Monthly Archives: April 2011

Condemning God led to God Saving the World: I have actually read Girard but hadn’t put this together

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As our representative, Israel and her leaders were not merely envious of Jesus at a human level, putting him to death to vindicate themselves in some human conflict. Rather, Israel very clearly put God himself on trial, on behalf of the whole world. Jealous of God’s greatness, holiness, truth, righteousness, wisdom and beauty, and seeking to establish their own, they put God on trial, declared him to be guilty, and executed him. Therefore, even in purely Girardian terms, Jesus’s death is not simply a transcendence of human conflict and sacrifice by the death of an innocent man, but it is actually an attempt by all of humanity to render judgment for mankind and against God.

It is a failed attempt: Jesus’s resurrection vindicates God decisively in the conflict between God and man. All mankind is shown to be condemned because of the actions of Israel their representative.

The truly amazing thing is that we who are thus condemned can be vindicated — through Jesus’s death and resurrection! In a sense, simply by agreeing with and rejoicing in Jesus’s vindication, God extends to us the great gift of Jesus’s own vindication and resurrection. This is where our understanding of the atonement as sacrificial and substitutionary comes into play, as John goes on to explain Caiaphas’s unwitting prophecy in verses 51-52. Jesus died for the sins of the world at the very moment the world’s sin and rejection of God had become total and complete. Our mediator is no longer Israel, but Jesus himself, the true Israel. Both Israel and all nations are invited to feast in God through him.

via Vindicated « I gotta have my orange juice..

Today we remember the ultimate act of worship

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One could, of course, claim that the act took place on good Friday, or at the ascension, or on Pentecost.  All of these were part of the climactic worship of God by Jesus. But I think the resurrection holds pride of place, and celebrating Easter opens up to us the nature of every Sunday worship service.

In the sacrificial system of the OT, the victim is laid on the fire and transfigured into smoke that ascends to God.

  1. The fire on the altar is not a penalty; that already happened when the animal was slain. Blood had to be displayed to even get the animal to the alter, just as the priest had to display blood to pass into the Holy Place in the Tabernacle/Temple and then more if he was the high priest to enter the Holy of Holies.
  2. So Jesus, shed his blood on the cross, and especially displayed the blood of the spear wound to show that he had died. Thus the victim was slain.
  3. But then Jesus was transfigured by the Holy Spirit in new life. This was prefigured in the sacrifices by the fire on the altar.
  4. Jesus completed his work by ascending into Heaven in a cloud. This was prefigured by the victim going up in smoke from the altar.
  5. Then Jesus gave the same Spirit (as fire) that raised and transformed him to his disciples at Pentecost. I am not as sure about this, but I think this too is prefigured by the sacrifices in that portions of them were eaten by the priests and by the offerers.
  6. So in all this one can see that the sacrifice is not only a substitutionary suffering, but a representative vindication and reconciliation. A true at-one-[move]ment. Jesus work on the cross and in the grave and in new life and enthronement was all sacrificial.

But if Jesus was fulfilling the sacrificial system in history, in the course of his own life (and death and resurrection), that means that his life was one grand worship service. In fact, since Jesus came in the fullness of time as the true Israel and the true Humanity, it means that all human history beforehand was the grand processional of the human race into the presence of God.

And it means when we worship God we are entering into and depending upon Jesus past act of worship. We offer ourselves by virtue of Christ’s death in our place, and deal with our own sins by confession and faith to receive pardon. We offer ourselves again in appealing to God’s Spirit to raise us up and to renew us in the Heavenly places. And we are restored to God’s presence at his table eating and drinking with him in the Lord’s Supper.

“I covenant to give you, as my Father covenanted to give me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

Every Sunday is a memorial of the Lord’s resurrection, and every Sunday worship service allows the Church to participate in Christ’s resurrection by faith.

Repost: Resurrection means reign

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Acts 13:

26 “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. 27 For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. 28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. 32 And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, 33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,

“‘You are my Son,

today I have begotten you.’

