Douglas Wilson Archives - Page 114 of 179

The Light from Galilee of the Gentiles

Joe Harby on December 14, 2014

Introduction

Sometimes familiar words run down well-worn grooves. The words from our text have graced countless Christmas cards, but at the same time it is important for us to realize that this doesn’t make them any less true. But, as the truth of Scripture, it is given in such a way that whenever we come back to it in faith, regardless of how familiar it might be to us, we can always find fresh glory.

The Text

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: And the government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, To order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice From henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Is. 9:6–7).

Summary of the Text

The condition of Israel is set out at the last part of chapter 8, and it is the same condition that the world was in—great darkness (Is. 8:22). Behold trouble and darkness, and dim anguish. But light is coming—this will not be like an earlier affliction (Is. 9:1). In Galilee of the nations, the people who were in that darkness have seen a great light (Is. 9:2). Galilee had two sections, upper and lower Galilee. Upper Galilee is called Galilee of the Gentiles because it was the borderland, and had many Gentiles living there. This was close to Tyre and Sidon, and was the area where Solomon had given 20 cities to the Phoenician king Hiram. Coming back to the text, God has given them great joy (Is. 9:3); He has broken the yoke of oppression that was on them (Is. 9:4). All military gear shall be rolled up and burned in a fire (Is. 9:5).

And so we come to our two verses. The child had been first promised two chapters earlier, when the prophet told us that Immanuel, God with us, would be born of a virgin (Is. 7:14). Now we learn more about Him. A child is born, a son is given. The first thing mentioned about Him is that the government will be on His shoulder. He will have a series of glorious names—Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace (Is. 9:6). The increase of His government will have no end, and it will be the government of the throne of David. It will be established and well-ordered forever and ever. All of this will be done by the zeal of the Lord Himself (Is. 9:7).

Spiritual Darkness

The darkness spoken of by the prophet is a spiritual darkness, a moral blindness. The darkness was so profound that men in the grip of it could not see this text.

When Nicodemus challenged their right to condemn Christ without a hearing, they called him a dummy. “They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet” (John 7:52). Nicodemus was being so stupid —no prophet comes from Galilee. Then how was it that the people walking there had seen a great light (Is. 9:1-2)?

His Humility

He was Immanuel, God with us, but never forget that Almighty God was content to be twenty inches long. He was content to suckle at a virgin’s breast. The mighty God is born here, in a stable, as a little child. He humbled Himself and took the form of a servant (Phil. 2:5-8), formed in the likeness of men. He condescends to become one of us.

His Exaltation

Because He humbled Himself in this way, God has given Him the name that is above every name. Not only so, but He has given Him all these names. He shall be called Wonderful. Wonders accompanied Him wherever He went, and He Himself was the central wonder. He was astonishing(Matt. 7:28). He gives glorious counsel; He is the great counselor. Among other things, He counselsus to gain true wealth, to put on clean raiment, and to anoint our eyes with salve (Rev. 3:18). He is the Wisdom of God; He is the true Understanding (Prov. 8:14). Listen then to His counsel. He is the mighty God; this is not the Immanuel-like presence of some tiny god. This term (El) is also applied to the Messiah in Psalm 45:6. He is the everlasting Father. As He told Philip, those who had seen Him had seen the Father.

Moreover, as the Church is His bride, and our mother (Gal. 4:26), He is our Father as we are considered as individual sons and daughters. But in the collective and corporate sense, He is our husband and brother (Eph. 5:32; Heb. 2:11).

And finally, He is the Prince of all peace, and so it is that peace will come to our sorry world. Isaiah has already spoken of this (Is. 2:4).

His Dominion

His government here is described in two ways. One, it is His burden. He carries it. The government is upon His shoulder. He takes responsibility for it. A similar image is found later in Isaiah, also describing the rule of the Lord. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with his arm, And carry them in his bosom, And shall gently lead those that are with young” (Is. 40:11). So the Lord does not rule by “sitting on,” but rather He rules by carrying. What does the Lord do with His “strong hand” (Is. 40:10)? His arm rules for Him, and yet, that strong arm is our salvation. That strong arm picks us up.

The governments of men, apart from Christ, however proud their talk, are nothing but maimed lambs. Christ comes down to us, climbs over the crags to retrieve us, picks us up, and takes the government on His shoulder. He carries us home. Secularism is what we call it when that bleeding lamb kicks.

