Messiah or Christ: What's in a Name, But It Isn't a Name...or Is It?

Among scholar, pastors, and students it’s all the rage to speak of Messiah with reference to Jesus rather than the biblical expression "Jesus Christ." Granted, these two terms have the same meaning. Heck, you can even get yourself a couple Bible translations that include Messiah here and there. It's guided by seemingly good intentions. Scholars and pastors want to rattle the pew-sitters' cages, waking them to the fact that "Christ" isn't Jesus the Nazarene's last name, like Stevenson is mine. No, Christ is Jesus' title; he's God's Christ (Greek), his Messiah (Hebrew), both of which mean God’s anointed One. In the OT, only the offices (prophet, priest, king) enjoyed the special anointing of God's Spirit. Jesus, then, is God's CHRIST, the final Prophet, Priest, and King! Christ is not a name but a title, it is stressed. However, this shouldn't be stressed without qualification. There are times when the NT explicitly treats Christos as his name. E.g., in Matt 24:5 it says, "For many shall come in my NAME, saying, 'I am CHRIST'; and shall deceive many." Here is just one instance when Jesus himself seems to suggest that Christ is his name in some sense, since it is so bound up in his personal identity. So, we should be careful in both the hearing and speaking about any absolute claim that Christ is not his name in any way.

Reading Joel...and the Rest of Scripture

I’ve recently been thinking about the universal judgment in Joel, which is promised from YHWH, and is to take place at "The valley of Jehoshaphat" ('the LORD is judge,' 3:12) or the "valley of decision" (3:14).

If one accepts the traditional idea that this is the Kidron valley (or “holler,” here in the South :), then one's mind is immediately carried backwards to David's journey across the valley, up the Mt. of Olives, to his Gesthemane-crisis-decision with his band of three closest followers (2 Sam. 15:23-33); and, it takes one forward to Jesus' journey through the same route, with his three closest followers, wherein YHWH did in fact execute judgment on his people from all nations (Jn. 18:1; Lk 22:39—46; cf. Mt 26:36—46; Mk 14:32f,), and where they both committed themselves to the will of God.

Co-Dependency is Not the Problem

The other afternoon Fanny and I were standing in the kitchen discussing the concept of "co-dependency." Now, it may be granted that certain folks find too much significance and comfort in a relationship with this or that person. However, I don't think a self-conscious, Christ-conscious Christian should use the popular psycho-babble term co-dependency to describe this situation.

Rather, we've had the correct diagnosis for centuries in Scripture; it is called idolatry. It is elevating another mere mortal to a deified status, and making them to bear the burden of trying to live as your God. We don't need some wacked Freudian analysis or Banduran social theory to explain this. The root of this problematic behavior is that a person isn't co-dependent on the right One; the idolatrous relationship isn’t co-dependency, it's rooted in a failure in being co-dependent on Christ.

However, popular psychology has vilified the concept of co-dependency. This "weakness" is the strength, the muscles and sinews, of the Church! Turning the concept of co-dependency into a "disorder," a "condition," or worse a "disease" (as though behavior is subject to pathology--pleeeez!), or any other term of derision was made easy by our culture's crass individualistic tendencies. Anyone who doesn't wish to be "an island to herself" is thought to be "co-dependent." So, the church is counter-cultural by default, in so far as she is heeding Christ's command to be "co-dependent" upon him and one another. 

I don't think one would risk being impious to say that the Trinity is nothing short of the Ultimate Co-Dependency. No one Person could be what he is in isolation from the other two. In fact, most historic heresies have ultimately been instances of attempted theo-therapeutic philosophies, which have sought to "heal" God's co-dependency within himself.   

St. Paul said, "Your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). If a person has a problem with being co-dependent, then, well...I suppose there are other religions out there.

