God Brings Samaritans Into the Church

Question from Quora: Can you explain Acts 8:12-17?

Few people catch the meaning of this passage, so this is a good question.

The theme sentence of of Acts is chapter 1, verse 8. Before departing Earth for heaven, Jesus told the disciples, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. 

The events in Acts 8 form one of the high points of the outline.  If you understand the outline, you understand the significance of 8:12-17.  That outline unfolds as follows:

Jerusalem

In chapter 2, the Holy Spirit makes His grand entrance. The Holy Spirit descends on the disciples, causing the believers to speak in languages they had no way of knowing, along with other signs. This is followed by Peter preaching the gospel and many joining the disciples.

The language phenomenon had prophetic significance. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul cites Old Testament prophecies to explain the primary purpose of miraculously speaking in foreign languages. The spectacular event that day was a warning to the Jewish nation that they had come under God’s judgment for rejecting their Messiah. As prophesied by Daniel and other prophets, Judea was destroyed by waves of Roman armies in 67 to 70 AD.

The Grand Entrance of the Holy Spirit marked a revolutionary change. Previously, He had come upon just a few believers for specific purposes such as guiding a king, empowering a warrior, or delivering revelation through a prophet. Now He had come upon all believers, not just for a narrow ministry, but to abide. What had previously been a temporary or conditional gift now became a permanent, sealing gift. Whereas only a chosen few had received ministries from God, now all received ministries and were empowered with “spiritual gifts.”

Judea

Chapter 8 briefly describes how the believers were scattered throughout Judea by persecution. Jerusalem represented the initiation of the gospel among the Jews, and Judea represents spreading of the gospel among the Jews.

Samaria (chapter 8)

The Samaritans had a mixed heritage, having descended from a mixture of Israelite and local ancestors.  Some followed the God of Israel, but most followed the religions of their non-Israelite ancestors or of the occupying armies.

The Jews descended primarily from Judah, one of the few families of Israel that had not been scattered into the world by invaders.  They were very inwardly focused.  God had commissioned Israel as a nation of priests to the world, but they had failed to maintain their own religion, let alone spread it.  In their minds, they were God’s chosen, and that was that.  They considered their half brothers, the Samaritans, unclean, second-class, and enemies. So what was about to happen required a major shift of thinking. 

Up to that time, all of the Christians were Jews.  Some began to recognize what God was doing, but it took decades for others.  Phillip went among the Samaritans anyway and preached Christ to them.

• 12 But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.

(The story of Simon is a tangent, so I'll skip verse 13.)

Shockingly to the Jews, the Samaritans converted. But something was missing. There was no miraculous evidence that the Holy Spirit had come upon the Samaritans.

At this point, we need to reach farther back for context. In Matthew 16:19, Jesus tells Peter,

• I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

Acts 8 is a an example of the fulfillment of Peter using those metaphorical keys. (It has nothing to do with creating a permanent office or making Peter into a “pope.”)

• Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.  For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. (verses 14-16).

Here, Peter fulfills his commission. He and John pray for the Samaritans to receive the full blessings of salvation, just like the Jewish believers had in Jerusalem. So the gospel expands outside of the Jews, and the Samaritans are now included.

• 17 Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.

The passage does not state how Peter and John knew that the Samaritans had received the Holy Spirit, but it is safe to infer that something miraculous happened. The likely possibilities are that some began prophesying and speaking in foreign languages in a manner similar to what had happened in Jerusalem.

You may notice that I don’t call it speaking in tongues. According to Acts 2:5–11, it was not the unintelligible babbling that you hear today. People from foreign lands heard the speakers in their own native languages, and 15 specific languages were understood by unconverted bystanders.

The evidence showed several things: God had expanded the blessings of belief and ministry beyond the Jews.  Previously, the Holy Spirit had only come upon people of Israel.  The Jews thought they had a unique claim on their relationship with God. This destroyed that misconception.  Since the Holy Spirit came upon people for the purpose of ministry, this meant that not only belief, but also the priesthood, was being taken away. And again, the sign warned the Jews of the destruction to come.

Thus, Peter had fulfilled his role, bringing, so to speak, the Grand Entrance of the Holy Spirit to the Samaritans.

To the Ends of the World

In chapter 10, we see the gospel and the Holy Spirit expand to a Roman soldier, Cornelius, and his household. The Samaritans were half Israelite, but Romans were unclean occupiers from a distant land!  Even Peter needed special visions to prepare him for dealing with a Roman.

After Cornelius converted and spoke in foreign languages, Peter had some explaining to do back in Jerusalem before the council of apostles.  They were offended that Peter had even eaten with gentiles.  Once again, God had expanded the group called “God’s people,” and the Jewish Christians had to adjust how they saw themselves and the rest of the world.

The remainder of Acts mostly describes the continued expansion of the gospel to Asia Minor and Greece. We even see the church’s first heresy when Jewish believers demanded that gentile believers start living according to Jewish customs. Although Acts shifts to following Paul's evangelistic journeys, Peter had used his "keys" to reflect that God had unlocked the kingdom for the Jews, the Samaritans, and the rest of the world.

Note to Charismatic and Pentecostal brethren: Christ’s prophesy in Acts 1:8 was fulfilled. The opening of the gospel and the grand entrance of the Holy Spirit to expanding circles of people does not constitute a pattern that applies today, and the prophetic meaning of “tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:20-22 plus Deuteronomy 28:49, Isaiah 28:11,12, and Jeremiah 5:15, and their contexts) was fulfilled over 1900 years ago.

