Perspectives on Pentecost (9)

As a previous post suggested, the Day of Pentecost provides us with an interpretive lens for what we call the Old Testament - that lens is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ in His People; it is a Trinitarian lens in that we see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit living in and working through the Temple, the Body, the Bride, the Flock, etc. Peter’s Pentecost message is Trinitarian - the Spirit has come to live in the Temple, the Son has fulfilled the Father’s plan - having “accomplished the work” which the Father gave Him to do (John 17). The outpouring of the Holy Spirit witnesses to the Ascension of Jesus Christ - Peter’s message is rich, it is deep, it is high, and it continues to our own day and time - it is ever-broadening.

Just as we see the Trinity in the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan, so we see the Trinity on the Day of Pentecost when the Church is baptized in the Holy Spirit.

I don’t think that we can make too much of Peter’s quotation of Joel in Acts 2:15 - 21, rather than explain it away or gloss over it, it ought to challenge us to reconsider how we see the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (the Old Testament). It also ought to challenge us in terms of how we see prophecy - is prophecy primarily linear and predictive or is it an unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit? Are we touching the eternals when we touch prophecy or are we simply reading tomorrow’s headlines? We don’t need the Holy Spirit to necessarily read tomorrow’s headlines, but we do need the Spirit of God to touch the Eternal One.

The merchandising of prophecy does not require that we see past the visible, it simply requires that we buy into a system of interpretation - a somewhat (or totally) rational and naturalistic system at that. Could it be that prophetic merchandising is a child of the rationalistic Enlightenment?

Just as Peter used an interpretive lens to transpose Joel and David’s psalms upward into the Trinity in his Pentecost message; James uses an interpretive lens to transpose the prophet Amos upward into the Trinity and the Church in Acts 15:13 - 19. How could someone reading Amos 9:11ff possibly relate it to the Gentiles coming to know Jesus Christ?  Consider the context of Amos Chapter 9, how is this possible with our naturalistic methods of exegesis and interpretation? In effect it is as if we read Acts Chapter 10, the account of Cornelius and Peter and all that surrounds it, and then, without having Acts 15, we were to say, “Oh, of course, this is the fulfillment of Amos Chapter 9.” How likely is this in our current mindset? How likely is it that we would have incorporated Joel’s prophecy into an explanation of the Holy Spirit coming on the believers on the Day of Pentecost? And if we did incorporate Joel’s prophecy, would we be prepared to really say, “This is that” and not project Joel far into the future so that it is out-of-reach for us and our hearers?

Could it be that a reason the Old Testament is a closed book for much of the Church is because we’ve made it a closed book? We have pulled the Old Testament downward and imprisoned it in time and space, in a time long long ago and in a galaxy far far away. We do not look for Christ. We do not do what Jesus Himself did in Luke Chapter 24 when He revealed Himself through the Old Testament.

And could it be that our propensity to look at the prophets in a linear fashion has robbed us of our spiritual vision to see beyond the visible into the invisible? James reads Amos Chapter 9 and he sees the Church; Peter reads David in the Psalms and he sees Jesus; Peter surveys the fire and wind and tongues and he sees Joel. What do we see?

Paul reads Genesis and he sees the Light of Christ coming into our lives (2 Corinthians 4:6). Paul reads about Hagar and Sarah in Genesis and he sees (Galatians 4:21 - 31) two cities, two mothers, one of the flesh and one of the Spirit, one of the natural and one of the supernatural - and yet many of us want to pull the heavenly city, the heavenly mother, down to earth and find our prophetic fulfillment not in Christ in the heavens but in tomorrow’s headlines. Paul reads Old Testament “history” and he sees present-day instruction (1 Corinthians 10:11). Paul sees through the “shadows” (Colossians 2:17) to the substance.

The Scriptures are sacramental in that God’s grace and life are communicated through them to us, they are the “living and enduring Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). We, God’s People, are a “dwelling of God in the Spirit”. If this is so, ought not our experience of the Bible to be one of illumination, revelation, of the Spirit, and ought not the unveiling of Jesus Christ to be the focus of our experience? “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Do we really need the Holy Spirit to understand the things of God, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, or are we doing our ministry and teaching and Bible study on our own?

Are we “seeing” as the Church in Acts saw? Are we building on the foundation of the apostles and prophets - using their interpretive lens? Or are we building on the foundation of naturalism, rationalism, and the Enlightenment?

Perspectives on Pentecost (8)

“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”  (Acts 2:22 - 23).

Note that the fact that God has a “predetermined plan” does not absolve Peter’s listeners from guilt and sin, nor does the fact that the Romans were the executioners - the Romans, while having their own guilt and accountability, were but the tools that Peter’s audience used to execute Jesus Christ.

