Finite Knowledge (01/29/26-01/30/26)

First off, something of a programming note.  I have been finding that when I set up the outline for this study, particularly it seems in these first verses, I set the divisions incorrectly.  Thus, this section titled “The Apostolic Commission” had in fact excluded the verse in which that commission was delivered.  Well, that clearly can’t stand.  So, corrections were made, and a second trip through these exercises of mine for verse 8 was needed.  I suppose I might have chosen that verse as key, had I looked at the whole in one sitting, but I am inclined to leave verse 7 as my key verse because really, for the church in every age, that seems to be the point that needs to be pushed.  We become too full of ourselves, too sure of our full grasp on the plans of God, and so, we miss what’s actually happening.

That being the case, I want to focus first on that verse and its message.  It is actually two messages in one, and I’ll save the second part of it for the next piece of the study.  Here, we must start with a matter that needs to be clear in our understanding.  “It is not for you to know.”  There is something in us, particularly when it comes to considerations of the end of the age, that feels sure we ought to know not just the schedule of events, but date certain.  You can see it in the Apostles’ questions here.  Is this the time, Lord?  Never mind that they were a bit off in their expectations as to what was going to happen at this significant time they had in mind.  They wanted the schedule.  Enough of these shocks and surprises.  Fill us in, boss.  What’s the plan?  When do we get to action?

And to this, Jesus replies firmly.  To borrow from the Phillips translation, “You cannot know times and dates.”  As ever, it is good to consider what sort of knowing Jesus is talking about here.  There are those nuances of Greek that simply don’t translate to English because we have but the one word to encompass several in Greek.  Here, we are dealing with ginosko, so not the input of the senses, but rather the absolute knowledge that would generally come of experience.  But I don’t think it’s the experience that is in view here.  It has more to do with understanding and awareness.  Zhodiates adds the idea of being conscious of whatever it is that would be known.  There are also potential connotations of intimacy in that knowledge, thus, I suppose, that sense of absolute knowing.

So get the message here.  Take it to heart.  “It is not yours to know.”  You’re not going to establish the chronology.  You’re not going to discern the strategic moment.  For one, God’s not going to tell you the schedule, and like it or not, that’s His prerogative.  Finite minds have limits.  And, as I have often observed, fallen minds, even with the renewal that is ours in the Holy Spirit, would take knowledge of a date certain and make of it an excuse for procrastination.  If the end comes next Wednesday, then I can do as I please until Tuesday night, and then repent.  Yeah.  It doesn’t work that way.

I know many who will look at the declaration regarding the sons of Issachar and insist that no, God will surely tell at least the elites among His children when He is about to act.  These were “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (1Chr 12:32).  I have to observe that nothing is said there of interpreting signs, only of understanding.  And over against this, we have Jesus’ clear declaration, both here and elsewhere.  We find an occasion when the Pharisees were questioning Jesus.  In this case, they were asking when the kingdom of God would be coming, to which Jesus responds, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed” (Lk 17:20-21).  Now, we can question the motives behind that question, given that their questions were generally asked in hopes of catching Jesus out, or finding something by which they could bring Him to grief.  But this is not the only such statement He makes on the matter.

Come to the rather lengthy discussion He had with His own out on the Mount of Olives.  The end of His time with them was coming close, and still they had their questions.  “When will these things happen?  What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Mt 24:3).  The same questions still being asked today.  And, while He gives a lengthy answer to them, particulars as regarded the relatively near future that the Church took to heart and thereby escaped the fall of Jerusalem, yet there remains this fundamental point.  “Of that day and hour no one knows.  Angels in heaven don’t know.  The Son doesn’t know.  Only the Father” (Mt 24:36).  The signs, as we review them, particularly those which He classifies as “merely the beginning of birth pangs” (Mt 24:8), are such as one can find in the news almost daily, and thus it has been so far as memory can recall.

Nation rising against nation?  How is this news?  Nations have been battling one another forever.  Famines and earthquakes?  For some regions, these were as common as spring.  For some, they still are.  Earthquakes in Turkey?  Go read the history of Laodicea.  Or go read last year’s news.  Earthquakes around the Pacific?  Yeah, we get it.  They happen.  Famines?  Again, on a global scale, they are something of a constant.  The variety is only in location and duration.  As signs of the end, they are pretty pointless, because they’re always there, and the end is always yet to come.  There is a simple point to be taken from that discourse.  The signs, when they come, aren’t going to require interpretation.  You won’t need somebody to explain when the Son appears.  And you will not get advance notice.  Honestly, if somebody tells you they’ve got it figured out, whether it be by calculations on the Scriptures, by dreams and visions, or whatever it may be, the message is, dismiss them.  “Do not believe them” (Mt 24:26).  And don’t waste your energy trying to discern the schedule.  It’s not going to be told you.  Just be ready.  Always.  Just walk humbly with the Lord your God.  Always.  Trust Him.  Always.

