Bully's Blog

“Nothing is plainer than that Paul sets his gospel over against all the doings of the carnal man, and not against the expectant but faithful Jew.”

Excerpt from Called To Be An Apostle
Sermon by Doug Wilson, Nov 25, 2008.

“In our overview of the entire book of Romans, we noted that chapter one showed the Gentiles were under sin, chapter two showed the Jews under sin, and chapter three showed them both up to their necks in the same kind of sin. This is important for us to note at the beginning of this book because the gospel set forth here is a gospel that liberates the nations from wickness, evil, sin, mortality, and so forth. This will be important for us to understand when we get to chapter seven, and Paul’s description of himself there as a representative Jew, but it is also important for us to see the nature of Saul’s conversion to Christ rightly. Otherwise, we will get everything confused. For now, we need to see that the gospel directly addresses what preachers in another era used to call sin.

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Abraham had gone to extreme measures to make sure Isaac didn’t intermarry with Canaan and pollute the promise. He sent his most faithful servant as a forerunner to find a bride for his son. Like John the Forerunner, the most faithful servant found the beautiful bride, Rebekah, by the water in a garden of God. And like Paul the apostle, the servant adorned her with gold in preparation for her presentation to the Bridegroom. Like Herod and the Jews, Laban and his mother didn’t want to let her go, and were given no choice but to bless her with their riches.

The Nazirite Vow

(Article requested by Drew J.)

This vow in Numbers 6 follows the “inspection of jealousy” in Numbers 5. Mark Horne observed that, just as the woman in Numbers 5 was to be inspected for harlotry with her hair untamed, so the Nazirite (whether male or female) was not to cut his or her hair. A Nazirite is a human picture of the church as a warrior bride. Hair is glory. Hair is the cloud of angels (and now, saints) surrounding the throne of God.

“Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (1 Cor. 11:10)

A woman is the glory of her man. A woman’s hair is a symbol of submission, but also a symbol of her own “cloud of angels” – her godly offspring (See Ezekiel 5 for the children of Israel symbolised as the prophet’s hair, Micah 1:16, Matthew 10:30 and also my comments on Nehemiah and his hair-pulling). In battle, a Nazirite was like a blazing torch (the Ark-chariot/Adam) and smoking firepot (the smoke clouds of the incense altar/Eve army), parting his enemies like the pillar of God.

The hair is her “crop”, the twelve stars around her head (Rev. 12), and the question constantly posed to Israel concerns her role as God’s mediatorial Land. Is her crop one of thorns and thistles, or is it godly grain? This is also the question in Numbers 5, and the Lord put Israel to this exact test after the idolatry with the golden calf. The “harlots” were slain with the Levitical sword.

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“Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”  (1 Cor. 3:12-17)

Are the gold, silver and precious stones our heavenly bling? From the structure of this passage, I think what Paul is referring to is the church. If we are building disciples who remain despite trials and testing from God, we will be rewarded. The immediate context of this is the false doctrine of Judaisers, and their house of gold, silver and precious stones (Herod’s Temple and his puppet High Priest’s robes). While Paul was building a Temple out of people, Herod was busy polishing the brass on the Titanic that he knew Jesus had said would be submerged under a Gentile flood (Daniel 9:26). Herod’s precious stones didn’t make it through God’s judgment. The Day declared what it was in truth.

The question is, are our disciples a robe/house for Jesus, or are they kindling in His nostrils? When He comes to judge, what will our ministry be revealed as?

or A Marriage Made in…

The Bible is big on mediators. Adam’s role as faithful Showbread would link heaven and earth. He would be a god-man. Fulfilled by Christ, this is the liturgical role of a minister. He faces God as representative of the Bride, and faces the church as the representative of the Bridegroom. He is Solomon at the completion of the Temple dedication.

The ‘hell’ hybrids are the Land-beasts of the Bible. This is what Adam became, conspiring with Satan. It was an unholy alliance between God’s mediator and the Creation, in which the Creation called the agenda. The resulting peoples are hunters like Nimrod and Esau, wolves instead of shepherds, bloodthirsty children of the daughters of men.