Peter drives their guilt home again in verse 36:

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”

In Peter’s second sermon we read (Acts 3:17 - 19a):

“And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away…”

Ignorance does not mean that we do not repent, it does not absolve us of guilt or sin. When God brings to light our ignorance it is an expression of His mercy as He opens a door for repentance and forgiveness. Then note the stern warning Peter uses (Acts 3:22 - 23):

Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’

Then, as Peter appeals to the covenantal heritage of his listeners (Acts 3:25) “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers…” he is interrupted by the temple authorities (Acts 4:1ff) and thrown in jail - so we don’t know where Peter was going in his message. However, we do see an appeal to Biblical witness; “all the prophets” from Samuel onward have spoken of Jesus, (in verse 22 Peter had already incorporated Moses in the witness). We also see the mercy of pointing out “you acted in ignorance”. Then there is the clear call to repentance and the clear warning that those who do not repent will be judged, “utterly destroyed”.

Peter would have done his audiences no good had he refrained from calling them to repentance, pointing out their guilt, and in warning them of coming judgment and of the “crooked generation” (Acts 2:40) from which they needed to escape.

As with Peter, so with us; to not call people to repentance, to refrain from pointing out the guilt of our generation, to not inform people of the judgment of God - is irresponsible, it is an abdication of Gospel ministry, it is akin to a physician telling a cancer patient that he only has a headache, or a meteorologist telling a population that the strange skies are a passing anomaly when he knows that a Class 5 hurricane is about to come ashore.  

As Paul points out (1 Thess. 1:10), Jesus “rescues us from the wrath to come.”

By ministers not faithfully proclaiming God’s Word our generation has lost an ear to hear Biblical accountability, Biblical guilt, Biblical confession, and Biblical repentance. Or perhaps I should write, our generation has lost the opportunity to “have an ear to hear”; for certainly Jeremiah’s generation rejected God’s Word, saying “Peace, peace, where there is no peace.” Jesus’ generation rejected Him. Many of the Apostles’ generation rejected them. But then there were those who “had ears to hear” the Apostles, Jesus, and Jeremiah - shall we not give those few the opportunity to come into the Ark of Jesus Christ?

As Ezekiel Chapter 33 points out, those who fail to warn others will be accountable to God for their failure to speak God’s Word.

There are entire congregations in our land who have lost an “ear to hear” the Word of God - they cannot abide a call to repentance, they cannot stand to confront sin, they have been convinced that they have nothing to confess...and so what do we have? Do we even have a church? Do we have an assembly of Biblical Christians? Or do we have hundreds and thousands of cancer patients gathered who all think they have indigestion or a headache that will shortly disappear?

One of the travesties of a failure to preach repentance is that to know the depth of the love of God we must know the abyss of our sin and death, and to purport to preach the love of God without communicating an awareness of the sin and death from which we need deliverance is to substitute our shallow idea of love for the unfathomable love of God - the Love Story of the Ages.

If we love people we will tell them the Truth. If we love Jesus Christ we will speak His Truth.

Perspectives on Pentecost (7)

In Acts 2:16 - 21 Peter connects the prophet Joel with the events of the Day of Pentecost. Then in Acts 2:25 - 36 Peter connects David’s words in Psalms 16 and 110 to the Person of Jesus Christ. If we keep in mind that Jesus revealed Himself to His followers through what we call the Old Testament (see Luke 24) it should be no surprise that the Holy Spirit through Peter is continuing to reveal Jesus through the words of the Old Testament - for the words of the Old Testament, as the words of the New Testament, are the Word of God - they are a unity, an ever-present reality.

There has never been a time when the Word has not been; the Word, in fact, transcends time and space for the Word created time and space. In this sense the prophetic words of Joel, and the words of David, are less about things that “shall be” than they are about the Word that “is”. Our preoccupation with linear thinking and with linear Bible prophecy can result in us missing the transcendent ever-present Word. Prophecy is first and foremost a revelation of Jesus Christ, an unveiling of the Word; when prophecy has futuristic elements those elements are less about what shall be than about what already is and which shall, therefore, be manifested in the visible realm in God’s good times and seasons.

The Word of God is sacramental, it communicates the Person of God and draws us into intimate relationship with Him. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the express image of God, is the Sacrament of God and all that comes through Him communicates that sacramentality. Thus Paul can speak of creation in Romans Chapter 1 as revealing “His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature,” in fact Paul writes that they can be “clearly seen.” If we cannot “clearly see” them it only goes to underscore the extent to which we have fallen away from the sacramental life.

Thus, the psalmist in Psalm 19 can speak of the Word of God in terms of both Creation and Scripture. The unity of witness in Creation and Scripture, the complementariness of witness in Creation and Scripture - with both playing a part - is a joyful and sobering call to communion with God.

Pondering Peter’s use of Psalm 16; there is a sense in which the psalm can be read as coming from David about David, for when reading the words, “...You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Your holy one to see decay...:” we can read these words in an ultimate sense. “Ultimately you will not abandon my soul to Hades, ultimately You will not allow Your holy one to see decay.” This sense of the “ultimate” is true of David as it is true of Abraham and Ruth and Isaiah. Yet Peter knows that the words of David can be transposed upward into Christ, Peter knows that the “words” of David are the Word, the words are refracting the Word just as Creation is refracting the invisible things of God.

