Psalm 2:1-3

The first Psalm reminds us that God alone deserves our worship, and that to trust anyone but God is blasphemy, futile, and an eternal death sentence. Psalm 2 takes the unbeliever and the skeptic down an impossible path: Worship God's Son, who is also the one and only God. There is one God, but he is both Father and Son (this Psalm doesn't address the Third member of the Trinity). For the believer, this Psalm is a delight. It points directly at Jesus Christ.

                                         לָמָּה רָגְשׁוּ גוֹיִם וּלְאֻמִּים יֶהְגּוּ־רִיק

                            יִתְיַצְּבוּ מַלְכֵי־אֶרֶץ וְרוֹזְנִים נוֹסְדוּ־יָחַד 

                                        עַל־יְהוָה וְעַל־מְשִׁיחוֹ

       נְנַתְּקָה אֶת־מוֹסְרוֹתֵימוֹ וְנַשְׁלִיכָה מִמֶּנּוּ עֲבֹתֵימוֹ

1 Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together against the LORD
and against his Anointed One.
3 “Let us break their chains,” they say,
“and throw off their fetters.”

רָגְשׁוּ is a qal 3rd perfect, "be restless." The verb only occurs here, but cf. "unrest" (Psalm 55:15) and "unrest; churning emotion" (Psalm 64:3). And we could notice the Aramaic verb "to storm in" (Daniel 6:7 and later in the chapter).

יֶהְגּוּ "moan, devise a plan."

רִיק is the same kind of "vanity" or "emtiness" we see in Habakkuk 2:13, with a similar sentiment: "The nations exhaust themselves for nothing."

מְשִׁיחוֹ "Messiah, Anointed One." The term Massiah occurs about 40 times in the Old Testament, mostly in Psalms and Samuel. Cyrus the Great is part of a prophecy involving him as a type or shadow of the coming Messiah (Isaiah 45:1). Although Messiah is sometimes seen as an ideal or excellent king (such as David), the New Testament tells us that here in Psalm 2 we have a clear reference and prophecy about Messiah Jesus Christ (Acts 13:32 ff; Hebrews 1:5; Hebrews 5:5). The role of Jesus the Messiah here is (1) the Son of God, (2) the Judge of the nations, (3) the Just king, (4) the Savior of the nations, and (5) the universal Lord.

The world does exactly what Psalm 1 warns us not to do. The world wants nothing to do with God. The world ("like sheep without a shepherd") is willing to listen to any shyster who claims to have found Jesus' bones and say, "See -- I knew it all along." The world is especially hateful of the doctrine of forgiveness, because to be forgiven implies that something needed forgiving. If I am forgiven, then something I did must not have been good. The world sneers at God.
 

1 John 2:15-17

The overall theme of 1 John could be summarized by the phrase Authentic Christianity. John has been urging authentic Christians to test themselves as to their obedience, and as to their love. After a brief digression about the church, he turns now to the "world."
1 JOHN 2:15

15 Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε τὸν κόσμον μηδὲ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον, οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ·

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε τὸν κόσμον "Do not love the world." We expect to find μή as the negative with an imperative (pres. imv., ἀγαπάω). The verb ἀγαπάω can mean a little more than the generic "love here" (it certainly doesn't have any connotation of the undeserved love in the heart of God); it can mean "show love" or "long for" in any worldly sense in this context.

The world (κόσμος) is anything found in this lifetime in this place. It is any way of living apart from God's way. This is underscored even more by John's addition, μηδὲ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ "or anything in the world." Anything we love that is not God—including goods, child, fame and wife—becomes an idol and divides us from God.

The conditional sentence is a present general (ἐάν with subjunctive followed by the present tense, here ἐστιν, showing a general truth: If anyone loves the world, the Father's love isn't in him.

1 JOHN 2:16

16 ὅτι πᾶν τὸ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, ἡ ἐπιϑυμία τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ ἡ ἐπιϑυμία τῶν ὀϕϑαλμῶν καὶ ἡ ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου, οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ἀλλὰ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου ἐστίν.

16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.

John hints about sinful desires coming from what we see; yet John is fond of describing Christ as the true light of the world, the light that gives light to the dark world. So what we see in the darkness, no matter how well we see it or how it makes us feel, is seen and craved in sin ("everything that does not come from faith is sin," Romans 14:23). John's readers would probably have been able to come up with many of the same examples from the Bible that we could: Eve saw the fruit and fell into sin (Genesis 3:6). David saw Bathsheba bathing and fell into sin (2 Samuel 11:2). The drunken man sees "strange sights" and his mind imagines "confusing things" like a man sleeping high on top of a mainmast (Proverbs 23:33-34). In Joshua's time, a man named Achan looked at the ruins of fallen Jericho and coveted the belongings of the dead and plundered them, for which he was executed (Joshua 7:1-26).

Some think that John's list, "cravings, lust and boasting" encompass all the sins of the world, as does the temptation and sin of Eve (Genesis 3:1-6) and the temptation of Christ (Matthew 4:1-11). But Jesus came into the world to forgive all the sins of the world. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And God loved the world; he loved it so much that he gave his only Son to save it.

1 JOHN 2:17

17 καὶ ὁ κόσμος παράγεται καὶ ἡ ἐπιϑυμία αὐτοῦ, ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὸ ϑέλημα τοῦ ϑεοῦ μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (NIV)

In John's books, the "world" (Greek cosmos, κόσμος) stands for those things that oppose God. The world "did not recognize" Christ (John 1:10). The world could not (yet) hate the apostles, "but it hates me because I (Jesus) testify that what it does is evil" (John 7:4). "The prince of this world will be driven out" (John 12:31). "The world cannot accept" Christ (John 14:17). "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first" (John 15:18). Satan "leads the whole world astray" (Rev. 12:9). The spirits of demons "go out to the kings of the world" (Rev. 16:14). The whole world is under the control of the evil one (1 John 5:19). And anyone who denies Christ does the work of the devil and of the Antichrist (2 John 7). But the world and its desires also "pass away," παράγω, here in an active sense but more importantly in the present tense—this is happening already. The world is winding down to its destruction and the sinful, fallen world will not last forever.

Jesus took the sins of the whole sinful fallen world into himself. Christians like to amuse themselves by thinking of a man loading gifts onto a sleigh and bringing them to good boys and girls (a legend based on an actual event--but we'll speak about it some other time). But think of what Christmas actually means. It's about a single spectacular gift from God, but it's also about what that gift truly means: One man loaded all of our anti-gifts; all of our sin and guilt and rebellion, and he loaded them all onto his own shoulders and carried them out of our lives. And not just the sins of good girls and boys, but the sins of every wicked and corrupt and fallen sinner in the whole... world.

The sins of the world. Everything that opposed God: forgiven by God. That's something to praise him for. Forever.

Psalm 150:1-6

PRAISE THE LORD!
Who, where, why and how?

PSALM 150:1

הַלְלוּ־יָהּ

הַלְלוּ־אֵל בְּקָדְשׁוֹ הַלְלוּהוּ בִּרְקִיעַ עֻזּוֹ

150 Praise the LORD.
     Praise God in his sanctuary;
     praise him in his mighty heavens.

Who is it we praise? Hallelujah means “Praise the Lord,” but its also a special kind of command, were we invite everyone around us to praise the Lord, too. And notice that in this part of God’s Word, we say “Praise the Lord” or Hallelujah three times. We can’t help but be reminded that the God we praise, the only true God, is the Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Where do we praise him? It’s not just here on earth, but also in heaven. That reminds us that when we praise God we aren’t alone. The angels in heaven praise God, and we know that sometimes God sends angels on special missions here on earth too, and they are still praising God even though we can’t see or hear them. And we also know that the souls that are in heaven already are praising God. So even when you’re all alone, by yourself, and sitting down to eat your lunch, you can still pray “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest,” because you aren’t the only person who believes in Jesus. God blesses all people, whether they are on earth or in heaven, and we could thank God for our gifts even if someday you personally were the only person left who believes in God. And God promises to bless us and be with us always – and that’s definitely something to thank God for.

PSALM 150:2

הַלְלוּהוּ בִגְבוּרֹתָיו הַלְלוּהוּ כְּרֹב גֻּדְלוֹ

2 Praise him for his acts of power;
     praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Why do we praise him? The Bible verse says Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. We thank and praise God for what he has done, too. And as we get into the rest of the verses of this Psalm, and look at some of the different music we praise God with, those different musical instruments are going to remind of different things God has done for us.

PSALM 150:3

הַלְלוּהוּ בְּתֵקַע שׁוֹפָר הַלְלוּהוּ בְּנֵבֶל וְכִנּוֹר

3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
     praise him with the harp and lyre,

How do we praise God? Any way we can. Some for worship, some not – nothing is prescribed. We just praise.

שׁוֹפָר (Trumpet) – The shophar was used at the festival of the Jubilee. That was a special day that happened once every fifty years – about once every adult’s life – when all the debts would be cancelled, all of the land and houses that had changed hands would go back to the original owner, people who had become slaves would be released and set free, and in general, God’s people would be restored to the way they had been before. The Year of Jubilee isn’t mentioned in the New Testament, but it certainly reminds us of the kind of restoration we have in Jesus. Because the forgiveness of sins we have isn’t just pushing reset on a game, or a “do over.” It’s a permanent, forever fix God has made for us. As one prophet in the Bible said, “I will rebuild David’s fallen tent, and build it as it used to be.” Our relationship with God has been fixed by Jesus, who died to pay for our sins, and who wiped clean our debt to God. And so we sing: “Praise God. Praise God.”

