Beware

Spoilers abound below.

I’m assuming that if you are a member of Western society you are familiar with the basic story of Batman. You know that Batman’s secret identity is Bruce Wayne. You know that his parents were murdered in front of him as a child and as a result he wages war against crime in order to prevent others from suffering as he has. You also know that he is the inheritor of a vast fortune which enables him to create no end of fantastic gadgets for use in his crusade against evil.

I’m also guessing you’ve heard something about The Dark Knight, the latest big-screen adaptation of the Batman mythos. It is currently shattering box office records, fueled by the funds of a broad spectrum of society – ranging from comic fanboys (of all ages) all the way up to people like my stepfather (in his 70s) who couldn’t wait to see this movie.

Everyone attending is going to be asked something by the movie. It won’t be stated but every movie as fantastic (speaking of genre rather than quality) as The Dark Knight asks the audience to suspend their disbelief. We know these amazing things we see can’t happen in the real world but the movie asks us to set aside that knowledge. Then the task of the movie isn’t to present reality but rather see if it can tell an entertaining story within the premises it establishes. Batman is no exception and it provides a great payoff once disbelief is suspended.

Some specifics:
Once Batman is extracted from a building by raising a balloon tied to his waste out a window. This balloon is then snatched by pincers mounted to an airplane and Batman is carried away. Another time Batman’s car is hit by a rocket and rendered un-drivable. No problem. From within the car Batman disengages the front and rear tires which form a kind of motorcycle and drives away before detonating the remains of the Batmobile. Yet another time Batman reprograms every cell phone in the city to emit and receive sonar, giving him 3D imagery anywhere there is a cell phone. In Batman’s world unlimited resources mean unlimited abilities.

As fantastic as all those things sound they aren’t the hardest thing in the movie to believe.

You first see it when Batman’s love interest writes him a Dear John (Dear Bats?) letter. She pleads with, asking that even if he looses faith in her, to “never lose faith in the goodness of people.” This “goodness of people” is a consistent theme throughout the movie. It comes to a head when the Joker engineers a dire situation involving two ferry boats. One ferry is loaded with convicts and criminals. The other is carrying normal citizens. Both boats are loaded with explosives and the detonators are given to the occupants of the other boat. Thus each boat has the power to blow up the other. They are pressured to do just that – blow up the other boat – because if one boat doesn’t take the other out by midnight the Joker will detonate the explosives on both ships.

As the tension builds on both vessels the scene shifts to a battle between the Joker and Batman overlooking the harbor. The Joker gains the upper hand and waits for one of the boats to explode. However, Batman tells him there will be no explosion, thank you very much. Now keep in mind Batman has done nothing to disarm the bombs. No, they are just as primed as ever. Batman is simply expressing his faith in “the goodness of people.” And – wonder of wonders – neither boat pulls the trigger on the other. One of the convicts tosses their detonator out the window and the civilians, although they vote to blow up the other boat, can’t bring themselves to go through with it. In Batman’s world “the goodness of people” wins!

The Dark Knight persists in this theme to the very end. A crusading District Attorney who was helping clean up Gotham City is driven over the edge and becomes a criminal. When he dies Batman concludes that the people of Gotham must never know that he fell morally. His example (the D.A. is continually referred as The White Knight) must live on unsullied so that the people of Gotham will be inspired to maintain hope and continue to pursue good.

I think this final bit, about the strength of example, is even more far fetched than the scenario involving the two boats. This is idea – that mankind only needs an example of good in order to do what is right – is the hardest thing The Dark Knight asks the audience to believe. And the truly dangerous aspect of all this is that the belief in the goodness of people isn’t in the same category as Batman’s fantastic abilities. While the movie expects the audience to know that men can’t be Batmen it presents this “goodness of people” as a truth that transcends the unbelievable premises. Thus you see an anthropology that presents itself as something other than a furthering of the Batman fantasy. Now this “goodness of people” actually becomes a bridge from the world of Batman into our own, a common thread between the two.

Well that feels all nice and cozy but is it really true? Does it really conform to reality? History says no. More importantly the Word of God says no. Remember: “There is none who does good, no, not one” – Romans 3:12. Human nature isn’t neutral, let alone good. No matter how good an example we have we still won’t do what we should.

