Category: Sermons

Imprecatory Psalms

These are the Psalms where we find the longing of God’s people for God’s enemies to be defeated so that the glory of God’s name may not be tarnished or diminished.

There is an urgency in the Psalms with which we are too often unfamiliar. An urgency to protect God’s honor and his position. The closest that we may be able to get to this is the instinct that a husband might have to protect the reputation and honor of his wife were her reputation and name to be called into question.

Though we will be looking at the Psalms this morning we see some of this urgency to protect God’s honor and his position when the Lord Christ, by means of violence, clears the Temple of the money-changers. God’s name was being brought into disrepute and the Lord Christ rose up to defend His name.

This type of mindset, minus the violence that the Lord Christ brought to the Temple, is what is driving the Psalms of imprecation. He sees God’s name being overcome. He longs for God to be vindicated against those who are God’s sworn enemies and in that context he calls down imprecations and curses upon the wicked.

When we consider, what moderns consider to be the Harshness of these Psalms we agree with D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Look at the Psalmist. Look at some of those imprecatory Psalms. What are they? There is nothing wrong with them. It’s just the zeal of the Psalmist. He’s grieved and troubled because these people are not honoring God as they should be. That is His supreme concern.”

Moving on we understand that “Imprecate”, “Imprecatory”, and “Imprecation” are words that we seldom use any more so we briefly pause to define what these words mean.

IM’PRECATE, L. imprecor which means “in”(precor) to pray.

So, to imprecate is to invoke, evil upon any one.

It is to pray that a curse or calamity may fall on one’s self or on another person.

So, in the inspired prayer book and song book that God left to us one finds these Imprecatory Psalms. These imprecatory Psalms are those that invoke judgment, calamity, or curses, upon one’s enemies

We find these Imprecations sprinkled throughout the Psalms

Psalms 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 58, 69, 79, 83, 109, 137, 139, and 143

Besides what was read this morning from Psalm 58 I offer just a few samples of what we are speaking of,

“Pour out Your indignation on them, and let Your burning anger overtake them” — Psalm 69:24

“Happy the one, who taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock.” — Psalm 137:9

“Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the grave.” Psalm 55:15

“O God, break the teeth in their mouths.” Psalm 58:6

“May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.” Psalm 69:28

“May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” Psalm 109:9

Well, here we have these Imprecatory Psalms. They are Psalms that typically offend modern sensibilities. They are Psalms that don’t comport either with our vision of God or our vision of Christians. How should we understand them?

Well, there have been different approaches to understanding them.

A.) Some folks just want to ignore them as being repulsive.

Well known Bible teacher of the 20th Century Bill Bright speaking of these Psalms said,

“We cannot demand that the Bible give us nothing but correct teachings and safe moral instruction and be offended when it does not.”

A 19th century Bible teacher, John J. Owen could write,

(These) “forms of expression are of such cold blooded and malignant cruelty, as to preclude entertaining the idea for a moment that they were inspired by God.”

Another popular evangelical bible handbook of the 20th century offers,

“In OT times God, in measure, for expedience’ sake, accommodated Himself to men’s ideas. In NT times God began to deal with men according to his own ideas.”

C. S. Lewis spoke of these Psalms as “devilish” and “diabolical.”

C. I. Scofield could say — these are a “cry unsuited to the Church.”

Examples like this could be multiplied but the point is that there has been a large contingency of men who have basically said that these Imprecatory Psalms do not count. They are, so they say, unworthy of God and of Scripture.

The problem here of course is that man’s fallen sensibilities are being used as a guide to what God can and cannot say. To refuse these Psalms is to fall to the ancient ploy of the Serpent when he came to Eve planting doubt in her mind by hissing, “Hath God really said?” If we do not allow these Psalms to be God’s voice then haven’t we become God, determining good and evil? How can we fault those who claim to be Christian and yet who deny the Virgin Birth, the divine creation of the world, the resurrection of Christ, and all the miracles of Scripture if we just, on our own whim, read these Psalms out of Scripture?

A second problem is that one doesn’t get away from Imprecatory sentiments in Scripture by getting rid of the Imprecatory Psalms. The imprecations of God continue throughout the OT right into the NT. The point here is that we couldn’t get rid of, what we consider to be the unsavory character of God, by eliminating the Imprecatory Psalms. Imprecation is everywhere throughout the Scripture including the NT.

Matthew 23:13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

(These “Woe Passages” are a Imprecatory prophetic pronouncement against God’s enemies in which a Divine lawsuit is being brought against God’s enemies)

Matthew 26:23-24 And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. 24 The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.

1 Corinthians 16:22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema (accursed) Maranatha.

Galatians 1:8-9 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

Galatians 5:12 I would they were even cut off which trouble you.