נֵבֶל וְכִנּוֹר (Harp and lyre) – The harp was David’s solo instrument. (we combine these two in our look at the instruments). We remember that David’s Psalms and the rest of God’s Word give us good examples of how we can praise God, with what we say, and how we say it. “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”

PSALM 150:4

הַלְלוּהוּ בְּתֹף וּמָחוֹל הַלְלוּהוּ בְּמִנִּים וְעֻגָב

4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
     praise him with the strings and pipe,

תֹף - The timbrel (or tambourine) is often pictured in the Bible as being what the women would play after a victory. We all praise God, men and women, adults and children, each according to our gifts and each in our own special ways.

מָחוֹל (dancing) – We praise him even in ways that maybe I can’t. Probably mentioned here because the women’s instrument (tambourine) was just talked about, but also notice that it’s halfway through the musical instruments, just like a dancer surrounded by musicians. We praise God each in our own way – some with music, some with dance, and other in other ways. Praise him all creatures here below!

מִנִּים (strings) – something that isn’t mentioned with worship in the Bible, except in the celebration (we would say the reception part) of a wedding (Ps. 45:8). God invites us to bring all kinds of music into his praise, traditional or non-traditional. What counts is that we give him our best, and that what we give to him comes from the heart.

עֻגָב (flute) – Just like the strings are the instruments at weddings, the flutes were the instruments used at funerals. We also praise God when we suffer a loss, remembering that the soul that has gone to heaven is also praising God now, except that person is face-to-face with God, where we still have to wait. But we will all praise God together one day, and then forever and ever. Praise him above ye heavenly hosts.

PSALM 150:5

הַלְלוּהוּ בְצִלְצְלֵי־שָׁמַע הַלְלוּהוּ בְּצִלְצְלֵי תְרוּעָה

5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
     praise him with resounding cymbals.

בְצִלְצְלֵי־שָׁמַע (clashing cymbals) / בְּצִלְצְלֵי תְרוּעָה (smashing cymbals) – These cymbals are mentioned only one other time, when David led a big procession when the Ark of the Covenant was brought back to Jerusalem after some of God’s enemies had stolen it. Remember how we began with David’s “solo” instrument, the harp? Now at the end we find King David’s “group” instrument, the cymbals.

PSALM 150:6

כֹּל הַנְּשָׁמָה תְּהַלֵּל יָהּ הַלְלוּ־יָהּ

6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
      Praise the LORD. (NIV)

However we are able, we praise the Lord. But we don’t, do we? We don’t really always praise our God with everything we do. More often, we praise ourselves. Hey—look what I can do! We’re like the Cat in the Hat: “Look at me, look at me, look at me now!” That Word Hallelujah reminds us, though, that we should praise God, and not me, not ourselves. And so we think about those times we have been selfish, and broken the first commandment by not giving God the credit in our lives, and we lay all those sins down as we think about the cross, and think about Jesus, and we leave them there at the cross, because Jesus paid for all those sins. Every single sin you have committed. Every single sin I have committed, Jesus paid for. And that’s something to dance about. That’s something to sing about. That’s something to pick a musical instrument we’ve never played and learn how to play it, so we can praise God in every way we can think of – and most all, so that we can praise God with everything that we do:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise him all creatures here below.
Praise him above ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Psalms Introduction - 2

TYPES OF PSALMS

57 of the psalms are actually and technically called “psalms” in their headings. Typres of Psalms include:

PSALMS (Hebrew tehillim, sg. tehillah). Psalm appears to mean a song accompanied by a stringed instrument like a lyre or harp. Another word translated “Psalm” is mizmor, “trimmed. Psalm 23 is a mizmor.

SONGS (Hebrew shirim, sg. shir). Psalm 30 is both a shir (song) and a mizmor (Psalm).

PRAYERS (Heb. tephilloth, sg. tephillah). Psalm 17.

MIKTAMS (Heb. miktam). The meaning of this word is uncertain, but it might refer to a carefully crafted poem. Six pslams are called miktam in their headings: 16, 56, 57, 58, 59, and 60.

MASKILS (Heb. maskil). These seem to be primarily psalms for teaching or meditation, especially on godliness or godly living, but the word may also mean “skillful.” Psalm 47 contains this word (“sing to him a psalm of praise”), perhaps urging believers to a life of godly praise. “Psalms for reflection” might bring all these meanings under a single term. There are 13 maskil psalms in the Bible: 32, 42, 44, 45, 52, 53, 54, 55, 74, 78, 88, 89, and 142.

OTHER CATEGORIES:

Seven Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143) have been grouped as the Penitential Psalms ever since about 250 AD. Luther suggested that the Psalms be categorized into five basic groups, which can be helpful:

1) MESSIANIC PSALMS that speak about Christ and his work (2, 22, 110, etc.).
2) TEACHING PSALMS that emphasize doctrine (1, 139) or history (105, 106)
3) COMFORT PSALMS that emphasize forgiveness and peace (4, 23, 37, 91, etc.)
4) PRAYER AND PETITION PSALMS (3, 137, 143 etc.)
5) THANKSGIVING PSALMS (103, 104, 136, etc.)

Many psalms would fit into more than one of those categories.

Psalms Introduction - 1

I. “BOOKS” OF THE PSALMS

The book of Psalms is divided into five uneven sections traditionally called the Book of the Psalms. They are grouped somewhat by authorship and somewhat by content. It is possible that the fivefold grouping of the Psalms was meant to reflect the five books of Moses, but this idea should probably not be pressed. Ancient Jewish and Christian traditions name Ezra as the man responsible for our present arrangement of the Psalms in their current order and probably in this 5-book division.

Each of the books seem to have a single verse that should be viewed outside the Psalm it follows that serves as a doxology for that book.

Book I. Psalms 1—41. Psalms written primarily by David and preferring the name LORD (יְהוָה) rather than God.

בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵהָעוֹלָם וְעַד הָעוֹלָם אָמֵן וְאָמֵן

.     41:13 Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.

Book II. Psalms 42—72. Psalms written primarily by David and exclusively using the title God (אֱלֹהִים) rather than LORD.

72:18-19

בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עֹשֵׂה נִפְלָאוֹת לְבַדּוֹ

וּבָרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹדוֹ לְעוֹלָם

וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹדוֹ אֶת־כֹּל הָאָרֶץ אָמֵן וְאָמֵן

.     Praise be to the LORD God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds.
.     Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
.     Amen and Amen.

72:20

כָּלּוּ תְפִלּוֹת דָּוִד בֶּן־יִשָׁי

.     This concludes the prayers of David son of Jesse.

Book III. Psalms 73—89. Psalms written by Asaph and the Sons of Korah.

89:52[Heb. 53]

 בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה לְעוֹלָם אָמֵן וְאָמֵן

.     Praise be to the LORD forever! Amen and Amen.

Book IV. Psalms 90—106. Psalms written about or relating to the exodus and a Psalm by Moses himself.

106:48

בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִן־הָעוֹלָם וְעַד הָעוֹלָם

וְאָמַר כָּל־הָעָם אָמֵן

הַלְלוּ־יָהּ

.     Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
.     Let all the people say “Amen!” Praise the LORD (Hallelujah).

Book V. Psalms 107—150. Psalms of praise, often invoking the word Hallelujah.

Psalm 150:6

כֹּל הַנְּשָׁמָה תְּהַלֵּל יָהּ הַלְלוּ־יָהּ

.     Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD (Hallelujah).

(I think it’s likely that the last verse of Psalm 150 was not added, but that Psalm 150 was chosen or even written to conclude the whole book as a sort of grand doxology.)

II. AUTHORSHIP

116 of the 150 Psalms in the Bible have headings or superscriptions of some kind. Even some of the songs outside the Psalms (Habakkuk chapter 3) have similar features. Although some think that these headings may have been added at a later time, there are no copies or versions of the Psalms prior to the 20th Century that do not have them. Also, other ancient culture (Ugaritic, Sumerian, Egyptian) that used the same kind of headings. A shorthand history of the Hebrew text and some translations of the headings:

* 15th—5th Centuries BC Original manuscripts of the Bible written (all lost)
* 3rd c. BC Septuagint (Greek translation made in Egypt). Includes Psalm headings
* 2nd c BC – 1st c AD Dead Sea Scrolls. Includes Psalm headings
* 2nd c AD Talmud. Includes evidence of Psalm headings
* 2nd c AD Other Greek translations and well as Coptic and Syriac. Includes Psalm headings
* 2nd-4th c AD Masoretic notes on the Hebrew Text. Includes detailed discussion of Psalm headings.
* 3rd c AD Origen translates the Psalms three times: the Roman Psalter, the Gallican (Vulgate) Psalter, and ‘Origen’s Psalter’ (intended for the Vulgate but replaced by his previous ‘Gallican’ version). Includes scholarly research on the headings.

Although the headings do not generally contain any doctrinal insights, they give background and historical context to these poems of the earliest Church.

A typical example of an author’s name in one of these headings is found above verse 1 in Psalm 86: A Prayer of David. David is the author of 75 of the Psalms. Other authors include Solomon, Moses, Asaph (especially in Book III), the ‘Sons of Korah,’ and a few others.

III. PARALLELISM

Since Hebrew is an inflected language, rhyme is rarely seen as a literary or poetic device. Instead, Hebrew relies on word pictures and rhythm. One of the ways Hebrew paints its word pictures is by sketching the complete border of the thought using a variety of words. One of the most common ways of this sketch is the parallel line.

Parallel lines of Hebrew poetry say either the same thing in two or more ways, or else they say the opposite thing, so that the full impact of the subject will be better understood.

There are at least five types of parallelism in the Psalms, but the main three are:

SYNONYMOUS
ANTITHETIC
SYNTHETIC

Other names have been attempted for different types (Introverted, Stair-like, Emblematic, etc.), but knowing something about these three will take you pretty far.

SYNONYMOUS PARALLELISM Restating a point using similar words.

