Read The Signs Or Die

We're still talking about discipleship and the work of the church. In earlier posts we took a look at Jesus' feeding thousands in the wilderness along the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee or, as the
Romans called it, the Sea of Tiberias. As a result, the crowd wanted to make him their king, their Bread King. With him in charge the problem of food would be settled. But Jesus would have none of it. He hid himself back in the hills. We pick up the narrative in John 6.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.
But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid."
Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. - Jhn 6:16-21 ESV

In Matthew's account Peter boldly asks Jesus for permission to join him on the water. But then Peter loses his faith and has to be rescued from drowning. When they step into the boat Jesus remonstrates Peter, saying, "O you of little faith. Why did you doubt?"

Once in the boat, the wind ceased and shortly after that they made it safely to land. All this made a deep impression on the disciples. They knelt before him and said, "Truly you are the Son of God!"(Matt. 14:24-32)

Later Peter repeated his conviction that Jesus was God's Son. On the Mountain Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured and shining as bright as newly fallen snow. They heard the Father proclaim Jesus His Son (Matt.17:5). When the Sanhedrin tried Jesus they pronounced him guilty of blasphemy for declaring himself to be God's Son. This was a crime worthy of death (Matt. 16:63-66).

What has all this to do with the primary questions of Bread and healing raised by the crowd? Just this. Jesus is indeed the Son of God. As John wrote in the beginning of his Gospel,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. - Jhn 1:1-3 ESV

Jesus gave them plain and obvious signs of this fact. He fed thousands with a five barley loaves and two fish. He walked on water amidst a raging storm and calmed the sea. Once again the LORD God had come among His people to feed them in the wilderness and take them safely through the fearsome waters of the sea, just as He did in the days of their Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. Truly He is the Son of God, Immanuel, God with us! The psalmist pulls this history together as he invites praise.

Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise! Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name." Selah

Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man. He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him, who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations-- let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah

Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. - Psa 66:1-12 ESV

Jesus is indeed the Son of God, King above all kings, Maker of heaven and earth, Master of wind and seas. All the signs pointed to this fact. But Jesus would not allow the crowd to declare him king. Why not?

Because they had no faith in him and his promises. They were not ready to be his disciples. Yes, they were concerned about their fundamental needs. As I pointed out in earlier postings, Maslow is correct. There is a hierarchy of needs and, as in the case of the hungry crowd and the frightened disciples on the sea, the need for food and safety are fundamental. Nothing wrong with that. But there is so much more.

The crowd was concerned only about themselves, their needs for healing, for food and drink and for personal safety. But that was all they thought about. As in the case of the Israelites in the wilderness, God was testing them again, trying them as silver is tried. As the proverb says,

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts. - Pro 17:3 ESV (see also Isaiah 48:10)

He tested them and they all failed the test. They did not give God the glory. They did not bless and praise Him. All they thought about was themselves. What's in this for me? You give us bread. You calm the storms. Great. We are well fed, healed and safe. Now that's the kind of king we want.

And that is the very nature of sin. Instead of keeping first things first, the focus is always and only upon me, my wants and my needs. The first and greatest of all God's commandments is this:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. - Deu 6:4-5 ESV

Here, right here in the wilderness near the Sea of Galilee, here was the LORD. All the signs all pointed to Him. But they would not see them. Their hearts were hardened. They worshipped only themselves. Peter and the disciples saw Him for who He is. They worshipped Him and acknowledged Him to be the Son of God. Weak as their faith was, it was still faith. They were his disciples, but the rest failed the test.

John continues. The crowd Jesus fed followed him and His disciples to the other side of the sea. Puzzled at how he got there they approached him.

They said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." - Jhn 6:25-27 ESV

We must take a very careful look at this statement. As disciples of Jesus we are concerned about the whole person, about the needs of the body, but our central and primary task is to lead men to Christ. Fail to do that and we have failed to be the church. More on this next time as we learn more about Jesus' two kingdoms, those often called the kingdoms of his right and left hands.

