Rightly Dividing (03/10/26)

As we continue with Peter’s comments to the gathering of believers, we find him making reference to a pair of texts from the Psalms.  We have been trained to be mindful of context when it comes to our use of Scripture to back our points, and this is itself Scripture, so I find myself on the one hand wondering if Peter’s use of these passages has taken context into account, and on the other hand observing that here is an example of rightly dividing the word, to take Paul’s phrasing.  It is, by definition a right use of Scripture in that it is itself Scripture.  So, let’s take a brief while to look at these two Psalms, not in detail, but sufficient to grasp their flow and thus, the setting for the pieces quoted.

We begin with Psalm 69.  Wow!  There is a psalm worth dwelling on!  It comes from David, though we do not have any direct explanation of the events which gave rise to it.  But it tells of David overwhelmed by a flood of enemies, and at that, enemies without cause.  Yet his concern is for the name of God; that his situation not bring dishonor to Him.  Much here can be seen in a Messianic light, and its fulfillment be seen in Christ.  Powerful enemies wrong seek to destroy him; he is accused of things he did not do, and it is all for the sake of God.  Family and kin have abandoned him, yet he exalts the Lord God, trusting Him to save.  There is a call to be redeemed, ransomed from his enemies by God.  There is note of giving him gall for food, vinegar to drink – a scene which clearly played out on the cross.  And in the midst, a plea to God for just vengeance, from which Peter has drawn his quote.  From there, David continues onward to a call for their perishing, being blotted out of the book of life and with no association with righteousness.  But trust in God remains at the end, confident enough to praise God in song and encourage others to seek Him with assurance.

Okay, so is our passage drawn from this appropriately?  I would have to say that yes, indeed, it is, and the context supports Peter’s use of it.  Here was one who had become estranged, who sought to destroy the Son of David, who was, as no other, consumed with zeal for the house of the Lord (another quote from this Psalm which is applied to Him in Scripture.)  It hints at the full wrath of God which is the result for Judas, as for all who seek to destroy the work of God.  No place remains for them, no legacy, no progeny, only the burning indignation of the Lord.  And why?  “For they have persecuted Him whom Thou Thyself have smitten” (Ps 69:26).  And the plea?  Wiped from the book of life.

Let’s look at Psalm 109:8.  This is actually quite similar in its flow, a plea to God to speak for David, as he is surrounded by hatred and accusation without cause.  He calls upon God to repay, and the vengeance he seeks is quite thorough and pitiless; utter ruin, and such as outlives the man.  Peter’s chosen verse comes from the midst of this litany of vengeance.  It is a call to take everything from him, everything he loved, everything he valued, even to the point of cutting off all memory of him from the earth.  This, alongside a call for aid on his own part, trusting God to stand with the needy one and save him.

So.  A quick work this.  Yes, Peter draws these passages from places which speak to what Jesus faced in the betrayal of Judas and its aftermath.  Are they clearly prophetic in nature?  Not so much this second, but certainly there is much in Psalm 69 that would lead one to see Jesus in it.  I rather doubt, however, that David had such forward-looking perspective as he wrote.  It is far more likely that he was writing in response to present events in his own life.  There is, perhaps, a lesson for us in this.  The prophetic nature of the text may not always be evident at the time; a thing to be seen only in retrospect when the fulfillment has come about.  It might alter our sense of what it means to speak prophetically.  I think our tendency is to perceive that as an act undertaken with an overwhelming, all but unstoppable sense of the Spirit being in the driver’s seat, and ourselves almost like the Delphic oracles, merely passive vessels through whom someone greater is speaking.  But one does not get the sense that this is how David was feeling as he wrote.  He is simply overwhelmed by events and pouring his heart out to God.  And, as is so often the case in such times, God is pouring Himself into David.  You can feel it in the changing tone, as despair gives way to certain hope.

What may be more difficult to perceive is how Peter comes to find these Psalms to be guidance for their current concern.  That we should have to lay down to the influence of the Spirit, calling to mind the passage most needful to the moment.  Was he in mind of the whole of those two Psalms?  At some level, yes, I expect he was.  It may have been amongst those things Jesus had explained during their post-resurrection meetings.  After all, questions about how the whole Judas affair could have come to pass must have bothered them greatly, and Peter especially.

If I am to take any sort of general lesson from this, I suppose it would have to be that we ought to supply ourselves with a strong familiarity with Scripture, as much of it as we are able, in order that we might have rich resources from which the Spirit may draw forth that which meets our own moments.  We may not be able to set forth chapter and verse in such times.  But if we can draw forth the words and perceive their implications to our situation, it is well.  Here, Peter has drawn forth more than mere comfort and understanding of what had happened.  He has found direction, and even command as to what should be done next.

As I have been back in mind of those lessons I taught in Africa last year, this is perhaps to some degree my background thoughts intruding into my study.  But it is at least as likely that this my study affirming and strengthening those thoughts.  Thinking biblically can be challenging, because it is highly unlikely that you’re going to find a passage that directly and plainly describes the situation you face.  It’s not going to be something that blatant.  Neither is there call to agonize and gnaw on every least decision, spending long months pouring over the whole bible in search of direction.  There is call for a lifelong devotion to reading and understanding the text, to prayerful seeking of guidance and aid, and then, trusting God to bring forth the right passage, and to grant the wisdom to see its right application.  This, of course, must be followed by taking action upon the direction received.  There it is, my old lesson in brief:  Knowledge fed by wisdom leading to action.

So be it, Lord.  Grant me the clarity and the will, and may You be pleased to provide the outcome of action.  And may it indeed be such action as leads to an increased appreciation for Your glory.

The Necessity of John (03/11/26)

John the Baptist appears in a barely anecdotal form in our passage, his interaction with Jesus at the outset of Jesus’ ministry serving as a marker for that beginning.  Even in the Gospels we find his role somewhat downplayed, but we should understand why.  It was downplayed because there were those among his disciples who overstated his significance and held him forth as the one to follow even after he had pointed them to Jesus.  Disciples of John were still active as the Apostles went forth with the Gospel, and in some cases drifted toward Gnosticism, becoming opponents of Truth in doing so.  So, the Apostles, and particularly John, find it needful to minimize his actions, and to make it abundantly clear that he himself minimized his role, pointing all to Messiah.

