Revelation 1:1-5a

Prologue
1The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.
Greetings and doxology
4John,
To the seven churches in the province of Asia:
Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, 5and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.




1:1 - From the opening words, John makes it clear that this is to be a revealing or revelation of and by Jesus Christ. It is not intended to be a mystery. It is written about things that would soon take place. It was not written about the end of the world or something in the distant future for John’s first readers. The Revelation is a covenant lawsuit, prophesying the outpouring of God’s wrath on Jerusalem. It would be the culmination of the "last days;" the time between the ascension of Christ and the last days of the covenant with Jerusalem which would end with its destruction. The NIV translation drops the fact that the original text says that the angel "did signify" the revelation. This shows from the beginning that the Revelation was written in signs; it was "sign-ified." The servant John is none other than the beloved apostle who wrote the gospel of John and the three letters of John.

1:2 - The first verse says that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ. John now reminds readers that He vouches for the reliability of Christ because he saw and knew Him. Thus, we see a pattern of Christ and His servants bearing dual witnesses that will be carried on throughout the book (and will be important in understanding 11:4-12).

1:3 - This is the first beatitude (blessing) of seven in the revelation (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20;6; 22:7; 22:14). The blessing is pronounced for those who remain faithful to the message. John blesses those who read and hear. This indicates that the book was meant to be read in liturgy (public worship). Revelation is greatly concerned with public worship; it is a central theme of the book. By showing heavenly worship, John reveals how the Church is to perform God’s will through earthly worship. We are to respond to the truth in special worship and then respond in general worship throughout every area of our life. This is why the blessing is limited to those who take to heart what is written. John again warns that the time described in this prophecy is near. The events described are contemporary and are soon to happen. The end of the world was approaching. Not in the physical sense, but the passing away of the old world order and the Old Covenant.

1:4-5a - John addresses the prophecy to seven actual churches. But it is also true that seven is a symbolic number in the Scriptures. It represents a fullness of quantity which means here it represents the fact that the Revelation is intended for the whole Church in every age as well as the specific seven churches. The characteristic blessing of the apostles is bestowed among the churches. Grace and peace are sent equally from all three members of the Godhood. The greeting here is a clear expression of Trinitarian faith. The Father is the One is who, was, and is to come. He is eternal and unchangeable (Mal. 3:6). The word ‘come’ here also indicates the idea of judgment. When God comes He comes in judgment. He comes not just one time at the end of the world, though, it also refers to His unceasing rule over history. Since grace and peace can only originate from God, the seven spirits are a reference to the Holy Spirit. The person spoken of here is clearly equal with the Father and Son. The picture of the seven spirits is taken from Zechariah 4, in which the prophet sees the Church as a lampstand with seven lamps. The Holy Spirit’s empowering work is described in terms of seven, symbolizing fullness and completeness. Just as there are seven churches, there are seven spirits or to better capture the concept in English, the seven-fold Spirit. The Spirit is before the throne of God indicating that the Revelation is a book about rule. "Throne" occurs 46 times throughout the Revelation. God’s throne is a reference to God’s official court where He receives official worship. John is again stressing worship. The entire vision of the Revelation was seen on the Lord’s Day (1:10), the Christian day of official worship. All the action in this book centers on the worship around the throne of God. The final member of the Godhood is Jesus Christ, described as faithful witness, firstborn, and the king of the earth. In the Bible, the witness was one who enforced the law and assisted in its execution, including the death penalty if necessary. The significance of Jesus as the faithful witness is that He witnesses against those who are at war against God, and He will execute them if need be. John refers to Him as the firstborn, showing that He fulfilled the prophecy in Ps. 89:27. Jesus is also the current ruler of the earth, He is not waiting for some future event. The clear message is that Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.

Properly Interpreting Revelation

One of most important aspects of correctly interpreting Revelation is to understand the date when it was penned. There are two main views regarding the date of authorship. One is that it was written before 70 AD. and the destruction of the Temple, and probably before 68 AD and the death of Nero. The other, and more popular date, is 96 AD during the reign of Domitian. The question comes down to whether Revelation was written during the reign of Nero or Domitian.

Although less popular currently, the earlier date is to be preferred for many reasons. First, is the lack of evidence for any great period of persecution under Domitian. While Domitian was demonstrably cruel, there is no mention of an alleged widespread persecution of Christians by Domitian until the 5th century. Domitian did briefly banish some Christians but they were eventually allowed back into the Empire. John Robinson remarks: "When this limited and selective purge, in which no Christian was for certain put to death, is compared with the massacre of Christians under Nero in what two early and entirely independent witnesses speak of as ‘immense multitudes,’ it is astonishing that commentators should have been led by Irenaeus, who himself does not even mention a persecution, to prefer a Domitianic context for the book of Revelation." Robinson’s reference to Irenaeus refers to Irenaeus’ writing in Against Heresies in the late second century that the prophecy had been seen around 95 AD. The sentence in which that information appears is difficult in the original language and could just as easily be read that it was John who was seen in 95 AD, not the prophecy. This one sentence from Irenaeus, provides the only hard alleged evidence for the date during Domitian’s reign. Regardless of the ambiguity of the language, it is also possible that Irenaeus was mistaken if he was claiming a later date for the prophecy of John. (As wonderful as Irenaeus was, he did make factual mistakes, after all, such as writing that Jesus was nearly 50 when he died.)

Second, the familiarity that the author demonstrates with specific Temple worship practices suggests that the Temple was still standing when written. As the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, this would favor the earlier date.

Third, when interpreted properly, the book of Revelation is primarily dealing with the destruction of Jerusalem. This would clearly put the date of authorship before September, 70 A.D. This provides the primary reason that people cling to the later date. They want the book to be about future events, and that interpretation is more problematic if Revelation was written before the fall of the Temple.

Fourth, Scripture teaches that the special revelation that resulted in the Bible would end by AD 70. "The angel Gabriel told Daniel that the "seventy weeks" were to end with the destruction of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24-27); and that period would also serve to ‘seal up the vision and the prophecy’ (Daniel 9:27). In other words, special revelation would stop – be sealed up – by the time Jerusalem was destroyed. The brilliant, fourth century church father, Athanasius understood this to be the meaning of Daniel 9. He wrote: "When did the prophet and division cease from Israel? Was it not when Christ came, the Holy One of holies? It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stand, neither is prophet raised up nor vision revealed among them . . . For the same reason Jerusalem stood until the same time, in order that there men might premeditate the types before the truth was known. So, of course, once the Holy One of holies had come, both vision and prophecy were sealed. And the kingdom of Jerusalem ceased at the same time."

There are many other items that point to the earlier date for Revelation but the fact seems clear. God warned that the kingdom would be taken from the apostate Jews (Matthew 21:33-43). He held off his final judgment on the nation of Israel until the writing of the New Covenant document was complete. Once that was accomplished, God terminated the Old Covenant once and for all with the destruction of Jerusalem.

To understand the book of Revelation, and really the whole Bible, we must understand that the Bible is a book about the Covenant. The Bible is not a complete theological treatise, an encyclopedia of religious knowledge, a collection of moral tales, or a grouping of studies of spiritual heroes from times past. The Bible is the record of God revealing Himself to mankind and creating a relationship with man through His Covenant. The Covenant is the meaning of biblical history, biblical law, and biblical prophecy. David Chilton, author of Days of Vengeance, writes: "The prophets were God’s legal emissaries to Israel and the nations, acting as prosecuting attorneys bringing what has become known among recent scholars as the ‘Covenant Lawsuit.’"

The prophets did not give prophecies that would fit our culture’s definition of what a prophecy is. In other words, they are not a prediction but more of an evaluation of man’s response to the warnings of the Word of God. For example, look at God’s words through Jeremiah: "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it" (Jeremiah 18:7-10). The words of the prophets were only predications in the sense that they relayed what would happen if the people did not respond humbly to the warnings. This is why Jonah’s prophecy that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days did not come true, so to speak. The Ninevites repented, and so disaster was averted.

Like so many other Biblical writings, the Revelation is a specific covenantal prophecy. The only way to properly understand the images in Revelation is through the understanding of the covenantal context. If it is ignored, the intent of John’s message is lost and Revelation becomes open to the latest fanciful eschatological (having to do with the end of times) flavor of the day. The book of Revelation is a covenant document not a predictive look at the very near future. If it is not read in the proper context of covenantal understanding it loses its continuity with the rest of the Bible and becomes little more than a disturbing appendix to the rest of God’s Word, in other words it becomes the ‘scary’ book at the end of the Bible.

God’s relationship with Israel was described in covenantal terms throughout the pages of the Bible. Israel was God’s bride, bound to Him through covenant. The Covenant was a legally binding contract between Israel and the Lord God. It should be of no surprise, then, that the structure of many of the Old Testament Covenantal books in the Old Testament are extremely similar to the accepted form of peace treaties and covenants in the ancient Near East. It is not as if the biblical writers copied the old world’s form of treaties, rather it would seem the other way around.

Treaties in the ancient world were pretty simple. A conquering king would make a covenant with their defeated enemy. In the covenant certain promises and stipulations would be made that would guarantee protection for the defeated vassal. He also agreed to obey and respect the authority of their new lord. If the vassal or inferior king violated the covenant terms, the lord would send messengers to warn the vassal to remind him of the curses and consequences of breaking the sanctions. This was the function of the biblical prophets. They were reminding Israel of the curse-sanctions if they did not quickly repent of their covenant-violating activities.