אָשִׁירָה לַיהוָה בְּחַיָּי אֲזַמְּרָה לֵאלֹהַי בְּעוֹדִי

-        I will sing to the Lord...
-        I will sing praises to my God (Psalm 104:33)

ANTITHETIC PARALLELISM Restating a point with a contrast.

בֵּאלֹהִים בָּטַחְתִּי לֹא אִירָא

-        In God I trust,
-        I will not be afraid (Psalm 56:4) [Hebrew 56:5]

SYNTHETIC PARALLELISM Completing a point with a longer phrase.

וַיִּבְגְּדוּ כַּאֲבוֹתָם נֶהְפְּכוּ כְּקֶשֶׁת רְמִיָּה

-        Like their fathers they were faithless...
-        as unreliable as a faulty bow. (Psalm 78:56)

Since all three are found in Psalm 73, we will simply visit that Psalm and see how each kind of parallelism serves to carry along the message of the Holy Spirit.

PSALM 73

In his first series of lectures on the Psalms, Martin Luther called Psalm 73 “a light for resolving many scripture passages which seem to be contradictory. For while there are many passage which threaten nothing but evil to the evil and promise nothing but good to the good, there are, on the contrary, the complaints and the experience of so many… Throughout the Psalter there are the lamentations of the godly, in which it is demonstrated that the good are badly off and the evil are well off.”

An outline of this psalm:
1. 73:1-14 A Trial of Faith
-  A. 73:1 The Theme: God is good to Israel
-  B. 73:2-3 The Problem: My foot had almost slipped (cf. Psalm 121:3)
-  C. 73:4-11 The Song of Complaint
-  D. 73:12 The Antithesis of the Theme (This is what the wicked are like)
-  E. 73:13-14 The Problem Restated (In vain I have kept my heart pure)

“…morning.” – center of the Psalm

2. 73:15-28 The Renewal of Faith
-  A. 73:15-17 Faith renewed through worship
-  B. 73:18-20 The Solution: God will bring the wicked to judgment (and a joy about “morning” as God despises the wicked like dreams/fantasies after waking)
-  C. 73:21-22 Confession and humiliation
-  D. 73:23-26 The Song of Faith
-  E. 73:27-28 The Response of Faith: I will tell of all your deeds

Notice the various kinds of parallelism as you read the Psalm. You may wish to mark some of them—or other notes—in the margin. Remember: there doesn’t have to be parallelism. It’s just one aspect of Hebrew poetry. The first three verses are done.



JOHN 14:15-21

Sermon Exegesis for May 29th, 2011
"I will not leave you as orphans"

Jesus has been answering a question from the Apostle Philip, a request to show God the Father to them. Jesus' answer showed the union of God the Father and God the Son, and it's a legitimate question for any Christian to ask, what about God the Holy Spirit? It is to the Third Person of the Trinity that Jesus now turns.

JOHN 14:15

15 Ἐὰν ἀγαπᾶτέ με, τὰς ἐντολὰς τὰς ἐμὰς τηρήσετε:

15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command.

Ἐὰν ἀγαπᾶτέ με "If you love me" is the protosis of a future more vivid condition. ἀγαπάω "to love (unconditionally)" is a New Testament meaning given to an older word without much emphasis. Jesus and the apostles gave it the emphasis of the unconditional love given by God to mankind; Jesus wants us to love him in the same way. We don't hold God at ransom for our desires and demands (I won't increase my offerings until God does this or that for me).

τὰς ἐντολὰς τὰς ἐμὰς "the commands that are mine." ἐντολάς is the accusative plural of ἐντολή "command, commandment, instruction."

τηρήσετε "you will obey." There is a variant reading for the future indicative τηρήσετε "you will keep" (τηρέω, "keep, observe"). Several ancient manuscripts including Papyrus 66 and Codex Siniaticus (א) have the aorist subjunctive τηρήσητε "(if) you keep," and others including Codex Alexandrinus and a great many Church fathers have the aorist imperative τηρήσατε "keep." These are all examples of a future more vivid ("third class") conditional sentence. In my judgment, the aorist τηρήσατε appears to be the most widespread with incidents occurring in all six ancient church regions (Egypt, North Africa, Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor and Gaul) during or prior to the fifth century. The other readings are more ancient but less widespread. Any of them could be correct, and I agree with the UBS committee that a "C" reading is the best we can do here.

JOHN 14:16

16 κἀγὼ ἐρωτήσω τὸν πατέρα καὶ ἄλλον παράκλητον δώσει ὑμῖν ἵνα μεθ' ὑμῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ᾖ,

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--

The Greek word for Counselor is παράκλητoς (parakletos) or Paraclete. A Paraclete is someone called to one's side for help, so "Counselor," "Comforter" (KJV), "Advocate" (NRSV) are all good translations. He is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is described in the Bible as a separate individual within the Godhead; and theologically we use the term "person" to show that while he is united with the Father and the Son as one God, the Spirit also says and does things within his own existence that the Father and the Son do not do. For example, the Spirit is sent or given by the Son (verse 16 above). He intercedes on our behalf before God (Romans 8:26). He judges for himself what is best for us (Acts 15:28). He himself speaks to individuals (Acts 10:19; 13:2) and to the churches of all the ages (Rev. 22:17). It was the Holy Spirit who caused the authors of the Bible to write what they wrote -- to him belongs Divine Inspiration (Acts 28:25; 2 Peter 1:21).

JOHN 14:17


17 τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃ ὁ κόσμος οὐ δύναται λαβεῖν, ὅτι οὐ θεωρεῖ αὐτὸ οὐδὲ γινώσκει: ὑμεῖς γινώσκετε αὐτό, ὅτι παρ' ὑμῖν μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται.

17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

The reading μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται has some minor variations; the corrector of P66 seems to have been right in making the original scribe's ἔστιν into ἔσται.

Jesus tells us that the work of the Holy Spirit meets with as much opposition as that of both the Father and the Son, and that shouldn't surprise us. The world hates the truth and fights against the truth, and glibly asks "What is truth?"

We need to remember that Jesus doesn't just tell us to know about the truth and keep it locked away in our hearts like a secret, but to live our faith and obey his command to love. His command isn't motivated through fear or retribution, but through love for him and thanks for what he has done. What has he done? He has taken our sin on himself and paid the price for it with his blood. What should we do? We should lay our lives aside and give everything to him; our time, our egos, our fears, our comfort zones, our habits, our list of friends -- all of it should be transformed into service for him as if we have put on a uniform and a cross like the knights in the high Middle Ages. Except that we will not kill for him, but we will reach out with the gospel of forgiveness to wipe out the power of the devil forever, beginning today, with our own lives.

JOHN 14:18

18 Οὐκ ἀφήσω ὑμᾶς ὀρφανούς, ἔρχομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς.

18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Here we have come to one of the places in John's Gospel where the Lord's words soar so far over our heads that it's too easy to let them wash over us like music. But we will discover a great truth if we pay close attention to what he is saying: He will come back to "you" (ὑμᾶς...ὑμᾶς) and we should remember that he is talking directly to his eleven apostles (Judas left before the Lord's Supper was given). He has just said that soon he would be gone, and that they could not follow him, but that he would send the Paraclete, that is the Holy Spirit. So when he also says in the next breath, I will come to you, does he mean that he and the Holy Spirit are the same? Is the Holy Spirit another aspect of Jesus himself, but with something like an actor making a costume change? There were Christians in past centuries who made that connection, that the Father was the God of the Old Testament, that Jesus was the God of the Gospels, and that the Holy Spirit is the God for the rest of us until the end of time like a Greek actor changing masks. These folks thought that these were "modes" of God's appearance, and were sometimes called Modalists (more about this in the note below).

Jesus' words in verse 18 are not about his return on the Last Day, and they are not about his brief resurrection appearances. Neither views explain Jesus' assurance that he would not leave the apostles "as orphans." Rather, he is talking about the union they will have through hearts of faith because of his suffering on the cross, now just a few hours away. They would have a connection that would transcend the unseeing vision of the world. They would know that he is with them always (Matthew 28:20).

JOHN 14:19

19 ἔτι μικρὸν καὶ ὁ κόσμος με οὐκέτι θεωρεῖ, ὑμεῖς δὲ θεωρεῖτέ με, ὅτι ἐγὼ ζῶ καὶ ὑμεῖς ζήσετε.

19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

ἔτι μικρὸν "before long." Jesus is now talking about his ascension into heaven. The crucifixion looms in the doorway of this upper room; the walk up the hill to Gethsemane would be followed by his arrest and crucifixion in a matter of hours. But Jesus is looking beyond this to the future of the gospel. He is leaving his apostles and his believers in the world to continue to spread the message about Christ in the world. And there is the comfort and motivation here: "Because I live" (ὅτι ἐγὼ ζῶ) "you also will live" (καὶ ὑμεῖς ζήσετε). What he has, he gives. He has life, he gives life. He has holiness, he gives holiness. He has a place in heaven, he gives a place in heaven.

JOHN 14:20

20 ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ γνώσεσθε ὑμεῖς ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί μου καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν ὑμῖν.

20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

The "day" of verse 20 is a reference to Pentecost, the day in which the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son and was given to the Apostles in Jerusalem. That was the day in which the Apostles would "realize" the unity of the persons of the Trinity and the connection that believers have to God through faith.

The word "realize" is the Greek word ginosko (γινώσκω), which means to know something by experiencing it rather than simply by intellectual understanding. For example, I know the concept that 2+4=6 because I learned addition tables by rote as a child, but I also know that 2+4=6 through my experience, because my wife and I must figure everything according to the needs of the four boys in our house: meals for six, a car that will haul six, family devotions that apply to six, and so on. In the same way, the Apostles would know by their experience at Pentecost that the Lord was working through them; that their love for Jesus and trust in Jesus were not in vain.