Understand that questions are not wrong.  It is acceptable and right to express ourselves honestly to God, and that includes those times when we just don’t understand.  Think of the examples of first Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, and then of Mary, mother of Jesus.  Both were met by an angel.  This is already pushing things beyond what could reasonably be expected or explained.  How came this being to be here in this place?  For Zacharias it was the holy place, for Mary, we presume her bedroom or at the very least her house.  This was not a place where strangers should be expected to be, let alone strangers of an angelic nature.  And now, this angel says, hey, I have a message for you from God.  Yes, I am paraphrasing in the extreme, but that’s the crux of it.  God sent me to tell you something.  Listen!  God had sent no prophet for what?  500 years or so?  And now you’re coming to me?  Who am I?  Now Zacharias could at least look to his office as priest, but Mary?  A mere child, barely of age to be betrothed.  And the news comes.  You’re going to have a child.  For Zacharias, this was as improbable as it had been for Abram and Sarah, and for similar reason.  He and his wife were old, past the age of child-bearing, really.  And he asks, “How could this be possible?”  But he doesn’t seek wisdom.  He’s expressing doubt.  Mary, on the other hand, faces the impossibility of being pregnant without having been with a man.  She, too, asks, “How is this possible?”  But in her case, it is seeking understanding.  With childlike faith, she has already accepted that this will be.  But what’s going to be involved?  How will it come about?  What will be required of her?

Let’s focus on Mary’s case for just a moment.  Gabriel could have been given no permission to explain.  He could have been left to answer her questions much like Jesus answered the questions of the disciples.  “It is not for you to know.  Only God the Father knows.”  Had that been the case, Mary would have been left to accept this, to simply trust that it would be so.  There is, you see, a distinct difference between demanding further evidence, and seeking further explanation.  But, even when it is the latter that we are doing, if God says no explanation is going to be given, to continue prying becomes an act of unbelief.  To insist, with all that Scripture says in regard to the end of all days, that God must tell us when, even if couched in a sort of passive aggressive demand insisting that He would never, is to place oneself in charge and makes God out to be more a genie than the Supreme Being.  It wants us in charge, and God answering our beck and call.  And that just isn’t going to happen.  That is the path of rebellion, the same path with which Satan tempted Eve at the outset.  It is the same sin that has plagued man ever since.

What is our place, then?  We can ask.  We ought to ask.  James makes that clear enough, doesn’t he?  “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously without reproach.  It will be given to him” (Jas 1:5-6).  Now, there is that caveat of asking without doubting, but that’s different than demanding.  I may have no doubt but that God will indeed provide the wisdom I seek, but I cannot demand that it come in the form of the answers I want to hear.  Sometimes, wisdom is going to say, “Best you don’t know.”  Or, to bring it back to our passage, “It is not for you to know.”  The seeking of wisdom must, you see, be accompanied by humility.  Yes, you are going to your Father, a Father who loves you and lovingly supplies you with true wisdom.  But if He, in His loving fatherhood, determines that you are better left with incomplete understanding, humility requires acceptance of that fact.  We abide by His requirement to walk humbly with Him in love and justice as best we can perceive and apply it (Mic 6:8).  Humility insists that we recognize that God knows all, and God knows best.  He knows what He is doing, and that includes His decision to keep certain matters to Himself.

And so, if our questions seek to pry into matters not for our eyes, He must keep His own counsel, and He will give us to know that this subject is not up for discussion.  “It is not for you to know.”  I don’t know, perhaps the Phillips translation is onto something with, “You cannot know.”  Suffice to say the negation in Jesus’ reply is strong.  Ouch umon.  Okay, I can’t write that without being amused by the nearness of that to “ouch, man.”  But ouch is an absolute not.  Not for you.  This knowledge is not for you.  This detail is not for you.  We’re not talking leap of faith territory, being as I have been reading Schaeffer again.  It’s not dismissing reason and choosing to believe in spite of the evidence.  No.  It’s recognizing God for Who He Is.  He is sovereign.  He is perfectly aware and perfectly wise and perfectly loving and perfectly just.  If this is His decision, it is good, for He is good.  I, a bondservant of my Lord, must accept that the foot soldier is not going to be privy to the full counsel of the general.  Yet, we have history.  We know Him.  He is trustworthy, and His ways are right.  Always.  With Mary, then, let us answer, “Let it be to me as You have said.”

This same mindset, I believe, is with the Apostles in this encounter.  Like Mary, like Zacharias, they are facing a reality that defies belief.  Jesus, Whom they saw dead as dead could be, His blood drained from His side after His death to satisfy the doubts of the guard, has been coming for visits.  No shade, this.  No ghost.  He’s dismissed that possibility.  They’ve taken meals together.  They’ve been in physical contact.  He’s real alright.  Yet, that’s not really possible, is it?  Sure, they understood the theology of resurrection, but that’s for some future age, right?  It doesn’t really touch on real life here.  It’s one of those things where believing is one thing, but experiencing is quite another.  However much one believes, seeing it come to pass remains unbelievable.  Our minds have simply shelved that event as something true, but in some other time and place.  It just doesn’t happen here.  But it did.  These are things that set the mind reeling.  It’s not unbelief so much as the impossibility of belief.  This can’t be happening and yet it’s happening, and the mind, to avoid sinking into blubbering insanity, will seek to devise an explanation for the inexplicable.

And remember, their understanding remains as yet imperfect.  It remains, as well, heavily influenced by life to this point, but the national expectations of their culture and their religion.  We understand there’s to be a Messiah, a restoration of David’s kingdom.  But earthly beings will tend to translate that as applying to earthly dominions.  So, sure, Jesus!  You’re back.  Hope is restored, so it must be time the kingdom is restored, too, right?  When do we start?

