:1d

            When I read this part of the verse, my mind cannot help but to think back to the promise that was made by God earlier in Isaiah 35:4:

“Say to those whose hearts are hasty; be strong and you must not fear.

Behold, your God of vengeance will come in the recompense of God—

He will come and save you.”

And indeed, now, those whose hearts have caused them to run ahead, chasing after their own plans and dreams instead of chasing after holiness, will find that God, in his might and in his power, will come to save them—save them by sending his Son, Jesus Christ.  And Christ will be the one who takes their hearts, as broken, war-torn, and shattered as they are, and bind them back together.  Note the power of this great and wonderful promise, Jesus is not simply one to put back together a heart that has been fractured, like a bone that is broken might be set in a splint or a cast, but the Hebrew word used here is derived from the Hebrew verb, rb;v’ (shavar), which means “to shatter.”  Any human doctor can mend a fractured bone, but it takes God to mend that which has been shattered beyond recognition.  And note that when the Hebrews were speaking about the “heart,” they were not speaking simply in terms of one’s emotional well-being or of one’s passions as we often do; when the Hebrews spoke of the heart, they had in mind the intellect and the personality—that which makes you, you. And this is the work of Christ.  Jesus is more than a family counselor or a psychologist helping you to get your emotions in check.  And he does more than to nurture bruised egos—Jesus mends lives!  And Jesus does far more than mend lives that have been beaten around and bruised by the world, but he mends lives that have been blasted away, shattered, demolished, and utterly crushed, and he restores us whole!

            I am reminded of the story of Humpty Dumpty.  Indeed, all of the kings horses and men could do nothing to patch that shattered egg and to restore him to strength.  Yet, Christ is far more than a servant of a human king; he is the King of Kings, Son of the Living God and creator of the universe.  Indeed, there is no life, no person who is too broken and shattered that he is beyond the ability of our Lord, Jesus Christ to put back together.  Yet, there is another difference.  When Jesus puts a life back together, he does not simply restore one to health, but he restores one slowly into the image of himself—we are remade not for a fallen world, but Christ’s remaking is designed to prepare us for glory!  What a wonderful promise that we find in our great and glorious Lord!

“He is the one who heals a shattered heart;

and the one who binds their sorrows.”

Psalm 147:3

Into Thy gracious hands I fall,

And with the arms of faith embrace;

O King of glory, hear my call!

O raise me, heal me by Thy grace!

-Wolfgang Dessler

“to herald good tidings to the meek”

Isaiah 61:1c

            These words should immediately bring to mind the language of the angels in proclaiming the good news before the shepherds (Luke 2:10).  Indeed it was the role of the angels to proclaim the birth of the one who would bring such good news and glad tidings to the world—who would emboss onto the history of mankind the great hope and promise of redemption that would be brought by this Jesus.  In Christ, men and women no longer need to live in darkness and fear, but could dwell forever in Christ’s marvelous light.  Indeed, there are no better tidings than the reality that God has come into the world to dwell with men, to bear the sins of those whose faith is in him, and to face the mighty wrath of God on behalf of his own.  The one who needed no redeeming came to earth, took on flesh to identify with us as his people, and did the mighty work of redemption on behalf of we who needed redeeming, yet could not even begin to do that work on our own.

            And it is important to see the way in which this message of good tidings is proclaimed to those who are meek.  It’s root is the word rv;B’ (bashar), which means, “to bear good news.”  Yet this verb is found in what is called the Piel stem in the Hebrew language.  The Piel stem is used in Hebrew to point to a repeated action.  In other words, the idea of the good news borne or heralded by Christ is not just a one-time deal, but it is good news that is repeatedly proclaimed in the hearts and in the lives of God’s people.  How true this is indeed!  The good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is news that bears repeating in the lives of those who know him and before the waiting ears of those who do not.  How often God’s people need to be reminded of the wonderful good news of the hope that is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

