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Two Coal Fires (Easter 2019)

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Introduction

The presence of the Lord Jesus, alive just as He promised He would be, transforms everything. We can see this very clearly in the fall and restoration of the apostle Peter after the resurrection. The account of Christ’s care for Peter is given to us so that we might understand more of His care for us.

The Texts

“And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself” (John 18:18).

“And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread” (John 21:8-9).

Summary of the Text

These two verses are just a few pages apart, and the Greek for the charcoal fire is identical (anthrakian). The apostle John is a very careful writer, and I believe we are being invited to compare and contrast the two fires in the two settings.

The first fire was built by the enemies of Christ (18:18), and the second was built by Jesus Himself (21:9). Peter was present in both settings, and he was present because of something that had been said by the apostle John (18:16; 21:7). Jesus was present in both settings. In the first He was on trial for His life (John 18:27; cf. Luke 22:61), and in the second He had conquered death (21:1). In the first, Peter denied the Lord three times, just as Jesus had predicted (18:17, 25, 26), and fell into sin. In the second, he affirmed his love for the Lord three times, and was reinstated (21: 15, 16, 17). In the first, Peter received something from wicked men (warmth), and in the second he received something from the Lord (food, and forgiveness). In the first, Peter does not compare favorably with the disciple that Jesus loved—John was more influential “at court,” John didn’t deny the Lord, and John didn’t run away. In the second, Peter has all such comparisons put to rest (John 21:21-22). “What is that to you?”

153 Fish, and Big Ones Too

As the disciples approached the shore, they were dragging a net filled with fish, and they cooked some of them on this coal fire. This is not a mystical or a “spooky” reading of the text—this is a literary reading of the text. The issues are placement, foreshadowing, parallelism, literary conventions, and so on.

To illustrate the difference, consider another detail from this text—when Jesus called out to His disciples fishing about 100 yards offshore, He told them to put their nets down over the right side of the boat, which they did. When they had done so, the result was a huge haul. This was a way Jesus had of identifying Himself. When He had first called them to ministry, He had called them away from their nets (Matt. 4:18-22) so that they could become fishers of men. And when Jesus had done a similar miracle like this one before, the response that Peter had had was that of being overwhelmed with his own sinfulness (Luke 5:8). This scene in John therefore has a return to both elements—Jesus deals wonderfully with Peter’s sin and fall, and Jesus recommissions him to ministry as a fisher of men. He tells him three times to “feed the sheep” (21:15, 16-17). We should have no trouble seeing the fish as emblematic of the coming haul at Pentecost. The nations were to be brought into the boat, and Jesus indeed made His disciples fishers of men. In this case, Peter had jumped out of the boat, and the others had brought the fish in. But Peter is soon to rejoin them in the work.

But what is it with the specific number of fish? This is a good place to illustrate the difference between a careful literary reading and mystical reading. This number has been the occasion of a goodly amount of ingenuity to be spent on it. Some of it has been fanciful, some of it sober, and some of it pretty pedestrian.

Bear With Me

The pedestrian reading is that 153 is mentioned because that’s how many fish there were, darn it, and John was simply interested in adding an irrelevant little detail. A fanciful reading is that when you add the ten of the commandments to the seven of the seven-fold Spirit, as Augustine urged us to do, you get seventeen, and 153 is the triangular of 17. The word “triangular” means that if you add the numbers 17 to 16 to 15 to 14 and so on down to one, the sum is 153). The problem here is that you can also get 153 from Seventeen magazine, and that doesn’t mean that John is talking about the challenges of adolescence. This is the kind of thing that John Calvin called “childish trifling.”

But 666 is the triangular of 36 (and 36 is 6 times 6). The biblical writers did make some of their points with numbers, and John particularly did this. The fact that it is unusual to us doesn’t make it unusual or odd to them. We already have solid grounds for understanding the fish as representing all the Gentile nations. We have the “fishers of men” call that Jesus gives Peter and Andrew, James and John. We have the fact that throughout Scripture, the sea represents the Gentiles and the land the Jews. No one in the Old Testament is shown eating fish, but in the New Testament fishing (and the eating of fish) comes to the front and center.