Understand that we are just as prepared to misinterpret events as were they.  We are just as likely to develop expectations wholly at odds with God’s intentions, and to begin interpreting His words to us on the basis not of His words, but of our expectations.  We may be familiar with the theological distinction between exegesis and eisegesis.  The right course is to take Scripture at its word, recognize that God is presenting an intelligible explanation, reasoning with us by means we should be able to reason out, and seek to understand what He is saying.  That’s exegesis, finding His meaning out of His word to us.  The wrong course is to reach a conclusion and then go searching for passages to support that conclusion.  That’s pursuing the course that these apostles were on prior to the Spirit’s infilling.  They heard His words well enough, but they were filtered through their expectations.  We are inclined toward such behavior.  Even as we seek to be careful to pursue the path of exegesis, we may very well slide over into eisegesis, and begin reading our current understanding into that which ought to instead be correcting our understanding.  That is the course that leads to us demanding God must act as we perceive the path.  After all, we’ve studied, right?  We’ve learned.  We’ve read this promise or that, inferred this or that, and convinced ourselves of certainty that, as it turns out, rests more on inference than truth.

We must remain open not only to God’s silence on certain matters, but to His very necessary correction when our supposed knowledge has drifted off course.  We must be prepared for wonders beyond our experience, for knowledge beyond our learning.  That does not require us to take every teaching as valid.  That doesn’t require that every claim of the supernatural be accepted without question.  You know, for all that folks appeal to Issachar’s awareness of the times, it is the Bereans that get praised.  Why?  Because they searched the Scriptures.  They received the word eagerly, hopefully, but they also examined, and their examinations were not occluded by preconceptions.  They were hoping to find this good news true, not trying to unearth reasons for disbelief (Ac 17:11).

We have received this same unbelievably good news.  We have been tasked with imparting the same to those around us who haven’t heard and may not particularly wish to do so.  Hey, we were in the same place once ourselves.  But God.  I come back to the theme here.  “But God was with them.”  Yes, and God was with me, else I would still be out there laughing at the very idea.  And I know He is with me, in spite of may myriad failings.  I know, too, that He is with my beloved wife, in spite of her rather curious pursuits in regard to faith.  And I must confess, these differences of course are perplexing, frustrating, incomprehensible to me.  And yet, I know God, and I know He knows what He is doing.  It doesn’t necessarily make things easier, but it leaves things settled.  If He chooses to harmonize, then things shall harmonize.  If He chooses to have us remain so very different and yet one somehow, so be it.

Lord, grant me the wisdom, the humility, the compassion, the gentleness, and by all means, the patience to bear this with grace.  Show me how to minister Your goodness and Your truth into this.  I have seen my response when faced with disagreement, and it’s not pretty.  If I have indeed perceived Your truth to the degree I convince myself I have, then let it change me as it should.  Let this frustration and self-centeredness be done away and let me truly serve You as a faithful son.  Help me to hear with understanding, to receive the intended communication, rather than becoming frustrated.  Help me to hear.

Fixed Purpose (01/31/26)

That God does not fill us in on every last detail of His plans ought not to unsettle us, though it often does.  We have become accustomed to knowing what’s going on and when it will be happening.  We expect our weather forecasts to be down to the minute as to when the storm shall come, and we get upset if the forecast proves wrong.  Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of the fact that a forecast is, by its very nature, a best guess.  It is an educated guess, perhaps, and based on better data than used to be available, but  it’s still a guess.  Yet, we try and treat it as a certainty.

We have our work schedules, and those are again little better than guesswork.  Yet we put all our energy into making the schedule a reality, at least assuming our employers are able to maintain some proximity to the possible as they schedule.  We schedule our days.  We have our checklist of things to get done, and we go about doing them.  It makes life predictable, and we like it that way.  But God will not be scheduled by us, nor is He going to make things predictable.  Face it.  A predictable life will not produce in us the humble dependence on God that is our greatest need and our greatest strength.

So, don’t be discomfited by God keeping things to Himself.  Rather, look to the reasons for confidence that are contained in this same verse.  He has fixed a schedule.  He does know precisely when and where and whom.  And observe as well, that this is on no contingent basis, but by His own authority.  There are no dependencies in His schedule, no unknowns that might lead to a need for revision in His planning.  No, God has fixed His schedule, and it shall not be changed; not by you, not by me, not by friend or enemy, demon or angel.  And certainly not by God.  And frankly, there at the end is the only point needed.  God is not going to change it, and if He will not, nobody else can.  But it’s His schedule, and He is not obliged to inform anybody else as to its details.  So relax.  Rest in the assurance He has given you that all is settled.  And resting solely upon His authority, it is more certain than anything you could consider certain.  His determined plan is more certain than the sun in the sky, more certain than the earth underfoot, more certain, even than the eventual reality of physical death.  Jesus stands here in this scene as proof of that.