Liberal theology has tried to push this through the Christ-as-example theory of the atonement. The reason The Dark Knight is wrong is the same reason liberals are wrong: human nature is horribly corrupted. We are bent toward evil regardless of what is put in front of us. Neither example nor education can change that. That’s precisely why God didn’t just send an example to mankind. Sure, Christ was and is the perfect example but something had to be done about the nature of mankind. So when Christ suffered for us He wasn’t showing us a better way. He was condemning the sinful nature of man by being condemned as sin. Now, as a resurrected Federal Head of all who believe, He grants a new nature, one oriented toward God (and thus good). The corrupted nature has been dealt with and, while believers are not perfected here on earth, this new nature will finally be expressed perfectly in Glory to the glory of God.

Humanity can’t respond to even The Whitest Knight. We don’t need an example. We need a Savior. Thanks be to God, He provided one.

In Barak Obama’s July 2nd speech in Colorado Springs he put forth his ideas about defending the country not with military force (which he would scale back) but with “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

Revolutionary, no?

The full quote about downsizing the military and creating some kind of super militia:

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

Here’s why this strikes me: I’m a civilian. I’m very interested in national defense. I’d be willing to contribute my time to such an endeavor. But here’s the problem: no matter how well funded I am I can never be as good at protecting my country as the lowest ranking member of the military could. Why? Time. I have a job that I work 40 hours per week. I also pastor a church. Furthermore, I have obligations that keep me tied up personally and socially. I simply don’t have the time to be trained nor posted in service to our country.

Now, on the other hand, the brave men and women of the U.S. military spend their entire productive week (at least 40 hours, often many hours over that number) training, studying, and practicing how to do the things necessary to defend this country.

So you tell me – how can a civilian group with necessarily limited time to train, drill, and study be anywhere close to as “strong” as the United States Military? Furthermore, why in the world would we downsize the military to create a civilian group that does what the military is already doing?

Perhaps Obama realizes the absurdity of what he proposed; those comments have mysteriously vanished from the transcript of his speech published by his campaign on The Wall Street Journal and Denver Post.

Apparently the campaign scribes aren’t very accurate transcriptionists. Good thing we have the ability to record and save both video and audio from the speech. You can see it here around the 16 minute mark:

Quite simply the idea is ludicrous, both because it would require such an incredible amount of resources to implement and that even if it were implemented it would be necessarily of such lesser quality than what it replaces that it is an entire waste of time. The bottom line here is that Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about and continues to demonstrate he simply isn’t able to serve this country well in the Executive Office.

(HT:Obama’s ‘Big Brother’ vanishes from speech. I’m also indebted to Michael DelGiorno via Michael Dickerson for the term Obamalitia.)

Further reading:
What in the World is Obama’s “Civilian National Security Force”?
Obama’s ‘civilian national security force’

Living by the Book
Lesson 18

Things That Are Alike and Unlike

Things That Are Like

I. Similes
Simile – a word picture that draws a comparison between two things.

“The two most common words to look for are as and like.” – Howard Hendricks, Living by the Book

Examples:

Psalm 42:1 – “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee, O God.”

1 Peter 2:2 – “As newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”

Isaiah 44:6-7 – “This is what the Lord says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me?”

II. Metaphors

Metaphor – comparison is made without using as or like.

Example:

John 15:1 – “I am the vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.”

“Get in the habit of looking for [comparisons like these]. You’ll find them especially in the wisdom literature, particularly in the psalms.”

Things That Are Unlike

I. Use of but
“The word but is a clue that a change of direction is coming.”

Examples:

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Ephesians 2:1-7

“But is one of the most important words you’ll ever come across in your study of Scripture. Whenever you see it, always stop and ask, what is the contrast being made?”

II. Metaphors
Metaphors can be used to show how two things are unlike just as well as they can be used to show what they are like.

Example:

The Parable of the Unrighteous Judge in Luke 18.

“Jesus is setting up an effective contrast. He is saying, in effect, ‘If a corrupt and indifferent human judge finally gives in to the persistent pleas of a widow, how much more will the heavenly Father respond to the petitions of His children?”

III. Irony

John’s Gospel makes frequent use of irony.

Examples:

John 4:12 – (The Samaritan woman addressing Christ) “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

John 8:40 – “…now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.”

John 9:40-41 – “Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, ‘Are we blind also?’ Jesus said to them ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.”

“Things that are alike and unlike make use of the strong human tendency to compare and contrast. As you study the Scriptures, listen to that voice inside your head saying, ‘Hey, this is like that passage I looked at yesterday,’ or, ‘This section is different from anything else in this book.’ Those are clear signals that the author is using things alike and unlike to communicate his message.”