            But look at to whom this proclamation is directed.  It is directed to the meek or to the poor, depending on your translation.  The term that Isaiah uses here is wn”[’ (anaw), which is related to the word ynI[’ (ani).  Literally, wn”[’ (anaw) refers to one who is bowed down or dejected, one who has been humiliated and broken under the oppression of outside forces.  Its cousin, ynI[’ (ani), picks up the idea of one who has become poor and afflicted as a result of oppression.  It is not to the proud or to the powerful that this message is proclaimed, but to the poor, to those who have suffered under the oppression of the world and under the oppression of sin and who understand that there is no place to look for a redeemer other than to God.  This language is reminiscent of the Israelites in Egypt, crying out for God to deliver them from Pharaoh’s hand (Exodus 2:23).  And indeed, it is this idea that Jesus picks up on in his Sermon on the Mount when he says, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

            The proud, the arrogant, the haughty, those trusting in their own strength or righteousness, these are not the marks of those being drawn to God faith (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).  Indeed, the first step in coming to faith is genuine, heart-felt repentance, and in repentance there is no room for the pride of men.  Loved ones, do not picture yourself approaching God with trumpets blaring and shouts of acclamation; do not picture yourself because you have earned an audience with the Almighty King.  Understand that we come before him on our knees, pleading forgiveness and mercy, and in His undying grace, to all who come into His presence through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ, to them—to us—he has given us eternal life, no longer seeing us as rebels, but adopting us as sons and daughters.  Loved ones, oh, what a day of rejoicing that will be!

“See the kind of love that the father has given to us, in order that we might be called children of God; and we are.  Because of this, the world does not know us:  because it did not know him.” (1 John 3:1)

“And as it says in Hosea:

I will call those who are not my people, ‘my people.’

And she who is not beloved, ‘beloved.’

And it will be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called, “Sons of the Living God.”

(Romans 9:25-26)

“Because Yahweh has anointed me…”

Isaiah 61:1b

Oh, what an amazing statement this is in itself, that this Messiah is not one anointed by man, but by the covenantal God, Yahweh, himself!  How much more significant this becomes when you realize that this construction is only ever used three times in the Old Testament.  It is used first in 1 Samuel 10:1 of God’s anointing of Saul, it is used secondly here, of the Messiah, in Isaiah, and thirdly, it is used of Jehu, who destroyed the house of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 22:7).  There are many instances where God asks a prophet or a priest to anoint someone as he did with Samuel’s anointing of David—but these are the only instances where Yahweh is said to have anointed.

There are several things that we can learn from this.  In each case, this was a kingly anointing.  Saul was the very first human king over Israel—Jesus was the last.  Saul was rejected by God because he did not execute God’s judgment upon Agag, the king of the Amalekites—one of the great persecutor of Israel.  In contrast to Saul, Jehu was anointed king for the express purpose of executing God’s judgment upon the house of Ahaz (Ahaziah) in Judah and upon the house of Ahab in Israel—both kings which promoted pagan idolatry.  Of course, Jehu’s downfall is that he did not go far enough in the purging of Israel of its idolatry and wickedness.  Christ is the greater fulfillment of that which both Saul and Jehu failed to complete.  Jesus is the greater king that not only redeems his people, but also promises complete and final judgment upon God’s enemies—upon all those who would devote themselves to idolatry. 

The second thing that we can learn from this is the very nature of the Kingship of the Messiah.  The verb, “to anoint” in Hebrew is the word xv;m’ (mashach) and is the very word from which we get the word “Messiah,” literally meaning, “the anointed one.”  Not only then, is Isaiah pointing toward the very reality that this promised Messiah will be God himself, but also that he will fulfill the promise that God gave to David, in that a king will be raised up from his household who would have an eternal kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12-13). 

Thirdly, it is an ever-present reminder of the nature of Jesus’ Kingship.  Jesus himself said that he did not come to peace but division (Luke 12:51).  John the Baptist describes Jesus as one who comes as with a winnowing fork to separate the wheat from the tares (Matthew 3:12).  And what is the purpose of all this division?  It is salvation (John 12:47).  How is it that both can be true?  The wrath of God being poured out upon his enemies is the means by which God saves the world for he brings her to purity only after he has separated the distillates out of her in the refining process.  Refinement is done with fire, thus fire is brought by Christ to both redeem and destroy—both go hand in hand.  In the case of Saul and Jehu—the destruction of God’s enemies ended their idolatrous influence (at least for a time).  In the case of Jesus, the destruction of God’s enemies means a promise of the eternal end to the idolatrous influence of the world upon our lives—oh praise be to God that our Lord would come in this way!