Note to Catholic apologists: Peter in Matthew 16:18 is a masculine noun, denoting a stone by itself, whereas rock is a feminine noun, denoting a formation in the ground.  The difference denotes a play on words in which Peter and the rock cannot be conflated or confused.  In addition, throughout the Old Testament, Rock is a name for God, in general (Psalm 18:2), and for Christ, specifically (1 Corinthians 10:4). Even Peter used the word that way (1 Peter 2:8). This rock could not, therefore, refer to Peter. It had to refer to Peter’s confession.  To call Peter the Rock on which Christ founded the church is to equate Peter with God, and that is blasphemous.

Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler; permission to use excerpts is granted for personal, not-profit use.  Please give credit where credit is due.  

The New Covenant Obsoletes the Old

Link: Hebrews 8:6-13

As Greg Koukl says, “never read a Bible verse.” Always check to see how the context gives definition to the passage.

The widest context is the Bible as a whole, so any interpretation must be consistent with the whole teachings of the Bible. The next layer of context is the testament, new or old, in which the passage appears. In this case, the interpretation must be consistent with the rest of the New Testament, but since Old Testament passages are cited, one should consider their contexts as well.

The Old Testament describes the old covenant, that is, the contract between God and Israel. The covenant promised security and worldly blessings to Israel if Israel would represent God to the world. Implied in that is that Israel would obey God’s directions. This was necessary in order to remain morally qualified to represent God.

The New Testament describes a new covenant. The new covenant removes Israel’s exclusive right to represent God, giving it to all followers of Christ. It also unveils more about God’s nature, replaces a covering of sins with an actual washing away of sins, and replaces an unstable relationship between God and a nation with a secure relationship between God and individuals.

The next layer is the audience and theme of the book or letter. Hebrews was written to — guess who? — first-century Hebrews (the ethnic group) after the Jewish establishment (their religion) had rejected and killed its Messiah and begun deadly persecution of their Messiah’s followers.

The book of Hebrews contrasts ways that the new covenant was superior to the old covenant. In fact, if you outlined the book, you would see point after point asserting how the new of-Christ faith solved problems and provided blessings that the Jewish system could not.

The final layer of context is the chapter itself. Chapter 8 can be outlined thus:

• Verses 1–7 — Christ’s role as High Priest is superior to that of the Jewish priests because He mediates a better covenant. (Mediate, in this context, means bringing two parties together to ensure that they understand and meet all the conditions of the covenant.) To discover the many reasons the new covenant is better, read the whole passage, and then read the whole book.
• Verses 8–12 — The writer supports this theme with citations from the Old Testament.
• Verse 13 — In concluding, the writer emphasizes that, when a new covenant replaces an old covenant, the old covenant becomes void. Accepting this required a major mind-change for the audience, Jewish Christians. Even for people like James, the half-brother of Jesus, and the apostle Peter, this change required many years and miraculous evidence to accept. For more details, read the books of Acts and Galatians.

Verse 7 states that God found fault with the old covenant. Since God was the Author of the old covenant, this might seem to mean God made a mistake. However, as we continue reading, we reach a different conclusion.

A covenant is only as good as the parties to the covenant. The fault was not in the covenant, but in Israel’s failure to fulfill it’s duties. God found fault with the people… for they did not continue in my covenant…, says the LORD (verses 8–9).

One reason the old covenant “failed” from Israel’s perspective was that it depended on — to put it in modern terms — levels of bureaucracy between God and individuals. The words of God were contained in scrolls, their distribution depended on “the experts,” and the execution of their provisions depended on corruptible men.

In contrast, under the new covenant, I (God) will put My laws into their (the people’s) minds, and I will write them (the laws) upon their hearts (verse 10). In other words, instead of needing to depend on “the experts,” individuals would be enabled to obey God on their own, and they would be accountable not for obeying the letter of the law, but rather for obeying the spirit of the law. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people makes the relationship very personal — not just a socialized, collective relationship, but rather, an intimate, one-on-one relationship.

Many “Christian” churches, including some of the largest denominations, cling to the form of the old covenant system. They insert “experts,” “prophets,” “priests,” or over-controlling pastors between members and God. A biblical, new covenant church will work hard to bring people and God into personal relationships and edify people so they can stand in that relationship without excessive reliance on the human organization.
Verse 11 needs a bit of background. Directions, such as those in Leviticus about the design of the tabernacle and the conduct of feasts and sacrifices, were highly symbolic. As verse 5 says, they served as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. Many of them stand out for symbolizing Christ’s sacrifice.

This was also true of prophecies of events that were, in Old Testament times, future events, such as the two comings of Christ — first to provide redemption, and later to take delivery of that which He redeemed.

Reading the prophecies was like looking and seeing a mountain; but when you walk over to the side or walk past the mountain, you see that there were actually two mountains. Since they align in time, you could not differentiate between them. But when you have hiked past the one, you can see that one is in the past and the other is yet future.

The passage(s) cited in verse 11 compress two ages into one description. The first age (or mountain, in the last paragraph) concerns the current age, whereas the second age (the more distant mountain) concerns the age when Christ will have returned, established His reign on Earth, and re-established Israel as the center of His kingdom. In that future time, they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, ‘know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them. The relevant part is the emphasis on establishing that personal relationship between God and us without the interference of, and dependence on, an intervening human organization.