GALATIANS 4:3—9 :: TO REDEEM: HOW GOD MAKES HEIRS OUT OF HIS CHILDREN

A. ³ Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage (douloō)

B. under the elements (stoicheion) of the world.

C. ⁴ But when the fullness of the time had come,

D. God sent forth (exapostellō)

E. His Son (uihos),

F. born of a woman,

G. born under the law (hupo nomos),

X. ⁵ to redeem

G. those who were under the law (hupo nomos),

F. that we might receive the adoption

E. as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons (uihos),

D. God has sent forth (exapostellō) the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

C. ⁷ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

B. ⁸ But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. ⁹ But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements (stoicheion),

A. to which you desire again to be in bondage (douleuō)?

The Scots' Confession, Chapter 5

The Continuance, Increase, and Preservation of the Kirk

We most constantly believe that God preserved, instructed, multiplied, honoured, decored, and from death called to life his kirk (i.e., church) in all ages, from Adam, till the coming of Christ Jesus in the flesh.[1] For Abraham he called from his father's country; him he instructed; his seed he multiplied;[2] the same he marvelously preserved, and more marvelously delivered from the bondage and tyranny of Pharaoh;[3] to them he gave his laws, constitutions, and ceremonies;[4] them he possessed in the land of Canaan;[5] to them, after Judges and after Saul, he gave David to be king, to whom he made promise, that of the fruit of his loins should one sit for ever upon his regal seat.[6] To this same people, from time to time, he sent prophets to reduce them to the right way of their God,[7] from the which often times they declined by idolatry. And albeit for their stubborn contempt of justice, he was compelled to give them in the hands of their enemies,[8] as before was threatened by the mouth of Moses,[9] insomuch that the holy city was destroyed, the temple burnt with fire,[10] and the whole land left desolate the space of seventy years;[11] yet of mercy did he reduce them again to Jerusalem, where the city and temple were reedified, and they, against all temptations and assaults of Satan, did abide till the Messiah came, according to the promise.[12] 

1. Ezek. 6:6-14.
2. Gen. 12:1; 13:1.
3. Ex. 1, etc.
4. Josh. 1:3; 23:4.
5. 1 Sam. 10:1; 16:13.
6. 2 Sam. 7:12.
7. 2 Kings 17:13-19.
8. 2 Kings 24:3-4.
9. Deut. 28:36, 48.
10. 2 Kings 25.
11. Dan. 9:2.
12. Jer. 30; Ezra 1, etc.; Hag. 1:14; 2:7-9; Zech. 3:8.

Jesus', the New-True Adam's, Wilderness Probation

As the heading suggests, I’m cautious of the title “the temptation” for its restrictive connotations. The ‘the’, in ‘the temptation’, seems to indicate that the whole of Jesus’ cosmic level struggle against Satan, sin, and the wicked world system in its defiant rebellion toward God is summed up in the forty days and nights in the wilderness. We know, however, that this is not the case. There are, perhaps, even greater problems if we are to place the accent on the ‘temptation’ of ‘the temptation’, as it averts attention away from the event’s divine purpose in God’s redemptive program and poises our focus on merely a single perspective and design for the event, namely Satan’s. In so viewing it, from the vantage of Satan’s schematic purposes, we are bound to be deprived of much of the critical theological content and the particularly messianic nature of the trial.

Probation is, I believe, the best designation for this inaugural event in Jesus’ Messiahship, for it better represents the Father’s design, the Son’s dealings, and the Holy Spirit’s “driving” (Mk 1:12). And it is these that form the intention or purpose underlying the entire experience. Moreover, probation resonates with the allusive OT paradigms the gospel writers were both assuming and including: Adam’s probation in the Garden (per Lk, and maybe in Mk as “he was with the wild beasts...[harmoniously perhaps?]” 1:13; cf. Is 11:6—9; 32:14—20; 65:25; Hos 2:18), and Israel’s first exodus in all three of accounts, which is obvious from Jesus’ citations from Deut 6 and 8. Thus, the weight and results from the failings of both Adam and Israel, as ‘sons of God’ who were created to accomplish all God’s will on earth, were coming to bear on the only Son of God, the second Adam, the true Israel. His obedient submission to the Father throughout this probative period would thus test and prove what kind of Messiah he would be, therefore, determining the entire course of redemption. The meaning of the wilderness experience of Jesus was the means of demonstrating and defining the Father’s purposes for the Son’s Messiahship, being conferred upon Jesus at the baptism through the Holy Spirit’s anointing and the Father’s declarative pronouncement (“My Son...well pleased”). The Son, upon successfully passing this probative period through submission and suffering (Deut 8:2), would enter into the Father’s messianic mission as Victor in the full power of the Spirit.