2 Timothy 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:

II Thes. 1:6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from[b] the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

Revelation 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

More than that many of these Imprecatory Psalms are quoted in the New Testament. The Lord Christ quotes from them in John 15:25, and John 2:17, while Paul the Apostle quotes from Psalm 69 in the Epistle to the Romans 11:9-10 and 15:3.

So, again we say that we don’t relieve God of His “meanness” by just eliminating the Imprecatory Psalms. Even without these Psalms God remains “mean.” And we do see that summarily removing parts of the Scripture we don’t like ends up with us being sovereign over Scripture.

B.) Another tack that some have taken with these Psalms is to admit that they are inspired and so legitimate. However they then immediately insist that these Psalms were for a different time … a different era. They suggest that we must understand that God has changed with the coming of Christ.

A noted white hat “Reformed” Theologian who is a Professor on the West Coast, for example has written,

“The imprecatory Psalms, invoking God’s judgment on enemies, are appropriate on the lips of David and the martyrs in heaven. However, they are entirely out of place on the lips of Christians today, guided as we are not by the ethics of intrusion but by the ethics of common grace.

Therefore, moderns are wrong for dismissing such episodes as immoral, and fundamentalists are wrong for invoking them as if they were in effect during this intermission between Christ’s two advents.”

Michael Horton, The Christian faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids, 2011), pp 961-2.

Here the idea is that the Imprecatory Psalms are true but they are to be regarded as only appropriate to the OT saints or to the Martyrs in heaven. The idea is that we live in an age of common grace that does not allow us to pray this way, whereas in the OT they lived in a time when

We are explicitly told we would be wrong to pray that God would vindicate His name by crushing His enemies today.

Wrong to pray that God would crush those who “put women and children under the ground who were alive,” as it is being reported is being done to Christians in Iraq.

Here is another description of what is going on in the World and remember we are told that we are wrong to pray Imprecatory Psalms against these people.

“They tied the hands of one woman to the back of a car and her legs to another car and they split her into two,” another said. “Have you seen anything like this? This is all because she is not Muslim and did not want to be converted.”

What I’m seeking to do here is to tease out the real life implications of suggesting that we should not pray the Imprecatory Psalms asking for God to visit justice upon His enemies who will not relent.

Here is another case where we are told it is wrong for God to rise up to defeat His enemies.

One of our family members has abandoned his wife and children to pursue a lifetime of perversion, which he apparently has been engaging in for the last seven years. He moved out in January to go live with the new friend but continued attending church with the family and picking up the children (ages 14, 12, and 5) to go spend time with his new paramour. The wife is moderately sick from a Tick bite and relies on expensive medications to suppress the symptoms, but they no longer have medical insurance because he’s unemployed due to his new instability. She can’t pay the kids’ private school tuition; they’re about to lose the house and go bankrupt; and she just applied for welfare. The church is in the process of excommunicating him; no facility is willing to hire him; the older two kids hate him; and he is trying to get a divorce so he can move to Texas with his new paramour.

Those who say that we cannot pray against God’s enemies and petition God to destroy those who would destroy him or His people have forgotten that, in the words of Cornelius Van Til,

It is at all times a part of the task of the people of God to destroy evil. Once we see this we do not, for instance, meanly apologize for the imprecatory Psalms but glory in them.

C. Van Til
Christian Theistic Ethics

We agree with Theologian Dabney that,

This age has witnessed a whole spawn of religionists, very rife and rampant in some sections of the church, who pretentiously declared themselves the apostles of a lovelier Christianity than that of the sweet Psalmist of Israel. His ethics were entirely too vindictive and barbarous for them, forsooth; and they, with their Peace societies, and new lights, would teach the world a more beneficent code.

R. L. Dabney
Discussions– Evangelical and Theological (Vol. 1, pg — 709-710)

Of course the major obstacle to the reasoning that the Imprecatory prayers are not for us to pray has already been mentioned. The major obstacle is that we find the same type, though not the same degree, of Imprecation going on in the NT. Anathemas and Woes are pronounced upon people by Jesus and Paul. Portions of the Imprecatory Psalms are quoted by the Lord Christ and others. Alexander the Coppersmith is explicitly inveighed against in an imprecatory fashion. The principle of imprecation is found in the NT and if in the NT that suggests the idea that Imprecations are only for the NT age is a theory that is not satisfactory.

It all really comes down to this. Do we love God and His Kingdom enough to not love those who viciously oppose God and His Kingdom? Do our hearts burn within us to see God’s name exalted by the leveling of Satan’s Kingdom?

God’s Kingdom cannot come without Satan’s kingdom being destroyed. God’s will cannot be done on earth without the destruction of evil. Evil cannot be destroyed without the destruction of men who are permanently identified with it. Instead of being influenced by the sickly sentimentalism of the present day, Christian people should realize the glory of God demands the destruction of evil. Instead of being insistent upon the assumed, but really, non existent, rights of men, they should focus their attention upon the rights of God. Instead of being ashamed of the imprecatory Psalms, and attempting to apologize for them and explain them away, Christian people should glory in them and not hesitate to use them in the public and private exercises of the worship of God.