We will know it all on the Last Day, too, but in this lifetime we also have this assurance from Jesus: Because he lives, we have eternal life. We love him because he loved us first and gave himself up to gather us all to his Father in heaven.

JOHN 14:21

21 ὁ ἔχων τὰς ἐντολάς μου καὶ τηρῶν αὐτὰς ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαπῶν με: ὁ δὲ ἀγαπῶν με ἀγαπηθήσεται ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου, κἀγὼ ἀγαπήσω αὐτὸν καὶ ἐμφανίσω αὐτῷ ἐμαυτόν.

21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

ὁ ἔχων τὰς ἐντολάς μου "Whoever has my commands" present participle (ἔχω); attributive adjectival; the article τὰς is of previous reference. What are the "commands" of Christ? Luther paraphrased the Lord: "You will administer My Word and commandments, be Christ’s apostles and preachers, and be baptized. You will hear and confess the Word publicly, in order that the world may see and hear that you are My Christians and adhere to My Word and commandments. When you do all this, you will surely experience that the devil and the world, as well as your own evil conscience and false brethren and schismatic spirits, will harass you, and that you will be surrounded by all sorts of trials, terror, anxiety, and distress." (LW 24 ad loc.) His commands are his Gospel Imperatives, to carry his word to the world.

καὶ τηρῶν αὐτὰς "and obeys them," The present participle is governed by the same article ὁ and is the same type of participle as ἔχων above.

ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαπῶν με: "he is the one who loves me." ἐκεῖνός underlines the believer described by the participles.

ὁ δὲ ἀγαπῶν με "He who loves me" The epithet "He who loves me" takes us to the recommissioning of Peter, "Do you truly love me?" (John 21:14-15). Jesus is telling us, in case we doubt, that we show our love for him by doing these things he has given to us, and that we who love Jesus are also loved by the Father. There is no disconnection between our love for Christ and the Father's love for us.

ἀγαπηθήσεται ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου, "will be loved by my Father," Future passive ἀγαπηθήσεται comforts us with the knowledge that God's love for us is unconditional. ὑπὸ with the genitive shows agency.

κἀγὼ ἀγαπήσω αὐτὸν "and I too will love him" Jesus doesn't do anything apart from the Father. Notice the way Jesus crafted this sentence, putting the Father above himself and yet showing the Father's love for him:

A. The one who loves me (our active love toward the Son)
B. will be loved by my Father (the Father's love toward us)
C. and I too will love him (the Son loving whom the Father loves)

Jesus' loves is not contingent on our love, but on the Father's love. And the Father loves all who put their faith in Jesus. That faith is also a gift, given by the Holy Spirit. The paradoxical mystery of God's love for us does not get easier to understand with closer scrutiny, but like fractal geometry it becomes more remarkable and mysterious as we examine it more and more closely. We are left to rejoice and sing God's praises by its intricacy. It is simple, but it is not simplistic. A child understands, and we pray for the faith of a child.

Jesus loves me; this I know.

καὶ ἐμφανίσω αὐτῷ ἐμαυτόν "and show myself to him." ἐμαυτόν "myself" is the reflexive pronoun (acc sg from ἐμαυτoῦ) formed by combining the personal ἐγω/ἐμoῦ with the intensive αὐτός (Robertson, Short Gram. §377 page 266-267).

More about Modalism: In the 200's AD (the third century), a Christian named Sabellius was not happy with the doctrine of the trinity and opposed it. He was following the non-Trinitarian teachings of two earlier men: Noetus and Praxeas. Tertullian, living at the same time, had attacked the teaching of Praxeas by saying that "he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father" (Against Praxeas, Chap. 1). Some Sabellian teachings continue today in a branch of the Pentecostal church called the "Jesus' Name doctrine" or "Oneness Pentecostalism" that denies that "the words Father, Son and Holy Ghost were [ever] used in Christian baptism" (from a sermon by R.E. McAlister, April, 1913 at Arroyo Seco, California).

Psalm 1:1-6

PSALM 1:1

The first Psalm sets the stage for the entire book of Psalms: Whom do we worship? And what does that path of worship involve? These questions must be answered before the worship in the Psalms can truly begin. Worship of the true God begins with trusting in God above all things. The second Psalm, which I would maintain is also introductory, shows our relationship with the Son of God.

אַשְׁרֵי הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים

וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים לֹא עָמָד וּבְמוֹשַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָׁב

1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. (NIV)

The first Psalm doesn't contain any commands. It takes a gospel-centered approach to state the truth. There are only two ways for anyone. There is no "third" way. There is either the way of God, or the way of the wicked. The "wicked" in the Psalm would include hypocrites, unbelievers, hypostates (people who have fallen away) and anyone else who rejects the true God. When Balaam the false prophet was speaking God's word by the grace of God and not by his own will (as his donkey did), he said longingly, "Who can count the dust of Jacob...? Let me die the death of the righteous" (Numbers 23:10).

The first Psalm presents these basics for us: (1) The way of the righteous is the only way that leads to life (avoid everything else, verses 1-3); (2) The way of the wicked leads only to death (verses 4-5), and (3) the two ways are separate (verse 6).

The three verbs, walk..., stand..., sit..., show a dangerously increasing familiarity with the ways of the unrighteous. Don't take his advice, don't hang out with him, and don't become him. The three words that describe the wicked also tell us something: The wicked (Hebrew resha'im) are people who are guilty of breaking God's commands, even in their thoughts. Sinners (chata'im) are guilty of sins they have committed in their deeds, stepping over God's line. Mockers (letsim) are those who have sinned with their words in foolish or sinful speech. This is a reminder that sin can happen in our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. Any sins break God's laws. All sins need to be forgiven by God.

That's what makes the Savior's work so essential. There is no way to approach our holy God in our sinful unholiness, unholy in our thoughts, our words and our actions. We need the Savior, whose actions, whose words and whose very thoughts made us right with God. His blood atoned for all of our sins, and now we can approach God with our prayers assured that he hears us and answers us. And more than that, we can rest assured that on the last day we will rise from our graves and stand before God unafraid, because our sins are forgiven.

We are at peace with God because we are blessed by the Man who never walked in the counsel of the wicked, who never stood in the way sinners go, and who never sat in the seat of mockers. He stood in the counsel of the Father, he stood on the path of righteousness, and he sat upon the foal of a donkey and hung on the cross.

And for that we praise him with our lives. Teach us to praise you and live for you, Jesus.

PSALM 1:2

כִּי אִם בְּתוֹרַת יְהוָה חֶפְצוֹ

וּבְתוֹרָתוֹ יֶהְגֶּה יוֹמָם וָלָיְלָה

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (NIV)

In the Psalms, the word "law" (torah) is used in a narrow sense and in a wider sense. The narrow sense is the one we probably think about first when we hear the word law; the sense of things God has commanded, and especially those things God commanded for his people Israel when they were with Moses in their forty years of wandering. These laws come in three varieties, the Ceremonial Law regulating the worship life of Israel and the sacrifices, the Civil Law regulating business and social issues like land, animals and marriage, and the Moral Law governing basic principals and providing the building blocks of justice: the Ten Commandments.

There is a wider sense of the word "law." The narrow sense of the law only convicts and puts up boundaries. A human being could never be right with God by keeping the law, because a human being is sinful from birth and even from conception. So the "law" in the narrow sense cannot be something a man delights in as we have here in the Psalm. The wider sense of "law" is the complete counsel of God: all of God's word, including both law and gospel. That "law and gospel" sense of torah is the meaning of "law" in places like Psalm 119:29, "be gracious to me through your law," in Psalm 119:174, "I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight," and Isaiah 42:4, "In his law the islands will put their hope."

The word for "meditate" in the parallel second half means "to mutter." In ancient times, it was considered rude and probably suspicious to read silently to oneself. People who could read, read aloud. But if they were reading only to themselves, they would probably mutter or mumble the words. And if a person were walking down the street and thinking about the Word of God, he would probably mutter to himself. It was a cultural habit with which we might not be comfortable, but the sense here is that a person who wanted to truly remember God's word would have it on his lips (not just a figure of speech) constantly.

The Shepherd of Hermas is a very early Christian book about a man who sees many visions and who appears to possess the spiritual gift of prophecy (1 Cor. 12:10, 14:22). In it, Hermas says "I was sitting in my house glorifying the Lord for everything I had seen and meditating on the commandments because they were beautiful, joyous, glorious and able to save the soul of man" (Similitude 6, chapter 1, verse 1). There, too, the sense of the laws and "commandments" is that they (1) are to be meditated upon and (2) that they are able to save souls. This is the sense we have in the Psalm. And so we mediate on the saving word of God.

That's how we can be prepared "in and out of season" for whatever happens (2 Timothy 4:2). The word of God should be part of our lives; and especially the great gospel of Jesus. It's because of Jesus that we know that the Lord has been gracious to us (Psalm 119:29), that we have the salvation we long for (Psalm 119:174), and it's in Jesus that we truly have hope (Isaiah 42:4).

O Lord, teach to meditate on your law and your gospel both day and night.

PSALM 1:3

וְהָיָה כְּעֵץ שָׁתוּל עַל־פַּלְגֵי־מָיִם

אֲשֶׁר פִּרְיוֹ יִתֵּן בְּעִתּוֹ וְעָלֵהוּ לֹא־יִבּוֹל

וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲשֶׂה יַצְלִיחַ

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (NIV)

The Hebrew word for "stream" is not the usual word for a river or even an arroyo or rain-fed gulch. It is peleg, a common word for "irrigation canal" or "channel." Sometimes it is used metaphorically for the channel cut by tears (Lam. 3:48) or even rain (Job 38:25). Here it is a reference to a hand-made channel of water: Hand-made, but here not man-made. The righteous man is planted by God himself next to a stream of water, which in turn was intentionally placed there by the hand of God.