34 And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,

“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’

35 Therefore he says also in another psalm,

“‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’

36 For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, 37 but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. 38 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything 39 from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. 40 Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:

41 “‘Look, you scoffers,

be astounded and perish;

for I am doing a work in your days,

a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’”

A great deal could be said about this passage, but I won’t be saying it.  If I was preaching through Acts I would want to expound on each paragraph here.  But on this Easter Sunday I am preaching a topical sermon rather than so much an expositional sermon—the topic, obviously, being the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.

But while we won’t look at every detail of this passage this morning, please notice the prevailing theme in this declaration that Jesus has been raised from the dead.  Notice that Paul does not talk about any general promise of the resurrection, but singles out promises made to and through King David.

Briefly put, resurrection here and elsewhere is a act by which one is declared or made a king.  It is a coronation, an installation to office.  And it is not for himself alone that Jesus was raised, but for all those connected to him.  Remember Paul’s prayer for the Church in Ephesians that they would come to know

what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

When we who believe confess that Jesus is Lord we are saying something about not just Jesus, but about ourselves as well.  The confession that “Jesus is Lord” is something like saying, “My daddy owns this place,” or “My father just got elected President.”  But to say it right we need a more traditional picture.  To say Jesus is Lord is to say, “my older brother is the king so I am royalty.”

“Jesus is Lord,” is appealed to as the basic statement of faith in a couple of Paul’s letter.  But those aren’t just words.  Believers are supposed to believe something when they say them.  Paul gives us not only words but the meaning in Romans 10.9: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

When you confess that Jesus is Lord, you are referring to a royal office to which he attained by the resurrection of the dead.

1. VINDICATION & AUTHORITY.

And that means both vindication and authority.  Justification and the power of judgment are both included in the new status God gives us through our union with Christ by faith alone.  Daniel saw a vision of one like the Son of Man given a throne and an angel interpreted that the saints, after being persecuted, would be given a verdict in their favor.  Now that is translated in our Bibles as given a favorable verdict.  Being delivered from oppressors and given dominion was God’s declaration over his people—“Not Guilty.”  This promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ who suffered the ultimate persecution and curse and was publicly shown to be in the right by his resurrection.

But Daniel’s vision also shows that the verdict is embodied in a new kingdom.  And this is even included in the words describing the justification of the saints.  The Aramaic states that the saints will be “given judgment.”  It could be taken to mean not only that they would be declared righteous, but that they themselves would be given the power of judgment.  In fact, in Revelation 20 that vision is referred to again when the saints are said to be given rule over the earth.  That is what we have in Christ’s resurrection—righteousness and royal reign.  We here today, farmers and mothers and teachers and students and children and others all rule in Christ.

Think about what a complete vindication this is for us.  Adam and Eve were put over creation.  They were, if you will, placed at the top of the world (There were four world-rivers that came from the Garden of Eden and water runs downhill).  They were not yet as powerful as they could be.  They were to take dominion over creation.  Yet they never fulfilled their royal charter.  Instead of trusting God to deliver to them all good things at their proper time, they believed that God was holding them down and sided with the Serpent’s slanders against God.

As a result of their disobedience, these heirs to the throne of the world became slaves rather than king and queen.  They became slaves to creation and had to work by sweat in order to get their food.  They became slaves to sin and from that point it became natural for them to sin.  Finally, they became slaves to death and ultimate judgment, destined for eternal punishment rather than for royalty.

And now all that is reversed.  The sentence of condemnation has been overturned because there is now no condemnation in Jesus Christ, the second Adam.  Thus Paul contrasts Adam and Christ in this way—Romans 5.17: If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. You would expect Paul to say that once death reigned so now life reigns.  But that is not what he says.  Rather, he states that once death reigned and now we reign.

Our vindication is not simply some prisoner being released from his cell to pursue a life of no concern to the court.  Our justification, due to God’s gracious sending of his Son and his faithful work, is more like a law student who was put in prison but then released and given a place on the Supreme Court.

2. Sanctification

Now what does it mean that we, normal human beings to all appearances, have been given a royal office in Christ.  Well first of all it means we are no longer slaves to sin.  And it establishes us in a mandate that, just as Adam and Eve were to subdue creation, so we are to subdue sin in the parts of our selves where it resides.