The citation in verse 12 foreshadows another passage in Hebrews. Chapter 10 explains the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over the old covenant sacrifices. Whereas it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (verse 4), Christ offered one sacrifice for sins for all time (verse 12), so that by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (verse 14).

Christ does not require continuous sacrificing, as in a particular church. Their continuous sacrifice is like the flawed old testament sacrifices and makes people dependent on the organization. Christ’s sacrifice was complete and perfect. For those who trust in it, it perfects them before the great Judge, washing away all their past, present, and future sins.

(You will find a number of the ideas in chapter 8 repeated in chapter 10.)

In verse 13’s conclusion, When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. That is, the old covenant has no legal effect on anyone who enters into the new covenant.

However, although the old covenant has no legal affect on those in the new covenant, it remains useful for three things: First, through its symbolism, it confirms the new covenant. Second, the portions defining moral conduct remain useful for defining how to love one another.

Third, defining how to love one another has a darker side. It teaches us about our inability to justify ourselves before God. Many fail to grasp this lesson, but it is explicitly taught.

• Therefore the Law [the commands in the old covenant] has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:24).
• Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law [those who think they are “good”], so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:19–20).
• [A]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… (Romans 3:23).

In contrast to justification being out of reach of our efforts, God offers redemption as a gift.

• He [Messiah] shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11).
• …being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24).
• For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8–9).

This excludes any mixture of works and faith, or merit and grace. It also excludes any specious idea that the gift enables one to earn salvation.

• But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace (Romans 11:6).
• Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh [that is, works of obedience]? (Galatians 3:3).

Rather than insulting the Giver by trying to earn the gift and pridefully saying, “I am a good person,” the old covenant teaches us to say, “I would defile heaven with my guilt. I need a Savior and His gift of salvation.” And when that gift has been received, one is no longer “under the Law” of the old covenant. For the Christian, the old covenant becomes obsolete.

Two Ways to Heaven

There are two ways to heaven: the impossible and the possible.

1.  Be perfect throughout your entire life.

That makes you superior to the rest of us. In fact, it must make you God, since only God is perfect. 

Proud people think they can earn heaven, but the Ten Commandments (and the over 600 more) do not show a way to heaven for us real people. Instead, they show us that we are condemned before God.

• Have you had anything in your life that was more important than God? The scriptures call that idolatry.
• Have you had any incorrect idea of whom God is and what he's like? Have you prayed through a statue? That's idolatry, too.
• Have you worked on the Sabbath (Saturday)? That's putting other things ahead of God, so it's idolatry, too.
• Have you used the Lord's name in vain? That's a personal insult to God!
• Have you ever spread gossip that turned out to be untrue? That's lying and murdering somebody's reputation.
• Have you hated somebody without just cause? That's murder in your heart.
• Have you looked with sexual desire at somebody other than your spouse? That's adultery.
• Have you wanted something that belonged to somebody else? That's stealing in your heart.

And God looks on the hearts, not just the actions. 

Remember, the Law is One Law with many points. You don't have to break all the points. Break just one point, and you've broken the Law and lost your place in heaven. If you think you've never sinned, just wait. You will.

Satan said, "I will be like God." Adam and Eve said, "We will know good and evil like God." And the self-righteous says in his heart, "I will be perfect." 

Yes, Jesus said, "Be perfect," but He was using the Law to break people's pride, to show that earning heaven by your own merit is impossible. The point of His instruction was not, "Attempt the impossible." His message used irony to show that we are condemned. Salvation comes another way, and only to the humble. 

2. God prepared a gift

The gift that can save us if we accept it as a gift instead of as something we deserve.

The Creator of time and space entered into His creation as three Persons, each fulfilling a distinct role, yet united as One God in eternity.  One of those Persons, God the Son, added a human nature called Jesus to His own nature (without changing in His essence). 

Jesus lived a perfect life. If He had not, He would have died for His own sins, not for ours. But He was God, so He could live a perfect life. And because of that, when He gave Himself on the cross, God could credit our guilt to Jesus  (like a big brother taking the punishment for his little brother) and credit Jesus' righteousness to us. And to demonstrate His approval of what Jesus did, God raised Him from the dead.

God offers that gift to those who (a) recognize God the Son and (b) in desperate need and humility, receive the gift as what it is, a free gift.

Many cling to the impossible way by mixing it with God's provision. They mix faith and works, and corrupt grace (which means "gift") by turning it at least partly into wages. They seek credit for themselves instead of glorifying the Giver alone.

The mixture takes two forms. The first form says you have to do ceremonies, or good works, or clean up your life; and then you receive some or all of the gift. The second form says God gives you the gift, but then you have to earn the right to keep the gift through works or perseverance. Both of these insult God's generosity.

The second (you have to work to retain the gift) also recognizes only half the relationship. Salvation becomes yours, but also you become God's. You become God's child and Jesus' "sheep." (People often lie about the following part because they don't understand it.)

You can't do whatever you want for three reasons (at least!).