And secondly, it is a government that will never cease growing. It will grow forever and ever, and a Son of David will reign forever and ever. It cannot be reversed. It cannot be undone. It cannot be rewound. The battle cannot be fought over again, with the Lord losing this time. Christ cannot be tempted again. He cannot be flogged again. He cannot be nailed to the tree again. He cannot be buried again. He cannot be raised from the dead again because His resurrection was once for all, and was the inauguration of His kingdom which cannot stop growing.

This thing will be done, and will be everlastingly done, because it will be done by the zeal of the Lord of hosts. How is that not enough for us?
“And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, Which shall stand for an ensign of the people; To it shall the Gentiles seek: And his rest shall be glorious” (Is. 11:10).

Christmas Dawn

Joe Harby on November 30, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

When Christians are discouraged by the corruptions of our time, it is like complaining about a day that is dark gray and drizzly, wet and soggy. It is in fact a day just like that, but it is not a day like that at midnight.

Because Jesus Christ lived, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven, the world and its history have been completely transformed. It was midnight, but the day has dawned. Think about it. Billions of people identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ. All over the world people take Sunday off because Jesus rose from the dead on this day. And as much as the secularists don’t like it, our whole dating system is divided in two by the man from Nazareth. This is in fact 2014, the year of our Lord. He was the man who split history in two.

But while it is no longer midnight, we are not anywhere close to midday either. What must we do to understand our time?

The Text

“For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; And ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal 4:1-4).

Summary of the Text

In the previous chapter, Malachi had compared the Lord’s work to a refiner’s fire. All the dross was consumed. This chapter begins in a similar way. A day is coming that will burn like an oven. The proud and the wicked will be consumed like stubble, and with nothing left for them (v. 1). But for those who looked forward to the Lord’s promised deliverance, the sun of righteousness will rise. A ball of flaming righteousness will come up, and healing will extend all along the horizon (v. 2). Those are the healing wings, stretched out to embrace the world. The response of God’s people will be to gambol out into the meadow like calves just released from the stall (v. 3). Our response is not at all dignified. When this all comes to pass, the wicked will be trampled underfoot (v. 4).

Christ the Son, Christ the Sun

Few metaphors are as fittingly biblical as comparing Christ to the sun. In reading the sun

in this way, we are letting the New Testament instruct us on how to understand the Old Testament. The heavens declare the glory of God, the psalmist tells us (Ps. 19: 1-4), and the chief ornament of those heavens is the sun. This is why God sets up a tabernacle for the sun, and the sun comes out of that tabernacle, out of that tent, like a bridegroom on his wedding day (Ps. 19:4-5). But then, in the 10th chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul takes these words and applies them to preachers of the gospel.

Spurgeon summarizes Paul’s thought this way, “So that what was here spoken of the sun by David, is referred by Paul to the gospel, which is the light streaming from Jesus Christ, ‘the Sun of Righteousness.’”

This is why Paul can refer to Christ as the bridegroom in the fifth chapter of Ephesians, and can also say the sleeper should rise and wake up because Christ will shine upon him. “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14). He says this, and just nine verses later he is comparing Christ to the bridegroom.

Christmas Dawn

What do we then learned about Christmas from this great word from Malachi? What is the point?

First, the advent of the Christ means the destruction of the proud. There is heat that burns like an oven, and there is heat that makes calves want to play in the sunshine. When God is praised, whenever God is glorified, the humble hear it and are glad (Ps. 34:1-2). The entire cosmos—in heaven, on earth, and under the earth—has been transformed by the birth of this child, and that is why we have celebrations with tinsel, cocoa that is too hot, stupid and overdone Christmas tree ornaments, and way too much fudge. All of this because this baby was born, and if you don’t rejoice in all these apparently insignificant ways at these apparently insignificant tidings, then something needs to be done to your heart. It looks like a three-quarter inch piece of leftover beef jerky, and this is not consistent with the apostle’s desire that our hearts be enlarged. Pride puffs up, and love builds us up in humility.

Second, the sun is a sun of righteousness. God is holy, righteous, and altogether good. Going back to Psalm 19, the structure of the poem compares the law of God to the sun, and that law is perfect, converting the soul. God’s righteousness is not our enemy. God’s righteousness embodies what we were created to be in the first place. But God’s righteousness is the enemy of all that would corrupt us. His righteousness consumes our dross, and refines our silver. We only take it so badly because we don’t know which is the dross and which is the silver, but it all feels like me.