Note: Lesson 19 was read entirely from the book so I won’t be posting any notes for it.

Hey guys,

Go ahead. But hey… isn’t there something in the Constitution about this?

II. The Key Factor
Abiding in Christ, vs. 4, vs. 5
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Christ is quite clear: the only way fruit can be borne in our lives is to abide in Him. As we mentioned before, bearing fruit is vital to the believer because it glorifies God which is the highest aim of our lives.

To understand Christ’s symbol we’ll have to dig in to its components. The symbol-within-the-symbol to understand first is what “fruit” refers to. I realize that many of you have a good understanding of what the fruit symbol means but in the interest of keeping us on the same page we’re going to look at the subject briefly.

Fruit, in the Bible, can refer to:
1. Literal fruit (Numbers 13:26)
2. Offspring (Psalm 128:3)
3. Aspects of Human Nature Expressed Outwardly in Words and Actions (Matthew 7:15-17).
4. The Spiritual Results of Ministry (Romans 1:8 – “Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles.”)
5. The Products of the Spirit’s Control of a Believer’s Life (Galatians 5:22 – “..the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”)

In our passage it is most likely that Jesus has in mind both of the second aspects. Both of these kinds of “fruit” are to be desired by Christians and they are both only accomplished by Christ, thus this dual understand would fit Christ’s “abide in Me” instructions.

The second important issue for us to understand in this section of the passage is what Christ means when He uses the word “abide”. To get a better grasp of what He had in mind we need to again look at other portions of scripture.

1. Only Believers Can Abide
(A) John 7:41-60 – Ultimately this passage teaches that there must be an embrace of the shed blood and broken flesh of the Lord if one would come to Him. Christ says that the one who does so “abides” in Christ as does Christ in the person.
(B) John 15:5 – Christ says in this verse that the one who abides in Him He abides in as well: “He who abides in me, and I in him…”

Notice the intimacy. If you look at a branch off of a vine or a tree you notice the distinction between the two. However, once you look at where they intersect it becomes hard to tell where the vine ends and the branch begins. Such is the intimacy between Christ and His people.

To think that Christ would have this level of intimacy with anyone other than those who have been declared righteous by His death is a thought approaching blasphemy. By that I mean the Holy One of Israel cannot be linked intimately to anything impure, unrighteous, and sinful. Thus we conclude that Christ is here speaking of His church.

2. Abiding Begins with Dwelling on the Word
Christ first mentions abiding in verse 4 where He says “Abide in Me, and I in you”. Then, in verse 7 He says almost the same thing, changing one part of the statement by inserting what I believe is an explanatory note: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…” Did you see that? What was first “I in you” is changed to “My words abide in you.” The formula is simple: part of what it means for us to abide in Christ and Him to abide in us is the presence of His words in us – in our hearts and our minds, expressing itself in changing our thoughts, speech, and actions to line up with what He has said.

“Christ abiding in us is interchangeable with his words abiding in us because Christ never comes without his authoritative views on things. To have him abiding is to have all his views abiding in us. If he abides, his views abide. If he abides, his priorities abide. If he abides, his principles abide. If he abides, his promises abide. If he abides, his commandments abide. In short, if/when Christ abides in us, his words abide in us.” – John Piper

3. Abiding Depends on Remembering Christ’s Love
“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.”

We need to be very clear here: the issue here is not us maintaining our affections for the Lord. Our love for the Lord is fickle and unstable. Our hearts often run from our Lord. You know who we are? We are the people in the 3rd verse of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. We look into our hearts and say: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love…”

What is needed for us then is not to dwell on our affections for the Lord (although they should be there) but rather the love of Christ for us. Once we have the reality of His patient, eternal, enduring, sacrificial love fixed in our minds our affections will respond as they should. Our love is fleeting and feeble; His is eternal and powerful.

“Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus, Vast unmeasured, boundless, free! Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me! Underneath me, all around me, is the current Of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!”

This deep, deep love of Jesus should be a continual object of our attention. When it is we abide in His love.

4. Abiding in Christ Requires Obedience.
“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

This verse not only opens our eyes as to what Jesus has in mind when He commands us to abide in Him but also helps us understand how works function in a believer’s life.