The standard treaty in the ancient world consisted of five parts, all of which appear in the biblical covenants:

1. Preamble (identifying the lordship of the Great King, stressing both his transcendence and his immanence);

2. Historical Prologue (surveying the lord’s previous relationship to the vassal, especially emphasizing the blessings bestowed);

3. Ethical Stipulations (expounding the vassal’s obligations, his "guide to citizenship" in the covenant);

4. Sanctions (outlining the blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience);

5. Succession Arrangements (dealing with the continuity of the covenant relationship over future generations).

We need look no further than the book of Deuteronomy to find a biblical example of this treaty form.

Deuteronomy

1. Preamble (1:1-5)

2. Historical Prologue (1:6-4:49)

3. Ethical Stipulations (5:1-26:19)

4. Sanctions (27:1-30:20)

5. Succession Arrangements (31:1-34:12)

Once the covenant had been set in place it was God’s expectations that the stipulations be followed. When they were not, the prophets were sent as prosecuting attorneys. The pattern of the lawsuit was always patterned after the same structure of the original covenant. This means that the biblical prophecies follow the five-part treaty structure. The book of Hosea, for example, is laid out according to the covenant outline:

Hosea

1. Preamble (1)

2. Historical Prologue (2)

3. Ethical Stipulations (4-7)

4. Sanctions (8-9)

5. Succession Arrangements (10-14)

In the tradition of many other biblical prophecies, the Revelation is a prophecy of the Covenant demonstrating God’s wrath against Israel and a reminder of the covenantal curses that will follow as a result of their violation of the stipulations. By rejecting Jesus Christ, Israel had rejected the Covenant and now the curses would kick in. The Revelation is written in the same five part treaty structure style in which many other biblical prophecies are written:

Revelation

1. Preamble: Vision of the Son of Man (1)

2. Historical Prologue: The Seven Letters (2-3)

3. Ethical Stipulations: The Seven Seals (4-7)

4. Sanctions: The Seven Trumpets (8-14)

5. Succession Arrangements (15-22)

Another indicator that Revelation is covenant lawsuit is the fact that is so closely mirrors and follows the structure of Ezekiel, one of the clearest covenant lawsuits in the Bible. Revelation is very dependent upon the language and imagery of Ezekiel. According to Albert Vanhoye there are at least 130 separate references to Ezekiel found in the Revelation. John does more than just make some allusions to Ezekiel; it appears that he follows him step-by-step. Phillip Carrington says, with just a slight hint of hyperbole: "The Revelation is a Christian rewriting of Ezekiel. Its fundamental structure is the same. Its interpretation depends upon Ezekiel. The first half of both books leads up to the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem; in the second they describe a new and holy Jerusalem. There is one significant difference. Ezekiel’s laments over Tyre is transformed into a lament over Jerusalem, the reason being that St. John wishes to transfer to Jerusalem the note irrevocable doom found in the lament over Tyre. Here lies the real difference in the messages of the two books. Jerusalem, like Tyre, is to go forever." Look at the obvious parallels between the two books.

1. The Throne-Vision (Revelation 4/Ezekiel 1)
2. The Book (Revelation 5/Ezekiel 2-3)
3. The Four Plagues (Revelation 6:1-8/Ezekiel 5)
4. The Slain under the Altar (Revelation 6:9-11/Ezekiel 6)
5. The Wrath of God (Revelation 6:12-17/Ezekiel 7)
6. The Seal on the Saint’s Foreheads (Revelation 7/Ezekiel 9)
7. The Coals from the Altar (Revelation 8/Ezekiel 10)
8. No More Delay (Revelation 10:1-7/Ezekiel 12)
9. The Eating of the Book (Revelation 10:8-11/Ezekiel 2)
10. The Measuring of the Temple (Revelation 11:1-2/Ezekiel 40-43)
11. Jerusalem and Sodom (Revelation 11:8/Ezekiel 16)
12. The Cup of Wrath (Revelation 14/Ezekiel 23)
13. The Vine of the Land (Revelation 14:18-20/Ezekiel 15)
14. The Great Harlot (Revelation 17-18/Ezekiel 16, 23)
15. The Lament over the City (Revelation 18/Ezekiel 27)
16. The Scavengers’ Feast (Revelation 19/Ezekiel 39)
17. The First Resurrection (Revelation 20:4-6/Ezekiel 37)
18. The Battle with Gog and Magog (Revelation 20:7-9/Ezekiel 38-39)
19. The New Jerusalem (Revelation 21/Ezekiel 40-48)
20. The River of Life (Revelation 22/Ezekiel 47)

This step-by-step "pegging" of Revelation with Ezekiel demonstrates more than just a literary relationship. "Level pegging is not usually a feature of literary borrowing. . . Level pegging is a feature rather of lectionary use, as when the Church sets Genesis to be read alongside Romans, or Deuteronomy alongside Acts. . . Furthermore, it is plain that John expected his prophecies to be read aloud in worship, for he says, ‘Blessed is he who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear’ (1:3)." The fact that John repeatedly refers to his book as ‘the prophecy’ indicates that he was aligning himself with the Old Testament prophecies. David Chilton sums this up saying that, ". . . the Book of Revelation was intended from the beginning as a series of readings in worship throughout the Church Year, to be read in tandem with the prophecies of Ezekiel (as well as other Old Testament readings). M.D. Goulder further describes the purpose of Revelation, ". . . both books divide into about fifty units, and the Jewish (Christian) year consists of fifty or fifty-one sabbaths/Sundays. So we have what looks like material for an annual cycle of Ezekiel inspiring a year’s cycle of visions, which could then be read in the Asian churches alongside Ezekiel, and expounded in sermons in its light."

Another insight into properly interpreting Revelation is to understand the symbolism in the book. As stated above, prophecy is not strictly predicting the future. It is primarily a message from God reminding the hearers of their violation of the Covenant and the proclamation of a covenant lawsuit. The prophets did predict future events but they did not do so in historical form. They predicted the natural results of the way events were going. They used symbols and figures from history, the surrounding culture, and creation. Most errors in interpreting books of biblical prophecy, including the Revelation are due to misunderstandings of the nature of symbolism in prophecy.

It is important to remember that the Bible is literature. It is divinely inspired, but it is literature, nonetheless, and must be read as literature. When one reads poetry, it must be read differently than if it was the Wall Street Journal. In the same way, prophetic symbolism cannot be interpreted anyway you would like. Think of how silly it would seem if we were to expect to read Psalm 23 literally. Is there literally a valley of the shadow of death? Does Jesus make us lie down in green pastures? I know of no one that would suggest the twenty-third Psalm be read that way, yet these same people have little problem in attempting to read prophetic symbolism like that found in Revelation that way.

From the very first prophecy in the Bible we already see the tendency to use symbolic language: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15). This is clearly not as simple as being history written before it happens. This is a symbolic statement, as is most biblical prophecy.

John tells his readers from the first verse of Revelation that this is a book of revelation and signs: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified [it] by his angel unto his servant John" (KJV). The Revelation was signified or "sign-ified" by the angel. John wants his readers to know that this is a book of signs and symbols and should be read that way. "The symbols are not to be understood in a literal manner. We can see this by St. John’s use of the same term in his Gospel (12:33; 18:32: 21:19). In each case, it is used of Christ ‘signifying’ a future event by a more or less symbolic indication, rather than by a prosaic, literal description. And this is generally the form of prophecies in the Revelation. It is a book of symbols from beginning to end." John did not intend for the Revelation to be read as "tomorrow’s newspaper today." He expected that his readers would read his prophecy in the terms of the Old Testament symbolic language with which he wrote the book.

The key here is to use the Old Testament symbolism that John intended. We must interpret symbols using the system the author intended and used. We cannot make symbols mean whatever we wish them to. This is irresponsible and dangerous. David Chilton agrees that we cannot interpret symbols however we choose. He says, ". . . nor did St. John create the images of the Book of Revelation out of his own imagination. He presents Christ to his readers as a Lion and Lamb, not because he thinks those are a pretty picture, but because of the connotations of lions and lambs already established in the Bible." It is obvious that John used allusions to Old Testament language and symbols as a starting point for his own symbolism. Merrill Tenney says that if looked at conservatively, John makes 348 clear references to the Old Testament, although he never once quotes the Old Testament. This includes 57 from the Pentateuch, 235 from the Prophets, and 56 from the historical and poetical books.

The very earliest Christians would have easily understood John’s language, references, and symbols. By the late second, and early third centuries, the Hebrew influence had largely vanished from the Church and so did the ease in understanding such a Hebrew book. Our current difficulty in finding the key to unlocking the Revelation lies in our inability to understand the Old Testament references and symbolism. We simply cannot, however, fall into the trap of interpreting Revelation’s symbols without an understanding of the Old Testament references.
One clear example of the misinterpretation of symbols in Revelation is that of the seal or mark on the hands and/ or foreheads of people (Revelation 7, 9, 14, 22). These are clear references to the Old Testament concept of the seal or mark (Genesis 3:19; Exodus 28:36; Deuteronomy 6:6-8; Ezekiel 9:4-6). The symbol mark or seal is a clear allusion to the Old Testament symbol of the mark or seal referring to man’s total obedience to whomever or whatever he was sealed by. Yet, this symbol has been interpreted to mean all kinds of fanciful and fantastical things. We must read the symbols in the way that John intended them to be read which is according to the Old Testament language. When we do this, we see that the book is a covenant lawsuit, not some fanciful prediction of the end of all things.