The broader context of the passage in all three gospels is, in general, identical: (1) the baptism/Father’s pronouncement; (2) the 40 days in the wilderness; and (3) Jesus’ victorious return onto the public scene, “in the power of the Holy Spirit,” to begin his messianic mission. This consistency is coupled with language in every account that clearly connects the baptism to the probation. The authors, then, intend the two to be treated as a unit; the latter can only be understood in light of the former.

The voice of the Father at the baptism not only declared Jesus’ Sonship, but also defined it. The words: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” brings together to critical strands of messianic expectation from the OT. “This is my beloved Son...” is surely drawn from Ps 2:7, which describes Yahweh’s coming Anointed One, the hope and fulfillment of the everlasting Davidic covenant. It is more than mere coincidence that the very next verse of this Psalm (v. 8) speaks of the Father’s promise to the Son, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” Thus, it should not surprise us that Satan’s final assault (per Mt) came in a similar form to the very same promise. It is not as though Satan’s offering Jesus the same thing (Mt 4:8—9) as the Father, “the nations...their glory,” was tempting in itself. Consider the weight of this dilemma—seemingly same promise, one from the Father of Light, the other from the father of lies. It appears the there would be little, if any, struggle in the rational mind when faced with such a choice. But Matthew treats this as the climax of the battle; the very point on which redemption swings. But how can this be?

This question draws us back again to the Father’s voice at the baptism, namely to the second clause: “...with whom I am well pleased.” This allusion points back to Is 42:1ff, a passage that Matthew cites directly in 12:18—21, as does Luke, twice (1:79; 2:32; with allusions in Acts 3:26; 4:27). The opening pericope of this chapter (Is 42:1—9) begins a section of Isaiah known as the suffering Servant songs. Here Yahweh’s Servant is identified with a role of suffering, meekness, and humiliation, one that finally ends in the disgraceful death in Ch. 53, an end administered by none other than the Servant’s “well pleased” Father. This depiction of the hoped for anointed Messiah, although an accepted vein within 1st century messianism, seems to stand in stark contrast, if not out right contradiction, to the exalted, victorious anointed Davidic King of Ps 2! These two streams of messianic hope—humiliation-Servant/exaltation-King—converging in the same figure were formerly inconceivable in Jewish eschatology. However, it is precisely this paradox that informs a right understanding of the wilderness phase of Jesus’ Messiahship and answers the question above regarding Matthew’s final temptation. Concerning the question, the weightiness of Satan’s offer of the glory of the nations was to seemingly grant Jesus his rightful exaltation as the Messiah, thus attaining, at least in part, the end goal of his messianic work while altogether avoiding the demanded humiliation, suffering, and death that were part and parcel of the Father’s plan for his Son/Messiah. Thus, the questions facing Jesus at every point in the wilderness probation were, what kind and, whose Messiah would he be?

This, I believe, explains best the perspective and burden of Jesus in the crisis. The perspective of the Father, as this would be, for his Son, a time of testing, trial, that is, probation. Even Satan’s perspective is best illuminated from this angle. Satan’s primary objective was not to bring uncertainty directly upon Jesus’ Sonship or even his sinlessness; but, at first subtle then in sudden desperation, an attempt to derail or, better, abort the Father’s plan to establish his Messianic King, his kingdom, and consequently destroy the very works of the Devil himself (I Jn 3:8). Satan’s awareness of the ultimate doom he would face as a result of Jesus’ success, which began principally at the end of the wilderness probation, is also revealed in his citation of Ps 91:11—12. While Satan rightly observes the promise of special providence for the trusting One of Ps 91, he must too have been fully aware of the promise of v. 13 as well, “...the serpent you will trample underfoot!” (cf. Lk 10:19; Mk 16:18; Gen 3:15).