Jesus, on the other hand, is unskimping in his praise for John.  He is, says Jesus, the greatest of the prophets of the Old Covenant order (Mt 11:11).  He was the end of the line for that.  “For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John” (Mt 11:14-15), who is the fulfillment of the prophesied return of Elijah.

He was necessary.  There had to be a John the Baptist.  Why?  Because Scripture had spoken of it.  Jesus makes reference to Malachi 4:5-6, the closing message of the Old Testament.  “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.  He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”  John was necessary.  God had spoken.  Now, hearing that from Jesus, one must also hear the implication.  If Elijah has come in the person of John the Baptist, the day of the LORD has come in the person of Jesus Messiah.  “The Son of Man came” (Mt 11:19).  That is a name fraught with significance.  It is a claim to the prophetic mantel as well, echoing the name by which God spoke to Ezekiel so often.  It echoes as well the prophecy of Daniel, speaking of “one like a Son of Man” come before the throne of heaven.  If the forerunner has come, so, too, has the One he announces.

One aspect of this forerunner which Fausset brings out in his article on John is the way in which his interactions with Herod echo the interactions of Elijah and Ahab.  This is not something I picked up on when going through the Gospels, but as he begins to point out the parallels, it is pretty evident.  The region in which these encounters took place is the same.  As Ahab had a certain grudging respect for Elijah, so Herod had respect for John, even as he had him imprisoned.  As Ahab was largely influenced by Jezebel in seeking to destroy Elijah, so Herod was influenced by Herodias in having John beheaded.  I expect we could also posit a like prideful concern for their actions.  Herod, we know, acted in spite of his misgivings, because to do otherwise would be to break his own word, and that could not be permitted, in his thinking, no matter how foolish his word.  That, I would note, replays the act of that father from the tribe of Benjamin who kept his vow, slaying his own daughter.  But then, we all can likely point to occasions where keeping our word became more important to us than admitting our folly.

Oh!  There is an unexpected word of warning and correction.  I can speak for myself in this, and observe that as I grow older it becomes the more important to me to be a man of my word.  And that is well and good so far as it goes.  But, when keeping my word becomes a matter bordering on idolatry to me, raised higher than doing what is right even if it means recanting of a promise?  If keeping my word leads to me acting against God’s rule of life for me?  There’s a huge problem, and Scripture is rife with depictions of the consequences.  They are never good.

Lord, if I have slipped into such a place with my desire to act honorably and faithfully, show me.  If I am making my reputation to be of greater importance than Your honor, show me.  And then, I pray, bring me to repentance that I may indeed do what is right in Your eyes.

I have moved a bit off course for my intentions here, but I feel that was a necessary detour.  Back to John and his parallels to Elijah.  That article from Fausset brings us to the period prior to John’s death, as he languished imprisoned in Herod’s cells.  We know the story.  There comes that point where he has sent a couple of his disciples to learn from Jesus whether He is in fact the Messiah or not.  And reading this, I suspect you, like me, conclude that John was having doubts.  Being imprisoned hadn’t been in his plans for ministry.  Yes, he had boldly confronted power with truth, and I suppose must have expected the possibility of reprisals.  But he did so in faithful obedience to God, and as such, may have expected that God would protect him and make a way of escape, as He had with Elijah.  John, I think, knew his role even as Jesus knew His Sonship.  So, yes, we see John sending these two to question Jesus, and assume it is in pursuit of having answer brought to him, perhaps a last-gasp hope for rescue by the One he announced.

But this article offers a different take, and one that puts the whole thing in a much different light.  Fausset suggests that he sent these two not in the hope of rescue for himself, but rather, ‘for their confirmation in the faith.’  These disciples of John must, after all, have heard from him of the One who came after, whose sandals he was not fit to tie.  It should be beyond doubt that John spoke more than just the once of the Lamb of God whose baptism he had performed, and seen sealed by the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit come upon this Son of David.  Go back to those first encounters of John and Andrew, and you find John the Baptist, even then, pointing his young followers to the One they should follow rather than jealously guarding his own following.  What is the most famous thing we hear from this baptizer?  “I must decrease.  He must increase.”  It is necessary.

John was necessary, but it was necessary that things should fall out as they did.  Fausset brings us another parallel to Elijah from this scene, as those two disciples return to him with the word Jesus sends in response.  He writes, “In both cases God came in the still small voice, not the earthquake and fire.”  There would be no miraculous rescue for John, though.  Just as his ministry, and even his imprisonment here were matters of necessity, so, too his coming execution.  As Messiah’s forerunner, it would be unthinkable that he should be treated better than the One he proclaimed.  We are not given to witness his state of mind at the end, but I feel confident in saying it was not a state of despondency.  He knew Who had come.  He had known before ever he emerged from the womb.  He had seen and heard God’s confirmation of His Son.  These are not the sort of thing which leave room for doubt to gain entrance.  I would therefore surmise that he met his death as many a martyr would thereafter, fully confident in his Savior, and in God’s ability to raise him up.  May we face our end with like confident faith when the time comes.

Okay, so let’s try and draw ourselves back to the scene before us.  Peter is putting forth the requirements for Apostleship, and speaks of John’s baptism of Jesus as marking one end of the period of experience necessary for any they might now name as Apostle to fill the space left by Judas.  He would have to be one who had been with them from the time of that baptism until the time of Jesus’ ascension.  Now, so far as we know from Scripture, there were only the four who had been there that day; Peter, James, John, and Andrew.  Of the others, nothing is said of them having been there.  Perhaps we find Philip and Nathaniel present, I guess.  But Matthew?  Unlikely.  The others?  Again, if they were there, we have no evidence of it.  We can’t rule it out, but neither can we assert it as established fact.