This passage is one that is very familiar to us because of Jesus’ use of it during his first sermon back in his hometown of Nazareth.  Notice the unambiguous nature of this statement—“the Spirit of the Lord Most High, Yahweh, is upon me.   To begin with, when x;Wr (ruach), which can mean “spirit” or “wind”, is used in construct with the personal name of God (Yahweh) and is used in the terms of being placed upon someone, it is consistently used in terms of God’s power, and that power being placed upon an individual to complete God’s design.  It is used of Othniel (Judges 3:10), Samson (Judges 14:6), of David (1 Samuel 16:13), and of Elijah (1 Kings 18:12).  Most importantly, it is used of Jesus at his baptism (Luke 3:22).  How this shines light on passages like Colossians 2:9, which speaks of the fullness of God being pleased to dwell in Christ.  How so it is that the Spirit rushed on these Old Testament saints in part and for a time, yet came upon Christ in full and remained upon him for eternity.  What is more is that same Spirit rushed upon Peter and the other apostles at the time of Pentecost and likewise remained upon him for the length of their ministry.  And that same Spirit—the third member of the divine Trinity has shown himself to be pleased to dwell in you and within me both for the purpose of accomplishing God’s work in this world and for the purpose of drawing you and I more closely to himself in intimate fellowship.  This is not a change of state for Jesus, but it is a promise.  It is a promise that in Christ all of the promises of deliverance that are contained within the words of the Old Testament find their fullness in Christ and in his work.  And it is a promise that it is the very Spirit of God that will bring about God’s designs in your life and mine.  What a wonderful way for Jesus to announce his ministry to the community that thought they knew him best.  Oh, how much greater a sin it was for these townsfolk—those who knew Jesus from childhood—to reject him in the way that they did.

Yet, we must not stop there.  It is not only the x;Wr (ruach) of Yahweh, but we are told that this is the x;Wr (ruach) of the yn”doa] (adonay) of Yahweh.  The Hebrew word !Ada’ (adon) means lord in the generic sense (much like we would use the word “sir” in English as a term of respect), but when you add the Qamets-yod ending (the “ay” sound), that intensifies the word, which communicates the idea that this Lord is the most high of all Lords—a term never employed of anyone in the Old Testament but God.  Finally, we should not neglect to note the covenantal name of God, Yahweh, that is employed in this Statement.  We can be left with no doubt of what Isaiah is seeking to communicate within this passage.  The messiah of whom he speaks will have the fullness of the covenant God of Israel upon himself—that he is the fullness of God—and that is a statement that can only be made of God.  This messiah of whom he speaks will be, and can only be, the covenant God of Israel, having taken on flesh and come to redeem his people.  It points to and can only point to Jesus Christ, the very Son of the living God.  By declaring that this prophesy was fulfilled in himself as he did before the people in the synagogue of Nazareth, he declared himself to be none less than God in the flesh.  

It would be unwise for us to end our preliminary discussion of theology by simply defining theology on the basis of what it is not (see Pitfalls); thus it is prudent for us to add marks that define what a good theology looks like.  A biologist might begin a discussion about a bumble-bee by explaining the differences that it has with a wasp or a hornet, but until the characteristics of what does make a bumble-bee a bumble-bee are known, the student will still be at a loss to identify a genuine one out in the wild with any mark of surety.  Thus, we lay before us key elements that are marks of a good theology, and though they may not be exhaustive, such elements are so fundamentally necessary to good theology that no good theology can exist without the things we will mention below.

It Must be Biblically-Accurate:

Though this may seem to be a rather obvious first mark, the presence of many bad theological strains in our culture demands that this principle be laid before us.  How may a God who is infinite be known apart from the way he reveals himself to his creatures?  Ultimately, while God has revealed many of his characteristics in nature, it is only when we come to his divine word that we find the complete and perspicuous revelation of his being.  Ultimately, God has revealed himself in his Son, Jesus Christ, and the Bible is a book that is eminently about Jesus Christ.  Though our place in this introductory chapter is not to defend the plenary inerrancy of scripture, that position will be stated and defended vigorously in the chapter on Prolegomena, let it suffice to be said here, that the things which come directly from God—that are “God breathed”—are incapable of being at fault.  Thus, for a theology to not be scripturally accurate is defeating the purpose of doing theology at all.  Good “God talk” must be consistent with the “talk” that God has uttered about himself from on high.