This relates to the third point, which is that God’s righteousness brings healing in its wings. What God’s righteousness destroys is that which was destroying us. Our unrighteousness is the cancer, and God’s righteousness is the chemo. It isn’t always pleasant, but it is always good.

And it is important here to say a word about our justification—because we are forgiven, because we have been declared righteous, God can work on the sin that we have to deal with in a spirit of no condemnation. Every sin that He mortifies in us is a sin that has already been crucified, two thousand years ago.

Last, you shall “go forth.” Righteous that rises in the sky is not debilitating. The night is over, and as the psalmist says, joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5). The meaning of Christmas dawn is the meaning of every dawn. Christ is risen, and He has risen from the dead because once in the dead of night, He became a boy child so that it might be said of Him “that of the increase of His government there will be no end.”

Surveying the Text: Judges

Joe Harby on November 23, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

The book of Joshua is linear. God supplied a faithful leader to Israel, and he took them into the land, conquering it, and they all moved from left to right. The book of Judges is quite different—it is a book of cycles, a book of ups and downs. It is a book that contains astonishing heroism and appalling grotesqueries both.

The Text

“And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions . . .” (Heb. 11:32–33).

Summary of the Text

The verses following our text go on to itemize some of the great works of faith that the great heroes of the faith performed. We all know that the Bible describes the flaws of most of these heroes—but the Bible describes them in heroic terms nonetheless. Some of these exploits were acts of triumph and conquest, and others were acts of sacrifice and martyrdom, but all of them were empowered by faith. The point of selecting this text is that it tells us that Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah, were all men of faith. Because the book of Judges is so grim, and because there is so much unfaithfulness in it, we sometimes fail to recognize how much actual success was achieved in the book. Ehud gave the people peace for eighty years (Judg. 3:30). Gideon gave them peace for forty years (Judg. 8:28).

The book of Judges spans approximately three centuries (from roughly 1382 BC to 1065 BC). Although it is unattributed, the most likely author for the book is Samuel.

Six Oppressions

The history of Judges gives us an account of six periods of oppression. The first was from the Hittite portion of Mesopotamia (Judg. 3:7-11). The second was the oppression of Moab, under their king Eglon (Judg. 3:12-31). The third was the oppression of some local Canaanites, from which Deborah and Barak delivered them (Judg. 4:1-5:31). The fourth was from the Midianites, and Gideon was their deliverer (Judg. 6:1-8:32). The fifth was the only home-grown oppression, that of Abimelech (Judg. 8:33-10:5). The sixth round came from the Ammonites to the east and the Philistines to the west, and the people were delivered by Jephthah (Judg. 10:6-16:31). Samson was also used to deliver Israel from the Philistines.

To this outline of this period of Israel’s history, we see the author added an appendix outlining two stories in greater detail. One of them concerns a Levite named Jonathan, who was hired by a man named Micah as a priestly hireling. This Jonathan was, according to some manuscripts, a direct descendant of Moses (Judg. 18:30). The next story concerns the Benjamite outrage, and we have to say the behavior of an unnamed Levite with his concubine was scarcely any better.

Despite the name judges, the only one of them we see actually discharging that particular function of the office was Deborah (Judg. 4:5). Overwhelmingly, we see these judges functioning as Spirit-anointed deliverers or saviors (Judg. 2:16). We would be better off to render this office as that ofwarrior-ruler. These were charismatically appointed saviors (Judg. 3:9).

The Deuteronomic Pattern

The predominant motif in this book is that of the cycle. There is a consistent pattern to it, and it is as follows: First, the Israelites do evil in the eyes of the Lord (e.g. Judg. 2:11). Second, God disciplines Israel by bringing in (usually) foreign oppressors (e.g. Judg. 2:14). Third, the Israelites cry out to God in their repentance (e.g. Judg. 3:9). Fourth, God shows mercy and raises up a deliverer (e.g. Judg. 2:16). Fifth, a period of peace follows until the death of the deliverer, after which the people fall again (e.g. Judg. 3:10-11).