Another example is the oft-misinterpreted phrase "coming with the clouds" (Revelation 1:7). This should not be taken, as it often is, as Jesus riding gloriously down from heaven to scoop up His people. There is no biblical precedent to interpret this symbolic phrase in that way. A quick look through the Old Testament will show us that God coming on the clouds is one of the most familiar biblical images for judgment (Genesis 15:17; Exodus 13:21-22; 14:19-20, 24; 19:9, 16-19; Psalm 18:8-14; 104:3; Isaiah 19:1; Ezekiel 32:7-8; Nahum 1:2-8; Matthew 24:30; Mark 14:62; Acts 2:19). When God comes on the clouds it is not generally a happy event, this is judgment language and people should tremble. Several times throughout the opening chapters of Revelation, Jesus says that He will come to the churches if they do not repent (2:5; 2:16; 2:25; 3:3). I hardly think that Jesus is threatening the churches with His Second Coming. When we see the Bible talk about God coming or coming on the clouds it is almost always in judgment; it is not referring to some sort of rapture scenario.

The final category through which we can understand that the Revelation is a message to the first century church and a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem due to Israel’s Covenant violations is the contemporary focus of Revelation.

The Revelation was written to remind a suffering and battered church that Christ was Lord. John wanted them to not forget during the coming times of turmoil that Jesus had claimed "all authority on heaven and on earth," (Matthew 28:28) that He was in control, and that He was the King of all things. John wanted them to understand that their suffering was a part of God’s plan, that they were an integral part of the great war of history. Israel would soon be punished as a Covenant breaker. The sufferings of the Church and the coming destruction of Israel was not a sign that Jesus had abandoned the world to Satan; rather it was part of the plan to exalt the Church. They were no abandoned by God; they were on the front line of the battle of the ages. The battle was won at the Resurrection, everything since then has been nothing more than a mop-up operation. The message was for the church to have heart and overcome the world because Christ has already conquered it and has passed off His dominion to His bride.

The true message of the Revelation can only be understood if it was written to John’s contemporaries. Of what comfort would the Revelation be to the persecuted church if it was concerning events over 2,000 years in the future? Is it logical to consider that the book of Revelation would be irrelevant and unintelligible for 2,000 years of Christians? Interestingly, since the time of Montanus, a third-century heretical offshoot of true Christianity, virtually all heretical groups have interpreted Revelation futuristically, and have assumed that their own generation was the end of all things.

The early church’s biggest enemy was an apostate victory. The message that God was soon about to clearly terminate his ties with the violators of His Covenant was exactly what the first-century church needed to hear. The message of Revelation for Christians since the first-century is not futuristic, but is instead, that Christ has already defeated our enemies, now it is up to us to exercise dominion and transform the world. Some would claim that a contemporary understanding of Revelation would make it irrelevant for today, but that could not be further from the truth. If this were the case then all of the epistles would also be irrelevant as they were written to deal with first-century problems. In fact, although not addressed specifically to us, the Revelation’s message of dominion and overcoming is just as relevant for the Church today as it was 2,000 years ago.

There are at least four specific areas that point to the contemporary nature of the Revelation. First is simply the contemporary focus of the book. John seems to address the martyrs throughout the book (6:9; 7:14; 12:11). When we realize that the Revelation was written to comfort a suffering church, we realize that John was addressing the needs of the first-century martyrs. What would have been the point of writing a book to a suffering group of people that were told to read and ponder the book that was full of futuristic references that would have made no sense to them?

Second, John himself says that the Revelation would "soon take place," (1:1) and that the "time is near" (1:3). The words shortly and near would be nonsense if they were referring to events 2,000 years in the future. Some might be tempted to trot out 2 Peter 3:8 which says "a day is like a thousand years." They forget that Peter cancels that out with the end of the sentence, "and a thousand years are like a day." Plus, the context of this passage is completely different.

Third, John clearly references several events and situations as contemporary. In 13:18, he tells his readers that if they have insight, they can calculate the number of the beast. This would be a cruel hoax if the beast were not to arrive for another 2,000 years. In 17:10, a passage that is clearly referring to ancient Rome, John informs his readers that the sixth king is still on the throne. Further, in 17:18, John says that "The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth." The present tense used, ‘is the city’, indicates a contemporary situation.

Fourth, the angel tells John to not seal up the prophecy of the book because the time "is near" (Psalm 22). This again implies that the prophecy is about events in the near future. In addition to that, compare this with the command Daniel received at the end of his book, "close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end" (Daniel 12:4). Daniel’s prophetic vision concerns things in the distant future so he is told to seal it up until the time of the end of the Old Covenant. John, in contrast, is told not to seal up his prophecy because the time to which it refers is near.

With a proper framework of understanding, we will attempt to dive into the book of Revelation and interpret it, to the best of our ability, in the way that it would have been understood by its very first readers. Once we have accomplished that task, although we will surely make some mistakes, we can then set about to decipher the lessons that the Revelation still holds for us, today, in the 21st century. As this is a study guide and not a full work on the Revelation, you will note that works quoted and used are given in the text itself, there is no room for full footnoting (please contact me if you would like further information on any source). It should be noted that there will be many source cited in this study guide, however, the author freely admits his heavy reliance on two works in particular: Biblical Apocalyptics by Milton S. Terry, and Days of Vengeance by David Chilton.

Properly Interpreting Scripture

Introduction

One of the responsibilities that we have as a Christian community is to read the Bible responsibly. We need to read the Bible as it was intended to be read. The fact is that the Bible is literature. It is literature that was inspired to be written by God, but it is still literature. As such, there are certain principles that we can apply to our reading of Scripture to ensure that we are properly interpreting what it means. What follows is a brief description of nine principles that, if followed, will greatly assist us in digging out the proper interpretation of Scripture. There are certainly other areas that could be considered, but these are the main areas that tend to be ignored or misapplied.

Does the interpretation consider the context?

If the context is not taken into consideration, then the Bible interpretation is probably a poor one. For instance, I recently saw a television prosperity gospel preacher who said that in John 4:37-38, Jesus was establishing an economic principle for those that followed Him. The preacher completely ignored the fact that this statement was in the context of evangelism. He completely missed the point of Jesus’ words. The fact is that most of what Jesus said was in a specific time and place and spoken specifically to the Jews whom He was addressing. We must understand what He was saying to His original audience and then determine what this means for us. Another example of this would be Matthew 7:13-14 and Luke 13:22-30 in which Jesus tells His hears that the way to the Kingdom of God is “narrow” and “only a few find it.” A careful look at the context (which is a bit clearer in Luke) will show that Jesus was speaking to Jews warning them that they were about to be cut off as God’s covenant people. Not many of them would find the road into the Kingdom. This was in no way spoken to the church of future ages. We are in fact called kings and priests (Revelation 1:6, 5:10) who are to overcome (1 John 2:13-14; 5:4-5; Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 21:7). As we read Scripture, we cannot read Jesus’ words as though He spoke them directly to us. To do so is to take them out of context and leads to great misunderstanding. This may seem like a difficult thing to do, but it really is not. We just need to stop for a minute when reading the passage and think about the point of view of the speaker, the audience, the time frame in which the words are spoken and the place where the conversation is taking place. This rarely requires any special knowledge or information.


Does the Interpretation take biblical symbols and figures of speech into account?

Not understanding when a biblical writer is using a biblical term or a figure of speech can lead to great misunderstandings in interpretation. Consider Matthew 21:21-22, in which Jesus says that “if you have faith . . . you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.” Despite what some preachers have taught, this is not some cosmic guarantee that whatever Christians ask for we will get. We must consider the symbols as well as the context to understand this passage. This phrase is part of a series of parables and talks about the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 20-25). After cursing a fig tree as a symbol of judgment on Jerusalem, the disciples asked how this happened so quickly. Jesus responded, “if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matt. 21:21-22). Jesus was not literally telling his followers that they could pray mountains into the sea, nor was He curiously changing the subject, He was instructing them to pray for the destruction of the apostate mountain of God. The Old Testament makes it quite clear that the mountain was symbolic language for Jerusalem (Psalm 43:3; 48:1; 87:1; 99:9; Isaiah. 11:9; 56:7, Exodus 15:17). Being thrown into the sea is biblical symbolic language for being destroyed (Rev. 8:8). Admittedly, this one takes a little more work. To be able to do this well does require that we know our Bibles, particularly the Old Testament, quite well. It will usually take a little digging and research. When you come across a figure of speech in the Bible, and they are usually pretty obvious, don’t assume that you know what it means. Do a little digging.

Is the interpretation consistent with the rest of Scripture?

A passage may seem to make sense on the surface but if the interpretation is not consistent with all of Scripture then it must be rejected. James 2:19 says that the demons believe in God. Can we couple that with John 3:16 and surmise that demons will be going to heaven? Obviously, we cannot. When this verse is considered in the context of all the Scriptures, we see that this interpretation is not possible. Applying this principle will also insulate from many of the prosperity gospel teachings that are so popular today. When taken in consistent context with the entire message of the Old and New Testaments, we can see that the life of luxury and comfort is not the life to which a Christian is called.