In our relationship to Christ He is Lord and we are servant. Far from being an oppressive arrangement, we serve at the pleasure of the kindest and most wonderful Master that could be conceived of. However, we have the opportunity to abuse this relationship through sin. This sin doesn’t sever our relationship but does alienate us from God. Thus we don’t function as we should. The relationship can be restored through repentance and asking the Lord’s forgiveness.

Our aim though is to experience the full blessing of our relationship with the Lord. If we keep His commandments we remain connected to Him with no interruption or alienation. Forgiveness is wonderful and is useful in restoring the relationship. Our aim, however, is to walk in obedience to the Lord and thus experience the greatest level of intimacy that we can.

1 Corinthians 15:8-11

I. Born Dead
“…and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”

Paul lists himself at the last of his recounting of the Resurrection witness. Perhaps this is an expression of his humility but it is more likely that this is a chronological accounting.

Paul uses an interesting phrase to describe his conversion: “one untimely born”. This is a translation of the Greek word extroma which means “an abortive offspring” and generally refers to children stillborn or born prematurely. It carries a connotation of deformity and unnatural delivery. Much has been written about Paul’s intention. Some speculate that Paul says his conversion was “out of due time” because he was alive during Christ’s life but converted after Christ’s death. That interpretation is accurate insofar as it describes Paul’s history but the Greek word refers to someone born too soon, not too late.

I agree with David Garland who says:
“[Paul] is referring to his state of wretchedness as an unbeliever and persecutor of the church. Hollander and van der Hout contend that Paul draws on Jewish usage of the term to stress that the person in question is in a ‘deplorable position’, whose life is ‘miserable and worthless’ and ‘cannot sink lower’…Paul was unfit for the task God had called him to do. God’s grace [did] not remove the obstacle but overcomes it so that it is clear that God, not the messenger, ‘is responsible for the message’…Paul could apply the meaning [of extroma] in a figurative sense. Before his call and conversion he was dead but was miraculously given life through God’s grace. God made him sufficient to be a minister of a new covenant…[and his] sufficiency as an apostle is tied to resurrection imagery of being given life. The appearance of the risen Christ to him was a kind of resurrection from the dead.”

II. The Least of the Apostles
“For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

Paul is the great orator of God’s grace. He is the one whom God used to teach the church throughout the ages of the “height, breadth, and depth” of God’s grace. He knew full well that in the grace of God in Christ his sins had been covered over in Christ’s death. However, his conscience continually reminded him of his former way of life as a persecutor of the church.

Read Acts 26

John Phillips summarizes Paul’s understanding of his life as Saul this way:
“Paul was a persecutor of the church. It was something he was never able to forget. He had many detractors…He could not think badly enough, himself, of what he had once done to the church. The faces of those he had persecuted haunted him. The cries of the little children he had made fatherless lingered in his memory.”

III. A Product of God’s Grace
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

Paul was very conscious that his life was now lived to serve at the pleasure of King Jesus. What good had been accomplished in his life was purely the act of a Sovereign God and to God’s glory alone.

Paul says that “His grace toward me did not prove vain” and how true that is.

God’s grace toward Paul wasn’t in vain because (A) Paul came to understand what Grace is.

In fact, Gordon Fee contends that, according to Garland, “Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ formed the basis of his theology of Grace. Fee: “Since God was gracious to him, God’s enemy, in this way, he eventually came to realize that this is the way God is toward all, Jew and Gentile alike, making no distinctions.”

Garland again: “[Paul] was not worthy, but grace takes persons who are not worthy or sufficient and makes them fit. Grace does not so much require responses as it enkindles response. It empowers and equips.”

God’s grace to Paul wasn’t in vain (B) because he labored to spread the Gospel:
Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament and, through tireless missionary endeavors, spread the Gospel to the Western world. Even we, gathered here today, are spiritual descendants of Paul’s labor in the gospel.

Paul will go on to say “I labored even more than all of them”, “them” being the other apostles.

Phillips says “This was the man who, traveling at the rate of some seventeen to twenty miles a day, covered some 5,580 miles on foot and some 6,770 miles by sea to take the gospel to the untold millions of the world who were still untold. In the space of some twenty years or less, Paul evangelized along a line of some 1,500 miles all the way from Antioch to Illyricum. While the other apostles were still debating the Great Commision, Paul was evangelizing Tarsus and all that part of his native land. While they were still putting out tentative feelers as to the possible expansion of the church, within the hampering swaddling clothes of an obsolete Judaism, Paul was out conquering Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece.”