Right in Their Own Eyes

A tagline for the book of Judges could be “when every man did what was right in his own eyes.” “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6). The fact that there was no king introduces the two appalling stories in the appendix (Judg. 18:1; 19:1). And then the same line is used to conclude the book. “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). Right after everyone says yikes, the observation is made that everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

So this is not an idyllic utopia; this was no libertarian paradise. The political chaos meant that heroism was possible (and frequently necessary). The political chaos also meant that atrocities were just around the corner.

The Libertarian Temptation

When you are ruled by Eglons, as we are, it is very easy to see where the problem is. That being the case, it is too easy to yearn for an ideological “solution,” that of no government at all. Given what the Bible says about it, why would anyone want to live under such conditions? When you live in a time of chaos and anarchy, it is almost impossible to assign responsibility—and this is one of the great attractions of pure libertarianism, which is profoundly anti-Christian. Beware of systems that have universal explanatory power, like hyper-preterism and libertarianism.

Inexorable Mercy

When we read the book of Judges, we should be mindful of three fundamental realities. The first is that God judges sin (Judg. 2:11,14). The second is that God is extraordinarily merciful to people who manifestly do not deserve it (Judg. 2:16). And the last is the sinfulness and ingratitude of the heart of man. After each deliverance, once the judge in question was dead, they veered back and behaved more corruptly than their fathers had done (Judg. 2:19).

But God is full of tender mercy, and Christ has died and risen in such a way as to deal with the treacherous hearts of men forever. We can therefore concentrate on His mercy. “Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them” (Judg. 2:16).

Even the trials that God sent them were motivated by His grace:

“Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan; Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof; Namely, five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of Hamath. And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses” (Judg. 3:1–4).

The Lord Jesus fights for us, and He is our ultimate Judge. And this is what it means for God to judge—He delivers us. When God intervenes to judge, this is good news. “Let the floods clap their hands: Let the hills be joyful together Before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: With righteousness shall he judge the world, And the people with equity” (Ps. 98:8–9).

Surveying the Text: Joshua

Joe Harby on November 16, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

The book of Joshua is a book filled with strenuous warfare, and yet the Bible clearly teaches us that it is a book that points toward rest. How is this possible? How does this work?

The Text

“By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace” (Heb. 11:30–31).

Summary of the Text

The book of Joshua can be divided into four major sections. The first has to do with crossing (Josh. 1-5). The second has to do with conquest (Josh. 6-12). The third section deals with how theyallocated the land that they had conquered (Josh. 13-21). The last concerns their duties of learning how to worship God as a united people in accordance with His covenant (Josh. 22-24). Let’s consider each of these in turn.

Crossing

The verb root for “cross” occurs thirty-one times in this section of Joshua (Josh. 1-5). The officers of the people cross through the camp (e.g. Josh. 1:11), or priests with the ark of the covenant crossin front of the people (Josh. 3:6), or soldiers even cross in front of YHWH (Josh. 4:13). But the great dramatic crossing, the centerpiece of all this, is obviously the crossing of the Jordan River. That miracle involved was a reenacted echo of the Red Sea crossing, and just as Rahab described their terror when they heard about the Red Sea (Josh. 2:9-10), so the inhabitants now saw the same thing happen again, right under their noses.

This was followed by the marvelous story of how God fought for them at the battle of Jericho, and how the walls fell down in a giant display of God’s sovereignty—to the deliverance of one Canaanite family, and the ensnarement of one family in Israel. Disaster for Jericho was salvation for Rahab and her family. Disaster for Jericho was disaster for Achan and his family.

Conquest

One of the words that is foolishly thrown around in discussions of the Israelite invasion of Canaan is the word genocide. This is intended to lump Israel’s behavior in with the specter of “final solutions,” where particular ethnicities are eradicated simply because of their ethnicity. But God’s judgments are always moral and ethical, not ethnic. This was a divinely-ordered, animated earthquake, a hurricane of soldiers, and it was for sin—not for racial or ethnic reasons. God had told Abraham that he could not yet possess the promised land because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full (Gen. 15:16). If God waited centuries so that His judgment of Canaan would be just, who are we to challenge Him and charge Him with injustice?