Jesus speaks of it in terms of times or epochs, chronos or kairos.  The two terms have distinction of meaning.  It could be that He’s just repeating with variation to emphasize His point, but they are distinct concepts.  Chronos considers the progression of moments, periods of duration; schedule, if you will.  Kairos gets at the purposes, the strategic points of time.  Jesus coming to live among men transpired at a strategic time, and that strategic moment had been set on the schedule from before the beginning.  It was always going to happen at precisely the point at which it did happen.  The time was right.  I appreciate the point Zhodiates makes in regard to these kairos, epochal moments.  It’s not kairos because it’s convenient.  It’s kairos because there is necessary action to be taken in the purpose of God.

That takes us to another aspect of His authority.  We should observe that God’s fixing of these epochal times, and of durations and schedule, are a matter of establishing them for His own purpose.  It’s a middle voice action, and while that can speak of reciprocal actions involving multiple actors, in this case, God acts alone.  And He acts for His own interests.  He acts according to His own purpose, to establish His purpose and see it accomplished.  The times are established, to borrow Wuest’s choice of phrasing, ‘within the sphere of His own private authority,’ and they are established to accomplish His own private purpose.  Now, I would maintain that this private purpose lies within the sphere of the covenanted purpose of the Trinity.  Father, Son, and Spirit established this unfolding purpose of Creation before ever the work began.  And yet, even within that covenanted agreement, it is apparent that the Father, though One with Son and Spirit, retains certain particulars to His own Person alone.  Even within the Unity of the Godhead, then, there is a place for perfect submission.

But let’s come back to this matter of the middle voice.  God has fixed these events in time and space, though they remain future so far as concerns us in our linear experience of time.  And He has done so for His own purpose.  To hammer on the point a bit.  This is His story.  For all the personalities and particulars that come into play in the record of Scripture, and the record of the Church more generally, this fundamental remains at base.  It is His story.  It is to our eternal benefit, but that’s really almost beside the point. 

As I was working through my preparations on this passage, Table Talk gave reference to Ezekiel 36:22 and what follows there.  I found it apt to our point here.  Through Ezekiel, God speaks to a people in exile.  What has He to say?  “It is not for your sake that I am about to act, but for My holy name.”  There is notice that they are in exile for cause.  “You profaned my name among the nations where you went.”  But this is His story, not theirs, not ours.  “I will vindicate the holiness of My great name, and the nations will know that I am in fact the LORD, when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight.”  He proceeds to list the actions He is about to undertake, actions that will surely prove to be of great benefit to His people, but not for their sake.  No, it is for His.  It is to clear His name, if you will.  And look where it goes!  We know this one from Joel, as Peter will bring that passage to bear in his first sermon.  But here it is again.  “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.  I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.  You will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Eze 36:23-27).  It goes on, but notice the fundamental concern here is not with Israel’s comfort and prosperity, but with God’s holiness.

We understand the Church to be the true Israel of God, spiritual Israel.  This is not to say the Church is expected to take up the rituals and ceremonies of the ancient temple.  No, but we are to worship in Spirit and in truth.  We are to be regulated by the revealed word of God and informed by His Spirit, which He has put within us.  But make no mistake.  Worship isn’t about us.  It’s about Him, for Him.  It’s about making Him known, and growing in our committed service to Him.

As Ezekiel make plain to the exiles, God chose them for one reason:  To make His singular, absolutely unique claim to deity evident to all.  This was the case, quite clearly, when He first hauled them out of Egypt.  We could go back farther, and say that it was quite clear when He first called Abram out of Babylon to become a unique people.  Do you wonder that Babylon is ever the seat of temptation to turn back from the path of faith?  It is the former life, with all its predictability and comfort, left behind for the uncertainty entailed in walking with unsearchable God.  Egypt plays a similar role in the symbolism of Scripture, an enticement back to the worldly ways that once enslaved us.  Why?  Because terrible as those times were in reality, they had the comfort of familiarity.  And faced with uncertainty and the unknown, it is in our nature to reach for the familiar, even if what was familiar was in every way inferior and painful.

Okay.  So, spiritual Israel.  For the Church, the message is much the same as for Israel, and I might suggest that this becomes more the case as time advances.  The Church, taken as a whole, has often and in many ways profaned the name of God rather than upheld His holiness.  Look at the state of things, as church after church puts out its banner declaring that sin will no longer be accounted sinful among them.  It has become a proclaimer of the original lie, “Did God really say?”  That is not to suggest that the Church has failed, any more than the destruction of the temple meant that Israel had failed.  For either to fail would be for God to fail, and God does not fail.  But it demonstrates once more that the real purpose of Creation is not about the Church any more than it was about Israel.  No, in both cases, there is strategic purpose.  There is strategic purpose in the founding.  There is strategic purpose in the preservation.  And yes, there is strategic purpose even in the failings.

We do well to remember that last.  There is no promise of permanence to the present order.  Indeed, there is absolute assurance that the present order will, in due course, pass from history entirely.  What we witness here at the transition from the Gospels to Acts is history reaching its central, critical point.  We could speak of it as an inflection point.  Everything prior was building to this one moment.  Many a sermon has been spoken laying out portions of just how carefully planned and orchestrated that whole unfolding of events had been.  You cannot review the historical evidence laid out in the Old Testament and come away saying it’s all just a series of amazing coincidences.  No.  Things did not just happen.  Things happened because God in heaven purposed that they should happen.  At this time, to this person with this outcome.  There’s nothing of chance involved, nothing coincidental.  The wildest conspiracy theorist could not dream up a plan of this scope.  And yet, these things happened.  In real time and real space to real people, these things happened.  Inexorably, from the first man in Eden to the Man on the Cross, everything was to plan.  God’s word went forth and accomplished all His purpose.  You know the verse.  “So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth.  It shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire and succeeding in the matter for which I sent it” (Isa 55:11).