One final note about a theology that is Biblically Accurate: there is always some degree of proof-texting that is done when doing any kind of theology.  We will always cite this verse or that group of verses in support of this position or another.  If done well, this adds a level of credibility to theological arguments as it always reminds the reader that the theologian is not the authority upon which a particular argument stands or falls—but scripture is.  Yet, when proof-texts are taken out of their context, they can be made to mean things that they are not stating at all.  Careful exegesis must be done before any proof-text should be used or considered valid; one must always endeavor to understand any given text in the broader context of the larger argument or passage that it is a part of, in the context of the particular book that it is located within, and in the context of the other writings by said author.  In addition, Even a book’s location within the revealed canon of scripture must be taken into account as well as scriptural teaching as a whole.  D.A. Carson is fond of reminding his students, “A text taken out of its context is a pretext for a proof-text.” 

It Must Accurately Describe the World Around Us:

As we will discuss further in the section on Prolegomena, God has revealed himself not only in the scriptures but also in the created world.  Certainly God’s word, being the revelation of an inerrant God, is the lens through which we must view the world around us; to do otherwise would be foolish.  God’s revelation of himself in creation is mediated through our senses and through our understanding—both of which can be demonstrated again and again to be fallible; God’s word is not.  At the same time, God has given us reasonable minds with which we can study the world around us.  We can observe through our senses, recognizing that though there is a significant degree of error within our sensory observation, we do live in a world with a benevolent God who does not play tricks upon our senses.  Thus, the theology that we have must be consistent with the things in God’s created order that we can observe, though recognizing that there are limits upon our senses and that there are no limits upon God’s senses. 

For example, when many of us were younger, particularly if we attended a government-run school, we were taught by our teachers that Christopher Columbus discovered that the world was round and that prior to Columbus’ discovery, most people still believed that the earth was flat and that we were capable of falling off the edge of the earth if we sailed too far.  Though many of my Elementary School teachers passionately affirmed this falsehood, it simply was not true.  The Pythagoreans, more than 2000 years before Columbus, had demonstrated mathematically that the earth was round and had even estimated its diameter with a fair degree of accuracy.  Now, when my young mind was first confronted with this truth by a mathematician and scientist, I had a choice to make:  do I believe my elementary school teacher or do I believe one who is a trained authority on these particular matters.  The answer was obvious: I submitted my previous knowledge to the teaching of one who was an authority in his field.  In the same way, is not God the ultimate authority on the creation that he has brought into being?  When there is potential for our own errors in observation, ought we not submit ourselves to the teaching of one who is the authority on every subject?  Thus God, in his word, provides us with a lens through which we can see and properly understand the world—yet there is still a world out there that we are looking at.  As mentioned above, we must not do theology “in a vacuum;” rather, when doing theology, we must always understand it in reference to how it relates to life and the world that God has created around us.

It Must be God-Centered:

This principle is the counter-point to the mark of a bad theology, that of man-centeredness, that was mentioned above.  Theology must always be God-talk and not man-talk.  Scripture begins with the words, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  There can be no doubt that the scriptures begin with the assumption that God exists and that he is primary over his creation.  Of course, were there no God, there would be no revelation in scripture, and then the Bible itself would be the greatest farce ever perpetrated by men, for the Bible itself claims to be God’s word, not men’s.  Thus, our theology must always reflect the glory and majesty of the one who created us and must genuinely be speaking of the one true God.