• When you became a Christian, you hated your sins because they were evil and they condemned you. Since you hated your sins, and as a new Christian, God begins changing you to free you from those sins, you will try not to repeat those sins.
• God will chastise you, even to the point of killing your body if that's what it takes to keep your soul safe.
• The "whatever you want" will change because God works within you, making you want to do what pleases Him.
• If you do "whatever you want" and get away with it, your conversion was not genuine. Beware false conversions due to.
• Pride in self merit
• Knowledge without heart conviction
• Being carried along by emotion with only partial understanding or with misunderstanding
• Knowledge and emotion, but without prioritizing conversion over everything else

In the gospels, Jesus says, "Be perfect."

The sinner says, "I cannot. I have sinned."

Jesus says, "Be perfect, or be condemned."

The sinner says, "Woe to me, for I am a sinner, condemned!"

Jesus says, "Now you are ready to receive the gift."

The self-righteous man says, "Let me do ceremonies, chant repetitious prayers, and do good works for the gift."

Jesus says, "Go away and do not insult me by trying to earn my gift."

The misled man says, "I receive the gift" but thinks "and I will do good works and persevere so that I don't lose it."

Jesus says, "Come back when you are ready to stop insulting my faithfulness."

The humble man says, "I deserve condemnation. I can do nothing to earn or to keep the gift. I surrender. I trust You to have mercy upon my sins and grace upon my need."

Jesus says, "I give you the gift. Now you are mine and I am yours, and I keep my promises. Welcome to my kingdom, little brother! Now, let's get to work!"

Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler -- Permission granted for personal or non-profit, non-published use. Please give credit where credit is due.

I was forgiven. I need forgiveness. Contradiction?

The Bible teaches that salvation means you have been forgiven; yet it also teaches a continuous need for confession and forgiveness. Skeptics twist that into a contradiction. Arminians and Wesleyans twist it into "proof" that salvation is conditional and not secure. Both reflect a need for greater understanding. 

Forgiveness or being forgiven means either an action or a state. The word forgiven has more than one meaning.

• Past participle of the verb to forgive — You were forgiven, meaning, God forgave you.
• Adjective — You are forgiven, meaning, since you were declared forgiven, now you are in a state of forgiveness; it is one of your attributes.
• Present participle — You are forgiven, meaning, I forgive you.

I forgive

Before discussing forgiveness in the spiritual context, we need to recognize a practical context. Sin affects everybody.

• My sin affects me because it has consequences for me.
• It affects God because it desecrates His creation, it is an affront to His holiness, and it rebels against His sovereignty.
• Some sins directly hurts others.

So if somebody says, You are forgiven, they might mean that, assuming you have obeyed the gospel, God has forgiven you. However, they might mean that they forgive you for what you did to them.

God forgives

The state of forgiveness cannot be reversed. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1, NASB).

This is because Christ fulfilled the Law — the Old Testament commandments that condemned us. God God reckons Christ’s death and payment of the debt to our accounts, so in the new birth, we died to the Law of Condemnation and were born into a Law of love.

Romans 7:1–6 uses marriage as an analogy. Marriage is a lifelong commitment. When one spouse dies, the other is free from that first commitment and free to marry another. Similarly, when Christ’s death is imputed to us, it’s like we’ve died to the Law of Condemnation, and God places us under a new law, the Law of Love. So the passage concludes in verse 6,

• But now we have been released from the Law [of commandments that condemn], having died to that by which we were bound [the Law and our guilt], so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter [the Law].

Because God remakes us as His children, His role in relationship to one whom He remakes into His child changes from Judge to Father. Formerly, His end role was to pronounce guilt, hand down the sentence, and execute justice. Now, His role is to train us; and by being trained, we can bring more honor to Him, earn rewards, enjoy fellowship with Him, and become more of a blessing to those we encounter. His end role will be to judge our performance and give rewards rather than to condemn.

On the other hand…

All this means that sin cannot condemn us, but it does not mean that sin does not hurt is. Sin still

• brings embarrassment to God’s name
• wastes rewards
• interferes with our fellowship with God
• interferes with our fellowship with others
• makes us a hindrance to others instead of a blessing
• weighs us down with guilt

Even though we have been forgiven by our Judge so that no penalty of condemnation remains, we still seek forgiveness from our Father because a penalty of lost joy and usefulness weighs us down.

Whereas the book of Romans focused on judicial forgiveness, the book of 1 John focuses on daily life.

• [I]f we walk in the Light… we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin…. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:7–9, NASB)

This passage would seem self contradictory. “He forgives us of all sins, yet we need continued forgiveness?” This is resolved if you recognize the difference between forgiveness by our Judge and forgiveness by our Father.

Again, judicial forgiveness cleanses us from all our sins — past, present, and future. But within that state of forgiveness, we still need that cleansing of conscience and restoration of fellowship with our Father.

That’s why we should, even though our sins are forgiven, live in a continual state of repentance, confession, and attempted reform.

Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for personal or non-profit use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Parallel Passages Strengthen the Bible

Someone asked, "Aren't parallel passages in the Bible redundant?"

First, let’s define parallel passages as texts that discuss the same subject. A subset of these includes passages that contain similar or identical wording; and a further subset includes passages that use the same words, especially (but not necessarily) with reference to the same subject.

Passages that discuss the same subject may approach it from different perspectives and provide different, complementary details that would be tedious to read if combined. Parallel passages can provide emphasis to a point, too. The third type is useful because reading a word in a different context can help define it.

Old Testament

Several major examples of parallel passages exist in the Old Testament.