Grave Confusion About The Two Kingdoms

In my last post I promised to discuss why Lutherans—and millions of other Christians—are very wary of the way some widely read Bible interpreters use and confuse symbols, especially numbers in the Bible. This is why we approach Gematria and Keballah with great caution.

I refer you again to the 1989 Missouri Synod theologians' study of the end times for personal study. Here is a shortened list of the basic principles of interpretation (hermeneutics) they emphasize. In earlier postings I already emphasized the importance of seeing that most prophecy is poetry, with characteristic figures of speech and word pictures. I also emphasized the importance of remembering that the prophets spoke first to their original hearers in terms they could understand. Here now are six more principles.

1. An organic unity exists within and between the Old and New Testaments. We presuppose that God is the One Author of all Scripture. Remember earlier comments about how God's Word validates itself. 
2. This is also to say that the Scriptures themselves interpret  all prophecy. Symbols, word pictures and numbers are interpreted by Scripture passages that speak in plain, simple language about the same things. Where they are silent, we will remain silent as well. 
3. The material principle must ever be kept central. That means that the entire Scripture, Old and New Testaments, is about Christ. Their singular purpose is to lead men to turn from sin to faith in Christ. 
4. Christ is the New Israel, Israel reduced to one. Christ is the promised seed of Abraham in whom all nations are blessed. 
5. Old Testament prophecy is often typical or typological in nature. This is especially true when dealing with eschatological (end time) themes. A type is a person, institution, or event which prefigures and foreshadows a new and greater reality (the antitype). The antitype historically and theologically corresponds to, elucidates, fulfills, and eschatologically completes the type. The antitype is no mere repetition of the type but is always greater than its prefigurement.
6. Certain prophetic events in the near and in the distant future are telescoped into one picture, like how mountain peaks seen from a distance look much closer than they really are. 

F. F. Bruce pulled it all together as he wrote, 

"In Jesus the promise is confirmed, the covenant is renewed, the prophecies are fulfilled, the law is vindicated, salvation is brought near, sacred history has reached its climax the perfect sacrifice has been offered and accepted, the great priest over the household of God has taken his seat at God's right hand, the Prophet like Moses has been raised up, the Son of David reigns, the kingdom of God has been inaugurated, the Son of Man has received dominion from the Ancient of Days, the Servant of the Lord, having been smitten to death for his people's transgression and borne the sin of many, has accomplished the divine purpose, has seen the light after the travail of his soul and is now exalted and extolled and made very high" (The New Testament Development of Old Testament Themes, p. 21).

A word about type - antitype centered in and fulfilled in Christ. This is especially important as it relates to Israel of the Old Testament and the New Israel. Here many modern teachers create great anxiety and doubt by confusing the Law and the Gospel. By so doing they confuse the two Kingdoms over which Christ rules and how He rules over them. The Lutheran Defense of the Augsburg Confession, Article XVI, makes it very clear that Christ's true kingdom is spiritual; it is the knowledge of God in the heart, the fear of God and faith, the beginning of eternal righteousness and eternal life. In that spiritual kingdom he governs by His Word and by preaching. This is usually referred to as the kingdom of Christ's right hand.

He has another kingdom over which He rules. It is usually called the kingdom of Christ's left hand. It refers to the political, outward power exercised by civil government. Paul and others write of this.

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. . ." (Romans 13:1-7).

Old Testament Israel was a secular kingdom, a political entity. Christ as the LORD of the Old Testament (Philippians 2:1-11) ruled over it by the outward means of laws and rules. The Old Testament  rulers and kings of Israel were His instruments. By laws and promises, courts, armies and war, they preserved order, promoted prosperity and protected the people from their enemies.

Within that secular state Christ also ruled over His spiritual kingdom, His kingdom of true believers, by means of His Word.  In many different ways His prophets warned the people to turn from their godless and disobedient ways and put their faith and trust in their true LORD. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they always spoke of the Gospel and God's forgiveness. They frequently foretold Christ's coming in human flesh to rescue and redeem all mankind. The prophet Isaiah, for instance, spoke of those good tidings, this Good News, as he wrote about the Suffering Servant who would be cruelly beaten and disfigured even as he took upon Himself the pain and bore the suffering and affliction we have all deserved (Isaiah 52:7-53:12).