It Must be Christ Centered:

As mentioned above, the scriptures also are given for the purpose of pointing toward, speaking of, and proclaiming the glory of Jesus Christ: God the Son.  All of the Old Testament points toward Jesus and all of the New Testament is a result of Jesus’ work, or, as the Apostle Paul records it, “All of God’s promises (speaking of the Old and New Testaments) find their yes in Him.”  The answer that scripture presents to all of the problems of man is Christ and him crucified.  It is through Christ that our sins are atoned for; it is through Christ that God becomes propitious towards believers; it is by Christ that we are brought into the presence of God the Father and adopted as sons and daughters, as the church, being made the very bride of Christ.  It is through Christ that we know the true meaning of sacrificial love and it is only when we observe the majesty of Christ that we can understand what is genuinely beautiful and pleasant in this world.  It is in Christ Jesus that we can find peace and hope not only for this life, but for all eternity.  It is in Jesus that we can finally find meaning for our lives and freedom from the bondage that sin places us in.  It is in Christ that we become “blessed,” and any theology that does not prominently present Jesus Christ is a theology that has no value to the lives of men and women, who ultimately need him more than they need life itself.  Good theology is centered on Christ.

It Must be Doxological:

The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins by asking the question: “What is the chief end of man?”  In other words, “What is mankind’s reason for being on earth?”, or more succinctly, “What is the meaning of life?”  The answer that the catechism brings forth is, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”  What a wonderful statement!  While philosophy sends many a man on lifelong and frustrated quests to try and discern the meaning of life, the catechism presents an answer that is so simple that a child can understand it and yet so profound that it will take a lifetime to live it out and enjoy its implications.  And this is the purpose for which man was created—to glorify God with the aim of enjoying him eternally. 

Jonathan Edwards loved to deliberately misquote this catechism question.  “What is God’s chief end?” Edwards would ask.  The answer?  “To glorify himself with the aim of bringing us to enjoy him forever.”  Some have suggested that such a stance would be rather an arrogant one on the part of God, yet, in all of God’s manifold perfections, is he not worthy of all praise?  Indeed, do we not find the greatest pleasure in life by enjoying God fully?  If God is infinitely satisfied in himself, and he is, can we not also be infinitely satisfied in him?  When we center our theology on God’s Triune person, our theology cannot help but be doxological.

The bottom line is that if your theology does not drive you to worship God in all of his fullness and majesty, it is not a good theology at all.  Heaven is described as being a place where believers, surrounded by creation and myriads upon myriads of the heavenly host, will be wonderfully and gloriously singing praises to God on high and to the Lamb.  If we are not finding our ultimate joy in worship here in this world, what does that say about our hope for an afterlife?  Has the fall made us so schizophrenic that we will want then what we detest in this life?  May it never be said!  As a believer, the fullness of our joy in this life and the next must come through worship, and if our theology does not aid us in that end, our theology falls woefully short of its goal.

It Must be Both Eschatological and Protological:

Good theology must be both eschatological in that it anticipates the return of Jesus Christ and protological in that it looks backwards to see God’s hand ordaining the events of history.  God is the God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and we must never lose sight of the fact that he is a God who has demonstrated his might in the events of history.  He has raised empires and he has crushed them into the dust and God has given us his word through history so that we might understand all that he has done.  To forget this is to live in denial of the greater portion of God’s revealed word.  At the same time, we are not to be a people who always are looking backwards, but we are to be a people of anticipation, looking forward to the great culmination of history in the second coming of Jesus Christ.  The scriptures themselves close with the promise of Christ, “Behold, I am coming soon!”  Our theology must reflect the truth of that great promise.  In a sense, we are to be people always actively engaged with the tasks of the day, yet with one hand looking to the sky, wondering and waiting, when our Lord will return as he left us.

It Must be Ecclesiastical:

Christians are not to find themselves as believers in isolation from one another.  As appealing as that may sound at times, given that sometimes other believers are the ones who can drive us mad, God has ordained that we are part of one church—one body in Christ Jesus.  Though we may constitute many parts based on our giftings and backgrounds, we are meant to understand ourselves as interconnected with other believers—rejoicing together and weeping together during the highs and lows of life.  All of this has one great and wonderful end, when the Church, described as the bride of Christ, is presented to her groom as one, unified, clean, and perfect whole, and all to the glory of God.  John sums up this principle in his first letter, when he writes that our fellowship with one another is what “makes our joy complete.”  Our theology must reflect that sense of a believer’s connectedness with other believers.