And on top of that, the family of a Canaanite harlot came out and was joined to Israel, with Rahab marrying a prince of Israel. How could the issues here be racial or ethnic then? And another family in Israel, the family of another prince was removed from Israel. The issue is faith and obedience, always. Achan was descended from Zarah (Josh. 7:1), the first born twin son of Tamar, the one who had a scarlet thread tied to his wrist at birth. And Salmon was descended from Pharez (Ruth 4:18-21), the one who pushed out ahead of his brother, and Salmon was the prince in Israel who married . . . Rahab, an ancestress of Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:5). Rahab had faith, and so she was grafted in. Achan was faithless, and so he was cut out. As Paul later says in Romans 11, do not be haughty but fear. You do not support the root—the root supports you. Again, the issue is faith and obedience, not ethnicity.

Allocation

Once they had conquered the land, the task of dividing it up was obviously necessary. This was decided by lot (Num. 26:55-56; 33:54; 34:13), which is obviously a fair way to decide something like this. This also provides us with a type for understanding ministry in the new covenant. The elders in the church are told not to lord it over the flock of God, not to be lords over God’s heritage (1 Pet. 5:3). The word for heritage is allotment. This means that the world is now to be understood as Canaan—the conquest of the promised land serving as a type of our evangelistic endeavors. Their warfare was the type, our evangelism is the antitype.

Another important “allotment” occurs in the book of Joshua, as we have just discussed. Rahab the harlot was justified by faith, our text from Hebrews says, and James adds that her works were involved as justifying her faith as true faith. Please note that the actual work that accomplished this great thing was telling the pursuers of the Israelite spies that they had gone a different way than they actually did (Jas. 2:25).

Worship

Sacrifices were to be offered in the promised land only. The initial place settled on for that was Shiloh. When Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built an altar on the wrong side of the Jordan, it was almost cause for civil war. Joshua gives his farewell speech, telling the people to remain faithful. And there Joshua made a solemn covenant with the people, that they should serve the Lord their God, and never forsake Him (Josh. 24:26-27).

We can easily lament the fickleness of God’s people in the Old Testament because they do things like this, and then we turn the page, and there they are, worshiping idols, having forgotten all that God did for them. But from the death of Joshua to the rise of Gideon we

have over two hundred years—just under the age of our nation. How easy has it been for us to forget our founding? Howdifficult is it for us to remember? And this is with our possession of libraries, and technology, and carefully kept records.

Joshua and Jesus

The name Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek name Jesus. “For if Jesus [speaking of Joshua] had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day” (Heb. 4:8). Joshua was a faithful servant of God, but he could not give the people rest, even though he gave them the land. Why could he not provide them with rest?

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb. 4:1–3).

We can only enter into rest by faith, and we can only have faith in the work that was accomplished by the greater Joshua, our Lord Jesus. We can only have faith in that work in this sense after it has been accomplished. When we enter into rest by faith, we are entering into Him.

Surveying the Text: John

Joe Harby on November 9, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

The apostle John was overwhelmed by the vastness of Jesus Christ. This fourth gospel is a cosmic gospel, but with profound ramifications for us here on earth. It is cosmic, but it is in no way removed from us. No, the ultimate and divine Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The synoptics should be treated as a cluster of similar perspectives. The gospel of John appears to have been written later, with the intention of addressing various things that the synoptics missed. Very few things in John’s gospel overlap with the others.

The Text

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:30–31).

Some Background on John

Let’s begin with some things that we ought to know about John, but which we usually don’t. John was very likely the Lord’s first cousin on their mothers’ side. John was a son of Zebedee, and his mother’s name was Salome, which we can find out by comparing Mark 16:1 and Matt.27:56. Mark says that the third woman who went to the tomb was Salome and Matthew said it was the mother of Zebedee’s children. And then in John 19:25, it says that four women were present at the crucifixion—two Marys from Mark and Matthew, the Lord’s mother, and the Lord’s aunt. This helps make sense of how the Lord would entrust the care of His mother to John, which on this reading would be her nephew. It also helps explain the particular closeness of Jesus and John (John 21:7).

John was also from a well-to-do family with respectable connections. His father had hired servants (Mark 1:20), and Salome was one of the women who was a financial patroness of the Lord’s ministry (Luke 8:3; Mark 15:40). John was known to the high priest (John 18:15-16), and was able to get Peter into the place where the Lord was being tried.