It seems to me that Peter is far more concerned with the period between.  It would need to be one who had been engaged as fully as had they, one who had been present as Jesus taught, present as He demonstrated His message by His actions.  I suppose it’s impossible that they were as intimately involved as the Twelve had been, for there were those occasions where Jesus took them aside.  That trip across the Sea of Galilee, for example, how many could be in that boat?  It was only the twelve until Jesus came out to them.  And there are other occasions where Jesus takes them aside for a bit of personal tutoring which the larger crowd of disciples were not given.  But there would need to be sufficient experience of Jesus and His teaching to be able to serve as true witnesses.  And chief among the experiences they had shared would stand His resurrection.  It becomes clear as we experience the preaching of the Apostles, Paul included, that the resurrection was the critical matter.  Apart from this, you really don’t have a message.  Jesus was born a man.  Well, yes.  So was everybody else.  He was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  Prove it.  Were you there?  Or was this just Mary seeking to protect her reputation and her marriage?  Joseph’s not around to say.  Yes, you can tell me how he kept Mary a virgin until Jesus was born, but again, who among you can testify to the truth of it as eyewitnesses?

But the Resurrection!  For one, that is the utterly unbelievable part of the message.  Whatever you may have thought of His birth, here was something that set Him entirely apart.  It was already too well known how He had resurrected Lazarus.  One and all would agree that his time in the tomb had sufficed to declare him legally and assuredly quite dead.  And yet he walked out of there.  Okay, well, three days.  Maybe it’s still possible in the realm of normal physical existence.  And some even today try and devise a like explanation for Jesus exiting His own tomb.  There are, however, significant problems with any such theory.  For one, the Roman centurion, officer of an army well versed in making certain of death, had seen to it that His body was pierced, witnessed the blood and water come from that wound, seen the body make no response to the spear thrust.  No, this one was quite assuredly very dead.  Add that He was wrapped in linens by Joseph and Nicodemus.  Add that He had none to roll that stone away from the tomb in order for Him to exit, and also that there was a military squad outside posted to prevent any such attempt.  And yet, there He was.

Had any of the Twelve seen Him rise from that bench in the tomb?  Of course not.  Had any of them been present to see the stone somehow rolled away?  Nope.  They were in hiding, fearful of further reprisals from temple or palace.  Who knew?  But they had seen Him.  He had found them, though I don’t suppose that was hard.  Chances were that then, like now, they were in the same place He had shared dinner with them prior to His trial and execution.  And they had seen in His body the wounds of His suffering, the spike holes in His hands and feet, the spear hole in His side.  Yet, He stood before them.  Yet He partook of food with them.  No apparition, this, but a real, flesh and blood man, restored from death most certain!  Add His being able to join them in a closed room.  No, it is not explicitly stated that He appeared without availing Himself of the door, but they were closed in, hiding away, and suddenly He’s there.  And again the second time, when Thomas is present.  There is no knocking, no mention of the sound of a door opening; just Jesus present in their midst.

There are other hints of a new state of being in His humanity post resurrection.  He is able to stand and talk with Mary without her recognizing Him until He deigns to be recognized.  Likewise, those two who encounter Him on the road to Emmaus.  They talk for some time, walking along the road, never recognizing Him.  It is only when He breaks bread with them, and blesses the loaf that they finally realize Who they have been talking to.  He lives!  We have witnessed it!  We must run and tell the others!

Here, of course, Paul has a point of commonality with the others.  He, too, has witnessed the resurrected Christ, though in much different circumstances, and in his case, subsequent to Christ ascended.  In none of the accounts of that experience do we find mention of him meeting Jesus in bodily form, nor can I even perceive grounds to imply such a thing.  But the encounter was very much real, and the impact very clearly life-altering.  As to the period of intimate training, I dare say those three years he spent in the wilderness consisted of personal tutoring in the things he had missed during Jesus’ time of earthly ministry.  And we can further expect that while he was not a participant in any of Jesus’ doings or teachings, he was quite aware of them.  It’s clear the Pharisees and the Council had their eyes on Him, and were hearing reports of all that He was saying and doing.  Who knows but what Paul was among those sent to question Him and catch Him out?  I have my doubts, though, because it seems to me that had that been the case, somebody, particularly Luke, would have felt it needful to point that out.

Where are we?  The necessity of John.  He was necessary in his role for the same reason that Peter finds it necessary to replace Judas.  It is written.  Scripture must have its fulfillment.  He was necessary as a marker for the depth of experience required for this office they sought to fill.  It wasn’t so much the presence at that baptism, though, as the clear awareness that Jesus was proclaimed the Son of God by God the Father, sealed by the Spirit.  That was the confession which Jesus Himself declared would be the foundation for this church they were establishing.  Upon this rock…

And here, in Jesus dead and resurrected, the once for all atonement for the sins of all who believe, we also find the necessary fulfilling of the purpose for John’s call to repentance.  That call to repentance is of no value whatsoever except there exists hope of forgiveness.  Hope of forgiveness could not come about except there be a sufficient sacrifice.  As Hebrews takes pains to explain, animal sacrifice could never suffice.  It could at best procure temporary relief, for it was temporal blood.  Even the death of a man could, in the end, never hope to save more than the man himself, and even that, of course, proves impossible, for he is then dead and that’s that.  Unless something greater intervenes.  And so, we arrive at the conclusion Anshelm made explicit.  It required the God-man, the shedding of eternal blood to fully pay the debt due for sins against eternal God.  Repentance apart from this is a hopeless, forlorn affair.  It can produce anguish and agony, but never restoration.  But God had made a way.  God had known the impossibility from the very outset, from before the first moment of Creation, in whatever sense one can posit a before when time itself has yet to exist.  Ah, but beloved, with God ‘impossible’ loses all meaning!  It simply does not apply.  He will do as He will do, and there’s an end to it.

May we indeed know rest in the fulfilled purpose of repentance.  May we be ready and willing to repent as often as it proves necessary, knowing it will prove necessary far more often than we would like.  And may we, having repented, be fully assured with all confidence that He Who has us in hand is ready, willing, and just to forgive.  All praise be to His name!  Amen.