It Must Encourage Sanctification:

John Calvin wrote that one of the purposes of our theology is to teach us piety.  Calvin would continue in the same passage:

By piety I mean that union of reverence and love to God which the knowledge of his benefits inspires. For, until men feel that they owe everything to God, that they are cherished by his paternal care, and that he is the author of all their blessings, so that nought is to be looked for away from him, they will never submit to him in voluntary obedience; nay, unless they place their entire happiness in him, they will never yield up their whole selves to him in truth and sincerity.

In the fall, we not only found ourselves separated from our intimate communication with God, but the image of God, the Imago Dei, within us was warped.  In God’s wonderful graciousness, he loves his people so ddeply that he not only justifies us through the saving blood of Jesus, but he works his Holy Spirit in us to restore the Imago Dei little by little.  In other words, God is at work in the lives of believers to change them and to remold them, making their lives more and more reflect that of Jesus Christ.  If our theology is not encouraging us to want to be sanctified, if it is not encouraging us to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the work of sanctification, it falls short of its intended goal.

It Must Encompass All of Life:

            The final mark of good theology is that it must encompass all of life.  Abraham Kuyper once commented that as Sovereign Lord of creation, there was not an inch of the life of man that Christ did not put his finger on and declare, “Mine!”  Modern man has a tendency to “compartmentalize” his life, living one way in church and another way before a watching world.  Good theology does not allow one to do so.  Theology is meant to be applied to all things that we do, and thus unify our life in a meaningful way before the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Everything that we do in one area or venue of life has an impact on what we do in every other area of life and our theology must be the thing that governs it all.  Our theology must also engage both our hearts and our minds as well, challenging us to shape our very lives according to God’s revealed word.  God is perfect by the very definition of who he is; should we not expect that he can perfectly order our steps?  Indeed, that is the kind of God we have and that is the kind of God that our theology should always reflect.

Dead Orthodoxy:

The first pitfall that must be deliberately avoided is that of a “dead” orthodoxy.  In the year 164 BC, the Jewish people celebrated the rededication of the temple after they had thrown off their Seleucid Syrian oppressors.  Antiochus Epiphanies had not only looted the temple of its gold and silver, but had gone as far as to sacrifice a pig on the temple altar and set up a phallic symbol of Zeus in the Holy Place.  This sparked the Maccabean revolt, let by Judah, Jonathan, and Simon Maccabees.  After this victory, the Maccabeans assumed the role of kings, establishing what is referred to as the Hasmonean Dynasty.  Remembering that the Maccabees were Levitical priests by decent, this joined the role of King and High Priest into one office, causing a great deal of resentment within the more orthodox Jewish community.  The power of this combined position also led to corruption within the rulership.  As a result, two groups emerged during this time:  the Essines and the Pharisees.

The Essines were a separatist group that withdrew from their Jewish communities and established their own fortified communities, training in theology and warfare, and preparing themselves to be the army of the Messiah when said Messiah came.  The Pharisees were a more moderate reform group, seeking to bring religious reform working within the Jewish society.  They established rules for behavior and piety and they lived lives that were deliberately structured to promote obedience to the Law of God.  When Jesus taught that the people’s righteousness had to exceed that of the Pharisees to enter the kingdom of heaven, this was not said tongue-in-cheek, but was a comment that would have shocked the people, as the Pharisees were perceived to be the holiest people that most Jews had ever encountered.  The problem, though, within this sect, was that in their zeal for personal holiness, they had turned the law of God into a legalistic system of rules to check off.  If you just did this and that and did these things in the prescribed way, the Pharisees taught, you are guaranteed heaven.  They forgot the intent of the law, which is to demonstrate our total inability to be holy before God, and were expecting eternal life as a reward earned by the works of men.  For this, Jesus would rebuke them in the strongest language.

Yet, this provides for us a good illustration of what can happen when one’s orthodoxy becomes dead and lifeless.  The word orthodoxy itself means “right or sound doctrine,” coming from the Latin, “orthodoxos,” and begs the question—can “right thinking” about the things of God ever truly be without life?  God is the source of all life, and thus, proper and right teaching about God must too be filled with the life of God.  How sad it is when individuals and churches loose sight of the heart behind God’s word and fail to point to the life that comes from the God of light, whose very word is given as a light to our paths.  As C.S. Lewis also warned, beware when the God of the “God talk” is lost or forgotten.  Such happens when your orthodoxy becomes legalism.