Where we find ourselves in life is not an accident. We may be subject to the consequences of our own sins, or of the sins of others (like Joseph sold into slavery in Egypt), but God is still there, using our circumstances for our good. This verse is not meant to confuse us, or make us wonder how we got where we are. It's here for our comfort, reminding us that wherever we are, God is there, too. And God is able to bless us and work through us no matter how rough our lives become. Like Joseph in Pharaoh's prison, he may have work for us to do; work to which only hardship can lead us. But through it all, God is there, bringing forth fruit in our lives, and making us prosper.

PSALM 1:4-5

לֹא־כֵן הָרְשָׁעִים כִּי אִם־כַּמֹּץ אֲשֶׁר־תִּדְּפֶנּוּ רוּחַ

עַל־כֵּן לֹא־יָקֻמוּ רְשָׁעִים בַּמִּשְׁפָּט וְחַטָּאִים בַּעֲדַת צַדִּיקִים

4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. (NIV)

The prophet Hosea may have been thinking of this Psalm when he said, "They sins more and more... therefore they will be like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping from a window" (Hosea 13:2,3). Chaff is the stuff left over when grain is beaten so that the good kernel of wheat can be removed. The farmer tosses everything into the air, and the good kernels fall back down, but the light and useless chaff is blown away by the wind. On Judgment Day, God will sort the believers from the unbelievers, leaving no one in the middle. We are either Christ's followers or we aren't, and those who aren't will be sent away into hell.

A person shows his faith with the confession of his mouth and the confession of his life. He proclaims who his God is by what he says and does. He embraces the cross, or he rejects it. And so on the Last Day, "each person was judged according to what he had done... If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:13, 15).

So we hang on to Jesus. Because of Jesus, there will no longer be any curse (Rev. 22:3). As Jesus threshes mankind, we will keep on falling down at his feet. Our tears will be dried, our troubles will be over, our sins will be forgotten and forgiven, and we will have peace.

PSALM 1:6

כִּי־יוֹדֵעַ יְהוָה דֶּרֶךְ צַדִּיקִים וְדֶרֶךְ רְשָׁעִים תֹּאבֵד

6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. (NIV)

What does it mean to be "righteous"? The person who is right with God is not a person who decided to be righteous, but a person God forgave. God is the one who reaches out to us with his gospel of forgiveness, and he makes us his own by removing the guilt of our sins forever.

Look at the widow of Zarephath. She didn't choose God. She was outside Israel, both physically and spiritually. But when Israel rejected God, Elijah was sent outside the land to the village of Zarephath in the far northwest, and she was given all of the blessings God had given Israel in miniature: She was given bread, she was given the word of God, a prophet was sent to her, and for the first time in the Bible, she was even permitted to experience what the resurrection is all about when Elijah raised her son from the dead. And unlike Israel, she put her faith in God and trusted in God's word. She said, "I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth" (1 Kings 17:24).

The Lord watched over her, and made her his own. And the Lord will watch over you. Trust in him; trust his forgiveness, and all of his other blessings will be yours; even eternal life in Jesus.



Hebrews 13:20-21

Sermon exegesis for May 15, 2011.

This benediction is used at the final graveside service concluding Lutheran funerals. It is packed with reminders of God's grace and blessings.

20 ῾Ο δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης, ὁ ἀναγαγὼν ἐκ νεκρῶν τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης αἰωνίου, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν ᾽Ιησοῦν, 21 καταρτίσαι ὑμᾶς ἐν παντὶ ἀγαθῷ εἰς τὸ ποιῆσαι τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ, ποιῶν ἐν ἡμῖν τὸ εὐάρεστον ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ διὰ ᾽Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ᾧ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας [τῶν αἰώνων]· ἀμήν.

20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD IS OUR GREAT SHEPHERD
1. The servant who worked out our salvation (verse 20)
2. The one who equips us to work in his service (verse 21)

Exegesis

῾Ο δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης, ''Of peace'' is a descriptive genitive (the most common type); more than ''peaceful God,'' he is the God who is characterized by true peace. Paul uses this same title for God a few times (Rom. 15:33; 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:11), and it's not surprising to find it elsewhere in the NT. The Christian Jews (''Hebrews'') of this letter needed to hear about peace since there was often strife between them and the people around them. The Judaizers in particular made life and matters of faith very difficult for them.

ὁ ἀναγαγὼν ἐκ νεκρῶν, aorist participle (m nom sg) ἀνάγω ''lead, bring up.'' ἐκ νεκρῶν adj gen pl. ''from the dead.'' This is is the resurrection of Christ, the promise we all have of our own resurrection.

τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν, n acc sg; n gen pl; adj acc sg modifies ποιμένα. The ''great shepherd of the sheep'' is a reference to Christ's own title, ''The Good Shepherd'' (John 10:11; 10:14) and to the shepherd references throughout the Old Testament (Mic. 5:4, etc.). The ''Great'' part of the reference may recall Ezekiel 34:23 where ''my servant David'' is a Messianic prophecy, or even to 1 Peter 5:4 and the ''Chief Shepherd'' (ἀρχιποίμενος). A shepherd cares for the flock, and the Great Shepherd or Chief Shepherd is certainly Christ.

ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης αἰωνίου, dative with ἐν draws a sphere: Our Great Shepherd has been raised through the blood of the eternal covenant, and only those raised through that blood are saved. The eternal covenant reminds us of the requirements of blood sacrifices in the Old Testament Law, not ignored or bypassed by Jesus, but kept perfectly and fulfilled literally ''to the last drop'' on our behalf.

τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν, ᾽Ιησοῦν, n acc sg; the accusative case marks the object of ἀναγαγὼν ''who raised'' above. The ''our'' (ἡμῶν) here is a wonderful gospel pronoun, for Christ is not just anyone's lord, but OURS, and each one of us lays claim to him by faith.

καταρτίσαι ὑμᾶς, aorist optative 3 sg καταρτίζω ''mend, supply.'' καταρτίζω is not quite ''to make perfect'' (KJV), but ''to fill up one's needs.'' Here ''equip'' is a good translation. The optative (the only example in Hebrews) is an optative proper, in other words, an attainable wish (BDF §384). We needn't take it as being any farther from ''reality'' or ''attainableness'' than a subjunctive; doubtless the apostle simple used the optative idiomatically. The apostle reflects some more of Peter's language here (1 Peter 5:10).

ἐν παντὶ ἀγαθῷ, ''in everything good.'' That is, in the sphere of anything and everything that fits under God's holy and timeless judgment of ''good'' (Genesis 1:10. etc.). The difference between the kalon (tob) of Genesis 1:10 and the agatho here is that this word means ''useful,'' and the prayer here is that God would make each one of us useful for his kingdom. This is a prayer for the tools of sanctification. That is to say, God does not give us the tools to save ourselves or be justified (Jesus did that for us), but God gives us what is necessary for serving him and responding to what Christ has done.

εἰς τὸ ποιῆσαι, aorist infinitive with εἰς, to express purpose. ''To do...''

τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ, ''his will.'' The will of God includes his commands and prohibitions such as the Ten Commandments, but also his will that all mankind would be saved through Christ. Here, the θέλημα of God is certainly an application of the Third Use of the Law, the will of God guiding our lives of faith.

ποιῶν ''working,'' present participle. God's will is right now working in us (present participle) .

ἐν ἡμῖν τὸ εὐάρεστον ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ''in you what is pleasing in his sight.'' God supplies what he demands of us. It comes from him and is acceptable to him. Where does God do this? Do we need to go and look for it? No--it is ''in us'' already. We ourselves are the sphere of God's workmanship.

διὰ ᾽Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, We are the object of his work, and Jesus Christ is the carpenter, hammering, shaving, planing and fitting us into place. He glues up our joints and fastens together our parts so that we are tools fit for service in the kingdom of God. In our sanctified, forgiven lives, we work for our Great Shepherd.

ᾧ ἡ δόξα , ''to whom be glory.'' δόξα or 'glory' is a word that begins with one's private opinion (God is glorified in our hearts first), to public opinion (among many), and finally to his great reputation. We don't glorify God by making his face cleaner or his teeth brighter although we sometimes think of ''glory'' as being external, like the shining glory of the Lord. But we glorify him with how we make him known and beloved by many other people.

εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ''forever (and ever).'' The glory and high esteem we give to God outlives us.

[τῶν αἰώνων]· The textual question here is the lack of the genitive duplication ''and ever'' in certain manuscripts. It would hardly be a question except that Papyrus 46 (c. 200 AD, Africa) omits the phrase (I have a copy of this important manuscript in my office -- this passage is on the final leaf of the existing manuscript). Whether or not the reduplicated phrase should be here doesn't change the theology or meaning of the text, but simply the emphasis (NIV doesn't even include this as a footnote). I will not treat the matter in the pulpit.

ἀμήν. ''Amen'' is the assertion of the truth of an oath or a prayer, or an acceptance of a task allotted to mankind by God. It is the doxology of the first four books of the Psalms (41:13; 72:19; 89:52 and 106:48). It is (1) a liturgical statement in worship, a response to God's commands and promises. It is also (2) a conclusion to a prayer, hymn or doxology to assert truth. It is finally (3) a word used BEFORE sayings by Jesus calling attention to the importance of a statement, ''Amen, amen, I say to you...'' Here the Amen is both (1) and (2).

1 Corinthians 1:4-7

Sermon Exegesis for Confirmation Sunday (also Palm Sunday), April 17th, 2011.

1 CORINTHIANS 1:4

4 Εὐχαριστῶ τῷ θεῷ μου πάντοτε περὶ ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τῇ χάριτι τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ δοθείσῃ ὑμῖν ἐν Χριστῷ ᾽Ιησοῦ,

There is a variant with τῷ θεῷ μου; Codex Vaticanus, the original hand of Sinaiticus, the Ethiopic and a Father (Ephraem) omit μου (one ms, 1984, omits the whole phrase). The evidence on the side of keeping it is overwhelming, and I've inserted the reading into brackets [my] into the NIV translation below.