That is why the Gospel not only promises life in Christ but it also makes demands on us.  In fact, our status as Christians means that the Bible can severely reprove us and challenge us to live holy lives.  When an emperor sets up a king over a territory, that king has much freedom and authority, but he is supposed to obey the one who gave him that authority.  In fact, because he acts as the emperor’s representative, it is a terrible thing for him to act in a wicked way.

Thus our authority in the resurrected Christ gives us power for and demands of us holy living.  Paul after saying in Romans five that now we reign in life rather than death reigning in sin, tells us in Romans 6 that we must use this authority to live lives pleasing to God.    He writes, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”  And he goes on:  “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

So Christ’s resurrection mean that we, who are united to Christ by faith, can live new lives to God.  And that’s exactly what Paul goes on to command Christians to do.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.  Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Easter is our declaration of independence from sin.  We have, in Christ, been brought into a new creation.  And just as Adam and Eve were told to take dominion in the first creation, so we are told to use the new authority we have in Christ by his resurrection.

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

3. CORPORATE WORSHIP & PRAYER.

But our resurrection authority which we have in Christ means more than simply the power of a holy life on the part of each one of us.  It means that together we have access to God’s very throne.  Indeed we are God’s councilors who have access to his throne room.  We have this because Jesus offered himself up to the Father and the Father received him publicly by raising him from the dead.

Thus, those of us who have been raised with Christ have access to his very throne in public worship.  And in prayer we have the king’s ear.

The resurrection was an act of worship.  Think of the sacrificial system.  The sacrificial animal is slain and its blood is displayed to God on the altar.  That was Jesus on Good Friday.  He was killed and his blood poured out on the ground for our sins.  But then the animal is transformed and goes up to God, if you will, as smoke.  That is the resurrection and ascension of Jesus in a cloud.  That’s why, in Revelation 4 and 5, we see a vision from the perspective of heaven in which Jesus suddenly appears before the throne as a Lamb that had been slain.

So just as the saints under the Old Covenant had worshiped God through that process of slaying an animal and offering it up to God, so Jesus climactically fulfills such worship with his own ultimate act of worship, offering his very self to God.  The resurrection is God’s acceptance of Christ and we see as a result, in Revelation 5, that the saints are renewed in worship together.  They sing a new song.  Because we are united to Christ we are accepted in him.  And these saints, incidentally, are described as wearing crowns.  They have throne room access because they are royalty.

Thus we can worship God with boldness because we have an advocate raised for us to God’s presence.  We can be Royal council members because we have been raised in Christ.

4. PRIVILEGE THAT MUST NOT BE REJECTED.

All of this must be received by faith.  We did not see Jesus raised.  We have to believe God’s Word.  We have not yet been raised from the dead.  We must trust in God’s gospel promises.  We walk by faith and not by sight.

And that means that we must be careful to respond to the what we have heard.  If we believe our eyes rather than our ears we might think God’s vindication is not worth having, that holy living is not really possible, and that corporate worship is only as important as the good feelings that result from it.

But none of that is true.  Rather, the Easter story is true.  God really did raise Jesus from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection proves and makes possible the fact that all things will work together to good for those who love God.  We are kings

I recently heard of a missionary pastor in a pagan land whose church shared the Gospel with a young woman.  Now she is in a bind.  She may lose her husband and children because he has embraced the good news that God sent His Son to die for our sins and be raised for our justification.  Loyalty to Christ will cost her more than any of us have ever had to suffer.

How can she be faithful to Christ in those circumstances?  Because she really believes that God has provided blessing for her that are more than she could ever ask or think.  Because she really believes that God raised Jesus her Lord from the dead.

God has given His Son up for us and has exalted us in him.  In Christ we have resurrection.  In Christ we are raised as kings.  In Christ we have justification.  In Christ we have sanctification.  In Christ we have access to His presence.  Everyday we need to learn a little bit more how much we should value what God has given to us.  Everyday we need to live in a manner that is appropriate for those who have been raised in Christ.

Cosmic Judgment in the cup

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Jesus spoke of his mandate to go to the cross and die as a “cup” that God his Father was making him drink.