Wildfire Passion:

The second mark of bad theology, and the exact opposite of “dead orthodoxy,” is an uncontrolled passion that burns like a wildfire, consuming all that it touches.  This is not to deny the importance of passion in terms of faith—it is essential, but just as genuine orthodoxy builds up the believer, strengthening him with the truth of God’s word, so too does genuine passion.  And just as there is a counterfeit orthodoxy that brings with it nothing but cold and stale death, so too there is a wildfire passion that might burn hot for a time, but which burns out the individual (and often those around them) and leaves nothing but a smoldering zone of death.

We must always remember that our passions are part of our divinely created makeup, and thus, as we grow in grace, our passions and our actions ought to better and better reflect the nature of God himself.  Are God’s passions uncontrolled?  Does God act out of a sense of emotionalism?  Does God’s Spirit destroy those within whom he dwells?  Certainly not!  God’s Spirit brings life to the one in whom he dwells!  So too, theology and religion, while it must address and move the passions, must not set them out of control, burning like a wildfire amongst dry timber.

Vain Theology: 

The Hebrew term for vain is lb,h, (hevel) and is used to describe things that are empty and insubstantial like one’s breath or an idol.  Sometimes our theology becomes so speculative that it looses its substance all together.  Sometimes our theology becomes so influenced by ideas of men (rather than scripture) that it loses any solid foundation that it might have once had.  We can ground theology in scripture because scripture itself is qeo/pneustoß (theopneustos), or “God-breathed,” but that which is the breath of men, that which is anqrwpneu/stoß (anthropneustos), is lb,h, (hevel).  While good theology does at times enter into a degree of reasonable speculation, good theology is never founded upon speculation or wild ideas, but is consistently and perpetually grounded in the inerrant truth of God’s revealed word.  One further note:  in a post-modern era, we live in a culture that is ready and willing to affirm multiple, mutually-exclusive ideas as truth.  As a result, many professing Christians have a theology that is a mixture of orthodox Christianity as well as non-Christian religions and ideas.  Many professing Christians also have a proclivity to adapt their theology to fit new ideas that appeal to their minds rather than judging the new ideas through the lens shaped from a solidly scriptural theology.  When theology becomes fickle, it becomes vain.

Man-Centered Theology:

Our final category of bad theology is a man-centered theology.  As theology and religion did not originate in the mind of man, as liberal and natural theologians would suggest, it is not the right of mankind to determine how God is to be understood or worshiped.  Indeed, that right belongs solely to God himself.  And, as God is the source of the “God-Talk,” it is to be rightly assumed that God should be the center of such talk.  The only man that should ever be exalted by our theology is Jesus Christ himself, who, while fully man, is also fully God.  A theology based upon the works and glory of men—even one designed to give man comfort where no comfort is warranted – is a bad form of theology, and is truly no “God Talk” at all, but “man-talk.”  Man exists to glorify God, not the other way around.

Before I enter scripture itself, I wanted to begin with it as a whole.  God’s word is very much like a wonderful garden, filled with all kinds of produce.  And, it is a garden that reflects back at us all of the thorns and thistles of our lives.  When I was growing up, my parents kept a large vegetable garden.  This garden usually caused me to lament the coming of Saturday, for I often was made to spend them pulling up weeds or tilling the soil when I would have rather been playing baseball or watching cartoons like my friends.  Yet, though we all sweated and toiled over it, the produce was always a blessing on the dinner table. 

God’s word is the same way.  As a Christian, we need to labor in it.  It takes work to root out the deep truths and riches that it contains.  Does that mean that the Bible is full of thorns and thistles, subject to the fall?  Certainly not!  The thorns and thistles are the things that we bring to the table.  These are our secret sins and lusts.  The word of God is powerful and potent when it comes to convicting men of their sinful ways.  And if we are going to approach the word of God seeking its fruit, then those thorns and thistles in our own life must be pulled out by the root.