Genesis contains two accounts of creation. One focuses on chronological order at a high level, and the other focuses on the creation of humans. Skeptics say that this means there are two authors, but repetition, parallelism, and restatement of ideas from different perspectives are staples of Hebrew literature.

The Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, contains repeated passages. For example, first God might say something, then Moses conveys it to Israel, and then, years later, Moses reminds Israel and appends details. Repetition emphasizes the message.

One group of parallel passages is in the histories presented by 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, and 1 & 2 Chronicles. After the reign of kings Saul, David, and Solomon, Israel split into two kingdoms, Israel to the north and Judah to the south. 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings cover the history of Israel leading up to the split and the histories of both after the split. In contrast, 1 & 2 Chronicles repeats much of that history but focuses on Judah, omitting many details already covered and adding other details.

The two perspectives serves a purpose. First Israel, and later Judah, were conquered by other nations and their citizens were deported. Later, Israel remained scattered, but Judah was returned to the land.
According to Stephen Bedard,

Samuel/Kings was written at the beginning of the exile. It was a time of repentance and reflection of how they had come to that terrible situation. Chronicles was written after the exile was over and the Jews were trying to re-establish themselves…. Chronicles was written for a Jewish people who needed encouragement and strengthening. (What is the Difference between Samuel/Kings and Chronicles?)

The presentation of different perspectives sometimes gives the appearance of contradiction, but the contradictions can always be resolved. For example, according to 2 Samuel 24:1, God caused David to count the people of Israel and Judah, whereas in 1 Chronicles 21:1, Satan caused David to conduct the census. If you have read Job carefully, however, you realize that for a higher purpose, God sometimes tests or allows the devil to tempt, and God takes responsibility for the things that happen under His control. What happens behind the scenes is much more complicated that simplistic "contradictions," and we don't always have need-to-know. 

New Testament

The most obvious case of parallel passages is among the Gospels. They serve several major purposes.

• In Jewish law, establishing a fact required the testimony of two or three witnesses. Three of the gospel authors were eye witnesses to the events in Jesus’ ministry. So at least three gospels were needed to establish their truthfulness, and then needed to have coincident accounts — yet not so much coincidence that one might become considered redundant, and not so much word-for-word agreement that they presented the appearance of collusion between the authors.
  
  
• Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all have different literary styles that present a different focus. Whereas Matthew focuses on Jesus's teachings and presents Him as King, Mark is action-oriented and presents Jesus as the perfect Servant to a Jewish audience, Luke presents Jesus as the perfect Man to a Greek audience, and John focuses on theology and presents Jesus as God. A single, combined account could not have conveyed the various messages effectively.
  
  
• In The Life of Christ in Stereo: The Four Gospels Combined As One, Johntson Cheney resolved all the so-called contradictions and weaved the four gospels into a single book. I read the book once. Borrr-ringg. Combining all the parallel passages makes for excessively long, complicated sentences, and it obscures the messages of the authors. It’s a valuable aid when putting parallel passages together. Movie-makers ought to use such harmonies of the gospels instead of basing them on a single gospel. But if you try to read such books, you will learn to appreciate the value of four Gospels instead of one.
  
  
• Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain a lot of nearly identical text. Contrary to the speculation of “scholars,” Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not need to copy from a hypothetical document called Q. When a group of disciples witness the same thing, their notes tend to match up. When they preach together, their accounts dovetail even more. Moreover, Mark reputedly became a disciple of Peter and included much of Peter’s preaching in his gospel. Luke was a disciple in the early church and, besides recording much of Peter’s preaching, interviewed many other eyewitnesses to verify and fill in details. So the agreement is not a matter of copying, but of sharing experiences and recall.

In General

Whenever the same points need to be addressed to multiple audiences, parallel passages can result. This is handy because you get to read a point from different perspectives. Different details get addressed whereas compressing all the details into a single passage would make for tedious reading.

• Citing other passages creates parallels. For example, Jesus’s teachers are saturated with citations of Old Testament passages. When He quoted a portion of a passage in Genesis, he probably wanted readers to find the passage and get more background to understand what he was teaching.
  
  
• Skeptics like to point out passages that supposedly disagree with each other. Usually, however, the “contradictions” merely reflect differing perspectives. When you read about a supposed contradiction, remember that if an explanation is possible, then it is dishonest to say with certainty that there is a contradiction. This simple logic usually escapes skeptics who must discredit the Bible in order to evade accountability for their broken relationship with God.
  
  
• Skeptics contradict themselves when they complain that there are too many similarities and also complain that there are differences between the similar passages!

This answer is not complete. It could use specific examples, but the major points have been made, and you will recognize those points as you read through the Bible. Like a combined version of the four gospels, any more would make it even more tedious that it already is.

Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for personal or non-profit use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Answering Moral Relativism

Background

By a traditional definition, the morality of something is measured against a definition of right and wrong. In a materialistic universe, there is no right and wrong; there are only ethics and preferences. A relativist’s morality stands relative to preferences, so it is subjective and malleable. What the relativist calls right and wrong are actually beneficial and detrimental to either self, a third party, or society because, without a Higher Power qualified to declare right and wrong, neither right nor wrong exist.

A society can agree with an ethical or legal code, or those in power can impose such codes and call them “moral.” However, those that govern learn, grow, or grow corrupt, and are eventually replaced by other parties, so no moral code determined by whoever happens to be in power is really a moral code. It is only a set of ethics or laws. 