On the day of Pentecost, how many nations are listed? Well, 17 actually (Acts 2:7-11). And we have to remember the practice of encoding numbers in names (called gematria) was common in the ancient world. They could do this in a way that we cannot because they used the same symbols for letters as for numbers. We have Roman letters and Arabic numbers. But in Hebrew, the first nine letters corresponded to 1-9, the next nine were 10-90, and the last five were100-400. So? Well, the prophet Ezekiel had promised that the time of the New Covenant would be a time of glorious fishing.

“And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many” (Ez. 47:10).

The prefix En simply means spring, and so if we look at the numerical value of Gedi in Hebrew apart from the prefix, we find that it is 17, and the value of Eglaim (apart from the prefix)is 153. Ezekiel is talking about the salvation of the Gentiles under the figure of fish, and he uses these two numbers. John refers to this, and it has the same meaning as the explicit meaning given to it by Jesus in Luke. This means that 153 is a symbolic number for the Gentile nations who will be brought into the kingdom of God.

But Back to the Charcoal Fire

Remember that Peter is being restored. The antithesis is very clear here. The charcoal fire built by the enemies of Christ is not really a good place to warm yourself—and it ends with snarling, cursing, devouring, bitterness, and tears. The charcoal fire built by Christ is built in order to feed the disciples, and then, as Peter is being restored, he is commanded (in his turn) to feed the Christians who will follow him.

The resurrected Christ forgives and feeds. Our responsibility is to be forgiven, to be fed, and then to forgive . . . and to feed. And this helps us to be nourished and to worship both. Feeding is something newborn infants can understand, and toddlers most certainly do. Nutrition is so complex that only God understands it, although a person trained in nutrition understands more than most of us do exactly how much is going on when we eat a sandfish. And it is the same with texts like these. We can simply feed, but we can also stand back, amazed, and adore.

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The Greater Lazarus (Psalm Sunday 2019)

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Introduction

We are seeking to recover a Christian sense of time and history, and in some sense this means a recovery of the church year. But though we are seeking to escape a secularized calendar, we must never forget that we got this secular calendar (in part) because of a reaction away from the problem of “saints days glut.” And this means we cannot just be aware of the problems with ourimmediate past. We have to look farther back than this, and hence it is a means of guarding the future. What we need is balance.

The Text

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord . . . (John 12:12-26).

Summary of the Text

Quite a few people heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem (v. 12), and when they heard this, they cut down palm branches and went out to meet Him (v. 13). Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it (v. 14), and thus fulfilled the words of the prophet Zechariah (v. 15). The disciples did not get the import of the Triumphal Entry until after Jesus was glorified (v. 16). People were in Jerusalem, talking about the raising of Lazarus (v. 17). This, in part, was why such a great crowd gathered (v. 18). The Pharisees had trouble seeing outside the immediate moment (v. 19). There were some Greeks there, who came to worship (v. 20), and they had heard about Jesus and asked Philip if they could see Him (v. 21). Philip and Andrew then come and ask Jesus about it (v. 22). Jesus answers (although it does not appear to be an answer), and says that the hour has come for Him to be glorified (v. 23). Death is necessary in order to bear fruit (v. 24). He then applies the principle more broadly, to all His followers (v. 25). Follow Me, Jesus says, and the Father will honor you (v.26).

The Time for Openness

Throughout His ministry, Jesus had spent a considerable amount of effort to get people to keep His miracles quiet. But His hour has come, and He does nothing to get thiscrowd to be quiet—as He says elsewhere, if the people were quiet, the stones would cry out. This crowd is here because of the resurrection of Lazarus, and Jesus does nothing to discourage them.

Deeper Glory

The disciples were caught up in the moment, and all they knew was the glory of it (and it was real glory). But it was only glory in preamble form, and there was a deeper glory coming. But in order for that deeper glory to arrive, it was necessary for the “corn of wheat” to fall into the ground and die (v. 24). Jesus had to explain this to His disciples. The exultation they felt was not the grand moment of victory.

In the same way, the Pharisees (with the same carnal eye) looked at the triumph of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a royal mount, heard the crowds, and lamented their loss— “behold, the world is gone after him” (v. 19). In other words, this was to be a roller coaster ride for them: despair, scheming, victory, and then ashen despair again. The disciples were operating on the same carnal level—only opposite. And this shows that there is a kind of “opposite” that is not really a demonstration of the antithesis at all, but is simply a matter of “taking sides.” This is why we have left and right, conservative and liberal, and so on. But the real antithesis is death versus life from the dead.