4 I always thank [my] God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

The present indicative Εὐχαριστῶ indicates ongoing action, underscored by the emotional πάντοτε "always." Here the preposition ἐπὶ with the dative τῇ χάριτι is causal; the reason for Paul's thanksgiving is the grace of God (τοῦ θεοῦ, object genitive), and the dependent clause τῇ δοθείσῃ "which is given..." describes exactly which "grace of God" it is to which Paul refers. Grace is a gift: δοθείσῃ is passive; the Corinthians did nothing to merit or earn God's grace.

Finally, this grace is given in and only in the sphere of Christ Jesus (ἐν Χριστῷ ᾽Ιησοῦ). Outside of Christ, there is no grace at all, but within Christ is all of God's grace, complete and eternal.


1 CORINTHIANS 1:5

5 ὅτι ἐν παντὶ ἐπλουτίσθητε ἐν αὐτῷ, ἐν παντὶ λόγῳ καὶ πάσῃ γνώσει,

5 For in him you have been enriched in every way-- in all your speaking and in all your knowledge-- (NIV)

ἐπλουτίσθητε is the aorist passive of πλουτίζω, "to make rich," and in the passive also has the meaning "to be richly furnished." We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and how wonderful it is to know that we don't deck out this temple ourselves. In our sinfulness, we are like a run-down tenement house that the Lord moves into, redecorating with his own righteousness and holiness, and tossing out all our old sins and temptations. The filled dumpsters are hauled away and the Lord's glory and holiness is what is left. When Christ looks in, he hardly recognizes the place thanks to the labor of the Holy Spirit within our hearts.

The γνώσει "knowledge" was described this way by Melanchthon: "The knowledge of Christ is the knowledge of the abundance and mercy and grace of God, which is poured out through Christ" (Annotations on 1 Corinthians, 1522, p. 32). Melanchthon's original publisher was Luther himself.

1 CORINTHIANS 1:6

6 καθὼς τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐβεβαιώθη ἐν ὑμῖν,

A minor variant here skipped by the UBS committee is the substitution of θεοῦ for Χριστοῦ in the original hand of Vaticanus and a few later Uncials (F, G, 81). Perhaps a scribe was influenced by μαρτυρία τοῦ θεοῦ in 1 John 5:9 or a similar constructions in the LXX (2 Chron. 1:3).

6 because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. (NIV)

ἐβεβαιώθη, aorist passive 3rd sg from βεβαιόω, "confirm, prove to be true." Although the Kittel TDNT (Vol. I) leans toward a legal sense, it is probably best not to press that kind of force to the word except where context calls for it, which is not the case here nor even in a test case like IMag 13:1. The τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ "testimony about Christ" is the teaching as well as the preaching of the gospel. Justification by faith alone, sanctification through the Holy Spirit, preservation by God the Father; the use of the Law of God as curb, mirror and guide, the Sacraments, and so forth would all be included in such teaching. This teaching is ἐβεβαιώθη "confirmed" (1) in the faith of the Corinthians, to which only God and each Corinthian could know for certain, (2) in the confession of the Corinthians, which would be spoken for anyone to hear and to advance the same teaching to others, and (3) in the lives of the Corinthians, which is often what we look for most in believers. But there are times, such as at the confirmation of a youth, where the second confirmation (the confession of faith) is paramount and it is understood that the life will follow because of that professed faith.

1 CORINTHIANS 1:7

7 ὥστε ὑμᾶς μὴ ὑστερεῖσθαι ἐν μηδενὶ χαρίσματι, ἀπεκδεχομένους τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾽Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ·

7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. (NIV)

ὑστερεῖσθαι, present passive infinitive ὑστερέω, "lack." χαρίσμα "spiritual gift" is anything including faith. When we have faith, we have everything we need; if there is a χαρίσμα mentioned in the Bible that you or I do not have -- prophecy, tongues, healing, or what have you -- it is not because God's grace or blessings are inferior, but because we have everything we need. We do not put parachutes in submarines because they aren't needed under water, and I don't need to speak in tongues because my witnessing doesn't require it.

There were problems in Corinth. Some of the people thought they were better than others because they had certain gifts. Others thought they were somehow lesser Christians because they didn't have certain gifts. Today the same thing can happen. One Christian may feel that you just can't be a Christian unless you speak in tongues. Another may think you just can't be a Christian unless you feel "a burning in your bosom" or some such other sign of faith. To all this, Paul says, baloney! The Church itself has all the gifts it needs. You have one, I have one, my brother has one, and my dad has another. We can't all be pastors and we can't all be painters. But we all eagerly await our Savior. And when somebody you know has a unique gift, be proud of them.

What's your gift? Praise God for it, and use it!

Genesis 37:1-11

GENESIS 37:1

וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן

1 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. (NIV)

מְגוּרֵי "sojourn, live as an alien." Canaan was the land of the promise, and both Jacob and Joseph wanted to be buried there (Gen. 50:13; 50:24-25). The location was somewhere near Hebron (37:14), on the eastern side of the Judean mountains, about even with the midpoint of the Dead Sea as you look at a map.

GENESIS 37:2

אֵלֶּה תֹּלְדוֹת יַעֲקֹב יוֹסֵף בֶּן־שְׁבַע־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת־אֶחָיו בַּצֹּאן וְהוּא נַעַר אֶת־בְּנֵי בִלְהָה וְאֶת־בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה נְשֵׁי אָבִיו וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת־דִּבָּתָם רָעָה אֶל־אֲבִיהֶם

2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. (NIV)

The account is the tenth toledoth (תֹּלְדוֹת) of Genesis. Yet instantly Moses focuses our attention on Jacob's son Joseph. The final 14 chapters of Genesis are dominated by this one man. Joseph as a boy was naive, proud and arrogant beyond his years. He was the special favorite of Jacob. Perhaps this had already caused a falling out with his brothers who were the sons of Leah. We find Joseph out with the sons of the servant girls. Dan and Naphtali were the sons of Bilhah and Gad and Asher were the sons of Zilpah. Their ages may also have grouped these five together, although Zebulun (another son of Leah) would have been closer to Joseph's age as well. The antagonism begins with Joseph's "bad report" (דִּבָּתָם רָעָה). It is part of our sinful human nature to dislike those who point out our sins.


GENESIS 37:3

וְיִשְׂרָאֵל אָהַב אֶת־יוֹסֵף מִכָּל־בָּנָיו כִּי־בֶן־זְקֻנִים הוּא לוֹ וְעָשָׂה לוֹ כְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים

3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. (NIV)

Most of us learned in Sunday School that Joseph had a coat of many colors. The Hebrew cetoneh passim (כְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים) would be better translated as a "coat of palms," i.e., a long coat with long sleeves -- the uniform of an overseer or slave driver. Whether it was just a gaudy garment or an infuriating outfit, Joseph didn't hide the fact that "father likes me best." When he squealed on Gad, Dan, Asher and Naphtali one day, all his brothers began to hate him.

GENESIS 37:4

וַיִּרְאוּ אֶחָיו כִּי־אֹתוֹ אָהַב אֲבִיהֶם מִכָּל־אֶחָיו וַיִּשְׂנְאוּ אֹתוֹ וְלֹא יָכְלוּ דַּבְּרוֹ לְשָׁלֹם

4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. (NIV)
Their hatred grew to such a point that they couldn't even say the shalom (לְשָׁלֹם) to him. Shalom (NIV "a kind word") was also the typical greeting. "Good morning," your bother says as walk into the kitchen, and you hate him so much that you turn your back and say nothing at all. This is the kind of bold faced hatred the brothers had for Joseph.

Who do you associate with in this scenario? Are you a parent who has favored one child over others? Are you a sibling who has hated a brother or sister because they got something you didn't? Are you a spoiled brat who doesn't think before he/she speaks or acts? Are you puffed up inside because you think you are none of the above?

The Joseph story will teach us to humbly ask God for forgiveness for the sins we commit. That forgiveness comes only through the Savior, Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God that despite all of their sins, jealousies, and murderous hatred, God still used Jacob's family to bring about that Savior, who washed away all of our sins.

GENESIS 37:5

וַיַּחֲלֹם יוֹסֵף חֲלוֹם וַיַּגֵּד לְאֶחָיו וַיּוֹסִפוּ עוֹד שְׂנֹא אֹתוֹ

5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. (NIV)

His brothers would not shalom, but God permitted him to chalom, and so Joseph dreamed a dream (חֲלוֹם). Moses plays on Joseph's name here to show the way that everything about Joseph grated on their senses. Even Joseph's name Joseph (יוֹסֵף) means "he will add" (Gen. 30:24). If the brothers thought the "he" was their father Jacob, they now realized they were mistaken. The "he" was God himself. Everybody was going to favor Joseph. Even God was going to add or "joseph" their brother Joseph, and so they would add to Joseph, too. They added to their hatred, which is what the Hebrew says here: They josephed (וַיּוֹסִפוּ to their hatred and hated him all the more.

GENESIS 37:6

וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵיהֶם שִׁמְעוּ־נָא הַחֲלוֹם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר חָלָמְתִּי

6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: (NIV)

I don't doubt but that the telling of this dream only added to their hatred. It was naive of Joseph to think it was a good idea. Some of his brothers may have been already married at seventeen, but Joseph was not yet married, and perhaps he lacked maturity in more than one way.