A moral code depends on a source that defines good and evil or right and wrong. Even if that source is a church, it remains fluid and is therefore not a true moral code. Any familiarity with “Christian” church history will reveal constant changes, especially during the Reformation, which was characterized by a backlash against the power-trip enabled by the merger of the Roman Catholic church and its constituent nations. 

When the relativist speaks of right and wrong, he really means approved or disapproved according to his preferences. The extreme end of relativism is anarchy. “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25, NASB). Everyone was, in fact, his own king.

Recommendation

• Emphasize use of accurate, honest terminology, and how any practice inherits its justification from a line of standards. If the ultimate standard is subjective self, then it is by definition unscientific, unsupported, and transitory. The rejection of objective morality is, by definition, immorality.
  
• Point out how an ethical code based on the individual’s conscience is (a) unstable and (b) a source of conflict. Since we grow, change, or surrender to temptations, our standard — ourselves — also changes. Since we are nurtured by different environments, we will disagree about standards, which causes unavoidable conflict.
  
• Moral relativism, in its current, post-modernism form, has extended to the magical thinking that emotions and words alter reality. Belief in magic runs contrary to the principles on which a secular society should run. It imagines that a mother’s desires or words turn a “fetus” into a baby or a lump of cells, that emotions and brainwashing turn a boy into a girl, that calling a someone a worker sanitizes the illegal way they entered the country. This is magic, and using reasoning that is divorced from objective reality to justify laws mixes religion and state. 

Don’t expect to score a touchdown in a single play. If you can move the ball just a few yards at a time, sowing doubt and correcting one or two arguments, be satisfied. Bring home the arguments you can’t answer and study. Then move on to the next scrimmage.

The Heresy of Including Reform in Repentance

The Heresy of Including Reform in Repentance

Like John MacArthur, despite clearly defining grace as the means of salvation and faith as the channel of grace, Todd Friel occasionally crosses the line into salvation by works.

I highly recommend listening to Wretched Radio. God does call on His children to reform their lives. Too many churches fail to call for reform, and communicating the gospel should describe the cost of obeying the gospel. Becoming a Christian does not mean God will heal all your relationships or make your life easy; and Eternal Security does not mean you can ignore your new life in Christ and do whatever you want without chastisement.

Apostate Christian churches have mis-defined repentance in both directions. Historically, churches, dominated by Roman Catholicism, have over-defined repentance by adding reform to it. In our times, New Evangelical churches tend to under-define it or omit it altogether. Many "Reformed" Christians over-emphasize repentance as an over-reaction to the New Evangelical watering down of the gospel. The mis-definitions of repentance makes it difficult to accurately differentiate between the call for non-Christians to repent and the call for God's children to reform.

While we should, therefore, practice grace when an earnest brother occasionally blurs the line, we should also stand for a correct definition of the gospel and point out failures to do so.

Friel crossed the line on Wretched Radio's "Witness Wednesday" episode for 19 June 2019. The conversation begins at 14:50. https://www.wretched.org/06-19-2019/

Friel crossed the line into a gospel of works while explaining the gospel to a young Roman Catholic woman, saying in his conclusion:

Friel: [W]hat do you need do to go to heaven? What would your answer be? 

Woman: Live for Jesus and for God.  

Friel: Yeah, that's right, to repent, and put your trust in Him. To repent, to ask for forgiveness, forsake your sins and put your trust in Jesus Christ. And then you inherit eternal life.

(Note that the woman's answer was about works, and while supplying missing elements, Friel reinforced her error.)

"Forsake your sins" is ambiguous by itself, but a minute before, Friel had described repentance and faith thus:

[Y]ou repent, you recognize that you've sinned against God, you confess your sins to him, then you forsake them instead of living for yourself, you start living for Him, and you put your trust in Jesus Christ as if your life depended on it because frankly it does.

Just as there are sins of omission and sins of commission, there are good works of restraint and good works of commission. Forsaking sins is obeying the Don'ts of the commandments. Living for God is the Do's of the commandments.

What Friel and people like John MacArthur are saying is, "Do good works and then put trust in Christ." They do not say it all the time, but they say it often enough that they need to be called out on it. Making good works a requirement for salvation prevents salvation.

Whether one reforms by obeying God's covenant with Israel or by obeying the Law of Love is irrelevant. In the context of entering into salvation, "works" includes any attempt to be righteous enough to please God. 

The rest of what Friel says is, more or less, consistent with the gospel. It is consistent because we must recognize our sin and deserved condemnation in order to approach God. It is inconsistent because the emphasis is entirely on moral sin; it ignores that "sin" includes holding wrong beliefs.

There are sins we must forsake. For example:

• Worship of false gods
• Rejecting God's standards of sin and righteousness
• Rationalizing our sins 
• Believing we can be righteous enough to be accepted by God
• Believing God will forgive us without a price being paid
• Adding anything to grace and faith -- including reform

These are all matters of heart and mind, not of moral actions. For example, it does no good to give up adultery if you continue to worship the Unitarian god of Oneness Pentecostals or to serve statues and pray to Mary. With time, the fruits of repentance and of God reforming you from within follow. But actions are not included as requirements for salvation.

God sees the sincerity of the heart and the mind. He does not have to wait to see your actions. When you repent (mind and heart) and put faith in God for redemption, God saves you in that instant.