The Necessity of Twelve (03/12/26)

It’s funny, how God seems to stack messages for me.  So often, Sunday sermon and morning study seem to coincide, or the morning’s intended pursuits with what Table Talk has had to say.  Today feels like one of those times when everything converges on a point, up to and including the trials and challenges of work and health.  It all zeroes in on the transitional point in Peter’s discourse.  “It is therefore necessary.”  Now, in the context of our passage, what makes it necessary is the preceding, “it is written.”  There is that popular, somewhat kitschy phrase in Christian circles, “God said it, I believe it.  That settles it.”  But it’s too long by one clause, or at least miss-ordered.  The simpler, “God said it.  That settles it,” fits the case far better.  You or I believing it will not change the matter, only our experience of it.  God said it.  It is therefore necessary.

As we see here, how exactly what God has said should impact our present may be difficult to recognize.  We looked at the context from which Peter draws his reference and while the context will support such application as he makes of it, it is not point-blank obvious that this was the intended meaning.  If we go back to the idea that Scripture must maintain its original meaning to the original hearer, we have a problem.  David is quite clearly writing of his own experience, not purposefully attuning himself to prophetic visions of some future time.  Yet, it is written and it is therefore necessary.  What described David’s situation then also fits the situation now.  It would be, I expect, all but impossible for the Apostles to look back, particularly at Psalm 69, without seeing current events on display.  They gave me vinegar to drink (Ps 69:21).  Yeah, they had witnessed that very thing.  Zeal for Your house has consumed me (Ps 69:9).  This, too, they had seen in almost ferocious display.  For Thy sake I have borne reproach, become estranged from my brothers (Ps 69:7-8).  It’s not hard to see how this replays in those cries of, “Crucify Him!”  So, to take that response to treachery as applying to Judas is hardly a stretch.  His house is left desolate.  There will be no heritage for him, certainly not in heaven.  These are calls for perishing not corrective punishment.  Yet, his office is not his house.  His office was not, certainly is not now his legacy.  It was assigned to him, but he abandoned it to pursue his own course.

Now, there is this.  Jesus designed to have twelve.  Again, it would not take any great leap of understanding for Peter to perceive the significance of their number.  Twelve tribes, twelve Apostles.  As we see the whole of Jesus’ ministry corresponding to the course of Israel, recapitulating and repairing that history, this just makes sense.  Abraham had fathered a nation and that nation consisted in twelve tribes.  Jesus, the federal head of a new humanity, had fathered a kingdom, spiritual Israel, and it, too, should have its twelve to serve as foundation stones.  It is written.  It is therefore necessary.

So, we can fold in current reading from Martin Luther’s ‘Bondage of the Will,’ with its lengthy discussion of necessity, and how we are to understand it.  Get into the free will debate, as he does here, and those who insist on the free will of man will quickly posit the idea that if man’s actions are all of a necessary nature, then he is but an automaton, and there can be no just moral cost to his actions.  If everything I say or do is inevitable because another has controlled my actions, then on what basis shall I be judged?  Do you judge your keyboard for emitting the characters you have typed?  Will you blame the computer for having operated on the instructions you gave it?  It is a mere thing, and can have no moral culpability.  And were this the sense of necessity, we would find ourselves in like position.  Yet, it is clear to conscience that this is not the case, and so the debate proceeds.

But what does it mean for a matter to be necessary?  It can have a number of shades of meaning.  It may be, as Strong suggests, ‘necessary in the nature of things.’  If you drop a rock, it is necessary in the nature of things that it will hit the ground, or whatever may be between it and the ground.  If you shoot an arrow in the air, it is necessary in the nature of things that it will come to earth again.  Of course, neither rock nor arrow comes to have moral culpability for the results of its coming to ground.  He who dropped the rock or fired the arrow might.  Why?  Because he chose the action.  So, do we blame God for what He has made necessary?  We can try.  But it won’t stick.

In Peter’s application here, I think we find a different sense of the term.  It is right and proper.  We are perhaps morally obliged to complete the number.  Or, in a somewhat weaker sense, it behooves us to do this.  But that, to me, feels too weak for the backing reason of, “it is written.”  As concerns actions undertaken by choice, there remains a necessity of acting.  Here, it is the moral weight of the written word.  God has revealed a course of action.  We call Him our God.  We have acknowledged Jesus as our Lord.  We have recognized His authority to command and our obligation to comply.  We might quibble as to whether Peter’s appeal to David’s psalm constitutes command, but it is written.  And if the Spirit has thus brought understanding, does what is written not become command?  “To him who knows the right thing to do but does not do it, it is a sin” (Jas 4:17).  It doesn’t require explicit declarations of, “Thou shalt,” or, “Thou shalt not.”  It requires only the awareness of God’s direction.  His will renders it necessary to us, for we have set ourselves as His bondservants, His sons and daughters, citizens of His kingdom and members of His household.  We have become, by His decision, a royal priesthood, a holy nation for His own possession, set apart for Him and assigned the duty of proclaiming His excellencies not only in the confines of His house, but in the world at large (1Pe 2:9).  It is written, therefore it is necessary.

Now, let me ask you.  As you go through your day, interacting with coworkers, or family members, or strangers in the shopping center, do you feel yourself in the least wise constrained as to your words or actions?  You may feel the force of personal character constraining you from saying or doing things you will regret.  You may find the force of passion causing you to say or do things you will.  But I will guarantee you this:  You act according to your own will and choice.  And yet it remains that, “It is necessary.”  You are acting by choice, and yet there is One who directs the events of life.  All of them.  I come back to that Proverb that so gripped me way back when I was first starting down this road of faith.  “The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Pr 16:9).  That’s it in simplest form, and I praise God that this so clearly describes my experience of salvation.  I was a relative newlywed off for a weekend with the guys.  God had other purposes to my actions.  I agreed to go without any clear sense of why I was agreeing.  Yet, I chose willingly, went willingly.  At one and the same time, it is clear to me that it could not have been otherwise.  God was directing.

So, too, in the trials of the present.  We are in a period of, shall we say, health drama.  Much is unknown, much challenging.  There is this sudden influx of appointments, both for me and my wife.  These are disruptions to my neatly ordered universe.  They are not things I would choose for us, certainly, yet I would rather we have the input of doctors and tests to give us clear understanding of such things as need to be addressed, than to be in the dark until they reach the point of irreversible damage.  I see expectations of going once more to Africa this fall fading as the situation changes here at home.  Who knows whether God will see fit to shift my course yet again?  That’s His business, and I will trust that He will make known to me (and preferably my wife as well this time) what course He has in mind for me.