Does the interpretation remain consistent with God’s nature?

Not only does a passage need to be consistent with all of Scripture but it must also be consistent with God’s nature. It is necessary that one begins to have a basic understanding of theology in order to do this. In Revelation 6:2 we read, “I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.” The passage goes on to describe that along with the rider on the white horse come three judgments symbolized by three other horse and riders. The subsequent riders remove the conditions that are providing peace on the earth, economic hardship, and death. This is all in the context of John’s prophecy of the soon coming destruction of Jerusalem. God’s covenant has been broken and He is about to pour out his judgment on apostate Israel. Many biblical commentators, in discussing the rider on the white horse, have said that although this rider appears to be Jesus (there are many reasons including the fact that Jesus is seen later in Revelation 19 riding on his white horse; God is the one in Scripture that holds the bow in judgment - Habakkuk 3:9, and the one that is given the crown of dominion – Revelation 14:14; 19:11-13), it cannot be. The simple reason they offer is that God does not bring this kind of judgment, death, and destruction. With this idea of God they then create fanciful interpretations that include the so-called anti-Christ. The fact is, however, that God is love, but God is also righteous and holy. God does inflict judgment on the rebellious, apostate, and disobedient. Deuteronomy 28:15-68 clearly lays out the types of curses that will beset Israel if they break the Covenant. Christ, pictured in Revelation 6 on the white horse, will come soon, says John (indeed He did come in 70 AD) to fulfill these curses on apostate Israel. The actions of this rider on the white horse are completely consistent with God’s nature as a righteous judge. The discerning biblical reader will realize that, and will not incorrectly interpret Scripture based on an erroneous conception of who they want God to be rather than who He is.

Does the interpretation consider the differences between the Old Testament (physical) and the New Testament (Spiritual)?

Most of the laws, battles, enemies, blessings, curses, sacrifices, etc. of the Old Testament are of the physical variety. Even the people of God are the physical nation of Israel. In the New Testament, however, these things are of a spiritual nature. Our enemy is a spiritual enemy (Ephesians 6:12). Our battles are spiritual. For us the way we are to interpret the law of God is spiritual (Matthew 5:21-30). The blessings and curses of the New Covenant are of the spiritual variety. Good Bible interpretation must take that fact into account, especially when applying Old Testament interpretations to the modern reader. This is where many in our day and age get confused. They look at the things promised to Abraham and the people of Israel in the Old Testament, combine that with Galatians 3:29 that we are the heirs of Abraham, and conclude that these physical blessings are a promise for us today. The Christian, however, is to focus on spiritual blessings and store up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:20).

Does the interpretation differentiate the principle given by the author from the cultural expressions of that principle?

In 1 Timothy 2:9, Paul gives a principle of dressing modestly for women to follow. He then lists some examples from his own culture of how to follow that principle. These include avoiding braided hair and gold or pearls. Dressing modestly is the principle to be taken from this passage not the belief that a woman in our culture cannot braid her hair. Good interpretations will consider the principle, and appreciate the cultural expressions of that principle, without feeling bound by those expressions. Paul often gives a binding biblical principle and then gives at least one cultural expression of that principle. We are bound by the principle but not necessarily the cultural expression of the principle.

Does the interpretation consider the genre of literature of the passage?

Good interpretations will take into consideration the type of passage being interpreted. Whether a passage is poetic, wisdom literature, narrative, apocalyptic, etc. make a huge difference in interpreting a passage. The interpreter of Revelation 20:2-4, for instance can have problems with understanding 1,000 years to be literal if he does not comprehend the Old Testament tendency to use numbers as representing a period of time, rather than literal lengths of time (This applies to Revelation as it is written with a very “Old Testament” wording). Just as we would not read a poem in the same way that we would read a newspaper, we must be sure to read the different types of Scripture in the way that they were intended to be read. Narrative passages need to be read as narratives. Symbolic prophecy like much of Ezekiel and Revelation must be read in the symbolic language of prophecy and the Old Testament. The wisdom literature of books like Proverbs cannot be read as direct promises from God. They are observations of God’s universe that generally prove to be true. They cannot be read and held up as ironclad promises because they were not intended to be so. The list could go on, but the point is to read the work in the style that the author intended.

Does the interpretation consider who is speaking, who is being spoken to, and the circumstances of the conversation?

In Mark 10:18, Jesus says that “No one is good – except God alone.” If one were to misunderstand the circumstances of the conversation and who Jesus was speaking to, they might come to some very wrong conclusions about this passage. Jesus was responding to someone who called him merely a teacher, but also said that He was good. Jesus, rather than trying to teach all theological truth at once, met the man where he was at in his understanding and took him one step farther. Jesus explained to the man that if He was nothing more than a teacher then He could not be good, because only God is good.

Is the interpretation consistent with the author’s intent? Does it consider whether a passage is descriptive or prescriptive?

There are many passages in the Bible that are merely descriptive of a situation without calling for us to go and do likewise. Sometimes confusing prescriptive and descriptive can bind us to a principle that may be a good idea but not a binding principle. For instance, Acts describes the early church as meeting in one another’s homes primarily (Acts 2:46). This may be a nice thing to emulate if it works within our culture or for our church, but it is not a binding prescriptive practice. It would not be taking into account the fact that the early Christians had little other choice than to meet in the homes of the believers. Confusing the concepts of prescriptive and descriptive can, however, be very dangerous when taken to extremes. 2 Kings 4:34, describes a scene in which Elisha laid on a young boy to bring him to life. A few years ago, a preacher in Milwaukee saw this as a prescriptive passage, and lied on a seven year old boy to cure him of the “demons of his autism.” The result was that the boy was asphyxiated by the weight of this preacher as he was held down by other members of the church.

Is Eternal Punishment in Hell Overdoing It?

A very common question that people have is this: Isn’t God overdoing it a bit by sentencing people who sin for the short time they are here on earth to eternal suffering in hell? Isn’t that cosmic overkill? It’s a question that deserves an answer.

We must understand that the Bible is clear, in that it teaches that all sin is inherently against God. God is infinite in his perfection which means that sin is an infinite evil which deserves infinite punishment. Think of this: when a crime is committed, the relationship between the offender and the offended party do matter. It is wrong for a young man to lose his temper and punch his friend, but it is a far worse offense for the same young man to punch his mother. This analogy even falls short, though, because God is different from humans in degree but also in being. Shooting a dog is bad, shooting a human is far worse. In the same way, sinning against a human is bad, but sinning against a God who is infinitely worthy of obedience is far worse.

Remember that according to Jesus the greatest of all commandments is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, yet who among us has kept that command for even ten seconds. If we’re honest, we all love ourselves more than God. If we are continually breaking the greatest commandment, then our guilt must be enormous before God.

You may be thinking to yourself that even though you have committed this sin, it’s still not that bad. Measured against biblical standards, we just don’t take sin very seriously. Let’s put it this way. If we wanted to evaluate the horrors of murder, who would give us a more accurate picture? Would it be the murderers on death row or would it be the friends and family of the murder victims? Of course the murderers would tend to lessen the severity of the effects of their actions. Similarly, we tend to underestimate the severity of our sin. We often view it as a blunder or a mistake but we don’t see it through the eyes of God’s holiness. If we were to do so, we would see it as evil, wicked, hateful, and worthy of eternal damnation. Only God, as the offended party, knows the full extent of the awfulness of sin.

Could Jesus Have Sinned?

One of the great questions when it comes to the life of Jesus is this: could Jesus have sinned had He wanted to. The question is a little tougher to answer than it may first seem. Jesus being fully human should be able to sin, yet being fully God in nature, would not be able to sin. Is this a contradiction? Can we harmonize these divergent aspects? The answer is yes to the latter.

Jesus was tempted in every way just like we are (Hebrews 4:15). In fact He experienced greater tempting than most of us ever will. How many of us have ever had Satan come to tempt us in person? Although He was tempted, Jesus could not have had the possibility of sinning. God cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13) and we already know that Jesus is God.

Some have argued that Jesus had the ability to sin but chose not to. This goes against the idea that God cannot act against His nature. Jesus was, in fact, not able to sin. Those who argue for the possibility of Jesus sinning, cite Hebrews 4:15, which says that He was, "tempted in every way." Those who hold this viewpoint argue that Jesus could not have been truly tempted and could not really be a sympathetic High Priest if He was unable to sin. The problem with this view is that it diminishes the full divinity of Jesus. It stresses His humanity over His divinity in a way that is unacceptable. When Philippians 2 says that Jesus "became nothing" or "emptied himself" it means that Jesus voluntarily limited His Godly attributes. He had acces to them through the work of the Holy Spirit only. This means that He was limited temporarily, but He was never wrong and He could never act in opposition to His divine nature.

The reality of testing has nothing to do with the moral nature of the one tested. The possibility of sympathizing does not depend on a one-to-one correspondence in the problems faced. Just because an army can be attacked does not necessarily mean that it could be conquered.
Jesus was a man, and so, was prone to sin. He was also God, and so, could not sin. Jesus had two natures but He was one person. He could limit some of His attributes but He could never stop being God. Regardless of where He went or what He did, both of His natures were present. His divine nature was unchangeable (Hebrews 13:8). It was impossible for Him to sin as God (James 1:13), although as a man, He could be genuinely tempted.