This transposition upward contains an interplay that says, on the one hand, “This is about the Messiah,” and on the other hand, “Because this is about the Messiah it is about us in the Messiah.” For since Jesus has not undergone decay we will not undergo ultimate decay. Since Jesus has been raised from the dead we have been raised from the dead, and since Jesus has been raised into the heavenly places we have been raised into the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:18 - 2:10).

As some of the Church Fathers saw (I am thinking particularly of St. Augustine), and as the New Testament demonstrates, the experience of the Head of the Body is the experience of the Body.

Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death” (John 8:51). Is this true or is it not true?

In John Chapter Five we see Jesus saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life...Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live...Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil to a resurrection of judgement.”

Do we see the interplay of the “already - not yet” in this passage? There is an on-going resurrection in that when men and women believe in Jesus Christ and the Father they pass out of death into life. When we truly hear the Voice of the Son of God we come out of death. Yet, we know that a time will come when there will be other resurrections from the tomb (see 1 Corinthians Chapter 15).

The Resurrection “is” - it is now, it shall be fully manifested - it shall be fully fulfilled.

The above enables the Apostle John to write (1 John 3:14), “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.”

And again (1 John 4:17), “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.”

Perspectives on Pentecost (6)

“But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death…” (Acts 2:24a, NASB).

“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death…” (Acts 2:24a, ESV).

The Greek word translated above as “agony” and “pangs” is “birth-pains.” Why did Peter use this term in Acts 2:24?

It is, I think, a term that signifies the bringing forth of a new season, a new age, a New Man. It is also a term that can signify the passing away of an age, a season, an old creation. Consider its use in the following:

“Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.” (1 Thess.5:1 - 3, NASB).

“And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.” (Matthew 24:4 - 8, NASB).

“And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.” (Revelation 12:1 - 2, ESV).

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:19 - 23, ESV).

The New Man that came forth on Easter morning has “abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel” (2 Timothy 2:10). Adam was left in the ground, for Jesus Christ was the Last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45). Those who come into a relationship with Jesus Christ experience the Great Transfer from Adam into Christ (Romans 5:12 - 21). We no longer trace our geneology back to Adam, but rather to Christ; this is one of many reasons why the New Testament terms “in Christ”, “together with Christ”, “with Christ” are critical to our understanding of the redemptive work of the Trinity in our lives and in the life of the Church. We have been invited into an organic reality in the Trinity, into union with God.

When Christ ascended into the heavens to be at the right hand of the Father, redeemed humanity ascended with Him, raised together with Him (Ephesians 1:20; 2:6), and Christ acknowledges us as His brothers and sisters:

“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,
“I will proclaim Your name to My brethren,
In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”
And again,
“I will put My trust in Him.”
And again,
“Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me.” (Hebrews 2:11 - 13, NASB).

How sad when God’s people are robbed of their identity in Jesus Christ, when they are kept outside the veil of the Holy of Holies which was torn in two when Jesus died on the Cross. How sad when God’s people function and think as if they are still under the Levitical system of worship with its constant reminder of sins Sunday after Sunday, year after year. How sad when they live outside the Throne Room of their Father, never knowing how He yearns for them to come to Him - not as sinners, not as slaves, not as second - class citizens of His Kingdom, but as His sons and daughters.

Jesus Christ suffered birth pains as He was bringing forth the sons and daughters of His Father, as the First Adam was passing away and as He, our Last Adam, was bringing an end to the first creation and bringing forth a New Man in the heavens and the earth. The Incarnation was incarnating; the Birth was birthing, and the Book of Acts is demonstrating the continuing Incarnation of Jesus Christ on earth in His Body.

Why are we afraid to accept the glorious salvation and inheritance that our Father has given us in Jesus Christ?

We have received the Spirit of sonship, not of slavery, and the Holy Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God (Romans 8:12 - 17; 1 John 4:13). We are a supernatural people, a people born of the Holy Spirit - why do we run the race of life with cinder blocks in our pants? With heavy backpacks strapped to our shoulders? Why do we fear liberty and freedom in Christ (2 Corinthians 3:17 - 18; Galatians 5:1)?

We are living in a “Christian” Jim Crow environment. Even though Jesus Christ has suffered birth pains for us, even though He has set us free to live as the sons and daughters of His Father, we are denying Christ’s Emancipation Proclamation and are kept under the functional slavery of a Levitical-minded sin-management system. At a time when our generation desperately needs to hear and see the Gospel, a message of hope and liberty and destiny and purpose, God’s people are earth-bound, having our thinking and lives rooted in earthly cities rather than in the heavenly Jerusalem - the City of God.

Who will proclaim liberty to the captives? (Luke 4:14 - 21).