We Would See Jesus

In the pandemonium, certain Greeks came and wanted to see Jesus. Philip and Andrew ask about it, and Jesus gives a cryptic answer. But the answer is not a change of subject; the Lord is actually explaining how it is possible to see Jesus. But the answer involves much more than simply arranging for an appointment (which may have been what they were asking for).

The hour is coming when the Son of Man will be glorified (v. 23). How will that glorification occur? The seed must die (otherwise it remains solitary), but if it dies, it will bring forth much fruit (v. 24). The one who hates his own life shall regain it in eternal life, and the one who grasps to keep it will lose it (v. 25). This principle is now being extended by Jesus to His followers. What He is going to go through, they must go through also. If these Greeks want to really see Me, Jesus is saying, they must follow me. If they follow Him, they will be where He is and will do what He does also. They will also die, and they will also be fruitful. If this happens, then the Father will honor them. Now this is the only means these Greeks have of “seeing” Jesus that was different from how the Pharisees were also “seeing” Him at that moment.

The Greater Lazarus

Now the crowd was there because they had seen Lazarus raised, or had heard about Lazarus being raised (vv. 17-18). This meant that the multitude with the palm fronds knew that Jesus had authority over death. But what they did not know is that He had authority over death from the inside of it. If Jesus was here and death was there, then Jesus could fight with death the old-fashioned way, the way a knight might fight with a dragon. But Jesus was interested in far more than simply being opposed to death in some form of external combat. He walked into the maw of death in order to be swallowed by it, and to defeat death while a dead man. It was this feat that defeated all death at one blow, instead of having to bring people back, one at a time, like Lazarus.

Delayed Insight

The disciples did not realize until later that they had been the instrument of fulfilled prophecy (v. 16). They did not know these things at the first. But when Jesus was glorified, they realized it all. But Jesus talked to them about His approaching glorification (v. 23), and so it had been part of their conversation on that day. They talked about glorification, but it was not until they saw Jesus as glorified that any of this made any sense to them. But note what Jesus had taught here. It did not suddenly make sense to them simply because time had elapsed, because Jesus had died and was now glorified. It made sense to them because they had also died. They had gone through this death in different ways—Peter and John, for example, were quite different. But the shepherd had been struck and the sheep scattered. This, in a way, meant that the sheep had been struck as well. And when Jesus rose from the dead, so did His followers.

Jesus did not die so that we might live. He died so that we might die; He lives so that we might live.

Death and Fruitfulness

Many Christians glibly talk about having a fruitful Christian life, or a fruitful Christian ministry. They often mean nothing more than learning how to not mess up in obvious ways. But we use phrases like this in a way that should make us think of the request made of Jesus, that two brothers might sit on His right side and His left. Do you know what you asking? The answer was yes, but the answer was really no. When you ask to be fruitful, do you know what you are talking about? Not fully, but Jesus still issues the graceful invitation in the midst of His triumph. Come with Me. Come and die.

 

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The Christmas Gift

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Introduction

Our celebration of Christmas is all about the arrival of the one who was given to us. For unto us a Son is given (Is. 9:6). The Christ was given. God so loved the world that He gave. In Isaiah’s promise, there are two words that are repeated twice, and they emphasize the reality of God’s great gift. Those words are unto us.

The Text

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).

Summary of the Text

John tells us that God gave us His only begotten Son because He loved the world. He did it so that anyone who believed in that Son should not perish, should be delivered from the wrath that was already resting upon him, and could be ushered into everlasting life. But this love that God has for the world is not something He decided to do on a whim. God’s love for the world proceeds from the way He is. It proceeds from His ultimate and everlasting character. The love that God extends to the world (John 3:16) is the same love that we have known and believed in, the love that God has to us (1 John 4:16). And what kind of love is that. John tells us that God is love, and so it follows that the one who lives in love is living in God, and the one who lives in love has God living in him. But note the potency of that phrase—God islove.