By being tested, Jesus demonstrated the fact that He was sinless. Jesus was not allowed to be tempted to see if He could keep from sinning, but to show that He could not and did not sin. His temptation showed that He was unique and was qualified to pay the penalty that mankind has incurred. God already knows everything about us so He did not need to be tempted in order to sympathize with us. The fact that He was tempted allows us to feel that He can sympathize with us because He experienced it. The fact is, He could sympathize without the temptation, but knows how skeptical the human mind is, and so He went through testing for us, not for Him. In being tested and not sinning, He demonstrates for us the perfect example of gaining victory over even the most difficult of tests.

Lessons From a Grass Plant

By Andrew A. Prociuk

Watering

As I was driving to work the other day, I saw a church billboard that said, “Deep roots come from dry spells.” As a landscape horticulture graduate I was pondering that phrase and how that statement is not completely true. But just as the sign was giving a spiritual lesson, which it probably can, I would like to give one as well. Let’s use the analogy of a grass seed.

When grass seeds are sown, they need water. The water penetrates the seed coat and, essentially, busts the seed coat open. The first root, called the radicle, appears and starts to grow into the soil so that it can absorb water and nutrients. The basic rule of thumb for watering grass is deep and infrequent; however, in the case of establishing new grass the rule is shallow and frequent. What this does is allow the water to be absorbed into the top layer of the soil to be accessible to the newly established roots. If too much water is applied, the soil would absorb it to a depth inaccessible for the young roots. On the other hand, if the grass plant is always supplied the shallow water, it will not have a chance to grow to a proper depth in the soil and when dry spells come along, the roots have a greater chance of dying from the hot dry soil

As grass starts to grow, if properly watered, the roots find their way deeper into the soil. This is when the rule for the watering starts to change over to deep and infrequent. Of course, this must be a gradual process from the shallow and frequent watering schedule. When this happens, the water finds its way deeper into the soil to be accessible for the growing roots. When the dry spells come along, the deep healthy roots, as opposed to the shallow roots, are at a depth to which they can reach the moist soil. As this happens, the grass plant grows to be healthy. The roots grow deep and the leaf blade grows to reach the light of the sun.

So, you may be wondering what my point is. Well, look at it this way. There are many references in the Bible to plants and how they relate to our spiritual lives. In Mark 4:5-6 Jesus gives the parable of the sower and speaking of the seed he says, “Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.”

As new Christians come into fellowship, the tendency seems to be to teach the Bible at a basic level, get them baptized, and hope they do well, however, if we use the analogy of the grass plant, new Christians, like grass plants, need to be supplied that shallow water for a time, even after their baptism, until their roots start to grow. The watering must gradually deepen so they can reach the water themselves when that dry spell does come along. And it most definitely will come.

So, deep roots, in a spiritual sense, rather than resulting from dry spells actually help believers survive through them. Deep spiritual roots come from a caring heart and a realization that the faith of new Christians is somewhat dependent on the body of believers. It is a gradual process that takes time. We must take care of each other as we would do to a garden. The watering, or teaching, of new disciples is still essential even after they are baptized. Their roots will take time to deepen and the only way to do that is if we water them properly no longer with elementary teachings (Hebrews 6:1). When a disciple’s faith is deeply rooted in the Word, they will eagerly seek God as their light (James 1:5).

Fertilization

Along with the watering, a healthy grass plant often needs fertilizer. The basic rule for fertilization is four pounds of nitrogen per 1000 square feet per year. Nitrogen is probably the most essential element in the health of grass. It is the element that keeps the grass green. There are a few problems that can go along with fertilization, however. A fast release fertilizer will give a quick green up, but the grass will soon fade. A slow release fertilizer will take a long time to green up. Therefore, the best way to fertilize is to integrate fast and slow release fertilizers.

Systematic theology is viewed with four pieces in mind and these pieces comprise a triangle with four levels. The bottom level is the most essential and is that of Holy Scripture. The next level is that of Tradition. The Tradition that is being spoken of is that of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, those are the early church fathers from the beginning of the church up to AD 325. And although not all fathers agreed on every issue, the consensus is what is viewed. The next level is that of reason. God allows us to be able to reason and therefore, it should be used. The final level, and the apex of the triangle, is that of experience. Experience is important to our walk with God; however, it cannot take priority over the other three pieces of the triangle.

Now, if we want to see how this relates spiritually, we can take a look at theology. It should be agreed upon that the Holy Scriptures take precedent over tradition, reason, and experience. As well, the tradition of the Ante-Nicene fathers should be taken in high regard. So, that leaves us with reason and experience. Now, if we take a look back at slow release and fast release fertilizers, we see that although both are effective in their own way, slow release fertilizers are more effective in the health of grass. As well, reason, according to the theological triangle, is more effective than experience. Experience and feelings are important in our walk with God but as Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Emotions are like the fast release fertilizer. They help for those quick green-ups when you really want your grass (spirituality) to look nice almost instantly, but it fades soon thereafter. Reason, wisdom and patience as well, are regarded more like the slow release fertilizers. They are what keep us spiritually sound and growing. It may take a little longer for the grass to green up, but when it does it stays green longer. Hosea 4:6b says, “…my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” It does not say, “…my people are destroyed from lack of feelings.”

Just as grass needs both fast and slow release fertilizers, we as Christians need fast and slow release fertilizers in the form of experience and feelings along with reason, patience, wisdom, and knowledge. By having a proper balance, we will have that better root system that keeps us anchored along with the better leaves with which to display the glory of God.

Replication

Now, watering and fertilization is all well and good, but what now? Is that all there is to being a grass plant or a spiritual brother or sister? Well, not exactly. Something happens to the grass plant when it receives proper care. It grows! When grass is watered and fertilized appropriately, roots grow deeper and thicker and leaf blades grow thicker as well. The grass will start to spread out and send roots in every direction to repopulate all that it can. Seeds will start to grow and fall to the ground to start the cycle all over again.

Speaking of seeds, Jesus said in John 12:24-25, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” The only way for us to grow God’s kingdom is to die to ourselves everyday. By doing this we are like seeds that fall to the ground and die. If we do this, we will replicate and produce many more seeds so that the cycle will be ongoing.

Just as grass needs care, we too need to care for our spiritual life. And just as grass, we need others in our life to help take care of us. We are not spiritually self sufficient by any means. We must be watered so that we can be properly rooted in God’s word. We also need proper fertilization so that we can be spiritually healthy. And we need to take what we have been given and share it with others to continue the cycle. Although grass may seem simple, just as our spiritual lives at times, it can be complex. Although we will ultimately wither just like the grass, God does not. “All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall but the word of our God stands forever” Isaiah 40:6-8.

Is God Cruel?

Introduction

Is God cruel? I think this a question that we have all asked at some point in our lives. In fact, if we’re going to be honest about that issue, we must first air a little dirty laundry of the Christian community. There are dirty little secrets that we don’t like to admit to. We don’t like to think about them and we certainly hope a non-Christian doesn’t bring up the topic. The fact is, however, there are certain passages in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament that we have a hard time reconciling with the concept of a loving God. We struggle with the wars, the violence, and the absolute genocide of the Old Testament and we wonder if God was indeed cruel. Because we don’t understand these portions of Scripture, however, what we tend to do is to sweep them under the rug. We put those passages in the “trust by faith” portion of our mind and hope that we don’t have to deal with them ever again. What is sad is that it is often these very passages in Scripture that show God’s love in an incredible fashion. My objective today is to examine a few of these incidents in the Bible and move them from the “trust by faith” part of your mind into the “builds my faith” part. As we examine these verses today I challenge you to read them critically as a skeptic might, challenge me in your mind. Force me to prove that I am correct. I am confident, however, that by the end of this lesson you will agree that God is who He says He is, a God of love and mercy.

I am familiar with many of the passages that we will look at because I had my own sport when I was in college. One of my favorite things to do was to debate the Christians on campus. I was at a time in my own life when I was struggling with who I was and what I believed in life. I had been raised in a Christian home and so I knew well the stories of the Bible. I could rattle of any biblical fact you wanted to know with an air of smug arrogance. I was also in a phase of rebellion, so quite naturally I rebelled against Christianity. I could hardly rebel against life, as I knew it without rejecting Christianity to some extent. The reality was, though, that I had serious questions about the Bible and about God and I desperately wanted someone to be able to answer them. What I found, however, was the exact opposite. I found a lot of Christians who could not defend their faith and were not even all that familiar with the Bible. I have chosen several passages for this article because they are verses that I used to use to attack Christians with. Verses with which I could prove God as a harsh and cruel dictator that were also inconsistent and contradictory. These stories I want to look at today were some of the very best of my arsenal and sadly I never met one Christian while I was in college who could give me an adequate answer, not even the ministerial students.