GENESIS 37:7

וְהִנֵּה אֲנַחְנוּ מְאַלְּמִים אֲלֻמִּים בְּתוֹךְ הַשָּׂדֶה וְהִנֵּה קָמָה אֲלֻמָּתִי וְגַם־נִצָּבָה וְהִנֵּה תְסֻבֶּינָה אֲלֻמֹּתֵיכֶם וַתִּשְׁתַּחֲוֶיןָ לַאֲלֻמָּתִי

7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” (NIV)

In the piel, alam means "bind" (in the nifal it means to "be silent" or "dumb." Binding sheaves was not the usual labor of semi-nomadic shepherds. That part of Joseph's dream was passed over by Joseph's brothers, and by most of us, too. The land, which Moses has been careful to remind us about, was promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and although the clan was still herding sheep, Joseph's dream promised a more permanent and stable relationship to the land. They would be gathering grain--all of them. But now the details of the dream overshadow the promise: The sheaves of the brothers would bow to Joseph's sheaf.
וַתִּשְׁתַּחֲוֶיןָ can be a confusing form, and we have analyzed it with different words throughout the decades. It is a kind of hithpael with an infixed shin, and it is often called an eshtafal or hishtafel form today. Waw-consecutive imperfect, 3rd feminine (elumah, "sheaves" is feminine) plural.

GENESIS 37:8

וַיֹּאמְרוּ לוֹ אֶחָיו הֲמָלֹךְ תִּמְלֹךְ עָלֵינוּ אִם־מָשׁוֹל תִּמְשֹׁל בָּנוּ וַיּוֹסִפוּ עוֹד שְׂנֹא אֹתוֹ עַל־חֲלֹמֹתָיו וְעַל־דְּבָרָיו

8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. (NIV)

Twice the brother use the powerful verb combination of the infinitive absolute followed by the imperfect. This emphasizes the verb and in this case becomes an incredulous, venomous charge: Will you actually be king over us?! Will you actually rule over us?! They did not just hate him because of what he said, but "because of his dream" as well. They hated the fact they he told them his dream, and they hated him because God had given him the dream in the first place. As Luther says, the dreams were simply "bacon in the trap" for Joseph's brothers. God needed Joseph in Egypt soon, and this was the opportunity to get him there. God didn't cause the brothers to sin, but they failed his test miserably and he used it for his own purpose.

GENESIS 37:9

וַיַּחֲלֹם עוֹד חֲלוֹם אַחֵר וַיְסַפֵּר אֹתוֹ לְאֶחָיו וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּה חָלַמְתִּי חֲלוֹם עוֹד וְהִנֵּה הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וְהַיָּרֵחַ וְאַחַד עָשָׂר כּוֹכָבִים מִשְׁתַּחֲוִים לִי

9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” (NIV)

 Now it got worse. He told his brother again, and they were going to hate him again. But this time the dream isn't about grain or just about the brothers. Now it's bigger. The sun (הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ), moon (וְהַיָּרֵחַ) and stars (כּוֹכָבִים) are involved, and clearly Jacob and Leah are meant as the sun and moon also bowing down to Joseph.

Some people are tempted to take the Joseph story as a type or prophecy about Christ, since there are so many similarities. If some of the details in this story remind us of Jesus, then that's a blessing, but this story isn't a prophecy. It's the historical account of what happened to Joseph, the son of Rachel bath Laban and Jacob ben Isaac ben Abraham. The eleven stars (וְאַחַד עָשָׂר) are not the eleven faithful apostles (twelve minus Judas) but the eleven sons of Jacob by his two wives and two concubines.


GENESIS 37:10

וַיְסַפֵּר אֶל־אָבִיו וְאֶל־אֶחָיו וַיִּגְעַר־בּוֹ אָבִיו וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ מָה הַחֲלוֹם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר חָלָמְתָּ הֲבוֹא נָבוֹא אֲנִי וְאִמְּךָ וְאַחֶיךָ לְהִשְׁתַּחֲו‍ֹת לְךָ אָרְצָה

10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” (NIV)

Now Jacob falls into the incredulous infinitive absolute + imperfect will we really come and bow down? Notice that Jacob is even upset about the dream itself, as if Joseph it to blame for having the dream. The "mother" here of course in Leah, now mother to Joseph and Benjamin since Rachel died giving birth to Joesph's younger brother (Genesis 35:19) and was buried near Bethlehem.

GENESIS 37:11

וַיְקַנְאוּ־בוֹ אֶחָיו וְאָבִיו שָׁמַר אֶת־הַדָּבָר

11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. (NIV)

Dreams are strange things. We dream all the time -- but we remember only some of them. From time to time in the Bible, God used dreams to give his people messages. He does not promise to do so for us today, but when Scripture says a thing happened in a dream, we take it at face value.

Joseph's dreams were remarkable. They predicted what would happen in the future, but it was naive of Joseph to tell his family in the way he did. The dreams pointed to his supremacy in a way his brothers or parents could not have understood. His eleven brothers did not like the idea of the boy with the overseer's jacket telling them they would bow down to him one day.

Like Jesus' mother, Joseph's father pondered this. The Hebrew text says he "guarded this thing." He didn't distort or dismiss what Joseph said. Instead, he kept it carefully in his heart. We need to treat every word of God the same way, guarding it and keeping it in our hearts -- the word of God is the message (the only mesage) of the forgiveness of our sins and of eternal life.



Job 2:10

וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלֶיהָ כְּדַבֵּר אַחַת הַנְּבָלוֹת תְּדַבֵּרִי גַּם אֶת הַטּוֹב נְקַבֵּל מֵאֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וְאֶת הָרָע לֹא נְקַבֵּל בְּכָל זֹאת לֹא חָטָא אִיּוֹב בִּשְׂפָתָיו

10 He replied, “You are speaking like the talk of foolish women. Should we accept good from God, and not accept trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

הַנְּבָלוֹת is a feminine plural noun, so "foolish women" seems like the most literal translation, although putting the phrase into English is awkward this way (NASB and King James try) because the passage comes across sounding unnecessarily sexist since the indefinite "foolish women" sounds like a description of all women, when it isn't. The singular "a foolish woman" would be better in English, so it would be better to handle it like the NIV does.

Even in his pain, Job showed what a responsible husband must do for his family. He corrected her mistake. He is short with her, but that isn't necessarily his pain speaking. He doesn't call her foolish, he says she is talking like someone who is foolish, and he very correctly states the case for his suffering: "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"

If the book ended here, we would have a little example about our faith. We would know that Job suffered, and we would have an idea that suffering is not always the result of some certain sin in our lives, but the result of the sinful actions or intentions of others--in this case, the devil himself.

But Job's suffering did not end here, and the book, which will soon turn into a poem, will explore the reason for suffering and the consequences of sin in our lives. But Job's words should remind us of our place in the world, and that all things are used by God for our good. Even our suffering.

Job 2:9

וַתֹּאמֶר לוֹ אִשְׁתּוֹ עֹדְךָ מַחֲזִיק בְּתֻמָּתֶךָ בָּרֵךְ אֱלֹהִים וָמֻת

9 His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

תֻּמָּא "integrity" is sometimes thought to be a "late" Hebrew word (i.e., from the time of Ezra), but this is probably because it happens to occur in Ezra more than in other places (Ezra 5:17; 6:1,6,12). But it also occurs in the Davidic Psalm 7:9 and here.

This is the only time Job's wife speaks: the devil has created strife in their marriage. She wanted his suffering to come to an end, and so she wished for his death. In such agony, she could imagine no other end to her husband's misery. Certainly she had lost almost everything he had lost: his property was her stability; his children were her children. Her grief for them went as deep as his. Now he had lost his health, too, and she saw her husband suffering to the point of death, and she knew that without him, she would have nothing; nothing at all. She was evidently still young (as we will later see) and perhaps could have been taken in by another husband, but she wasn't thinking of that now. She wanted him to have peace and relief; death was the only answer she knew.

The strife was religious. She urged her husband to give up on his trust in God for help. In their culture, there is virtually no record of suicide as an option even to suffering. Although there are some exceptions in Egypt, that was another culture and a completely different religion. So Job's wife tells her husband to call God's wrath down on himself by cursing God.

2 Kings 2:11-18

Transfiguration Sermon Exegesis

2 KINGS 2:11

וַיְהִי הֵמָּה הֹלְכִים הָלוֹךְ וְדַבֵּר וְהִנֵּה רֶכֶב־אֵשׁ וְסוּסֵי אֵשׁ וַיַּפְרִדוּ בֵּין שְׁנֵיהֶם וַיַּעַל אֵלִיָּהוּ בַּסְעָרָה הַשָּׁמָיִם׃

As they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared chariots of fire and horses of fire which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.

The סְעָרָה "whirlwind" that took Elijah to heaven is the same word used for the storm from which God speaks in Job 40:6. Ezekiel also saw a סְעָרָה "windstorm" at the beginning of his prophecy (Ezek. 1:4), and the frightening storms of the Mediterranean (and the Red Sea?) are described this way as well (Psalm 107:25; 148:8).

רֶכֶב is a collective term, "chariotry, chariots." The chariots, usually depicted as a vehicle for Elijah, simply separated Elijah from Elisha. The mistake of assuming that the chariot was Elijah's vehicle goes back at least as far as the apocryphal book Ecclesiasticus: "You who were taken up by a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with horses of fire" (Ecclus. 48:9). When God's holiness approaches mankind, he protects people by setting limits (Exodus 19:12; 30:20) or by sending his angels (Genesis 3:24) or by other means. The chariot and horses of fire appear to have served this purpose to protect Elisha from what was happening to his master.

Was Elijah dead after this? The answer is that, like Enoch before him (Genesis 5:24; Hebrew 11:5), Elijah was translated alive into heaven. The common term in the Bible and apocrypha is simply "taken up." "Enoch pleased the Lord, and was taken up; he was an example of repentance to all generations" (μετετέθη, Sirach 44:16); "No one like Enoch has been created on earth, for he was taken up from the earth" (ἀνελήμφθη, Sirach 49:14); "Elijah because of great zeal for the law was taken up into heaven" (ἀνελήμφθη, 1 Maccabees 2:58).