Deep Error from Shallow Hearts

Before we are converted to God through Christ, we tend to veer in one of two directions. Whenever we conceive of ultimate reality, we either imagine unity at the top or we imagine plurality at the top. If the former, then we go in the direction of some form of Unitarianism—it could be Deism, it could be Islam, or it could be the generic God of American civic religion. The god at the top of this system is a solitary monad, the ultimate hermit god, the greatest bachelor.

The other direction is to assume some sort of multiplicity at the top. This reduces to some form of polytheism—many gods. And because each of these gods is contained by the cosmos, by the “whole show,” over time that cosmos in its entirety tends to assume the place of ultimacy, which has a tendency toward pantheism.

These two ways of thinking have a political expression as well. The Unitarianism system is a model of the cosmos that is a “tower of power,” and so the political arrangement that reflects this (remember that we become like what we worship) is authoritarian. The political arrangement that reflects polytheism is called pluralism. There is usually a hidden unity in the system somewhere, but on the surface we have many voices, many laws, many gods.

The unbelieving mind is incapable of resolving the problem of the one and the many. Which is ultimate? Unity or plurality?

God Is Love

When the early church was battling through the various controversies surrounding the Trinity, and then surrounding the relationship of the human and the divine in the Lord Jesus Christ, these were weighty controversies—they were notnontroversies.

Prior to the creation of the world, when there was nothing but God, how was it possible to say that God islove? How can we possibly claim that love is an aspect of God’s essential character? If there is no one else, if God is simply an ultimate solitary being, there can be no Beloved. If there is no Beloved, then God didn’t start loving until He created the world, and He needed to create the world in order to start loving. This would mean that He was dependent on something external to Himself in order to be love—which is intolerable. God islove.

God So Loved

Biblically defined, love means revealing yourself and it means giving yourself. When God loved the world, what did He do? He gave. What did He give? He gave His only begotten Son. The word here is monogenes, and the clear implication is that He gave Himself. But then what did He do? This is also important. He toldus about it. So God gave us Jesus, so that we could have everlasting life. And then God gave us John 3:16, to tellus that He had given Jesus so that we could have everlasting life. God gave us Himself, and then God revealed Himself.

These gifts are not offered to us insteadof Himself.

An Aside About Christmas Presents

Why do we give presents at Christmas? What is that all about? What we are doing is celebrating the greatest gift ever given: “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15). The gift that God gave to us was ineffable, indescribable, beyond all mortal calculation. Giftis the hinge upon which all human history turns. Gift is the meaning of everything. Grace provides the meaning of life.

In the beginning, God gave us a perfect world in the first instance, which we promptly wrecked in our insolence and rebellion. So then God undertook to repair that cosmos, making it much more glorious than it had been before, and He did this by bearing the penalty of sin Himself. This is how He gave Himself, and the Christmas message reveals how He gave Himself.

When you are shopping for presents, you are imitating that. When you buy a present for someone, you are not doing it so they will leave you alone for another year, or at least until their birthday. No, you are giving a token that represents you, that reveals you, that gives you.

Nicea and Chalcedon

Nicea testifies to the truth that God is love. If the eternal Word is God, then God loves His Son eternally, which means that God is love. It cannot be any other way. Love is not an add-on extra. Love is an essential part of who God is. The Father loves the Son eternally. The Son loves the Father eternally. Their mutual infinite love is Himself an infinite person, the Holy Spirit of God. This is why the Spirit is described as the Spirit of God, and as the Spirit of Christ.

And Chalcedon means that that the God who is love is that love unto us. And as recipients of that love, what are we to do? Returning to the text, we are to dwell in the love He has bestowed, which is how we are enabled to dwell in Him. When we dwell in His love, we dwell in Him, and when we dwell in Him, He dwells in us.

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Calvinism 4.0: Preservation and Perseverance

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Introduction

The usual way people refer to this next doctrine is with the phrase “perseverance of the saints.” I believe that for the sake of a fuller accuracy, we should make the phrase longer, a bit more cumbersome, but much richer and more complete. We should call it the “preservation and perseverance of the saints.”

We do persevere, but only because God keeps and sustains us. If He did not, then we would not persevere. We could not. And yet, at the same time, when God preserves His own, the thing He preserves them in is perseverance in holiness.

Put another way, God is the one who saves us from drowning, but not by leaving us on the bottom of the pool.

The Text

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one” (John 10:27–30).