Genesis 3:14-21

To start any discussion of God’s cruelty or kindness we must start at the beginning, the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 2 and 3 we find a description of Adam and Eve in the Garden in a close relationship with God. They lived in a state of harmony where there was no sin and no death. Then came the temptation of the serpent to risk this perfect relationship that they had with God. God had placed in the Garden, the tree of Good and Evil, forbidding them to eat of it. We all know the story, they disobeyed, they ate, and here comes an angry God to punish them. Now I never argued that God didn’t have the right to punish them. They were His creation living in His garden. What I wondered was, “Didn’t it seem cruel or going overboard to curse mankind and all of creation with death because of one little mistake?” Was this not a clear case of over-reaction?
The fact is, even in proclaiming the curse of death upon mankind, God was already showing His mercy and grace. Let me explain. What are the wages of sin death? Obviously the answer is death. But before that even, what does sin do to us? It separates us from God. A holy and perfect God cannot be in the presence of sin. So picture this: You live in a world in which you sin one time and are forever separated from God with no hope of reconciliation. This is huge, because when you boil it all down, heaven is being totally in the presence of God while hell is the complete lack of God’s presence. Here’s where the beauty of the curse of death comes in. The wages of sin are indeed death, but God gave us an out within the confines of this very curse. We can substitute the death of another for our own in order to pay our fine and be reconciled with God. In the Old Testament it was periodic animal sacrifice. For us today it was the sacrifice of God’s Son on the Cross that has paid the price for our sins. Without death we would have no hope of ever being in the presence of God for the rest of eternity. One sin, and we would be done, forever. That wasn’t good enough for God, though. If you read Genesis 3:15, you can see that even at the very beginning, the very moment that man was disobeying and unleashing this plague of sin into the world, God had already formulated His plan to send His Messiah. Keep that plan in mind as we examine this question of God’s supposed cruelty because it will play a key role.

Genesis 11:5-9

The second story that we need to look at is found in Genesis 11. Here we have mankind shortly after the flood once again disobeying God. He had ordered them to spread out and repopulate the earth. They decided, however, that they had a better plan in mind. Mankind chose to stay together and build a society, one that included building a pagan tower in honor of the gods. This tower they were building was very likely the forerunner of the ziggurat, a temple that would have at the very top a room represented the heavens. It would be here that they would give offerings to pagan gods. In verse 5, we find that God says that God is concerned that nothing man wants to do will be impossible for them if they stay together. Is this a God who is afraid? What does He know that we don’t? What will happen if man stays together? Perhaps God is not as powerful as we think and He relies on the fact that mankind is splintered and constantly fighting one another. If we were ever truly united, could it be that we could challenge his sovereignty? That was my theory, but I don’t think it is correct.
We find a clue for the answer back in the Garden of Eden. God forbids Adam of Eve from eating of the tree of Good and Evil. Why? Doesn’t it seem like that would a tree He would want them to eat from daily? Wouldn’t He want them to know good from evil. The fact is: the name of this tree is somewhat confusing to our ears because it is a classic Hebrew figure of speech. It is, in fact, what is called merism. What that means is polarity represent totality. You take the opposite ends of the spectrum to represent the whole. We see this kind of language quite frequently in the Old Testament: As far as the east from the west; the beginning and the end; the alpha and the omega, from the highest mountain to the deepest sea. The tree of the Knowledge Good and Evil simply means knowledge. Adam and Eve, and subsequently mankind, now had access to more knowledge than we had the moral ability to control. We see this evidenced throughout history right up to today’s world.
Now, remember that God still has a fresh memory of the flood and the awful destruction that was precipitated by man’s evil. Now He sees the same pattern beginning again. He simply cannot let this happen again. He knows that if left to their own devices man has the capability and knowledge to create far more evil than they can morally control. In God’s mercy, we see Him separating mankind so that it will be much more difficult for them to get to the levels of sin that they did in the days of Noah. God is actually saving these humans from a far worse fate by splitting them and confusing their ability to communicate with one another. Now, let’s switch gears a bit.

I Samuel 15:3

In this verse we find God ordering the complete genocide of an entire culture including the children, infants, and animals. There is no way we explain our way out of this one. God has ordered an entire culture to be annihilated, and this is just one example of many. Does this not prove a bloodthirsty, violent, and cruel God? Well, let’s look at the evidence.
First of all we must remember that God is holy and He must punish sin and rebellion. This Amalekite culture was totally depraved and polluted. You name it, they did it: brutality, cruelty, incest, bestiality, cultic prostitution, child sacrifice by fire, etc. These were among the vilest cultures that have ever exited in the history of mankind. Even with that we find God being patient with them and giving them over 400 years to repent. In Genesis 15:16, God tells Abraham that his descendants could not yet inhabit Canaan because the Amorite sin had not yet reached its full extent. He gave them time to repent and they did not.
But what about the children, infants, and animals; How can a kind God order their destruction? As we said earlier, these cultures were totally depraved, beyond the hope of redemption or repentance. We know from the Bible that children under an age of accountability are not held responsible for their actions. Is it not obvious, then, that in a way, by ordering the children killed God has engaged in an act of mercy for these children. He has, in essence, given them a free pass out of certain destruction and into His presence. As far as the animals, are concerned, what would thousands of domesticated animals do without humans to care for them. This would cause starvation, disease, etc. In both cases, we see God engaging in acts of mercy and kindness.
Another fact is that God cannot be judged by the same standards with which mankind is judged. In Ezekiel 18:4 we learn that every soul belongs to God. Look at it this way: If I cut down a tree in my lawn, that’s fine. I can do that because it’s my tree. If you do it, it is a crime. You do not have the right or authority to cut down my tree. This is the same for God. We are God’s souls. He kills us all; it’s just a matter of when, where, and how. Because we belong to God, He and He alone can choose when we are called into the spiritual realm.
The final and perhaps most important reason that this is an act of kindness on the part of God is that He was preserving Israel. The Amalekite (and other Canaanite) cultures were bent on completely wiping Israel off of the face of the earth. God had already decided, however, that it was through these special people of his that He would bring His Messiah. He had to preserve the Israelites so that they could bring forth the Messiah that would eventually save all of mankind. We all recognize the ultimate mercy that is shown in the life and death of Jesus. If Israel was destroyed or corrupted beyond hope then there would be no Messiah and no hope of ever being permanently reconciled with God. God is not a God of cruelty but of mercy and kindness.

II Kings 2:23-25

Is this not a case of pure and simple overkill? We find a situation in which a bunch of kids are making fun an adult. Big deal, you say, that happens all the time. But to send a couple of bears to maul them to death, is this not cruel? How can we possibly explain this one?
The first thing to note is that this not a group of kids. The KJV translates this as little children while the NIV words it as young men. This is the same term, however, is used for soldier aged young men. These were not little children; they were young men of fighting age. This was, in our vernacular, a gang. By their sheer number they were threatening the life of Elisha.
Now, what exactly were they saying that was worthy of death? First of all by chanting “go on up,” they were challenging the truth of God having taken Elijah up to heaven. They were taunting Elisha to go up to heaven as Elijah had. In calling him baldhead, they were implying that he had leprosy. Leprosy was the vilest of conditions in the ancient world and lepers would shave their head to indicate that they had leprosy. Basically, they were calling him the worst possible insult.
To truly understand the severity of this it is important to understand the role of the prophet. The prophet was God’s direct representative on earth. He was God’s mouthpiece. To insult or mock a prophet was a direct blasphemy towards God. When these young men mocked Elisha, they mocked God.
The act of God unleashing these bears to kill these young men shows God’s mercy. The culture was quickly degenerating into an attitude of blasphemy against God that would precipitate a much worse fate. This was preemptory attack trying to warn Israel. It was a warning shot. It shows God repeatedly trying to bring His people back to himself through smaller judgments. If they would not repent then God’s full judgment would have to come upon them. God did not want this to happen. If His people followed the example of these young men, where would it stop? In fact, the people did not repent, and we see shortly after this the destruction of Samaria and the Northern Kingdom taken off into bondage. God was trying to get them to turn away from this fate. This is yet another example of God working to keep His people pure so that He could bring the Messiah through these people. God is not cruel; He is kind and patient.

Genesis 22:2

In our final case we find God ordering Abraham to go and sacrifice his son, Isaac. We know that God stopped him so I never really argued that this was an act of cruelty, except maybe a cruel sense of humor. The problem here for me was, however, is this order not in clear violation of the Leviticus 18:21 prohibition of sacrificing children? How can God prohibit child sacrifice in one part of the Bible and condemn cultures for doing it, all the while He had ordered Abraham to do the exact same thing?
The fact is child sacrifice is wrong. It was wrong when God didn’t command it (Jeremiah 19:5). It was wrong when it didn’t come from the mind of God but of man (Ezekiel 20:30-31). It was wrong when it was unauthorized. This case meets none of those criteria. This situation was not an abomination to God because He had commanded it, it had come from His mind, and it was authorized. These are, after all, God’s souls. He cannot be held to the same moral standard to which man is held. It is important, then, to remember that God did not have Abraham go through with this test. He did need, though, to test Abraham’s faith. This was the man that would be the forefather of God’s chosen people. God had to know that this man had the faith and obedience necessary to bring this about because it would be through these people that He would bring the Christ. This is yet another act that shows God’s incredible kindness and mercy that would see its ultimate fulfillment in the coming of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

In the beginning, I stated that my objective was to examine these stories of God’s supposed cruelty and find mercy. To move these from the realm of “trusting by faith,” to “building faith.” When examined in the light of all the evidence we find not a cruel, contradictory dictator, but instead we find a kind, merciful, beneficent God. We find a God who has constantly given man his free will and yet repeatedly tried to soften the blow of judgment that mankind has earned. This is a kind and merciful God, one that we can truly love and worship.