If you just read the Gospels you would think that “cup” is just a metaphor for an unpleasant task God is making you do.

But if you read the prophets you realize that Jesus is drinking this cup instead of a whole bunch of other people:

Isaiah 51:

Wake yourself, wake yourself,
stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD
the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
the bowl, the cup of staggering.
There is none to guide her
among all the sons she has borne;
there is none to take her by the hand
among all the sons she has brought up.
These two things have happened to you—
who will console you?—
devastation and destruction, famine and sword;
who will comfort you?
Your sons have fainted;
they lie at the head of every street
like an antelope in a net;
they are full of the wrath of the LORD,
the rebuke of your God.

Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted,
who are drunk, but not with wine:
Thus says your Lord, the LORD,
your God who pleads the cause of his people:
“Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;
the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;
and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
who have said to you,
‘Bow down, that we may pass over’;
and you have made your back like the ground
and like the street for them to pass over.”

Jeremiah 25

Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.”

So I took the cup from the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations to whom the LORDsent me drink it: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, a hissing and a curse, as at this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, all his people, and all the mixed tribes among them; all the kings of the land of Uz and all the kings of the land of the Philistines (Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod); Edom, Moab, and the sons of Ammon; all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastland across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who cut the corners of their hair; all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert; all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of Media; all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth. And after them the king of Babylon shall drink.

“Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, be drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more, because of the sword that I am sending among you.’

“And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: You must drink! For behold, I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name, and shall you go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the LORD of hosts.’

Ezekiel 23

“For thus says the LORD God: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust, and they shall deal with you in hatred and take away all the fruit of your labor and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your whoring shall be uncovered. Your lewdness and your whoring have brought this upon you, because you played the whore with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. Thus says the LORD God:

“You shall drink your sister’s cup
that is deep and large;
you shall be laughed at and held in derision,
for it contains much;
you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.
A cup of horror and desolation,
the cup of your sister Samaria;
you shall drink it and drain it out,
and gnaw its shards,
and tear your breasts;

for I have spoken, declares the LORD God. Therefore thus says the LORD God: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.”

Zechariah 12

Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it. On that day, declares the LORD, I will strike every horse with panic, and its rider with madness. But for the sake of the house of Judah I will keep my eyes open, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the LORD of hosts, their God

Whether it is for Jerusalem or for the other nations, the cup is always a national judgment. Furthermore, when Jerusalem had to drink it, the cup was death and destruction at the hands of foreign armies. Jesus drank up the curse of the covenant, dying at the hands of the Gentiles himself, and even in death being designated as an exile with the Imperial seal over his tomb.

Before he broke it and unleashed a river of life.

“I Belong to God”–a catechism by Rich Lusk

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Question 1. Who are you?

I am a child of God.

Question 2. What does it mean to be a child of God?

It means that I belong to him and he loves me.

Question 3. What makes you a child of God?

Grace — God’s free gift of love that I do not deserve and cannot earn.

Question 4. How do you know you are a child of God?

Because I am baptized in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God made me his child in baptism, just as his Word promises.

Question 5. Don’t you have to be good for God to love you?

No. God loves me in spite of all I do wrong because of what Jesus has done for me.

Question 6. How do you thank God for this free gift of love?

I promise to love and trust God with all my heart and to live for his glory.

Question 7. How do you love God?

By trusting, worshipping, and obeying him, and by loving my neighbor as myself

Read the rest: I Belong to God: A Covenantal Catechism (PDF)

You need trained soldiers in your army

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No matter how awesome you battle plan or how ingenious your general, a conflict can only be won by trained troops. If the soldiers run in the face of danger, don’t listen to orders, or don’t follow orders; if they get into arguments that distract them from their duties, they are doomed.

Soldiers can’t expect to do well without weapons and armor, but also weapons and armor will be wasted if the soldiers aren’t trained to constantly care for their equipment.

Likewise, sports. The greatest coach in the world cannot bring a team to victory if the players won’t exercise or practice.

Solomon knows that God has given the law. But he also knows that you can’t follow it naturally. No, I’m not talking about “the natural man,” I’m talking about the impossibility of relying on habits and impulses alone to guide you in a course of action.