Now, observe Jesus amidst His Apostles, here at the critical inflection point of history.  “So shall My Word be which I sent forth.  He shall not return to Me without accomplishing My desire, and succeeding in that for which He was sent.”  And now, so too the Church which He established, built upon the foundation of Prophet and Apostle.  She, too, for all her myriad failings, will succeed in that for which she was established.  History moves on, and just as history proceeded from the beginning to this critical juncture, so history shall inevitably arrive at its conclusion.  A day is set.  You don’t know its date, nor do I.  But that it is set is certain, and that it shall come to pass is certain.  And in that day, each and every man or woman ever to have come into existence shall give account of him or herself to the One Whom God appointed as Judge and King over all the earth.

Praise be to God that this is a fixed certainty.  Praise be to God that for us whom He has called, that date certain is a date for certain vindication, and welcome into the city of our true citizenship.  Oh, God, were it not for Your own righteousness, who could stand on that day?  What hope could there be, had it not been for the perfection of Christ, poured out in a life of suffering obedience, the perfect Atonement for our sins?  But, You have done it!  And You have done it to demonstrate for one and all that You are indeed Holy, Just, and Merciful, not by turns, but in perfect, harmonious unity.  Glory be to Your name, O, God!  May I, in spite of my myriad failings come to the place where I give cause for others around me to give You the glory that is Your due.  May I, in spite of my myriad failings, myself give You the glory that is Your due.  And may I be found a faithful servant in Your household, ever seeking to do as You desire.  The spirit is willing, Father.  Strengthen the flesh.

Parallels and Recapitulation (02/01/26)

I have already touched somewhat upon the topic of this part of my study, which is the matter of the parallels between the story of Israel and the story of the Church.  At present, I know there is at least one figure making a bit of a name for himself by really zeroing in on this matter, and seeking to do so with something of an old testament prophetic aspect to his presentations.  I have no doubt that those parallels are real enough.  I am not, however, particularly interested in the doom-laden pronouncements.  Perhaps I should be, but I’m not.  To my thinking, that approach misses the real, central theme of existence.  It is a theme I have already noted multiple times just in the last day or two, but this must be understood.  Whether we address historical events in the development of Israel, or current events in the Church of the West, the fact remains it’s not Israel’s story or the Church’s story that we are addressing.  It’s God’s story.  God is unfolding the events that He has purposed from the outset, from before the outset.  And He is moving events inexorably to their right and proper conclusion.  And behold, He has told you, child, what that conclusion is to be.

Has He given you date certain?  No, He has not.  Has He given you detailed, clear indicators by which to know where we are in that schedule?  Not really, no.  He has spoken of signs, after a fashion, but such as are effectively the common record of life on earth.  Earthquakes, famines, and wars, while they may grab the headlines and get our attention, are in fact fairly regular occurrences, laid along the span of history.  And as we have seen, He says rather explicitly that this finale is not coming with signs to be observed.  When He comes, there will be no need for signs.  Until He does, there will be a perpetual need for preparedness.  I become more and more inclined to align with the view that there is no need to look for signs of the end times because we have been living in them since first they nailed Jesu to the cross, certainly since He ascended to His heavenly throne, Prophet, Priest, and King to His people.

Still, there are parallels.  It would be hard to miss them, really.  Those parallels are perhaps most clearly seen in observing the record we have of the life of Jesus Himself.  We see Him born in obscurity, living as a stranger in a foreign land.  How could it be otherwise for one born out of heaven?  We see Him sojourn in Egypt for a time, as did Israel, though without the enslavement.  We see Him in the wilderness for forty days facing temptation, as Israel faced forty years in the wilderness of Sin, and fell, almost to the man, in the face of temptations.  We see Him entering the promised land, crossing the Jordan as it were, in His ascension.  And we see Him dispersing His presence throughout the world as the Church is effectively expelled, pressed out of Jerusalem to the farthest extents of the known world, much as one would find Israel dispersed throughout the world in that period.  And, like Israel, the Church has faced derision, opposition, even violence from a world that prefers its darkness.  Also like Israel, the Church has an assignment from her God to make Him known to all the nations.  Israel failed at that task, turned inward and became jealous guards of their privileged position in Him.  Has the Church followed suit?  There can certainly be occasion for it, and perhaps seasons.  But I think in the general case we can say that no, she has not.  She remains outwardly focused, missionally focused, if not perfectly so.

Absolutely, we can see myriad instances of specific churches failing to maintain their fidelity to our Lord.  I would have to say that even of those churches Paul planted, letters to which remain a critical component of God’s revelation of Himself to man, are already a record of such failures.  The church in Corinth reads like a roller-coaster.  She has her spiritual highs, but dives straight into idolatrous lows, again demonstrating something of a recapitulation of Israel’s case.  How far had they progressed, after all, before putting all their energy and wealth into creating an idol to bow down to?  But Corinth recovers, it seems.  The sharp corner is taken, and the climb resumed.  Yet, look about today, and seek to find a trace of her.  Even the city, near as I can tell, is absent, never mind her church.  So, too, the majority of those churches we know of in what is now Turkey.  Ephesus was a big deal, both to society and to the history of the Church, but what if it now?