Matthew 4 and The Arrows of Satan

Introduction

The devastating effects of the Fall are among the most misunderstood phenomena in our world. Most Christians even fail to see how deeply the Fall affects every aspect of our life. The Fall is responsible for pain and disease, sickness and suffering, murder and death, carnivorous lions and viruses, the Grand Canyon and Mt. Everest. Since the Garden of Eden Satan has convinced mankind that we can be like God and do not follow His ways. He continues to use certain temptations in the form of ideas, suggestions, and thoughts to keep us enveloped in his web of lies.

Satan’s work at the Fall and God’s subsequent curse on His creation has ruined the perfect world that God once crafted. Since then Satan has attempted to use these arrows to keep us from the intended purpose of our design, to have a relationship with God. Although Satan has a bevy of options in his arsenal, I believe that there are three main techniques (although certainly not the only ones) that he uses to shape our stories. These three strategies are clearly visible in the episode in Matthew 4, in which Satan attempted to shape Jesus’ story.

In the Matthew 4 account, we find Satan using three of his primary temptation techniques. Often Satan only needs to use one method on humans (although he often will use several types of temptations all at once like he did with Eve in the Garden of Eden), but in crossing Jesus, who was no ordinary human, he finds his methods ineffective, and so attempts three separate types of temptations.

Satan knew well the promises of a Messiah. He was in the Garden of Eden when God first promised that a Messiah would come (Genesis 3:15). It seems likely, however, that Satan did not understand the precise nature of Jesus. He did not know the exact time or place that the Messiah would appear. Once it became clear that He had arrived, though, Satan set about to defeat this Messiah the same way he has defeated every human being. He certainly did not expect to be rebuffed as he was.

In his tempting of Jesus, however, we can learn about three ways that Satan will attack us. These three temptations are also connected to the three primary lusts that John describes in his first epistle:

For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world (1 John 2:16)

Admittedly, these three types of temptations are similar in many ways and can overlap in many senses, but they are different enough that they are worth considering separately. The real value in considering them separately is to learn from Jesus’ response to each attack as He overcomes the temptation.

Lust of the Flesh and Questions of Identity

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Satan comes to Jesus and continues his temptation by questioning who Jesus is: “Are you really who you think you are? If you are, prove it?” Satan does this to us all of the time. He puts thoughts in our head such as, “Do you really have a relationship with God,” “Does God care about you,” “Are you really a Christian,” “Would a real Christian do that,” “You’re the only one who has ever experienced that,” etc. Satan shoots his arrows into our minds in an attempt to separate us from God. He knows that this will destroy our soul. If we question who we are, we will never truly understand our importance to God and be forever limited in our relationship with God if not cut off all together.

This particular temptation is what John calls the lust of the flesh. Satan gets us to question who we are or who we want to be, but he also appeals to things that are flesh desires. He challenges Jesus here, taunting him, really. He knows that Jesus is hungry and that his flesh would love nothing more than to eat, so he attacks him with that arrow. He dares Jesus to prove who He is by turning stone to bread and satisfying what His lust wants so badly.

This same approach was used on Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan appeals to Eve’s sense of who she is, attempting to convince her that she is more than she is, and deserves more than she does. She can be like God, Satan tells her. Then the lust of the flesh kicks in as Genesis 3:6 tells us: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” Satan appealed to her lust of the flesh through the lust of the eyes (which we’ll talk more about in a minute). Why should she deny herself when that fruit looked so good? And besides, she could be like God, she deserved to go ahead and eat.

The lust of the flesh manifests differently for different people. For some pride manifests itself through arrogance. For others pride manifests itself through low self-esteem. Both are equally manifestations of pride, however. It is here that Satan attacks so many. For many Christians, Satan’s attacks come through getting us to think that we are less than we are. For many others, it is suggesting to them that they are greater than they are. This was Satan’s approach with Eve in the Garden, convincing her that she could be like God.

Man is possessed by a nature that is characterized by its fleshliness: its appetite, desires, cravings and passions. Satan appeals to those desires of the flesh. With Eve, she saw the forbidden fruit was good for food. When Satan tempted the Lord Jesus, his first proposal was that He make stones into bread to satisfy His hunger. We don’t want to go through anything that is uncomfortable or causes pain of any type. Because of that, Satan often appeals to us, convincing us that we deserve to have our needs met immediately. This is often not God’s plan or the best things for us.

Jesus response in fighting this temptation is through his impeccable knowledge of the Word of God. Man’s true needs are not met by worldly visions of who we are, nor can they be met by partaking in whatever we desire at the moment. Our true needs can only be met by the Word of God. It has everything we need. Turning to another source will leave us with confused notions of who we really are and will never truly satisfy us. For us, the knowledge of the Word is the primary weapon we have. Our holiness and our ability to fight the assaults of Satan will always be limited by our knowledge of the Word of God.


Lust of the Pride of Life and Twisted Scripture

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Unsuccessful in his first attempt, Satan turns to the lust of the pride of life and scripture twisting. Satan abandons trying to cause Jesus to think that He is less than He is, so he turns to goading Christ into trying to prove it. Not only is He challenging Jesus to prove who He is, Satan is also tempting Christ to live it up and enjoy His power. ‘If you’ve got it flaunt it,’ is really Satan’s approach here.

To help in this approach, Satan turns to Scripture twisting. Satan is too smart to attack most Christians into trying to abandon God’s Word. He knows that this is a technique that will just not be effective. What he does, though, is try to twist Scripture in our mind. That we use Scripture, in effect, to justify what we really want in life. Satan begins to twist Scripture in our mind and suddenly a phrase like “all these things will be given to you as well,” become “God wants you to spend the money and have that big house and new car.” A Scripture like “all things are permissible but not all things are beneficial,” become “if it makes you feel better, then it is not only beneficial, it must also be permissible.”

If I had a treasure map that led to a treasure that I did not want you to find it, I could convince you that there was no treasure or I could make a million treasure maps that’s all looked convincingly close to the original. They would look close enough to fool people but would be changed enough that we would never really find the treasure. This is what Satan does to us with his arrows. He subtly twists God’s Word so that we will head down the wrong path, all the while justifying our behavior.

When we don’t know God’s Word, we are vulnerable to this attack. Sometimes we do the twisting ourselves and Satan need only confirm our convoluted interpretation and build upon it. In the Garden, when approached by the Serpent and questioned about the fruit, Eve says, “'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'” This is not, however, what God said. He actually told Adam, “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Eve added to God’s word by saying that if they even touched it, they would die. This is much more harsh and restrictive than God’s original warning. Satan capitalizes on this word twisting and goes on to appeal to Eve’s pride of life telling her that if she does eat from the tree she won’t in fact die, and she will become like God.


Jesus answers Satan’s attack by quoting Scripture correctly. The issue is not about whether Jesus can do something, the question is should He. Jesus realizes that putting God to the test is a more important Scriptural principle than exercising his freedom and seizing all that life has to offer. If the Bible accurately interpreted is our one and only source for knowledge, for standards, and for judging and determining what we do in life, then the attacks of Satan and the opinions of the world are completely inconsequential.

Lust of the Eyes and Having it all

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Satan took Jesus up into the high mountain and shows Him the power and glory of the kingdoms of the world. He offers them to Jesus if He will only worship him. Jesus was on earth to gain back the dominion that man had forfeited during the Fall. Satan here, offered Jesus this dominion without having to suffer. All he has to do is worship Satan. He offers Jesus the easy way out.

We see this so often in the way Satan works when it comes to the lust of the eyes. Satan will offer us things the easy way. It is often something God wants us to have but not in the way that Satan offers it to us. Usually it is because we are not yet ready and have not been prepared for what Satan offers us before we have earned it.

At other times, however, he boldly offers us things that he has no intention in delivering. He offers us things through the flesh of the eyes that we are convinced by Satan we can have, but we will never possess. It is this type of temptation, for instance, that convinces the 30 year old man that he can have the attractive 16 year old girl and have an inappropriate relationship with her. He becomes convinced that he loves her and they can truly have a relationship. This is a deception from the “father of lies” that simply has no chance to actually happen.

Through the lust of the eyes, Satan appeals to the sense of seeing and awakens desires through the eye. What we see we desire and covet, and then we attempt to obtain it for ourselves. Man is basically covetous or selfish by nature and Satan seeks to capitalize on that through the potentially unsatisfiable lust of the eye.

In this final scene, the “father of lies” offers Jesus the entire world. One thing that is important to remember is that not all arrows from Satan hurt right away. This is one of Satan’s deadliest weapons. We are hit with arrows but we think they are a good thing. They come in many forms: The promise of premarital sex, the adulation of others, the promise of a new car or house, a promotion at work, etc. These arrows don’t seem like they hurt, but the deadliest kind of wound is the one of which we are unaware.

In the case of Eve, she saw the forbidden tree and fruit was pleasant to the eyes. The second temptation (which the devil brought before the Lord as given in the moral order presented in Luke's Gospel) appealed to the eye. The lust of the eye often opens the door for us to entertain so many other lusts and temptations.