Elijah's body was no longer his sinful body; it would certainly have been transformed into the holy, sinless body we will all have at the resurrection. The only difference between Elijah assumption into heaven and our own on the Last Day is that his happened at the end of his life without the intervening rest stop of death. His soul was never separated from his body, and this is to God's glory, that we are shown in Elijah's translation the state that we will have in eternity with God.

2 KINGS 2:12a

וֶאֱלִישָׁע רֹאֶה וְהוּא מְצַעֵק אָבִי אָבִי רֶכֶב יִשְׂרָאֵל וּפָרָשָׁ֔יו

Elisha saw it and cried out, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!"

Elisha's cry was famously quoted by Philip Melanchthon when he learned of Luther's death in 1546. וְהוּא מְצַעֵק "and he (himself) cried out" is noted as a hapax phrase in the Bible. The loss of Elijah was painful for Elisha, but of course Elijah was entering into eternal glory.

The accentuation of וּפָ֣רָשָׁ֔יו seems strange but is the result of rigidly followed rules of accentuation. The zaqef ends the clause, and although the munach isn't essential it appears to be standard with a zaqef qaton (Price p. 33) here is serves the purpose of metheg marking a secondary stress in the word. It is referred to as "munach-metheg" in this position (Price p. 125-126) and is often found with zaqef serving in this way (cf וַיֹּאמְרוּ in 2:15).

2 KINGS 2:12b

וְלֹא רָאָהוּ עוֹד וַיַּחֲזֵק בִּבְגָדָיו וַיִּקְרָעֵם לִשְׁנַיִם קְרָעִים׃

And he saw Elijah no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

Rending one's clothes was a common way of showing grief; normally this was a "partial" tear, but Elisha actually tore is robe in half (לִשְׁנַיִם). The action is followed immediately by Elisha picking up Elijah's robe: Elisha showed that he was leaving his old role behind and taking up this new one as the Lord's prophet.

2 KINGS 2:13

וַיָּרֶם אֶת־אַדֶּרֶת אֵלִיָּהוּ אֲשֶׁר נָפְלָה מֵעָלָיו וַיָּשָׁב וַיַּעֲמֹד עַל־שְׂפַת הַיַּרְדֵּן׃

He also took up the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and returned and stood by the bank of the Jordan.

Elijah had used his אַדֶּרֶת "cloak" to divide the water of the Jordan when the two men crossed (2:7-8). The significance of Elijah's אַדֶּרֶת was not the passing of God's grace from one man to the next. Elijah left this up to God by saying that Elisha would inherit "a double portion" of his master's spirit (a common way of talking about an heir, cf. Deut. 21:7) only if Elisha saw him when God took him away (2:10). The אַדֶּרֶת must have fallen from Elijah as he ascended; he would have no need of it in heaven.

2 KINGS 2:14a

וַיִּקַּח אֶת־אַדֶּרֶת אֵלִיָּהוּ אֲשֶׁר־נָפְלָה מֵעָלָיו וַיַּכֶּה אֶת־הַמַּיִם וַיֹּאמַר אַיֵּה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֵלִיָּ֑הוּ

He took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and struck the waters and said, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?"

The words are a very tightly crafted poem: ahyah yahweh, elohai eliyahu? When Elisha struck the water, he was showing his faith in the words of Elijah and in the response God would give.

Since the phrase "he struck the waters" is repeated in the second half of the verse, should we understand that the river did not part the first time? Is that what brought on the question from Elisha? But he struck the water (again) in 14b and the river parted once again. The idea that the river didn't part the first time is the cause of the LXX reading καὶ οὐ διέστη "but it did not part."

The word וַיֹּאמַר has the Mp note "Occurs 91 times." The reference counts the number of times this word is accented on the ultima rather than the penult.

2 KINGS 2:14b

אַף־הוּא וַיַּכֶּה אֶת־הַמַּיִם וַיֵּחָצוּ הֵנָּה וָהֵנָּה וַיַּעֲבֹר אֱלִישָׁע׃

And when he also had struck the waters, they were divided here and there; and Elisha crossed over.

The Lord permitted Elisha to perform this miracle: In all, there will be twelve specific miracles performed by Elisha during his ministry as prophet and a thirteenth involving his bones. The Shunamite woman given a son (4:8-17) is a prophecy on Elisha's part; not strictly a miracle he performed.

1. Dividing the water of the Jordan (2:14)
2. Healing the water (2:19-22)
3. The bears punish the student prophets (2:24)
4. Ditches to deliver Israel from Moab (3:1-27)
5. The widow's oil (4:1-7)
6. The Shunamite woman's son raised from the dead (4:18-37)
7. Death in the pot (4:36-41)
8. The feeding of a hundred (4:42-44)
9. Naaman cured of leprosy (5:1-19)
10. Gehazi given leprosy (5:20-27)
11. An axe head floats (6:1-7)
12. Arameans are blinded (6:8-23)
13. An Israelite raised to life (13:20-21)

2 KINGS 2:15a (This verse begins a new seder reading in the Hebrew text).

וַיִּרְאֻהוּ בְנֵי־הַנְּבִיאִים אֲשֶׁר־בִּירִיחוֹ מִנֶּגֶד וַיֹּאמְרוּ נָחָה רוּחַ אֵלִיָּהוּ עַל־אֱלִישָׁע

Now when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho opposite him saw him, they said, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha."

The miracle of dividing the water of the Jordan had many witnesses; the student prophets saw and confessed their faith. The term מִנֶּגֶד "from before him / opposite him" indicates that they were there to see what happened, just across the river. Raabe's analysis: "The complex peroposition min + neged functions as an adverbial. It indicates a position 'in front, opposite, within the field of vision": A faces B and can observe B" (Obadiah, p. 172).

2 KINGS 2:15b

וַיָּבֹאוּ לִקְרָאתוֹ וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ־לוֹ אָרְצָה׃

And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ eshtafal (hishtafel) חוה wc imperfect 3 plural "bow down." Older lexicons offer shachah as a root.

2 KINGS 2:16a

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו הִנֵּה־נָא יֵשׁ־אֶת־עֲבָדֶיךָ חֲמִשִּׁים אֲנָשִׁים בְּנֵי־חַיִל יֵלְכוּ נָא֮ וִיבַקְשׁוּ אֶת־אֲדֹנֶיךָ֒

They said to him, "Behold now, there are with your servants fifty strong men, please let them go and search for your master;

The accent pattern at the end of the verse is zarqa+segolta (these two always occur together for musical reasons), where the segolta has the same disjunctive force as a zaqef. The number fifty reminds us that a large crowd of witnesses saw what just happened.

2 KINGS 2:16b

פֶּן־נְשָׂאוֹ רוּחַ יְהוָה וַיַּשְׁלִכֵהוּ בְּאַחַד הֶהָרִים אוֹ בְּאַחַת הַגֵּיאָ֯וֹת וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא תִשְׁלָחוּ׃

...perhaps the Spirit of the LORD has taken him up and cast him on some mountain or into some valley." And he said, "Do not send."

Note the qere for הַגֵּיאָ֯וֹת. The Mm note that follows the qere tells us that this is one of three times that this word is written plene (2 Kg. 2:16; Ezek. 6:3 and 35:8).

The search for Elijah's body was not just symbolic. They wanted to discover whether he was dead, so that they could bury him. Elijah had told Elisha that he was going to be taken away, but the other prophets had not been privy to that conversation.

2 KINGS 2:17

וַיִּפְצְרוּ־בוֹ עַד־בֹּשׁ וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁלָחוּ וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ חֲמִשִּׁים אִישׁ וַיְבַקְשׁוּ שְׁלֹשָׁה־יָמִים וְלֹא מְצָאֻה׃

But when they urged him until he was ashamed, he said, "Send." So they sent fifty men; and they searched three days but did not find him.

There is "a time to search and a time to give up" (Ecclesiastes 3:6), and not finding Elijah's body they arrived at the conclusion that he was in heaven, just as Enoch had been taken away.

Perhaps the timing of the taking of Enoch and Elijah preaches a message as well. Enoch's assumption took place shortly after the death of Adam. Since Adam had personally been the recipient of God's curse, Enoch's translation to heaven was a physical reminder to the people of that time that there was also a promise of salvation and not just the curse of death for mankind. When Elijah was translated, Israel was divided and both northern and southern kingdoms were going to be carried away into exile. Elijah's translation was yet another reminder to the people that for those who believe God and trust his promises, there is the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

2 KINGS 2:18

וַיָּשֻׁבוּ אֵלָיו וְהוּא יֹשֵׁב בִּירִיחוֹ וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם הֲלֹא־אָמַרְתִּי אֲלֵיכֶם אַל־תֵּלֵכוּ׃

They returned to him while he was staying at Jericho; and he said to them, "Did I not say to you, 'Do not go '?"

Elisha's rebuke is not severe; he had faith, and it was time to teach these other men about faith, too. Here the prohibition is changed to אַל with the jussive indicating dissuasion.

THIS ACCOUNT FOR TRANSFIGURATION:

At Transfiguration, we meditate on the Glory of God, shown in this text by Elijah's departure, the fiery chariots and horses, and also by the miraculous division of the Jordan. By moving the pericope from the usual 2:1-12 to these verse which dwell on the aftermath of Elijah's translation, we are reminded that Jesus and his apostles came down the mountain again after the glorious transfiguration to proclaim that glory to the world. As with Elisha, so with the disciples, and so with us.

THE GLORY OF A GODLY LIFE (Sermon Studies B outline)

1. Glorious when it is spent serving the Lord

2. Glorious when it departs to eternal life