Yet, Philippi stands.  Thessalonica stands, and the churches there would appear to remain vibrant and alive.  And even were this not the case, history has demonstrated God’s brilliance and His capacity to move the locus of the faith community around the globe.  As it wanes in one place, it flourishes in another.  For years, it has seemed that America stood as the place of flourishing, a central force in the work of missions.  Britain, too, had her season; so much so that she thought herself the new Jerusalem.  But pride goes before the fall, and it would certainly be difficult to view Britain as still holding anything of faith beyond the bare word.  Her church hardly sees fit to acknowledge Jesus at all, let alone as He truly is.  And in many cases, the church in the US seems keen to follow suit.  Yet there are those who stand fast.  They stand, as Scripture says, because God is able to make them stand.

And here, we are back at my central point once more.  The Church, for all her myriad failures, remains His Church.  Her story remains His story, and His story is still unfolding in history.  And His story is assured of reaching its final page.  We have read it, and beloved, the Church wins through.  It may be a remnant of its former self, but it wins through.  It may not be every group to have called itself a church, indeed I would say it most certainly will not.  To many of those places called church have made their status too clear, and made it quite evident that whatever they mean by that term, or by the term Christian, it no longer bears any relationship to Christ, the Head of the Church which He established.  Again touching on things from reading Francis Schaeffer lately, they use the words for their connotations, but they have emptied them of meaning.  It’s manipulative, deceptive, perhaps even succeeding in deceiving those at the helm to the degree that they believe their own lies.  But it’s no longer the Church.

Similarly, we observe that there is still a nation which goes by the name of Israel, and to be sure, much of its population is in fact genetically Jewish, still holding to a lineage that links all the way back to Abraham.  But it’s not the genetics that matter.  It’s the spiritual issue of faith.  And Israel, as she stands today, has little enough of faith.  Oh, there are several groups who continue to hold to ancient traditions.  But those traditions were long since shown powerless to face the issue of sin.  That is, in reality, the whole story of Israel.  She had God present with her.  She had the Law.  She had the covenants.  She had her own signature on the line.  “All these things, we shall do.”  Unlike Abraham, she failed to see the impossibility of that self-assurance.  In reality, pretty much none of these things would she do, nor could she; not any more than we can.  It needed something more, something outside of Israel, something outside of man, indeed, something outside of Creation.

And God provided.  It’s His story.  And in His story, it is clear that Jerusalem continues to play a central role.  Whether it is the physical city that does so or not, however, is not as clear.  Is it possible?  Certainly.  But honestly, God is not tied to a particular geography, and it seems to me that to place too much emphasis on the physical city of Jerusalem is to once again enter into a recapitulation of Israel’s history, and not one that bears repeating.  Jerusalem wasn’t, after all, the first center of worship in Israel.  There was one which preceded her, at least, perhaps more.  But people began to mistake the place for God.  If He is here, nothing bad can happen.  And God had to make clear that no, that wasn’t the case.  They did it again with Jerusalem, even as God walked amongst them in the person of Jesus.  Even with the unbearable presence of these Roman interlopers, still, they were absolutely convinced that Jerusalem could suffer no harm because God had chosen her.  They thought that at the time of the exile, as well, I should imagine.  But the stories of that siege which Rome brought against Jerusalem are harrowing in the extreme.  The depravities to which God’s people had sunk, even in the temple which they thought secured their immunity, are horrible to contemplate.

Are we in fact entering into the recapitulation of Israel’s record in that regard, assuring ourselves of the country’s unbreakable position because it is too significant to God’s work to fall?  Are we so assured that however depraved our practices, still God must uphold this nation as the last great hope of the Church?  Honestly, if the Church depends on that hope, the Church is nothing.  But it doesn’t.  It doesn’t depend on this nation.  It depends on God.  And should He choose to close out the era of American power, what of it?  It’s not something I would care to live through, any more than I would have cared to live through the downfall of Jerusalem, or the exile, or the persecutions of the Church in the Roman Empire.  If I need not face such a period, then praise God.  But if I must?  Then praise God.  It’s His story, His creation, and He is assuredly within His rights to do as He pleases.  And what He pleases to do is to His glory, demonstrates His eternal, essential character.  That being the case, however events fall out, I can rest in the assurance that it is good and to the good of all who love Him.  That is His promise, and He does not fail of His promises.

I have said that Jerusalem remains central to the story, but I do see it as taking up a more spiritual role, just as the Church takes up the role of spiritual Israel, no longer a matter of physical linkage, but rather a matter of faith and understanding.  True Israel consists of all who have placed their faith in God who called them, regardless of time or place.  Gentile or Jew, Greek or barbarian, king or serf, male or female, it makes no difference.  What makes the difference is the call of God, the sending forth of the Holy Spirit with power to believe, and power to live out that belief, to be witness to the very real continued activity and presence of God in the world He created.  True Jerusalem, we see, is the kingdom of heaven.  It will, in due course, come down to earth in full.  If we try and take the dimensions of that city literally, we discover a city of most improbable size, but it would have to be, wouldn’t it?  For it is to contain all who have believed in any age, all who are to live forever in the immediate presence of the God Who Is.

