Inclusio: Encircling St. Matthew's Gospel

If one was going to take anything away from her high school English composition classes, it was the teacher’s tenacity concerning the unparalleled importance of a good, strong thesis statement and conclusion. The body of a writing assignment, we were always reminded, would drip from our pens if these two elements were carefully created. Further, we were encouraged to treat the first and last sentence of each paragraph in generally the same manner. This is not a modern phenomenon, however. Although the ancients did not stress certain minutia such as insisting the thesis be in the first paragraph, consist of only a single sentence, and the conclusion as an indicative restatement of the thesis, they did make a copious use of this composition convention.

Within the world of literature found in the scriptures and other extant ancient documents is a figure of speech that the Latin students called the inclusio, while the Greeks called same the figure the cyclus. Essentially, like our thesis-conclusion convention, this figure is applied near the beginning and the end of a sentence, a chapter, a unit, or even an entire book. As the Greek name implies, it creates an encircling around the body of work. It is often the case that the author encircles the body of his work with a strong or evocative statement, which he intends to guide the reader’s interpretation of each element between these two outer poles. In lesser to greater degrees, these words or fuller statements at each end of the work will color everything in between. When we can spot these features, we can be sure that we are near to discovering the author’s deepest purposes in his writing.

St. Matthew’s gospel contains several examples of this literary device, the inclusio. For example, the Evangelist begins his work, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ...son of Abraham” (1:1). To any reader conscious of the Old Testament, these introductory words, especially “genealogy” and the mention of Abraham, would have evoked the covenant promises to Abraham, which involved his “seed” bringing Yahweh’s covenant blessings to “all nations” (e.g., Gen. 12:1—3). And then St. Matthew ends with Jesus’ commission to his disciples to take those blessings of his glorious gospel to “all nations” (28:19). This is a textbook inclusio.

Then there is also 1:23, Jesus’ Isaianic title, “Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” This is met with Jesus’ promised presence to all of his disciples, “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (28:20). On this divine note, it is worth mentioning that Jesus was “worshipped” at the opening (by the magi, 2:2, 11) and close (by disciples, 28:9, 17) of St. Matthew.

Jesus begins (4:13—16) and ends (ch. 28) his public ministry in “Galilee of the gentiles.” It is there, in Galilee, that he has his first (4:18—22) and final (28:7—10, 16) gathering of his disciples. Additionally, “the angel of the Lord” announced both Jesus’ incarnation (1:18—21) and resurrection (28:1—7).

Perhaps most importantly to St. Matthew are some of the political implications of the Messiah. In the moments of his greatest humiliation and weakness, Jesus brought (and brings) terror and trouble to the worldly powers that stand against him. In his infancy, Jesus “troubled” the supreme Jewish civil authority, Herod (ch. 2); in his trial, while beaten, bloodied, and bound, Jesus struck fear in the Emperor’s extended-self in Pilate (ch. 27). Things are hardly different today. This is likely connected to the fact that people well beyond the Jewish society recognized Jesus for who he was, the “King of the Jews,” the anointed One, the Messiah, who would rule over all. Representing the eastern world, the magi understood this (2:2); representing the western world, Pilate, too, understood the same, even if not wittingly (27:37).

These threads, these themes must color our understanding of the body of St. Matthew’s gospel. If they don’t, we risk misreading the rest of it.  

The Symmetry of Covenant Sexuality in 1 Cor. 7:1—7

1-2a	Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication
2b, c	A. let every man        B. have his own wife, and        B. let every woman A. have her own husband.
3	A. Let the husband        B. render unto the wife               C. due benevolence:               C. and likewise also        B. the wife A. unto the husband.
4	A. The wife hath not power of her own body,        B. but the husband:        B. and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, A. but the wife.
5	A. Defraud ye not one the other,        B. except it be with consent for a time,               C. that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer;        B. and come together again, A. that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
6, 7	A. But I speak this by permission,        B. and not of commandment.        B. For I would that all men were even as I myself. A. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.

In Yeshua, YHWH Saves

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:[1] for (γαρ; grounds clause) he [himself][2] shall save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21 KJV).

Here are some gleanings from my message prep for the Second Sunday in Epiphany (which is also Sanctity of Human Life Sunday).

Matt. 1:21 is the fulfillment of the promise of Is. 49:1d, “From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” So, naturally, it has weighed in on my studies.

I’ve always found this verse to be one of the strongest indirect proofs for Jesus’ deity, similar to Matt. 11:27, St. Matthew’s so-called logion. And there is a transparent word play intended in Jesus’ name in Matt. 1:21 (see fn. 1).

The command to name the Messiah Jesus (Arm. Yesuah or Joshua) is premised or grounded on the fact that “he himself will save his people from their sins” (1:21b). I’ve always struggled to put Jesus’ deity from indirect texts into a sound and valid syllogism. For instance, consider the synthesis of the following verses.

St. John 1:9 calls Jesus “the true Light.” Likewise, in 1 Jn. 1:5 we learn that “God is light.” It seems that these two could be brought into a meaningful deductive relation.

1. Jesus is the true Light;

2. God is Light;

3. Therefore, Jesus is God.

The apparent problem with this is that it creates a formal fallacy, the undistributed middle. No manner of arrangement has proven to be free of either logical or theological fallacies, as far as I can tell. It is clearer when we use other subjects.

1. My Jeep is blue;

2. The sky is blue;

3. Therefore, my jeep is the sky.

Despite these past blunders in trying to create a cogent argument from indirect biblical data, a discussion with Beaner this morning revealed that Matt. 1:21 provides just such a possibility.