The Apostles clearly understood this. Matthew, for example, tells about the Holy Family fleeing into exile in Egypt in this manner:

So he (Joseph) got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, ¹⁵ where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Matthew 2:15-16 and Hosea 11:1).

So Matthew makes it clear throughout his Gospel that Jesus is the New Israel, the Son of God, called out of Egypt again. In Christ a new, spiritual kingdom has begun. As Jesus stood accused before Pilate, representative of the secular, Roman authority, He openly acknowledged that he was the king of the Jews, the king of the New Israel. This was, however, a radically different type of kingdom (Matthew 27:11-14; John 18:28-19:16).

We could go into great detail about these matters. Suffice to say that so much of the confusion about the restoration of the secular state of Israel, conflict in the Middle East, the supposed promise of the rebuilding of the temple, the 1,000 year or millennial kingdom, etc. is all tangled up because of the confusion of these two kingdoms. More on that another day. For now, don't worry about trying to untangle everything that our LORD Jesus has planned, who or what is the antichrist, when Jesus will return and so forth. Much of that He has kept to Himself.

It is enough to know that He rose on the third day and is coming again to take His children to be with Him in glory (Romans 8:14-30). Be that today, in the year 2012 or 100 years from now, we who believe in Him are safe and secure.

More on this another day.

Two Kingdoms and the Mystical Body of Christ

The questions I raised yesterday about Christ's eternal sovereignty persist. How is it that we can believe that in His ascension He received all authority in heaven and on earth and a kingdom in which peoples of all nations and languages serve Him? (Matthew 28:18 and Daniel 7:13-14)

When I return to Nazi Germany, as I have been, I see that while there was great apostasy, there were ever the faithful few. This is indicated by the Confessing Church, started by Dr.Martin Niemoeller in 1933-34. I'll not go into details here other than to point out that these faithful Christians—Lutherans mostly—rejected Hitler's move to create an Aryan church controlled by the state. Many Christians in Germany and in Scandinavia hid Jews and helped them to escape.

Many of these Christians chose to give their lives rather than back down from their convictions about the evil that had pervaded the German national church. Niemoeller was sent to concentration camp. Dietrich Bonheoffer was hung for his  complicity in the attempted assassination of Adolph Hitler. What I personally believe about Bonhoeffer's teaching will have to await another day. Suffice it to say that he died for his beliefs and opposed the Aryan Protestant Church of the Nazi state. Others went out of their way to hide or help Jews to escape Germany.

In discussing this issue I must again distinguish between the two kingdoms, church and state. When confronted by the Roman Prefect or governor Pontius Pilatus about His kingdom, the Lord Jesus replied, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world" (John 18:33-38).

Jesus had already taught us to distinguish the two kingdoms when questioned by the hypocritical Herodians about paying taxes. Jesus knew of their evil intent, so upon receiving a Roman denarius he said, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:16-21).

These important distinctions had long before been muddled and muddied in Europe, especially with the state supporting the church since the days of Constantine, over 1,000 years.

The kingdom of Christ is one created and sustained by the inner working of the Holy Spirit. In fact, as Jesus pointed out to the inquiring Jewish ruler Nicodemus, one cannot even see or enter it without the creative working of the Spirit in baptism. To be in this kingdom is nothing less than having experienced a rebirth. Those who have been reborn have eternal life (John 3:1-21).

I can only point to these distinctions here. The task of maintaining the separation of the two kingdoms continues in our day. The church is not a political power player. She is the mystical, mysterious, inscrutable and yet very real presence of Christ in this world, working through men and women called by Him to millions and millions of vocations and responsibilities. She still suffers and dies on behalf of the weak and helpless throughout the world as she takes up her cross to follow her Husband and Master (Matthew 10:37-39 and Matthew 16:23-25).