So, yes, Jerusalem remains our reference, point, but not the ancient city in the hills east of the Mediterranean.  No, it is the heavenly city come down, the city foursquare, whose eternal king is our Lord and Savior Himself.  Indeed, we are told He is the light of that city, the Sun which never sets, reigning over a city whose gates never close.  It is an eternal seventh day.  Thus, the call to enter into His rest, an entering which is already ours, for He tells us that we have already entered into that rest.  Yet, it clearly remains to know that rest in full, and when that shall be?  Again, it is not for us to know until that time comes to pass.

Our Commission (02/02/26)

Finally, we come to the commission given to the Apostles, and through them to the Church.  “You shall be My witnesses.”  Of course, the Apostles could witness in a fashion impossible to us.  They had walked with Jesus, talked with Him, been with Him during the events of His ministry.  We might claim to walk and talk with Him, though even that must be in a much different sense of the words.  But one thing we cannot claim is to have been there.  Yet, this does not leave us without a personal witness to personal experience.  We may not have been there to see the baptism of Christ or His crucifixion.  But we have seen what He has done in our own lives, in our own experience.  These may not be as spectacular, as widely known.  They may not be of such a nature as could be tested or confirmed by others, at least not in the specifics.

I think, for instance, of that occasion driving back to the Cape from work, only to discover the highway beneath my wheels was a three-lane sheet of black ice upon which I was moving at speed.  And cars and trucks ahead of me are suddenly spinning, drifting across my immediate course, forcing a lane shift which should, by all rights, have had me joining the growing number of vehicles out of control.  Yet, I weaved through in control and unharmed.  At the time, I wrote it off to my skill and my car, but honestly?  Reviewed from a distance and with greater awareness of God’s reality, no.  This was not my doing.  Someone greater acted on my behalf.  Or, I could go back farther, to that night with the temptation to join the party injecting cocaine.  But the one offering and urging this experience could find no vein in which to inject.  Now, listen.  I have had blood drawn many a time since, for legitimate reasons, let me stress, and never has there been an issue.  Somebody intervened.

Are these historical events that can be verified?  Not really.  There might be former friends from that period of my youth, but the one particularly involved, I would be surprised to find still alive, to be honest.  And as for highway experiences, I would say it’s as good as impossible to verify.  But I am quite certain of what happened, and quite clear that it was not my brilliance that caused things to go as they did.  I could look to my conversion, for all that.  Internal voices making a more or less mathematical proposition while eating with friends in a Chinese restaurant; to be sure, there are those who could confirm I was there, and would gladly confirm that something significant happened to me over the next few days.  But the particulars?  Private matter, really.  But no less real for all that.

I can attest to these things.  I can give witness to the activity of almighty God in my life.  I must, I fear, make plain that I am quite imperfect in spite of His activity, and often act more like my former self than like I ought.  Reading James 2 this morning in my time with Table Talk, I have to confess that discussion of faith without works gives cause for concern.  But it is only such concern as ought to pertain.  It does not lead me to doubt my conversion, merely points out that there are many areas upon which God is still at work.  And I must further recognize that while it is God who is at work in me, this does not give me a free pass to just do as I please until He gets on with it.  No.  I have moral responsibility for my actions.  That He works them for good does not excuse my own intentions any more than it did for Balaam.  Here’s the difference, though.  He called.  He sent forth the promised Holy Spirit into this poor man, and made me His own.

With that, again referring to this commissioning before us, I must confess that I have received power, God’s own power, to be exercised in pursuit of God’s purposes.  It remains His, though I have received of it.  But having received of it, what excuse remains for continuing in sin?  This is and should be a serious concern.  It is not, again, sufficient to convince me that my faith was but a figment of my own imagination.  These events I’ve mentioned were quite real, the outcomes quite real, and the change quite clearly observable.  This was not some emotional response to manipulative preaching.  Preaching, in all fairness, was not involved at all, even in that conversion event.  God was.  This does nothing to dilute the imperative of preaching.  It does nothing to reduce the truth that the Gospel is itself the power of God to save.  Neither does it suggest that the church could readily divest herself of preachers and be fine.  No.  Jesus established the Church, and did so with a structure.  Not a building, mind you, though I don’t suppose He is opposed to such, but a structure, an organization, a chain of command with Him at the head, and all else depending from Him.  But that’s a topic for another time and place.

We are looking at the commissioning, the establishing of the Church as Jesus chose to establish it.  It is not a matter of fixed location.  It begins in Jerusalem, but it is not to remain there.  Still, you have to start somewhere.  Start where you are.  But spread out as growth and increased resources make this possible.  Look at that commission.  Start local.  Spread regional.  Then, go global.  Understand that for these first Apostles, this was a shocking proposal.  Jerusalem and Judea were one thing.  But Samaria?  The Gentile world?  That was going to take some convincing.  Even if the Apostles were prepared for such an eventuality, those who were going to become part of the Church would not have their experiences to prepare them for such shocking ideas.  Israel had too long known Judaism as for the Jews – only for the Jews.  That tension forms a great deal of the record before us in Acts.