            1. Yeshua is Savior of Israel (Matt. 1:21)

            2. The only Savior of Israel is YHWH (Is. 43:11; 45:15, 21, etc.)

            3. Therefore, Yeshua is YHWH.

As far as I can see, this argument is both sound and valid; it is free from logical fallacies. Additionally, it is perfectly consistent with the NT authors’ regular attribution of kurios to Jesus, which are in their OT contexts attributed to YHWH.

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[1] NAS text note: Jesus is the Gk form of the Hb name “Joshua,” which = “The Lord saves” or “Yahweh saves.”

[2] NAS text note: Lit. He Himself.  

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)!

John 3:16 and the "So" of God's Love

One would think that after nearly 2000 years we’d have John 3:16 figured out. This beloved and most memorized summary of the Gospel has shaped Western culture for millennia. Recent paraphrastic versions of this verse, however, seem to be shaping the Gospel to fit the culture.

The bone I’m picking here has to do with the little term “so,” which translates the Greek, houtō.

Solid modern translations follow the King James Version’s ambiguous rendering—“For God so loved the world.” Undoubtedly, this is partly to retain the ring and resonance of how millions of saints have read it, heard it, and ingested it for centuries; and this is great. I also appreciate the ambiguity of the “so.” Ambiguity leads to one of two things. On the down side, it allows room for the reader (or worse, preacher) to impose their misunderstandings into the text. Nevertheless, the up side is that ambiguity often drives the reader to do some study of their own, to dig and try to spiral into the mind and heart of the author, which is where the meaning resides.

So, what does this “so” mean? And how could it make that much difference?

The immensely popular paraphrase, the New Living Translation has sought to expunge any ambiguity for the reader by making clear that the “so” is qualitative or quantitative in its connotation. It reads,

“For God loved the world so much that...”

This emphasis on the magnitude, depth and breadth of God’s love for a world of wayward rebels is as theologically faithful as his love is wide. For instance, John, writing in his first Epistle, makes this point when he says,

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the Children of God; and so we are” (3:1).

But the question remains, Is this what John was meaning in 3:16?

If the New Living Translation’s emphasis on the “so” isn’t enough to convince, then consider the Amplified Bible’s indulgent treatment of the verse.

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that...”

Okay, come on, the “dearly prized” is a bit over the top, don’t you think?. But this does reveal a shift in emphasis on the part of the translator. It seems to place the stress of the verb, “loved,” on its object, “the world.” This gives the sense that the world as such is inherently lovable, an object worthy of God’s love. Whether or not someone thinks this observation is fair, there’s little question that 99% of Western readers hear Jn 3:16 this way.

However, the term “world” (Gk. kosmos) never carries these connotations in John’s writings. John uses “world” in one of two ways. It’s either “the world,” and that the world is so big; e.g., the “world” doesn’t have the capacity to shelve the books that could be written on the words and deeds of Jesus, the Son (Jn 21:25). Alternately, it more often means “the world,” and that the world is so bad and thus antithetical to God’s love (1 Jn 2:15—17); it’s in a constant state of cosmic treason against its Creator. Nowhere does John give us the sense that the world is something that is so “dearly prized” by God.

So, back to “so.”

In the 20-plus times that John uses the term, houtō always carries the instrumental sense, e.g., “in this way or manner..” Likewise, the reader could supplant “so” with its synonym, “thus.” “God loved the world ‘thus’...” In this sense, with “so” John is communicating the “how” of God’s love for the world; it emphasizes what it was that God did to make the “Way” (Jn 14:6) for his love for us and our reciprocation of responsive love to him. The English Standard Version offers this alternate reading in a text note.

“Or For this is how God loved the world"

The Holman Christian Standard Bible is not so cautious. It translated the verse this way:

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his One and Only Son...”

Therefore, whether one thinks that Jn 3:16f are the words of Jesus or they’re John’s concluding summary of Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, the “so” of v. 16 is telling us the Way of God’s plan to rescue from death a wicked world in rebellion against its Maker, the “How” of his plan and purpose.

For those who have always assumed the qualitative sense of “so,” as “so much,” the above observations and subsequent interpretation could come as a shock. If so, first consider Nicodemus’ experience, if indeed this is what the words meant. Yahweh’s supreme demonstration of love wouldn’t be cloistered to a people within the walls of the temple nor even the boundaries of Palestine, as Nicodemus assumed; the crowning act in redemption has the entire cosmos in its scope, Jew and Gentile. In Jesus, the Son, him being incarnate, being “lifted up” unto death and subsequently raised from the dead, every tribe and tongue and people and nation—all those born of God, born again—will enter the Kingdom. This is the mirthful new wine of the New Covenant and the provisional categories of the Old Covenant (infinitely less Second Temple Judaism) is an old wineskin. God loved the world in this way: the Son!

Does this interpretation somehow diminish the emphasis on the quality or quantity of God’s love in this passage? On the contrary! If John means “the world” in the sense that it’s so bad, as I’ve briefly argued, and he meant “so” in the sense of “thus, how, or in this way,” then this interpretation would help to make clear that God does not love the world, individually or collectively, because he finds it so lovely. But, rather, in spite of the world's unloveliness, he gave and delivered up to death his only Son. “In this way,” then, God in Christ was faithful to his command to us: “But I tell you, love your enemies...” And love has no greater one than this, does it?

This interpretation of verse 16 is clearly how the divines of the synod of Dordt understood it. Consider the clear reference to the instrumental sense of verse 16 in the Canons of Dordt, First Head of Doctrine, Article II.

Article 2: The Manifestation of God’s Love

But this is how God showed his love: he sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.