Any course of action.

God made us this way. Sin had nothing to do with it at this level. If all humans were supposed to do one and only one thing throughout history, then it could have been wired into us. But God had more diversity in mind. So we can shape ourselves (or commit to shapelessness). We can drive ourselves (or be driven by forces outside our control).

And since this is the way we are, submitting to God’s commands takes a similar form. You can’t decide not to lust after a woman in your heart without mapping out and practicing certain responses with your neck, face, and eye muscles when your walking across the mall and the Victoria’s Secret store is by your path. Oh, you can “decide” all you want. But until you’ve got your body parts working in formation, it will be a fruitless promise. “Let not him who puts his armor on boast as he who takes it off.”

I was talking to one of my son about some of these concepts. He watches more basketball than I do (so do you, probably; he also watches a fair amount). He told me that he’s noticed that some players, when they disagree with the ref, simply cannot shut up and end up getting their whole team penalized.

Here are people who have forced their bodies into shape doing amazing things and yet they unable to overpower their own mouths?

You are not just a soldier in God’s army, you are a heavenly host. Your eyes, hands, feet, and mouth are your soldiers. Your soul is your drummer keeping time. You need to get him to slow down if he is prone to charge at the wrong occasion.

 

Yes, it is hardest on the wife, though the children suffer too.

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I’ve known scores of seminary students. Many have the natural leadership gifts to be pastors, but many do not. I’ve seen the ones who do not jumping through the bureaucratic hoops with a wife and children in tether, sacrifices made, poverty borne with grace, and then heartbreak. No pulpit, no job, except maybe a church planting opportunity with no start-up grant. The wives seem to suffer the most in these cases.

via The Seminary Bubble – Jerry Bowyer – The Great Relearning – Forbes.

Does Paul think the Law must be kept sinlessly?

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From Romans 8:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

I’ll grant that Paul does not explicitly say the words, “The mind that is set on the Spirit does submit to God’s law and does please God,” but I defy anyone to argue that Paul is not implying that very thing in what he states in the paragraph quoted above.

Romans 13:

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

So does the fact that we sin every day (at the very least, according to the Lord’s prayer) seem to discourage Paul from saying that we fulfill the law?

And is not faith itself an obedience that leads to further obedience? Is “the mind set on the spirit” anything other than the mind that confesses Jesus is Lord and believes that he was raised from the dead?

Then what right do we have to claim that Romans 2 is about a sinless, perfect obedience?

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

Are not the doers of the law believers? Yes that is exactly what Paul says they are:

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

What Paul never says is that Israel has failed because no one was able to keep the Law without sinning.

Evil people

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From the sermon on the Mount:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Here is a classic prooftext for the doctrine of universal human depravity…

Supposedly, Jesus is dealing here with self-righteous people. How can Jesus, therefore, expect them to follow an argument which demands, as a premise, that they acknowledge that they are evil? One would think that Jesus would need to produce arguments that prove to them that they are evil, rather than appealing to their evilness as a common understanding.

And yet these evil people, according to Jesus, can do good things–they can give good gifts to their children. Isn’t this contradictory? Did he really mean to say that they give tainted gifts to their children? Seems not. Evil people give good gifts.

They why claim that the Sermon on the Mount is impossible to follow? Why shouldn’t Jesus be expected to give the same latitude to someone who refuses to look lustfully after a woman or who fasts in secret rather than in public that he gives in the Sermon itself to parents who give gifts to his children? If evil people can give good gifts to their children there is no reason, in principle, that they can’t pray for those who persecute them.

Who was to come as the antitype of Adam?

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We know that Adam and Christ make up “two Adams” from many places in the Bible. Not least we know it as Pauline theology from First Corinthian 15.

We also know it from Romans 5, but I wonder…

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

So Adam sinned in a way (transgressed) that wasn’t possible until Moses. Why wouldn’t Adam and his transgression be a type of Israel and its greater transgression which brought about the salvation of the nations? The one man and his transgression was a type of the nation and many transgressions.

For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

As Paul writes later:

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!…

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.