Unlike Adam, who failed in a state of perfection; Jesus, cloaked in humiliation, came out unscathed from his struggle on a sin torn battlefield! More than that, Adam’s success would have kept him from suffering loss; Jesus’ success first recovered Adam’s loss, and then gained the Messiah’s mantle. Hence, in the desert wilderness Jesus proved what was in his heart—humble, absolute trust in the Father’s promises—the kind of submissive obedience God requires of all people, yet never given by a person before, was offered up by Jesus in the harshest of conditions, thus gaining his Messiahship and our much needed righteousness! Our True Joshua, leading us in to conquer the Promise Land (II Cor 2:14)!

Al Wolters: Creation

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger said that the basic question addressed in metaphysics is "Why is there anything at all, and not rather nothing?" By that definition, he said, the idea of a Christian metaphysics is a "wooden iron," a contradiction in terms. Why? Because the Christian already knows the answer to the question. We know that there is something rather than nothing because God made the world.

Whatever we may think of Heidegger's definition of metaphysics, we can agree that he was right about one thing. Fundamental to all Christian thinking is the belief that God created the world, that reality is in some fundamental sense creation.

This is an ecumenical Christian confession. But there is probably no Christian tradition in which the teaching concerning creation plays such a pivotal role as in the line that runs from Scripture through Ireneaus, Augustine, Calvin and Kuyper to Comment. In this strand of the Christian tradition, creation is conceived of in a particularly comprehensive way, and even salvation is in large measure understood as the retrieval of creation as God originally intended it. Creation is foundational to everything. Moreover, creation is good in a deep and primordial sense—so deep, in fact, that the goodness of creation continues to manifest itself even in the midst of terrible perversion.

Read more here...

O Fools, and Slow of Heart to Believe All that the Prophets have Spoken

Yesterday, Justin Taylor posted two bits from recent antiquity on seeing Jesus in all of the Scripture on his GC blog, showing that it is not a Johnny-come-lately fad.  The first was from the 1878 Niagara Creed and the second was from Calvin.  Oddly, last night, as I was reading Ryle’s Knots Untied on the Kindle, I found the same beautiful expression of Christ as the hermeneutical key to all of Scripture.  Ryle put it like this.

But one golden chain runs through the whole volume (of the Canon): no salvation excepting by Jesus Christ.  The bruising of the serpent’s head foretold in the day of the fall; the clothing of our first parents with skins; the sacrifices of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Passover, and all the particulars of the Jewish law—the high priests, the alter, the daily offering of the lamb, the holy of holies entered only by blood, the scape-goat, the cities of refuge—all are so many witnesses to the truth set forth in the text (of Acts 4:12).  All preach with one voice, salvation only by Christ. 

In fact, this truth appears to be the grand object of the Bible, and all the different parts and portions of the book are meant to pour light upon it.  I can gather from it no ideas of pardon and peace with God excepting in connection with this truth (loc. 621—630). 

In the section wherein this portion is found, Ryle has been arguing for the exclusivity of Christ as the only means of salvation; this quote is part of his third premise.  No compromising position is safe in his survey, as everything from Romanism to less-than-pure Protestantism comes into his crosshairs.  Ryle’s thesis is as simple as it is pure truth.  In his opening, he says he could cut short this section with one simple argument: Only in Christ is there salvation, because “God says so!” (loc. 563).  However, in concession to the critical reader, Ryle premises his argument on three supporting points (which is simply another way of saying, "God says so!" which I love!).

The doctrine of exclusivity, as declared by St. Peter in Acts 4:12, must be true, because...

            1. Man is what man is (i.e., from total depravity)

            2. God is what God is (i.e., from God’s omnipotence, holiness, and justice)

3. The Bible is what the Bible is (e.g., if we take not this text’s truth, the Bible must be disregarded altogether, as it points decisively to the truth of this doctrine from cover to cover, as the quotation above argues)