God’s grace was able to take a persecutor of the church and use him to outwork all the rest of the Apostles in terms of spreading the Gospel. That is why Paul includes the caveat “yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

IV. An Apostle Unified in Message
“Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

Paul’s ultimate conclusion is that, despite his background as a persecutor of the church, God had seen fit to display His glory by making Paul a useful agent of His grace and, even more, to number him amongst the disciples of Christ as an Apostle – the most important human position the church has ever known.

Paul stood shoulder to shoulder with the other Apostles in declaring the same message to a world under God’s judgment: the Gospel of Jesus Christ as God’s means of salvation.

Read Galatians 1:11-2:10

Paul had not learned his gospel from anyone other than Christ yet when examined by the other Apostles, was found to preach the same message they did. This is a testimony to God’s ability to work what He will as He will through whom He will. This is the final lesson we can learn from this discussion of Paul’s life.

Living by the Book
Lesson 17

Things That Are Related

“…things that have some connection, some interaction with each other.” – Howard Hendricks, Living by the Book

I. Movement from the general to the specific
“This is the relationship between the whole and its parts, between a category and its individual members, between the big picture and the details.”

Example: Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

That’s the broad statement. The rest of Genesis 1 and 2 fills in the details.

II. Questions and Answers
“The question is one of the most powerful tools of communication.”

Example: Romans 6:1, 15 and Job 38

“Questions and answers demand your attention. They are important keys to help you unlock a text.”

III. Cause and Effect

Example: Acts 8:1. Persecution breaks out against the church in Jerusalem. The church scatters. Verse 4 says, “Those who had been scattered went about preaching the Word.”

Persecution: Case, Effect: Preaching of the Word abroad.

Living by the Book
Lesson 16

Six Clues to watch for in Scripture

1.Things that are emphasized.
2.Things that are repeated.
3.Things that are related.
4.Things that are alike.
5.Thinks that are unlike.
6.Things that are true to life.

Last week we looked at things that are emphasized by (a) amount of space devoted to them, (b) stated explicitly, (c) given strategic order, and (d) moving from lesser to greater and vice versa.

This week we’re looking for things that are repeated.

“There’s probably no tool of teaching more powerful than repetition.” – Howard Hendricks, Living by the Book

Example from the writings of John:
“Have you ever noticed how often Jesus repeats things to His disciples? The gospels record at least nine times that He said ‘He that ha[s] ears to hear, let him hear.’ And when John was recording the Revelation, what do you suppose the Lord told him to write to the seven churches? That’s right: ‘He that ha[s] ears to hear, let him hear.’”

Ways Scripture Emphasizes Material through Repetition

I. Terms, Phrases, and Clauses
“Scripture constantly repeats terms, phrases, and clauses to emphasize their importance.”

Read Psalm 136. What is the writer trying to emphasize in this passage?

You can see this in Hebrews 11 as well. The phrase “by faith…” appears no less than eighteen times.

II. Characters

“Barnabas is a good example [from the book of Acts]. We really don’t know too much about the man. His given name was Joseph, but the apostles called him Barnabas, meaning Son of Encouragement (Acts 4:36). And that’s really the most important thing about him: he was an encourager. Whenever somebody in the early church needed a hand, they would pop Barnabas to help him out: Saul (Acts 9:27); the believing Gentiles at Antioch (Acts 11:22); and John Mark (Acts 15:36-39). Luke brings Barnabas into the story at strategic points as a model of spiritual mentoring.”

III. Incidents and circumstances
“Sometimes a writer makes his point by repeating a particular incident or set of circumstances.”

Example: Judges. The writer begins each section of the book (and each introduction of another Judge) with the phrase “Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”

Basically, Judges can be seen as a repeating cycle. The people rebel in sin, God appoints a spiritual leader who leads a civil and spiritual renewal – if not revival – then passes from the scene, after which the people rebel in sin again.

IV. Patterns

Examples: Parallels between the life of Joseph and the life of Christ or the juxtaposition between Saul’s rebellious conduct and David’s obedient life in 1 and 2 Samuel.

V. New Testament and Old Testament passages
“A final and obvious case of repetition is the citation of Old Testament scripture by the New.”