Summary of the Text

The sheep who belong to Christ hear and recognize His voice (v. 27). He is their shepherd, and they know it. They know Him. The still waters that He leads them to, the green pastures they are blessed to lie down in, are the gift of eternal life (v. 28). They are in His hand, and as a good shepherd He gives us this promise—no man is able to pluck them out of His hand. As Christ’s sheep, we are in His hand. But how did these particular sheep come to belong to Him in the first place? The good shepherd has a Father, and this Father is greater than all. The elect sheep were a gift to Christ from the Father, and were a gift going from the Father’s hand to Christ’s hand, without leaving the Father’s hand. And because the Father is greater than all, no man is able to pluck them out of the Father’s hand either. And this is why Christ then says “I and the Father are one.”

Exegetical and Systematic Grace

So you should see plainly that the idea of Christ purchasing the same individuals that were chosen by the Father is not some idea cooked up by theologians. The Father gave a gift to Christ (you), and as a result Christ gave you a gift (eternal life). And because there is no life apart from Himself, in order to give you eternal life, He had to give you Himself in the person of His Spirit. Your eternal life inside you is not some inanimate joy juice. He is a Person, and He is working inside you alongside the Father and the Son.

Distortions Are Real

This is the one aspect of the gospel which the natural man thinks he might be able to like. But like all spiritual truth, the natural man can only love the truth through a distortion of it. We should therefore make a point to outline a few misunderstandings of the doctrine:

  1. The Existence of Distortions: One distortion is to grant (perhaps) that the doctrine is true but object to any kind of emphasis being placed on it. “If you teach the security of the believer, then men will become complacent and careless about sin, etc.” Yes, some will twist the grace of God into a license for sin. But we do not decide what to teach on the basis of pragmatics. Look at what was done with Paul’s teaching, and notice what he says in Romans 3:8 about the accusation and his accusers. Their condemnation is just. “And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just” (Rom. 3:8). As Martin Luther once responded when he was told that if you preach this kind of grace, certain men will distort it. His reply was, “Let them.”
  2. Once Saved Always Saved: What does this mean? It is a wonderful truth or a damnable heresy depending upon what is meant by saved. Take a look at 1 John 2:19. When this is a distortion, it separates preservation from perseverance, and says that Jesus can be Savior without functioning as Lord. But . . . “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:19).
  3. Losing Salvation: The question is not whether the elect can lose their salvation—as though salvation were a possession of ours, like car keys or something. The real question is whether Christ can lose a Christian or not. The Bible teaches us that salvation means that we are a possession of His. So, can a sheep lose the shepherd? Absolutely. But can a shepherd lose a sheep. And the answer is glorious—not this shepherd.
  4. Both Sides Have Their Verses: This approach dismisses the question as one not having any great practical importance. But wise pastors know that it is a question of great pastoral import. There are many Christians who have been distressed over whether or not they could have assurance of salvation. “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:13).

The passages of Scripture that talk about apostasy (and there are many) are talking about losing your covenant standing in the visible church. Someone can be covenantally a Christian without being numbered among the elect.

God-centered Salvation

Man-centeredness causes some to talk about this as though it were a mere reversal of regeneration. But when salvation is understood biblically, i.e. as rooted in the eternal will of the Father in election, in the eternal blood of the covenant which secured their salvation, and the resurrection of the Spirit bringing them into life, the whole picture changes.

Man is mutable and what he does can be undone. God is immutable and what He effectually does cannot be undone. There are many passages which assert this, but one of the clearest is found in Romans 8: 28-39, which we have already considered several times.

But What About . . . ?

Let us look at just one passage which is commonly brought forward as evidence that Christians can lose their salvation.

“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:26–29).

What does it say? It does not say anything about Hell or everlasting damnation. The context is that the author of Hebrews (in the mid to late 60’s) is trying to talk some Christians out of returning to the Temple sacrifices in Jerusalem. Obviously, they would have to go to Jerusalem to do this, and it was a masterpiece of bad timing, for Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. The Lord Jesus had prophesied that this would certainly happen within a generation, and that generation was almost up. The only thing they had waiting for them in Jerusalem was raging fire that would consume the adversary. They would not find in Jerusalem any sacrifice for sin. That was done, once for all, in the death of Christ.

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