Retirement starts to loom larger as well.  I think I have planned sufficiently, but one wonders.  And one wonders to what degree the planning has set God to one side.  As I was reminded this morning, I most assuredly don’t know the future.  God, on the other hand, knows the precise number of my days, and of my wife’s days.  All our present anxiousness cannot alter that number in the slightest.  We could pursue every avenue the doctors lay out, maybe even reverse the course of symptoms (God willing, said course will indeed reverse).  We could summarily dismiss the doctors and just accept the inevitable.  Neither course would add or subtract so much as a minute from what God has already determined.

The necessity of which Martin Luther speaks, and to which I will gladly subscribe, consists in this.  God is author and controller of all that is.  He leaves us with a will to choose, but still informs our choices.  He allows us our planning, our deciding, our schemes and programs and pursuits.  Yet, He is directing.  We can argue about how this comes to pass.  Is it just that being outside of time He can look ahead to our decisions, and then back up and plan accordingly?  Or is that He has had the entire map of existence perfectly planned from the outset?  I come back to that proverb.  “The LORD directs his steps.”  It does not suggest that He is aware of the steps man will take.  He directs.  He is in control.

Honestly, in times such as these through which I am currently travelling, it is exceedingly great comfort to know this.  We has cause to discuss Romans 8:28 together a few nights back, my wife and I.  It’s been on my mind some time now, how she had this verse in memory versus how it is written.  The first part is gladly familiar to us.  “We know that God causes all things to work for good.”  So far, so good.  We probably remember the next clause correctly as well.  “To those who love God.”  After all, it is quite obvious that things do not work for good to those who hate Him.  It may await the Last Day, but all who have hated Him will come to experience the cost of their choice.  It is appointed to every man once to die, and then comes the judgment (Heb 9:27).  The question is whether we shall avoid the second death, which is eternal perishing (Rev 21:8).  But back to Romans.  What is the final part of that verse?  When Jan has quoted it, which is often, it comes out as, “those who are working in His purpose.”  But that is not in fact what it says.  What it says is, “those who are called according to His purpose.”  And that is a very different matter indeed.  His call, as we are taught elsewhere, reflects determinations made by the Triune God before the beginning.  From before the first moment of Creation it had already been determined.  You will be called.  You are foreknown, predestined by His will to be conformed to the image of His Son, to be perfected as a child of God (Ro 8:29-30).  It is those thus predestined by His eternal will who are called, justified, and glorified.  And because He chose, it is necessary that all things shall indeed work for your good.

This is not to say that all things will be comfortable or exciting or pleasing to endure.  No!  Through many trials we must enter the kingdom of God.  It is written (Ac 14:22).  Therefore it is necessary.  But it’s for good.  The challenges of life are to good purpose.  They produce in us endurance, steadfastness, tested character, the fruit of the Spirit.  It is necessary.  And perhaps, for us who love God and are called according to His purpose, it will render the trials of life less stressful, knowing that there is a reason.

This has gone directions other than I had initially intended, but God knows.  God directs.  Let me come back to the point in context.  As we saw with Peter’s treatment of Judas’ betrayal, God’s prophetic word demonstrates for us His control of events.  That it was written long ages past that such events must come to pass and now they have makes it clear that this was not just the culmination of a series of random choices.  This was intentional, purposeful.  And we know Him Who purposes, that He is good.  Ergo, it follows necessarily that the result is good.  The mess in the middle may not have much to recommend itself, but the outcome?  It is certain that this is good.  I think of how my casseroles tend to look prior to entering the oven, or how baked goods may look in that situation.  They are not particularly enticing in raw form.  A casserole just looks a bunch of glop.  But the final result?  It may well be picture perfect, and the taste will hopefully be wonderful.  It’s the end result we must keep in view.

And I stray again.  So be it.  But here, we are looking at a necessity that the Apostolic number be twelve.  It was not a number to be preserved unto perpetuity such that as each one went to his rest another arose to take his place.  No.  For one, as Peter’s further discourse makes clear, it would soon become impossible to find another candidate with the necessary prerequisites, and if one did come with such a claim, who would be left to confirm it?  But for the duration, twelve was what was called for, and twelve it would be.

I’ll allow myself a bit of foreshadowing here, as the thought has been with me some days now.  But, we see Peter taking steps here to address the removal of Judas.  He saw what was, by the Spirit’s influence, clear direction, and he acted as directed.  We must fill the number.  It is right and proper.  But before too long we shall be reading of the execution of James, and in the aftermath of that event, we see no such action undertaken.  I think we must conclude that the Spirit had not, on that occasion, moved upon those remaining to once again restore their number.  Yet, action was taken, and that action was of the most unlikely sort; unimaginable, really.  We won’t arrive at that point in the text for some time yet, but what was Saul’s experience there on the Damascus road, but God moving once more to complete the required number?  It’s funny.  I have always tended to think of Paul as a plus one.  It was the Twelve, plus one.  But that’s not the case, is it?  As Matthias satisfied the vacancy left by Judas, so Paul fills the vacancy left by James.  The number never exceeds twelve.  It’s not, then, that Matthias and Judas somehow echo the half-tribes of Joseph, nor is it ever explicitly stated that Paul comes as restoring the number once more.  But it is fitting that it should be so.  Twelve were required by God’s purpose, and twelve were provided by God’s purpose.  It was necessary.

The Necessity of Firsthand Knowledge (03/13/26)

Peter lays out the prerequisites for the apostolic office by noting the need for presence.  It will need to be one with us start to finish, who was there to hear, to see, to learn from Jesus directly.  He must know of the Father’s acknowledgement of His Son, and He must know of the Son’s resurrection from the dead by the power of the Spirit.  He must know this not merely from what he has heard from others, but because he was there.  He knew this Jesus, if you like, the historical Jesus, who ministered among us as a man among men, yet as God come to His own.  This is the point behind bringing John into the picture.  It is the point behind his setting His resurrection as the second marker.  And in this, we cannot but come back to Peter’s basic point.  It is necessary.