As to the Apostles, there’s something worth noting.  I see the setup back in Luke 17:11.  “While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee.”  This was not the first time, but it is rather telling, I think.  The Apostles were with Him.  They saw that He moved freely, without regard for nationalities or races.  Yes, in their first forays, He had sent them to the Jews alone, but this was not the permanent order.  He had taken them through Samaria – through it!  No right-minded Jew went through Samaria.  One went around.  He Himself ministered to Gentiles, setting the example.  Now, I think that latter may have been more readily acceptable for these men.  They, after all, were primarily from Galilee, a land within which Jew and Gentile were in closer proximity.  Consider that it is referred to as “Galilee of the Gentiles.”  (Isa 9:1 – There will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish.  In earlier times He treated Zebulun and Naphtali with contempt, but later He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.)  Matthew 4:15 makes reference to this as the author brings us to the preaching of Jesus.   The Light had come, and things would never be the same.

The commission, then, is to bring that Light to the world, to expose the darkness, but not as a matter of condemnation.  No, it is a rescue mission.  Yes, it is a matter of reclaiming the kingdom of Christ.  I say reclaiming because this world was always His to rule.  He made it, after all, and every creature in it.  But the usurper came and claimed the throne for himself, and the peoples bowed down to his rule, forgetting their true King.  And the true King returned, passing between Samaria and Galilee as He made His way to Jerusalem.

You know, in my preparations, I had come cross that prophecy regarding Judah, as to how he would reign until Shiloh comes.  And that leads to considerations of Shiloh, the place, which in turn leads to remembering that the place is not the point.  Shiloh was the early location of the ark, the place to which the Israelites would resort to seek the Lord.  But they came to think the place was the significant thing, rather than God.  They grew presumptuous, thinking the place ensured their security.  And Shiloh was more or less destroyed.  Shechem followed a similar pattern.  And then, Jerusalem, the city of peace from whence the Prince of Peace.  And again, the people of God mistook the city, and in particular, the presence of the temple in the city, as an unbreachably secure fortress.  Rather than rejoicing in the preserving power of God, they made it an excuse for every sort of abomination.  And then, when their King came to them, as He Himself prophesied; as, indeed, had been foreknown from before the beginning, ordained by God Himself, they took their own King to the chief of the occupying power of Rome and had Him not merely killed, but crucified – the most demeaning, humiliating possible death they could conceive of.  And they laughed to see it.

Then, the skies darkened and the dead walked the streets.  I rather doubt they continued laughing.

It’s worth recognizing that, from Peter’s first message, God’s plan and purpose in all of this was made clear.  But it was also made abundantly clear that this did nothing to remove the guilt of those by whose hands the Savior of mankind had been put to death.  Indeed, He had proclaimed their judgment before ever they arrested Him.  He did so not in anger, but in depths of sorrow.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!  How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.  Behold!  Your house is being left to you desolate!  From now on you shall not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Mt 23:37-39).  If there were any doubts as to the significance of this, look to 70 AD.  The city was surrounded by Rome, the people starved out, and eventually, the temple thrown down until barely a stone remained standing atop another.  Yes, the ruins remain, and observe that still, to this day, the Jews look to the remaining wall as if that were the guarantee of God’s presence.  What shall become of that people and that place?  As with the rest of the world, some will be saved.  A remnant remains, whether in Israel proper or in the world at large.  God knows His own and calls them by name.  They hear Him and follow Him.  Beyond that?  The old order was put to a rather definite end.  The temple is no more.  The Sanhedrin are no more.  The sacrificial system has been done away, lo, these many years.  I can find no reasonable cause to expect a restoration, let alone to look forward to it.  God condemned, and who shall rebuild?  That door was slammed shut.  Behold!  Shiloh has come, the Prince of Peace.  And He has made all things new.  The old has passed away.  That system which had calcified as it was codified, becoming heartless adherence to appearances of a righteousness that did not in fact pertain, was cast down by its Originator.  New wine has come, as this week’s sermon reviewed.  That required a new system, a new heart, a new receptiveness to the things of God, made possible only in the power of the Holy Spirit, working God’s will in the heart and soul, rendering this rebel flesh able to comply, able to serve as a temple for perfectly holy God.

And you shall be My witnesses.  That commission has not changed, though the nature of our witness has changed as it must.  The Gospel has not changed.  The Truth has not changed.  It cannot, for God does not change.  The mission continues.  It continues in individual households.  It continues in the local church.  It continues in efforts to reach outward into the local community.  It continues in prayers and more in regard to such governance as God decrees for our age.  It continues in worldwide effort to speak God’s truth, to make His gospel clearly known, and to raise up others to carry on the mission until such time as God sees all fulfilled, His time come in full, and establishes in full His kingdom upon the earth.  In the meantime, we have all we need.  We have all we need to know in that commission:  You shall receive power, and you shall be My witnesses.  It’s not a free-for-all.  It’s not power given over for you to use however you please.  No.  It’s delegated authority, given for a purpose, and solely for purpose.  Exceed your authority, and you should surely expect that any power delegated to you shall be rescinded.  Ours is not to command, and far be it from us to rebel.  Ours is to trust and obey, and may God have all the glory.  After all, every good and perfect result comes from Him, for it is He who works in and through us to achieve His glad purpose.