• Repentances does not include its result, reform. 
• Reforming yourself does not cause salvation. 
• Salvation enables repentance to cause reform.

In fact, reforming yourself to achieve salvation blocks salvation because you are attempting to make yourself presentable to God instead of relying on Christ to do that for you.

Preachers like Friel and MacArthur confuse many believers. When they preach salvation through faith alone, and then require works before faith, they contradict themselves and bring heresy into their gospel.


Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for personal or non-profit use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Why God Allowed the Fall

My daughter stunned me. People ask, "Why did God allow the Fall and evil?" as though the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. The typical answer is a rather vague, "God has a higher purpose."

My daughter asked, "Do you think what God does for us in salvation is greater than what Adam and Eve had before the Fall?" The thought process behind that question is profound! I'll draw out some of the details.

Before, the Fall, we were merely God's creatures. Made in God's image, yes, but still creatures, earthly. From Adam's and Eve's perfection flowed no logical need for improvement. As Adam and Eve were created, that is all we would ever be: creatures.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." John 12:24

In John 12:24, Jesus spoke primarily of His own impending death, yet in verses 25 and 26, He clearly applied the principle to His followers. The principle applies not only to individuals, but also to humankind.

Namely, our death in Adam created the need for a re-creation that opened a path to our becoming something greater than mere creatures.

Through our death in Adam and our rebirth in Christ, God transforms us into His sons and joint heirs with Christ. He makes our final state more glorious now and more rewarding for us in heaven; as well as more glorifying to, and enjoyable for, Himself

Thus, we have the higher purpose that motivated God to permit, and even ordain, such ultimate evils as the Fall and the murder of God the Son. Evil in the world is not evidence of no god; but rather, is evidence of a higher purpose, and therefore, evidence of God Himself.

Isaiah 12:4

What is the background to, and meaning of, Isaiah 12:4?

I first published this commentary on Quora on 25 January 2019. This version may have minor edits.

Quotes below are from the New American Standard translation.

Short Answer

4 And in that day you will say,

“Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name.
 Make known His deeds among the peoples;
 Make them remember that His name is exalted.”

The verse promises complete security to people of a future age who will have placed their trust entirely in God and His works. Although the verse does not apply to this age, the principle behind it is universal. In this age, those who place their trust entirely in God and His works are promised emotional peace, but not the physical victories indicated by the context of Isaiah 26:3. To teach the promise of peace to people of our times, careful teachers will use other verses.

Background

During Isaiah’s time, Israel had been split in two. The northern segment, “Israel,” had been conquered, and its survivors had been carried off to other lands. The southern segment, “Judah,” remained but was overtaken with other religions and corruption. Followers of God not only received mistreatment from their own neighbors, but also saw the same thing that had happened to Israel threatening to happen to Judah.

Those who listened to the prophets knew that God’s punishment was coming. At this time, prophets such as Isaiah not only foretold about the punishment, but also foretold that God would restore their people to Judea. Such promises were accompanied by other details. Such details described a savior who would save not only their people, but all who would turn to Him.

So the prophesies not only warned of judgment, but also promised hope.

These prophesied events came like twin mountain tops lined up in the distance. The hearers could not tell them apart. That is one reason the Jews rejected Christ. They wanted the Second Coming to establish their national independence and dominance.

But from our position between the two peaks, it’s easy to see the difference. One mountain top was the incarnation of God the Son. The other was a Second Coming. During the first coming, Messiah would provide redemption through faith in His suffering; whereas during the second coming, He would assert His authority, judge the wicked, and establish peace on earth.

Isaiah 12:1 and 4 go together, but to appreciate their meaning, we have to place them in context. Verse 1 begins, Then you will say on that day… and verse 4 begins And in that day you will say…. So we need to turn to the previous chapter to determine when “that day” is.

Chapter 10 describes judgement and destruction of Judea. Chapter 11 describes Messiah as a descendant of Jesse, King David’s father. The chapter opens by describing His character and segues into describing His work during His Second Coming. It is here that we find beautiful images such as

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them. (verse 6)

In that time, the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD… The nations will resort to [Messiah] (verses 9 and 10). In other words, faith in God would no longer be a parochial religion of the Jews, but a faith among all peoples.

The remainder of the chapter describes the final restoration of Israel and judgement of its enemies.

Meaning

In this context, now we can appreciate chapter 12.

Then you [the believer] will say on that day,
“I will give thanks to You, O LORD;
For although You were angry with me,
Your anger is turned away,
And You comfort me.

“Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
For the LORD GOD
is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.” (verses 1–2)

This could be interpreted either of two ways. The obvious application is that, in the time of Messiah’s Second Coming, God will have forgiven Israel for its blasphemies and crimes. A second meaning comes from the principle described, namely, that there is a relationship between trusting God for salvation and having His justice satisfied. The personal language indicates that the quotations are spoken by individuals and not as a collective nation.

This relationship of redemption and trust allows verse 3: Therefore you [the believer] will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.. Water represents the cleansing and strength provided by God through this new relationship with Him.

In verse 4,

And in that day you [the redeemed] will say,
“Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name.
Make known His deeds among the peoples;
Make them remember that His name is exalted.”

So in verses 1–2, we have believers rejoicing and praising God, and in verse 4, they encourage each other to praise God and share the good news. They will do so, motivated by thankful hearts described in verses 1–2.