It is necessary because it is written.  Thus, the cause for even considering bringing their number back to twelve.  Thus, as well, the later need for help did not lead to seeking to increase their number.  It led to a second office, that of deacon, of like godliness and character, but not with the same function, not possessed, necessarily, of the same intimacy of knowledge.  Why is this?  It is due to the nature of the office.  It is necessary in the nature of that office that he who occupies it must have first-hand knowledge of these events.  It is impossible that one should testify as a witness to that which he has not in fact witnessed.  That is one unique aspect of the Apostolic office.  Another lies in the function of that office as establishing a firm understanding of God’s Truth, of laying out for us all such doctrine as is needful for life and godliness (2Pe 1:3).  Things were changing.  A new covenant had come, rendering the old covenant obsolete.  There was a new High Priest, one after the order of Melchizedek, and as the text of Hebrews explains, “when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also” (Heb 7:12).   There again we see the necessity, and there again, the necessity arises from God’s declaring.  “Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 7:17, quoting Ps 110:4).  It is written, therefore it is necessary.

But who, especially in a nation so fully defined by their ancient faith, could hear it?  And how should they come to accept the overthrow of all that they thought they knew of their God?  Turn to those beyond the bounds of Israel, as the Gospel goes forth to the Gentiles and their myriad gods, let alone their growing concern for rational argument and logic?  Who was going to accept so impossible a tale and not dismiss it as just one more myth?  But here was a most telling distinction.  Those who bore the message of the Gospel were not speaking of some ancient tale of one who went to Hades and returned.  It was not some love story cast in deifying light.  No.  They were speaking from personal experience.  No vaporous visions, these, but declarations of verifiable historical fact.

Include atop this the task of recording for all posterity what it was that Jesus said and did, and more than that, what it meant and continues to mean for us, and you can see the need for intimate firsthand knowledge not just of the events of His ministry, but of the content of His message.  God spoke, and God has required of these men that they proclaim what He has spoken.  He has required of these men that they speak truly, as being under the full obligation of the prophetic order.  They must hear their calling with the same dire warnings as accompanied that office of old.  Make false claim to speaking My word, and you must die.  It’s serious business to claim that mantel for yourself without authorization.  How I fear, then, for those who would insist on such title for themselves in the present day.  Perhaps they understand it to be a different office than the true Apostolic office, but if so, why give it the name of that true office?  It’s insufficient qualification to point to one’s involvement in planting other churches.  That’s not the mark.  It’s insufficient to observe one’s role in overseeing many churches.  That’s not the mark.  The mark is clear:  He must be one who was with us from the start, one who went in and out with Jesus as He went in and out among us.  He must have firsthand knowledge of events and doctrine alike.  How else shall he testify, and on what other basis will his testimony have value?

He is to be, says Peter, “one who bears testimony with us that he was a personal witness of His resurrection.”  I’m taking that phrasing from Wuest’s translation.  But you can see it in the more literal, word for word translations as well.  And notice what emerges as central to the matter:  A witness of His resurrection.  Again, that is the single, most unbelievable part of this whole thing.  And it is upon this that we find the declaration of His divinity rests squarely.  Yes, the virgin birth was just as necessary, critically necessary, and must be upheld with equal vigor.  But that was the setup, if you will, the establishing of possibility in that here was one born without sin, without carrying the legacy of Adam’s failure.  But the Resurrection!  That marked the acceptance of His life’s work, the receiving of the atoning sacrifice of His own blood, by His own choice, as an offering to God for the sins of His myriad brethren.  Here, as Paul would later write, was the powerful declaration that He was indeed the Son of God, resurrected from real physical death by the Spirit of holiness, and established as Messiah and Lord (Ro 1:4).

These men, then, had to have personal knowledge of the matters to which they would testify.  They needed to have ‘experimental knowledge’ of those matters, had to be such as had personally seen and heard that to which they gave evidence.  You will forgive, I trust, my bringing Paul forward in the narrative to perceive his manner of filling these requirements.  And we have not yet even added the necessity of personal appointment to office by God in person.  We know, as to the original twelve, that their being named as Apostles was per Jesus’ appointing.  We would do well to recognize that in this, Jesus, who had laid aside His prerogatives as God, acted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in implementing the Father’s choice.  Here, as Matthias is selected, we see again that choice is made under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  In Paul’s case, though it comes much later, we have again the Son’s personal involvement in the process, the Spirit’s clear influence over the whole matter, and we can presume, though it must remain somewhat a mystery for us, that he received the same three year course in godly doctrine as had the others.  He just received his instruction more singularly, under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit.  But he met the qualifications.  He had been witness to events.  He had learned at the Master’s feet, if not in the same manner.  He had been chosen, as had the original twelve, as had Matthias, by God.  He had not horned his way in.  He had been appointed.  It is necessary that it must be so.  And how he had to defend that necessary qualification as he ministered!  It was different, and those who sought to gain for themselves would constantly seek to undermine his claim.  But it could not be done.  It was necessary that he was the final twelfth man.

As to the centrality of the Resurrection to the message that would go forth, we see it immediately.  Peter, in his first sermon, as we have it preserved to us, proclaims, “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses” (Ac 2:32).  Everyone knew He had died.  We’re still in Jerusalem, and still but a month out from the event of His death, a very public, very noisy affair.  Everyone knew.  Consider Matthew’s observation of an eclipse, or eclipse-like event accompanying His passing.  Consider the shocking, perhaps dismaying news of the veil separating the Holy of holies having been rent top to bottom.  Unheard of!  How could this be?  What could it all mean?  Consider Matthew’s further notice of many risen from their graves and wandering the streets of Jerusalem.  This was no secret to those who had been there.  But His resurrection was another matter.  He had restricted who He revealed Himself to, limited it to a select few, though more than enough to serve as incontrovertible evidence.  Had it been just the twelve, or just that central core who had been following Him all along, one might reasonably posit a fabrication done to bolster their own fame, or maybe just to assuage their embarrassment at having been so thoroughly misled.  But add 500 witnesses beyond?  The numbers defy any such conspiracy to fabricate a hoax.  Add that the natural inconsistencies in their testimony as we have it point to the validity of that testimony.  They haven’t coordinated their testimony.  They’re not reading it off of cue cards.  They are speaking from their own experience.  And that makes all the difference.