Two examples:
1. Matthew 12:39-41. Who, reading Jonah before they knew anything about the New Testament, would connect his strange voyage to the Messiah? And yet the connection makes both texts all the more rich.
2. Read Psalms 110:1 then read Matthew 22:44. Would you have made that connection? Again, the connection makes both texts more understandable and rich.

Bearing Fruit to the Glory of God
John 15:1-10

Before us this morning is a passage so rich and deep with meaning that believers can turn to throughout the entire course of their life and draw insight and strength for their walk with Christ. It has been almost impossible for me to summarize in a short statement what the passage is about but here is my best attempt: this passage is a symbolic instruction manual for believers which instructs them as to how they might glorify God by, in Christ, bearing fruit. The glory of God is the preeminent concern of believers and should be our joy and focus. We say with Paul “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:17). If we will pay careful attention to this passage we will learn much about how to live lives which bring glory to our wonderful God.

This passage has led me to a different approach than the one I normally take when preaching. Rather than looking at each verse in order I will divide the text into categories that I think will help us retain the information we find here. The first category we’re going to look at is the characters presented in this passage.

I. The Characters

There is an order in which the characters appear in the passage: Christ, the vine then the Father, the vinedresser, both in verse 1 and then believers, branches, in verse 5. We’re going to look at those in reverse order because their importance to our understanding of this passage starts small with believers and grows large when we come to Christ.

(C) Believers – The Branches, vs. 5
“I am the vine, you are the branches.”

In Christ’s symbol recorded here believers have no active role. They are to be the bearers of the fruit produced by the vine and tended by the Father. If anything can be said to be done by the vines it is only “abide”, a command given by Christ.

(B) The Father – The Vinedresser, vs. 1
“…My Father is the vinedresser.”

The Greek word translated “vinedresser” is georgos (gheh-ore-gos) means “one who works the land” and is translated “farmer” in both 2 Timothy 2:6 and James 5:7. Its use here is consistent with Isaiah 5 and Matthew 21, other passages that describe God as a vinedresser.

(A) Christ – The Vine, vs. 1
“I am the true vine…”

Remember that in 14:31 that Christ said “Arise, let us go from here.” If we take this to mean that Christ is leading the disciples out of the upper room where they celebrated the Lord Supper and heading to the Garden of Gethsemane then He likely passed by the entrance to the Temple, which was decorated with a large golden grapevine.

The vine was more importantly a common Biblical symbol for Israel. The most famous of these references is the “Vineyard Song” of Isaiah 5:1-7

“Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!”

This is far from the only reference. Jeremiah 2:21 records God asking of Israel “I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt wild vine?”

Ezekiel 15 and 19 both compare Israel to a vine as do passages in Hosea and others in both Isaiah and Jeremiah. Psalm 80:8-10 says of God “You have brought a vine out of Egypt; you have cast out the nations, and planted it. You prepared room for it, and caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, and the mighty cedars with its boughs.”

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this important Biblical symbol for the nation of Israel is that the symbol is always brought forth representing Israel’s degeneration rather than fruitfulness. In Hosea Israel is described as empty, producing only leaves. Jeremiah describes Israel as a “degenerate” and “strange” vine. Even Psalm 80, which we read earlier, discusses Israel as a vine that had grown large but had been broken down. The one time I know of where the vine symbol is used of Israel where fruitfulness is mentioned indicates that the more prosperous Israel grows the more degenerate the nation becomes (Hosea 10:1).

Perhaps the most damning use of this symbol is found in Matthew 21:33-43.

“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.’ Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.’”

Not to belabor the point but it needs to be made clear that God’s use of the Vine motif to describe Israel was common, as was its use as a means to display Israel’s apostasy. That truth has to be firmly in our minds if we are to appreciate the weight of what Christ is saying in the first part of our passage.

The other thing we need to understand is what God intended Israel to be.

“He said to Me, ‘You are My Servant, Israel, In Whom I will show My glory…’ He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’” Isaiah 49:3, 6

Now, combine that with what we know about Israel being a fruitless vine. Once we do that we realize that rather than being a life-giving vine to the world through which God would reach the nations and spread His “salvation…to the end of the earth” Israel turned inwards and idolatrous. When they weren’t worshipping false gods they were perverting their unique relationship to God and excluding other nations rather than pointing them to the One True God. Said another way, Israel was supposed to be God’s righteous and faithful servant, used to bring Him glory by spreading His salvation to all nations. They failed.