We also know a great deal about John’s giftedness and related challenges. Jesus named him, together with his brother, a son of thunder (Mark 3:17). He was a fire-eater, and sometimes succumbed to the temptations that come with that—which would be misdirected zeal and ambition. He was one of the disciples who wanted Jesus to torch a Samaritan village (Luke 9:54), and it was Salome who made the request for James and John to sit at Christ’s left and right hand (Matt. 20:20; Mark 10:37). John was not formally trained (Acts 4:13), but was nonetheless a staggering genius. He was a tender and humble man as revealed by all his writings, but it is very plain that this was the result of the Spirit taming a lot of horsepower.

He remained in Jerusalem for a number of years—at least 14 (Gal. 2:9), but then moved to Ephesus, where he wrote his gospel (according to Irenaeus. That was the time during which he was exiled to Patmos. According to early reports, he lived until the reign of Trajan (which started in 98 A.D.)

Outline of John

The gospel of John can be understood as having three basic sections. The first is where Jesus Christ is revealed to the world (John 1:1-12:50). The second is where He is revealed in greater depth, this time to His disciples (John 13:1-17:26). We see this revelation in the Lord’s extended discourses to His disciples. And the last section is where Christ is glorified (John 18:1-21:25)—again, to the world, but with His disciples being the ones who understood how the nature of glory has been transformed, and who declare that to the world.

Features of John

John has an orderly mind, and likes to see things in patterns. For example, he uses three a lot—three Passovers, three condemnations of Christ, three words from the cross, three denials by Peter, a three-stage restoration of Peter. We also see seven quite a bit as well— seven great signs or miracles (John 2:1-11; 4:46-54; 5:1-18; 6:5-13; 6:16-21; 9:1-17; 111-44), seven “I am” sayings followed by a metaphor (John 6:35; 8:12; 10:7; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1).

Five Were, One Is, One Is to Come

There are many reasons for reading the gospel of John and the book of Revelation together, side by side. Let me mention a handful of examples, and then give one specific parallel in greater depth. If you read the two books in an intertextual way, side by side, you should notice many connections. Here is just a small sampling:

“He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth andheareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice” (John 3:29).

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

“…and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

“And from Jesus Christ . . . and the first begotten of the dead . . . to him be glory” (Rev. 1:5–6).

“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat” (Rev. 7:16).

But John is not just entertaining himself with mental gymnastics. There is a gospel point to this, a gospel center.

In John 4, Jesus meets a disreputable woman. “For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly” (John 4:18). In Revelation we meet the great harlot who rides the beast. “And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space” (Rev. 17:10).

Here is something a friend pointed out to me. Notice the mathematical pattern—five past, one now, one to come. But what is the point? When the disciples come back with food and find Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman, they are amazed (John 4:27). Everywhere in the Bible when you see a man talking with a woman at the well, you know that a wedding is in the offing (Gen. 24:16-17; 29:11; Ex. 2:17-18). How do you know that? The same way you know two things when a movie starts with a cute blonde waking up late, slapping the alarm clock. She dashes around getting ready, runs down the steps of an upscale brownstone apartment building, only to run over a young man who happens to be walking by. Now what two things do you know? First, you know that your wife tricked you into a chick flick, and second, you know that the colliding couple are destined for each other. You know this because motifs communicate.

In John 4, the one that is to come is Christ—the Father is seeking worshipers (a bride) for His Son (John 4:23). The book of Revelation makes the same point in a slightly different way. Revelation is all about the replacement of the old Israel (the harlot) with the virgin bride (the new Jerusalem).

But—and this is key—what is the raw material out of which God assembles this new Eve? That is right, the answer is a rib taken right out of the side of the old corrupt Adam. But there is more. God is able to take this rib out of two Adams at once because the second Adam was dying on the cross suffering the penalty that the first Adam earned (John 19:34-35).

Now John wrote all that he wrote so that you might believe. A strong theme in this book is the glorious future of women with inglorious pasts. The Samaritan woman believes, along with the rest of her town (John 4:39). The woman caught in adultery is told to go and sin no more (John 8:11). Mary Magdalene, out of whom seven devils were cast, met the Lord in the garden. Adam met the woman in a garden of life, with innocence behind her. The second Adam met the woman in a garden of death, a cemetery, and with all her innocence before her (Matt. 20:11-18).

Of course, Mary Magdalene is not the bride of Christ. But she most certainly is the type of the one who is. John told us all this so that we would believe. Do you believe?