To be clear, it was not only Peter on this one occasion.  It was, if you will, the hallmark of the Church.  A little later, Luke writes, “With great power, the Apostles were testifying to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all” (Ac 4:33).  This was the message.  It remains the message.  It was the message Paul determined to retain as central to the point, almost, of exclusivity in what he preached.  “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1Co 2:2).  We, for our part, must continue in the same vein.  To set the crucifixion to one side, to set the resurrection to one side, is to set faith itself to one side.  It is to abandon the mission set the Church.  You can see, in 1Corinthians 15, just how critical this was to the Gospel the Apostles bore into the world.  “If Christ is not raised, our preaching is in vain as is your faith” (1Co 15:14).  Or look to the text so familiar to us from repeated observance of Communion.  “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1Co 11:26).  Here is the central testimony of Christian faith.  Our Lord Jesus lived amongst us as a man, died as a man, but without sin, His death accepted by God as atonement for our sins, blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel (Heb 12:24), as testified to by Him in that this Jesus, THIS Jesus and not another, was raised to life once more by the power of the Holy Spirit, and lives now forevermore, our great and eternal High Priest, entered into the true Holy of holies and interceding for us.  Glory be to His name!

Understand, then, the necessity of your own testimony.  It is well and good to be able to recall to mind this verse and that, as happens as I write these notes of mine.  It is well and good to be able to guide those with whom we converse to such verses and truths as will address their needs.  But to speak from personal knowledge, to testify of what we know because we have experienced it, because we have tasted and seen?  There is the message with power.  It remains, it must remain, a matter of presenting the Gospel, and presenting it truly.  But presenting the Truth together with the evidence of life lived in the change wrought by the Gospel?  That is convicting.  That is convincing.  Let us be not afraid to speak of what we know.  Let us be not ashamed to speak of our past in order that those to whom we speak may better perceive the wonder of our present and gain thereby a sure hope for the future as Christ works through us and in them to the glory of His powerful name and office, our Lord, our Savior, our King.

The Necessary Response (03/14/26)

We have spent a fair amount of time considering how what was written rendered certain actions and responses necessary for the Apostles.  But the same must be said for us, and that, in regard to even such a passage as the one before us.  It is written, therefore it is necessary.  But what is it that we find to be a necessary response to this preparation to replace Judas?  I can think of several lessons we ought to draw from it.

First, consider the matter of church leadership.  This is important, certainly, as our attentiveness in establishing such leadership will have direct impact on our own spiritual health.  And what do I observe?  This is, perhaps, more to do with what comes in the next section than what is currently before us, but I see that this was not a case of men putting themselves forward for consideration.  There had been a time when even those who were Apostles by Christ’s appointing continued to vie for primacy.  There’s just something in our male human nature that feels it necessary to be number one among our peers.  But Jesus put paid to that thinking.  “If any of you would be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mk 9:35).  Here, again, there is no seeking of position.  There is no insistence that it’s my turn.  There is instead the prayer-fueled suggestion of a couple of names that suit the requirements.

In our church, leadership falls primarily to the elders, with the pastor considered as an elder with perhaps a slightly weighted voice as ‘first among equals.’  But fundamentally, he is held to be among equals, and should a vote of the board run counter to his thinking, so be it.  The decision of the board stands, and the individual elders, pastors or not, abide by the decision.  But how have these elders come to be elders?  There is a process, hopefully a process bathed in prayer start to finish.  But I cannot think of a single occasion, though it is not explicitly precluded, where a brother who put himself forward as somehow deserving the office because of this or that was in fact found suitable for the office.  It’s not a matter of deserving.  To be honest, it’s not even a matter of feeling up to the task.  It’s a matter of perceiving God’s appointing to that position.  We do not have the pastor select his elders, nor do the current elders choose directly.  They may, due to awareness of matters not known to the church at large, opt to reject a particular candidate, but they do not make the choice.  The church as a whole makes the choice, both in appointing new elders and in accepting the continued services of those who have been serving already.  Again, we trust that each individual in the church has been prayerful in that process.  But in the final account, as with the lots thrown to choose between Joseph and Matthias in what follows, it is down to the Holy Spirit to direct the outcome.  Short form:  leadership in the church is no place for status seeking, or power politics.  It is a place to humble the proudest of servants, and to discover, if one has not already, just how great is our need for the power and the wisdom of God in order to fulfill our purpose in righteousness and grace.

A second lesson for us, though again tangential to the passage, may be found in the mention of John.  John, as we have observed, serves to mark the onset of Jesus’ ministry, and if we look to that beginning – not to the baptism of Jesus itself, but to how His ministry was defined – we find that He took up the very message John had proclaimed.  His ministry began where John left off, calling the people to repentance.  Repentance, which is likely still uncomfortable for most, if not all of us, remains central to the Gospel message.  The Gospel is indeed good news, but the good news cannot be proclaimed apart from making clear the bad news it comes to address.  You cannot rescue from sin one who has yet to become aware of his sin.  You will not seek forgiveness in any meaningful way if you have not been so convicted as to turn from your sin.

Let me pause on that thought for a moment.  You have probably known occasions when temptation was doing its work, and you felt your powerlessness against it.  You perhaps knew that succumbing to that temptation was pretty much inevitable, even as you considered the presence of God with you.  It’s happened too many times before, and though you pray, the temptation still comes, and the sin still follows.  It may very well be that even as you step into that sinful situation you are praying for forgiveness.  Or perhaps conscience won’t permit going quite that far, but as soon as this sinful act is over, you do so.  Is that, however, repentance?  Or is it merely awareness of being busted?  Honestly, for a Christian it must ever be the case that we are aware of being busted whenever we sin.  Even in those sins we commit unawares, we are busted, for God is quite aware whether we are or not.  There is nothing hidden from His sight.  Yes, He is also keenly aware of our limitations, fallen creatures that we are.  Recall His closest associates called to pray with Him that night before His betrayal, and in spite of the clear urgency in their Leader, they slept instead of praying.  “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41).  Consider Paul’s exploration of the anguish that befalls from knowing one’s propensity for sin in spite of the desire to obey unto righteousness.  “Wretched man that I am!  Who will set me free from this body of death?” (Ro 7:24).