Jesus’ response to this attack is as interesting as it is powerful. Jesus says that only God is to be worshipped. Our eyes tell us that other things are worth having and put in a place of worship in our lives, but Jesus reminds us that only God is worthy of worship. Any time we are tempted to put anything first in our life, ahead of God, we can know without question that it is wrong and dangerous.

A Patriarchal Time Traveler?

Just about everyone knows that Genesis 22 is a precursor, a picture of sorts, of the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. There are many clear paralleles between Isaac and Jesus in this incident. Both are the long-awaited sons of promise. Both were called by God to be sacrificed. Perhaps the biggest difference, as many have noticed, is that God stopped Abraham from sacrifcing his son, while God did allow His own Son to be sacrificed at Calvary. God, it seems, does not call his followers to actually sacrifice the lives of their own sons because He gave up the life of His Son.

While all of the above is true, there are other connections between this account of the would-be sacrifice of Isaac and Jesus. To begin a brief journey of discovery of this connection we must go to John 8. . In John 8:56, Jesus tells his audience, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." Why is it stated so clearly that Abraham had seen the day of Jesus? Jesus does not argue that he will see it or was seeing it; Jesus reveals that Abraham had seen it at some point in the past. His apparent point was that Abraham had seen the day of Jesus. The big question for us today is when did he see it?

All indications are that it was during the incident with Isaac on Mt. Moriah. Read verses 3-4 of Genesis 22:

Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

I wanted to focus here on the phrase, “saw the place in the distance.” The word that is rendered “distance,” is the Hebrew word rachowq. Depending on the context, the word can be understood to mean either in the distance (with regards to space) or in the distance of time (or the future). The phrase in question, then, can, with no violence done to the orignial context, be rendered to read “saw the place in the future.”

Jesus’ words in John 8 already have been shown to indicate that Abraham had seen the day of Jesus. If we take into account the option that verse 4 of Genesis 22 says that Abraham saw the place in the future, we begin to ask, “is it possible that God allowed Abraham to see a vision of the crucified Savior 2,000 years before it took place?

Admittedly, this is circumstanial evidence, but are there any other items in this passage that might bolster this view? The answer is “yes.” Not the least of these items is that of the place itself. The incident with Isaac is taking place on Mt. Moriah. Interestingly, many biblical scholars believe that Golgotha, the place on which Jesus was crucified was on Mt. Moriah. Thus when verse 4 says that Abraham “saw the place in the future,” he may have actually been allowed to see that exact place in the future, as God revealed His future plans to the father of the children of Israel.

Another piece of the puzzle comes from verses 7-8:

Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.

When asked by Isaac about the subject of the sacrifice, Abraham assures his trusting son that God would be providing the lamb. This seems simple enough but we need to look further down in the passage to see what is really going on here. After the angel stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, Abraham looks up to see that caught in the bushes is, in fact, the provision of the Lord. God has provided just as Abraham said. But wait. Abraham said that God would provide a lamb. What is caught in the thicket, however, is not a lamb but a ram. For those of you who are just waking up and are yet to have your morning coffee, those are two entirely different animals. Was Abraham incorrect when he said that God would provide a lamb? Or was he talking about a different lamb at a different time? Of course we know that Jesus was the Lamb of God. After being given a vision of the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ in the same place that he was standing, Abraham predicts to his son that the Lamb of God would be provided as the only sacrifice that was really needed.

Finally, lets look at verse 14 of Genesis 22:

So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

Don’t miss the fact that Abraham named the place “The Lord Will Provide.” Again, the tense here is vital. Abraham did not say that the Lord had provided. The provision of the Lord to which Abraham was referring appears to be in the future. His naming of the mountain has more to do with the future than it does with what just happened on the mountain.

In summation, it becomes clear that Jesus’ words in John 8 are extremely accurate. Abraham did indeed see the day of Jesus long before it had taken place. While escorting his son up Mt. Moriah in obedience to God, God allowed Abraham to catch a vision of the glorious future that was to come when the lamb of God would be sacrificed for the sins of the world.

Divergent Love Stories

Two love stories; two different methods; two very different outcomes; such are the tales of Samson and Jacob in the Old Testament portion of the Bible. Both men were looking for one of the most elusive things on earth, the enigma that is love. As we study these two love stories, there are similarities between the two but there are also several differences that emerge between Samson and Jacob.

On the surface of these two stories we see some apparent similarities. Both were young single men looking for a beautiful wife. They also both had certain restrictions on them and blessings available to them as descendants of Abraham. The fundamental similarity between the two men was their worldview. Both of them seem to be precursors of sorts to the postmodern philosophy that says there are no absolutes and man is the ultimate judge of morality. In Isaiah 5:21, the prophet wrote, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eye and clever in their own sight.” Samson and Jacob shared a serious flaw in that they both attempted to engineer their own world by their own schemes. This method had worked for both of them so many times before but both met their match in the stories related to us in the Bible.

Although they certainly shared similarities, there are also several differences that come into view as we examine these two men. The first area of difference is in the area of obedience to God’s law. In Deuteronomy 7:3-4, God warns his people not to intermarry (Although this was written after the time of Jacob, it seems that this concept was already in place during the time of the patriarchs – Genesis 28:1). Jacob obeyed this edict, Samson ignored it. This sets their stories down two different roads from the very beginning. It allows Jacob the luxury of being able to trust the women he is dealing with (not that they were perfect), while the same cannot be said about Samson’s women.

Another area of difference is that Samson seemed to be constantly focused only on the very shallow, external qualities that appealed to his sensuous side. Granted, Jacob was also struck by Rachel’s beauty, but it seems that he was drawn to more than that; he had true feeling for Rachel (Genesis 29:18); Jacob went beyond mere external qualities.

The third area of difference between these two men is in the arena of their self-control. Jacob showed an incredible amount of patience and perseverance in working for 14 years with no compensation for the right to marry his beloved Rachel. In Samson, however, we constantly see someone who behaves rashly and loses his temper (Judges 14:3, 17; 15:3; 16:1, 4, etc.). This demonstrates a very practical principle: love is willing to wait, lust is not. How much different would our country look today if teenagers would grasp this principle from the lives of Jacob and Samson.

One final difference we see is that although both men were tricked by others scheming against them, Samson seems to never have learned his lesson. We see him making the same mistakes with women over and over again. The text of Genesis never explicitly says that Jacob learned his lesson, but he definitely seems to have been humbled by his interaction with Laban, and he is never tricked in the same way again.

There are some very clear lessons that we can learn from both of these love stories. From the similar elements we can glean the lesson of trusting in the plan of God rather than ourselves to fulfill our needs. These stories also teach us, however, from the elements of contrast within them. We can see that although life was not perfect for Jacob, that following the law of God will make a man’s path much easier in the long run. We also see through Jacob the wisdom of patience of looking beyond mere superficialities.

Meeting Needs: A Brief Look at Samsom

Every human being has deep needs that they want met. God has put those needs in our souls; it is part of our makeup. As a result of the Fall of man and God’s subsequent curse, however, just as sure as we have needs they will not be met while here on earth. Ultimately this cup can only be filled by God, the one who created us. Yet drinking from his cup is often difficult and requires more faith than we are willing to give. So we settle. We settle for a smaller cup or a cup that is only partially filled. We try to meet our needs through others rather than God. In doing this we both put a burden on others that they can never carry and we show a fundamental lack of faith that God can and will meet our needs.

In the story of Samson we see a perfect example of someone who was given incredible gifts and responsibilities by God. Samson, though, still had the same kind of needs that all humans do. He needed to be loved, respected, accepted, and enjoyed. Rather than looking to God for those things, however, Samson turned to ‘lesser lovers.’ One big error Samson made that so many of us do is that he focused on the external rather than the internal qualities to fulfill his felt needs. In the NASB, Judges 7 reads:

3Then his father and his mother said to him, "Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, for she looks good to me."
7So he went down and talked to the woman; and she looked good to Samson.

Despite God’s warnings in Deut. 7:3-4, Samson filled his desires in an expedient way. Notice that twice in this short passage Samson wants this woman because she looked good. Samson was focused on the shallow and the external rather than the things of God. This is so often the case when we seek to fulfill our needs with others rather than God. God looks to the internal not the external things (I Samuel 16:7). James seems to have this in mind when he says in chapter 1: “14But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Temptation to fulfill our needs with shallow things leads to sin, which will eventually lead to death.”

Samson also made the mistake that so many of us make; he showed a lack of faith in God and took the easy way out by trying to fill his needs by his own power. Lacking faith is, in its essence, a violation of the first commandment (Exodus 20:3). We set ourselves up as a god, believing that we can fulfill our own needs rather than trusting in the one, true God. Psalms 37:4 says that if we delight in God, “he will give [us] the desires of our heart.” This is true if we will only believe it. One thing that I find interesting is that we like to read this verse as if it says if we delight in God he will give us everything we have ever wanted. It seems to me to be more in keeping with God’s nature if we read as though it says if we delight in God he will give us new wants that are in keeping with his goals. Either way, though, the message is to delight in God; to let him meet our needs.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of trying to use others to meet our needs rather than God because we tend to focus on shallow things and be shallow in our faith. If we trust in God, however, he promises us that he will meet our needs.