But what a rich variety of fruit that lies within God’s Word!  There are the sweet berries of God’s promises, the abundant and hearty beans of God the Father’s nature revealed within, the spicy peppers of the power of God the Holy Spirit moving through history, and the earthy tubers of God the Son’s work on earth.  There are the majestic and flowering fruit trees of God’s grace and there are the bitter radishes of God’s judgment on unbelievers.  And the abundance therein proclaims without hesitation God’s glory and his constancy toward and provision for his people. 

And just as is with any healthy garden, it is full of life.  Worms to till the soil, bugs to pollinate, and birds to fill the trees with song, God’s word is alive and healthy and how the Christian ought to long to rest therein for all of his days.  And the garden most importantly is a garden that is fed with a spring of pure and living water, even though it is surrounded by a dry and arid land.  What an oasis we have in God’s Word!  Oh, how the Christian inflicts such pain on himself by seeking the worldly pleasures of baseball and cartoons over the riches of God’s word.

(Genesis 2-3)

It would seem that God is the original gardener.  And what a garden he planted.  It was paradise!  Yet, what made it paradise is not the variety of beautiful and tasty plants, but God’s own presence therein.   God strolled freely with Adam and Eve in the garden.  Even the pits of hell would be paradise with Him as a companion. Yet this garden also was not fallen.  There were no thorns or thistles, there were no pesky rocks to till out, and there were no diseases within the place.  There were no storms in Eden.  There were no natural disasters or floods to worry about; just the cool summer rain that fell gently on their backs.

There was no viciousness in the animals and no predators to worry about.  They could sleep under the stars gazing at a picture of God’s glory undefiled by the clouds of sin or the fear of darkness.  They lay naked and unashamed.  What a contrast this is to our world today.  And Adam and Eve gave all of this up for a bite of fruit and a lust to be like their creator.

It has been said that you never appreciate your blessings until they are gone.  How this truth is illustrated by Adam and Eve.  They threw away paradise!  And we would do the same if we got the chance.  How often we find ourselves longing for the “greener” grass on the other side of the hill.  We know that it is not greener, but our heart still yearns for it.  How often we reflect longingly at past paths of sin.  We only remember the fleeting moments of pleasure and never the lasting pain of guilt and grief.  Oh how often we see the seeds of temptation as harmless, yet, time and time again, they sprout in our fertile hearts.

Let our hearts long once again for paradise.  For the believer in Jesus Christ, paradise has been reserved for you in heaven, no more will the ravages of sin destroy.  Yet, as we look around at those we care about, we must ask, how many of them will not be joining us there.  Let us seek to plant the seeds of paradise in the hearts of those around us, that they might walk the cool meadows of heaven by our side.

(Genesis 4)

What a contrast Adam’s garden is to God’s.  Adams is filled with rocks, thorns, and thistles.  It requires the sweat of the brow to be worked, and where was the eternal spring of water to nourish the produce?  And where was the presence of God, walking freely within?

There is such a difference between the things that God has made and the things that we attempt to make.  We marvel at our towers and sky-scrapers, yet God built the mountains to tower miles high.  We have seen towers topple as a result of earthquakes and hurricanes.  On September 11^th a few years back, we found out how quickly towers fall in an explosion.  Yet, even with the explosive force of a volcano, which is millions of times more powerful than a detonating airliner and thousands of times more powerful than an atom bomb, there is still quite a formidable mountain that remains.  James says that the edifices of man will burn away like grass under the hot winds of the summer.  Pound for pound, the tensile strength of the silken strand of a spider-web is many times greater than that of man-made steel alloys.  Oh the vanity that lies with in the garden of the children of Adam.

And what fruit did Adam’s garden bear?  It bore the fruit of discontent and shame, for it was Cain the gardener who slew his brother in the fields.  And we are still slaying each other today in our fields.  Yes, we may be more subtle than to bash in our brother’s head with a rock, but when we destroy his marriage because of a fling with his wife, we do the same thing.  Calvin said that the heart of man is a factory of idols.  If that is the case, it is the mind of man that is the heart’s marketing firm.  And production is in high gear.  Not only do we fill our lives with the thorns and thistles of sin, but we export our sins to our neighbors and our children.  What a mess Adam’s garden was.  What a mess ours continues to be.