Allow me to try and thread this narrow path.  Repentance, by its very definition, ought to consist in a change of course.  We used to do this, but no more!  Great change has come.  I am a different man than I was, and I choose, purposefully, deliberately choose to go the other way henceforth.  But let’s be honest.  The purposeful, deliberate choice of man is not always sufficient to its own ends.  Arguably, it is never so.  My point is simply this.  The lack of apparent follow through does not necessarily indicate an absence of repentance.  True repentance is largely a matter of inward condition.  There is a worldly sort of repentance, which makes the right noises but does not really reflect a change of heart.  It’s not sorrow for what you have done, but sorrow for having been caught, sorrow for the consequence but not the deed.  This avails nothing, proves nothing, and can expect nothing.  But true repentance, though it cannot change what has been, and may not prevail in changing what is, recognizes the depths of its own depravity.  “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight, so that Thou art justified when Thou dost speak, and blameless when Thou dost judge” (Ps 51:4).  It acknowledges God’s righteousness and His right.  The consequences of sin are right, and He is just to allow them, even though there is forgiveness.  There is desire to change in this Psalm of repentance, determination to change, but also clear dependence upon God to achieve that end.  “Create in me a clean heart, God.  Renew my spirit, and don’t cast me from Your presence” (Ps 51:10-11).  “Sustain me with a willing spirit” (Ps 51:12b).  But there is also gritty determination.  There is a response of righteousness.  “I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted” (Ps 51:13).  I will face the just consequences, but let even this sin serve Your good purpose in saving others.  There is a heart of repentance.  Would David sin again?  Yes, if not in the same way.  But would others learn from his example and his open testimony?  We just did.

Repentance is a necessary component of faith, and yet, we must pull up short of allowing repentance to become a work.  We earn nothing by it that we don’t already possess by grace.  We must come to recognize, as David I’m sure recognized, that even our repentance comes not from our own fortitude, but from the Spirit working in us.  David might never have repented had God not spoken to his conscience through the words of Nathan the prophet.  This was not Nathan exposing the problem.  This was God exposing the problem, and why?  Was it to shame David, to condemn him?  No.  It was precisely to this end of stirring David’s heart to repentance.  Repentance, you may note from the record of this event, includes humble acceptance of those consequences, even when those consequences cost David the life of his child.  And how did he respond?  He went to the temple to praise God.  No resentment, no accusation against God, but humble acceptance of His decision, and praise of His righteousness.

Now, as it somewhat fits my present time of trials, I shall draw one more lesson from what God has seen fit to set before my eyes in this time.  The events which have led Peter to raise the matter of finding a replacement for Judas were truly hard providences.  They were certainly hard providences for Jesus, who faced an agonizing death, and as well the far greater agony of a rend in the fabric of His fellowship with the Father, as Father turned away from the sight of that sin He had taken upon Himself for payment.  They were hard as well for the Apostles and those others who held fast to the Lord.  Can you imagine?  Think how the assassination of JFK marked the psyche of a whole nation, but particularly those who had put so much hope in this young president.  And this for one who was but a politician, and not, as history would seem to show, even a particularly upright or adept one.  Here, it is the very Son of God, or at the very least one they had come to believe was the Son of God.  So, how was it He had died?  How could this be?  And with Him resurrected, there would be the countervailing anguish of, how could we?  How could we have abandoned Him so readily?  How could we have denied Him so fast?  And that must lead to, how can He forgive me?  But He did.  And one might well argue that the strength to repent was found in the forgiveness received.

But the point I wish to close with here is this.  The record shows that even in those darkest hours, God was still in it.  Even as Satan celebrated having finally succeeded in killing the promised Seed, it would prove to be the case that the darkness could not comprehend, contain, overwhelm the Light (Jn 1:5).  He who had assured them that He had overcome the world had also overcome death.  His resurrection put paid to Satan’s most potent tool in keeping sinners subject to himself, fear of death imposed as penalty for sin.  It keeps us from facing our sins because to face them apart from the assurance of God’s loving forgiveness would be to come face to face with certain doom, and something in us knows that, even if it won’t know God.

But more to my present time of trials, it is well to be reminded that He is here.  He is with us.  Every step of the way, every doctor’s visit, every trying moment of the work day, every mistake, and moment of weakness, He is here.  He is with us.  He has not abandoned us nor will He ever.  “Lo! I am with you even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:28).  That’s not just for the Apostles.  That is for every son and daughter of the Most High God.  How fitting that this morning’s Table Talk included this quote from Charles Spurgeon.  He writes, “Had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.”  These are words to remember in our times of great trial.  We may not like what we are going through.  We may be disgusted by what they reveal of our character flaws.  We may be left to wonder if life can possibly continue long enough to see those flaws conquered.  But we have this:  If there was a better way to our good end, God would have seen to it that said better way was ours.  Be that as it may, we can rest in the assurance that He is indeed working even these troubles to our good.  It is possible, by His infilling strength and by our keen awareness of His very present involvement in our lives, to remain content even as everything seems to be out of control, even if it must be that certain things are stripped away.  What was it I read in Hebrews this week?  “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven” But praise God, that which cannot be shaken shall remain (Heb 12:26-27).  What cannot be shaken is what is of His kingdom, and brother, believer in God, that means you!

Thank You Lord!  That means me.  I know beyond the possibility of doubt that I am Yours.  And we have seen, my wife and I, how You are setting pieces in place for us, bringing alongside those with knowledge needful to our situation, how You are orchestrating things.  Forgive us our doubts, and let us cast them aside in the confidence that You are with us every step.  Let us not presume, but neither let us anguish in fear of disregarding Your direction.  You are directing, and it is enough.  So work in us, my Lord, that we follow.  And this, too, You have promised, have You not?  We hear Your voice, and will follow no other.  Let there, then, be an end to anxious wranglings, fearful anxieties at choosing wrongly.  Your hand guides.  Your hand holds.  Our lives are secure in You come what may.  Again I say, thank You.  Let our trust and our perseverance grow as we walk through what Your good purpose, Your infinite wisdom, has prepared for us.  Amen.