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“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.” 2 Timothy 4:6

A recent bestseller mistakenly tells us to be “wild at heart”, which results in passive wimps looking into their dark, little, empty hearts to find selfish, authoritarian rednecks. What men really desire is other men to follow—godly elders who are modelling Christ.

Bread is energising Alpha food (morning); Wine is intoxicating Omega food (evening).1 Young men are bread, ready to be broken. Breaking brings wisdom and maturity. Old men are wisdom-wine, servant kings poured out for the next generation.

The answer to geeky Christianity is not more Alpha Males (or less of them in some circles), but more of the Omega variety: fathers.

At study tonight, someone mentioned attending a Keswick convention where a wise old sage who spoke to the thousands was later not dining with the elite, but behind the counter serving the lunches, apologising for the wait. Now, that’s an Omega male.

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1  I recommend James Jordan’s lecture series, One Life, Many Deaths at www.wordmp3.com

“Because of Christ we are thought of as fools, but Christ has made you wise. We are weak and hated, but you are powerful and respected. Even today we go hungry and thirsty and don’t have anything to wear except rags. We are mistreated and don’t have a place to live. We work hard with our own hands, and when people abuse us, we wish them well. When we suffer, we are patient. When someone curses us, we answer with kind words. Until now we are thought of as nothing more than the trash and garbage of this world.” 1 Corinthians 4:10-13

So, are God’s people to wear rags? Or should they be dressed well like Solomon or the woman in Proverbs 31? Or is that even the right question?

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or The Resurrection of Christ: Get Over It.

The resurrection of Christ is the linchpin upon which all of Christianity depends. It is the point of the spear when it comes to evangelism.

But when the best theologians spend much of their time philosophising about its basic implications, their thinking divorced from most of the Bible, and relying instead upon Jewish fables and other ancient writings to form their opinions, we have a problem. When the cream of the crop are gagging on the milk, we have a problem.

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Peter Leithart has posted about the structure of Galatians 6:

Structure Of Galatians 6

Galatians 6 is roughly organised as a chiasm:

A. Bear one another’s burdens

…..B. Boasting in oneself and not another

……….C. Sowing and reaping; flesh

……………D. Do good

……….C’. Judaizers want good show in flesh/boast in flesh

…..B’. Boasting only in Christ Jesus: crucified to world

A’. I bear stigmata

The links are mainly verbal. The verb “bear” appears in verses 1, 5, and 17. ”Boasting” is a theme in 6:4 and 13-14, contrasting the boasting-in-flesh of the Judaizers with the boasting-in-the-death-of-flesh of Paul. ”Flesh” is found in verses 8 and 12-13. At the centre is an exhortation to persevere in doing good to all men, and especially to do good to the family or “household” of Abraham that Paul has been describing throughout the letter.

I could be imagining things, but I see the feasts of Leviticus 23 here as well:

A. Sabbath (the Spirit overshadows, the Word comes from God) call to worship

000B. Passover (Adam presented) self-examination/confession

000000C. Firstfruits (High Priest – Adam ascends) ascension of praise

000000000D. Pentecost (Law given) sermon

000000C’. Trumpets (armies – Eve presented) offertory

000B’. Atonement (sin expelled from nation – Eve ascends) communion

A’. Booths (rest) doxology and dismissal

Note also that when this pattern appears elsewhere in the Bible, the last point, Booths, is a glorified Solomon (Sabbath-king) sending out letters or chariots with the Word, beginning this cycle in the next generation. Here, Paul himself is the epistle carrying the graven words of God on tablets of flesh.

Jesus As Yahweh

Veli-Matti Karkkainen points out that Philippians 2:9-11 alludes to Isaiah 45:22-23, where Yahweh declares Himself to be the one and only God, before whom “every knee will bow” and by whom “every tongue will swear.” Thus, “for Paul the resurrected and exalted Christ enjoys the same status as the God of Israel.”

Peter Leithart, www.leithart.com