It is in to this national failure of Israel to be what God called them to be that Jesus Christ steps and declares, “I am the true vine.” This statement is pregnant with theological meaning. Where national Israel failed to be a life-giving vine Jesus Christ is just that. Where national Israel failed to live righteously in its unique relationship to God Jesus Christ walked with God with sinless perfection. Where national Israel failed to be God’s agent of salvation to all nations Jesus Christ offers redemption to all who would believe in Him.

We can summarize this truth this way: Ultimately, Jesus is the true Israel. The nation of Israel, in the Old Testament, was merely a shadow of the true Israel that was to come: God’s own Son, His perfect servant, Jesus Christ. This truth helps us make sense of Matthew 2:13-15.

“Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.’ So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON.’”

“In Hosea 11:1, Hosea predicted a time when “Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” But in Matthew 2:15, the evangelist tells us that Hosea’s prophecy was fulfilled when his parents took Jesus to Egypt to protect him from Herod’s “slaughter of the innocents” (Matthew 2:3-18). Yet, after Herod had died, God called Jesus and his family to return to Nazareth. Matthew takes a passage from Hosea, which clearly refers to Israel, and tells his reader that this passage is now fulfilled in Jesus Christ! He does this to prove to his largely Jewish audience that Jesus is the servant of the Lord, foretold throughout the Old Testament… it should be clear that according to many New Testament writers, Jesus is the true servant, the true son and the true Israel of God.”

– Kim Riddlegarger

Speaking of the same passage of Scripture R. Scott Clarke says

“Matthew’s inspired interpretation of [Hosea] must norm [or regulate] our interpretation of Scripture and according to Matthew’s interpretation, it is our Lord Jesus, not the temporary, national, people who is the true Israel of God. Indeed it is not too much to say that the only reason God orchestrated the first Exodus was so that he might orchestrate the second Exodus and that so we might know that Jesus is the true Son of God and that all Christians are God’s Israel regardless of ethnicity. It is because Jesus is the true Israel of God that, in his infancy and indeed in his entire life, he recapitulated the history of national Israel. What rebellious national Israel would not do, Jesus did: He loved God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength and his neighbor as himself [as we see in Matt 22.37-40].”

It is this truth, that Jesus is the True, Perfect, Obedient Israel that grounds our salvation. It is on the basis of Jesus’ perfect obedience which has been credited to us through faith which gives believers righteous standing before the Father.

Living by the Book
Lesson 15

Six Clues to watch for in Scripture

1.Things that are emphasized.
2.Things that are repeated.
3.Things that are related.
4.Things that are alike.
5.Thinks that are unlike.
6.Things that are true to life.

Things That Are Emphasized

Ways the Bible emphasizes material:

1. Amount of Space
“A book can emphasize something by devoting a large portion of space to it.”

Example:
“We can see that in Genesis. It has fifty chapters. The first eleven cover the creation, the Fall, the Flood, the tower of Bable, and other details. All those major events are compressed into just eleven chapters. By contrast, the writer devotes chapters 12-50 to the lives of four individuals: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.” – Howard Hendricks, Living by the Book

2. Stated Purpose
“Another way the biblical writers may emphasize their points is by telling us straight out what they are up to.

Example:
“[In Proverbs] Solomon launches that fascinating collection of wisdom sayings by telling the reader why he ought to read the book.”

Read Proverbs 1:2-6
What reasons does Solomon give as motivation toward reading Proverbs?

(a)To know wisdom and instruction
(b)To discern the sayings of understanding
(c)To receive instruction in wise behavior
(d)Righteousness, justice, and equity
(e)To give prudence to the naïve
(f)To the youth knowledge and discretion
(g)A wise man will hear and increase in learning.

3. Order
“A third way to emphasize something is to give it a strategic placement in the material.”

Example:
“…in Genesis 2, God places Adam and Eve in the garden ‘to cultivate it and keep it,’ the text says (2:15). Then in chapter 3 the couple sin, and God drives them out of the Garden and curses the earth (3:17-24). That order becomes important when we talk about work, because some people believe that work is a part of the curse. But the order of events in Genesis disallows that interpretation.”

4. Movement from the lesser to the greater, and vice versa
“These are special cases of what we’ve just looked at in terms of order.”

Example:
“In the life of David, 2 Samuel 11-12 records what are probably the most crucial events of David’s life – the murder of Uriah and his sin with Bathsheba. These chapters form a sort of pivot to the book. Everything before leads up to them, everything after goes down after them.