If we apply verses 1–4 to ourselves, it is about the attitude that we should have toward God; and it should have such a magnitude and outworking that we want everybody to share in the same joy. There is no room for “practicing your religion at home” or “freedom from religion.” There should be great joy in salvation, and you should want to shout it from the housetops! (Alas, we are not in the age of the Second Coming yet, and our bodies do not always allow our experience to match up with theory.)

There is one more important implication in this passage. In order for “you,” a believer over 700 years before Messiah’s first coming, to give thanks to God when Messiah returns in 2019+ AD, “you” must be alive and present. This is not an unusual inference. See Mark 12:18–27. Resurrection is implied in the Old Testament and explicitly promised in the New Testament.

I’m sure there are some who will pluck the verse and twist it into some other meaning. Remember this:

If the plain sense makes good sense,
any other sense is probably nonsense.

The Perfect Peace Promised in Isaiah 26:3

What is the background to, and meaning of, Isaiah 26:3?

I first published this commentary on Quara on 28 Janury 2019.

For my answer, I quote extensively from my answer to a similar Quora question about Isaiah 12:4. 

Quotes below are from the New American Standard translation.

Short Answer

3“The steadfast of mind You [God] will keep in perfect peace,
 Because he trusts in You.”

The verse promises complete security to people of a future age who will have placed their trust entirely in God and His works. Although the verse does not apply to this age, the principle behind it is universal. In this age, those who place their trust entirely in God and His works are promised emotional peace, but not the physical victories indicated by the context of Isaiah 26:3. To teach the promise of peace to people of our times, careful teachers will use other verses.

Background

During Isaiah’s time, Israel had been split in two. The northern segment, “Israel,” had been conquered, and its survivors had been carried off to other lands. The southern segment, “Judah,” remained but was overtaken with other religions and corruption. Followers of God not only received mistreatment from their own neighbors, but also saw the same thing that had happened to Israel threatening to happen to Judah.

Those who listened to the prophets knew that God’s punishment was coming if the kingdom did not return to God. At this time, prophets such as Isaiah not only foretold about the punishment, but also foretold that God would later restore their people to Judea. Such promises were accompanied by other details. Such details described a savior who would save not only their people, but all who would turn to Him.

So the prophesies not only warned of judgment, but also promised hope.

Since these prophesied events were future, they were like mountain tops lined up in the distance. The hearers could not tell them apart. That is one reason the Jews rejected Christ. They wanted the Second Coming to establish their national independence and dominance. They did not accept that the spiritual redemption and the political redemption could be two different events.

From our position between peaks, it’s easy to see the difference. One mountain top was the restoration of Israel as a nation that was a territory of Greece and then of Rome. The second mountain top was the incarnation of God the Son. The third was a Second Coming. During the incarnation, Messiah would provide redemption through faith in His suffering; whereas during the second coming, He would assert His authority, judge the wicked, and establish peace on earth.

Meaning

To appreciate Isaiah 26:3, we first have ask about which age the verse directly applies to. Let’s start by connecting it to the preceding verses.

1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
“We have a strong city;
He [God] sets up walls and ramparts for security.
2“Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter,
The one that remains faithful.
3“The steadfast of mind You [God] will keep in perfect peace,
Because he trusts in You.”

The “that day” in verse 1 refers to the age resulting from second coming of Christ. We could re-read chapters 10 through 25 to point out the evidence, but I’ll go back just to verse 8 of chapter 25 to illustrate one of the characteristics of “that day.”

8 He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces….

Compare verse 8 to 1 Corinthians 15:54

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.

Revelation 21:3-4
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

1 Corinthians 15:54 refers to the beginning of the age marked by Christ’s return, and Revelation 21 refers to the end of that age, which culminates in the reward of the justified, the judgment of the unconverted, and the commencement of a re-created heaven and earth. The direct interpretation of Isaiah 26:3, then, must recognize that it applies to age which is, to us, in the future. 

That does not mean that the principle stated in the verse cannot apply in our age. The promise of both emotional and physical perfect peace applies to that future age, but the promise of emotional perfect peace applies to all times. Verse 4 continues,

4“Trust in the LORD forever, For in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock.

Compare Psalm 62, written centuries before Isaiah’s day

6 He [God] only is my rock and my salvation,
My stronghold; I shall not be shaken.7 On God my salvation and my glory rest;
The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God.8 Trust in Him at all times, O people;
Pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us. 

and in Isaiah chapter 12, concerning the age following the incarnation

2“Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
For the LORD GOD
is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.”

Trust in God and having emotional peace — the opposite of fear — is a universal promise throughout the scriptures. For example, in Ephesians 2:11–22, Paul writes of a peace between Jews and non-Jews, and between man and God, that Christ established. He established this peace by providing redemption from the condemnation that the Old Testament commandments make us aware of and joining Jews and non-Jews into a single body, the church. 

Conclusion

Do not believe the lie of many highly visible, false, evangelical leaders who teach that the promise is for peaceful circumstances today. Jesus said in John 16:33, These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world. In the close to his letter, 2 Thessalonians, Paul writes

16 Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!

For this age, the perfect peace means emotional peace in every circumstance. The promise is conditional, it is for The steadfast of mind who trusts in You [God].  To teach the promise of peace to people of our times, careful teachers will use other verses.