Johannes G. Vos
The Ethical Problem of the Imprecatory Psalms
Westminster Theological Journal

Now, what is the danger of praying these Psalms? The danger is that we will be praying them with a lack of love. You see it is love that drives us to pray in such a way. Love for God and others.

Puritan David Dickson gets at this point when he offer

If any of the enemies of God’s people belong to God’s election, the Church’s prayer against them giveth way to their conversion, and seeketh no more than that the judgment should follow them, only until they acknowledge their sin, turn, and seek God.

So we pray God’s judgment against them as God’s enemies fully realizing that should they turn and be saved that our Imprecatory prayers against them immediately cease.

We pray Imprecatorily with hopes that God will crush His enemies the same we He crushed us when we were enemies and that is by granting repentance.

At this point we are one with Luther who said on this score,

We should pray that our enemies be converted and become our friends, and if not, that their doing and designing be bound to fail and have no success and that their persons perish rather than the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ.

Martin Luther

Our tendency to pray Imprecatorily, as our tendency to love unbiblically is too often forgetful of a genuine love to God and His Christ. Whether praying imprecations or loving unbiblically what to often drives us is love for self. When we pray imprecatorily we have ourselves at the center thinking only of the wrong done to us personally and forgetting the injury to thrice Holy and Glorious God. Similarly, when we love unbiblically we have ourselves at the center. We refuse to oppose others, via imprecatory praying or in other ways, because we love ourselves to much to want to risk being widely disliked. And so, too often both in our Imprecatory praying and in our unbiblical loving we have self at the center.

II Cor. 5:14f

I.) Preliminary Considerations

A.) Clearing up the “all.” (14f)

First off, we have to understand that this letter was written to the believing Church. Paul is not addressing unbelievers but he is speaking to believers here. The audience thus constrains us to hear the “all” language in the context of a believing community. The “all” then, given the context, points to believers.

Scripture consistently teaches that Christ died for all the subjects of Redemption. Christ died for all who died when He died. (“If one died for all, then all died.”) This is the principle of Covenant headship that is spoken of in Romans 5. All in Adam die in Adam and All in Christ are made in alive in Christ. The apostasy of Adam was the apostasy of all united to Adam. The work of Christ was the work of all united to Christ. The simple meaning here then is the death of Christ is the death of His people.

(Compare to Romans 5 “all” language.)

In this verse we would note that the ones for whom Christ died are the same “all” who died with Christ as a result of Christ’s death as mentioned at the end of the same verse.

So the answer to who the “all” is who died is the “all” who were made alive.

That St. Paul in this very letter does not embrace a Universal Atonement is seen in what he said earlier,

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are perishing (4:3)

Here clearly the Apostle understands that the Gospel has a hidden quality and the hidden quality of it is towards those who are perishing. Clearly no idea of universality is present.

Earlier in II Corinthians this lack of “allness” is also hinted at.

14 Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the aroma of his knowledge by us in every place. 15 For we are unto God a sweet aroma of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the aroma of death unto death; and to the other the aroma of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?

So what is the difference in the aroma? It is that some catch the aroma as perishing while others catch the aroma as being saved.

All of this thus is suggestive that the “all” in chapter 5 is a “all” that is restricted by the design of the atonement.

B.) Impact of Being part of the All for whom Christ died (15)

The Holy Spirit goes on to say here that the consequence of having died in Christ is that we are now alive in Christ and so living unto him is the pivot point of our lives. (Romans 6)

This is consistent with what St. Paul said earlier of himself when He said that Christians make it their goal to please God. Paul can even say in Ephesians

“For we (Christians) are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Charles Hodge waxes eloquent here on this point

“He only is a Christian who lives for Christ. Many persons think they can be a Christian on easier terms than these. They think it enough to trust in Christ while they do not live for Him. But the Bible teaches us that if we are partakers of Christ’s death, we are also partakers of His life; if we have any such appreciation for His love in dying for us as to lead us to confide in the merit of His death, we shall be constrained to consecrate our lives to His service. And this is the only evidence of the genuineness of our Faith.”

Charles Hodge
19th Century American Theologian

If we are, along with St. Paul to make it our goal to please him … if we are to live unto Christ then it is absolutely essential that Christ be known. Many are those who would insist that they are living unto Christ but they live unto a Christ of their own imagination.

Now having dealt with these introductory matters we want to consider two significant impulses of this passage.

I.) Eschatological Impulse

“If anyone is in Christ He is a new creation.”

Dutch Theologian Ridderbos says of this text, “This is the main theme of Paul’s ministry and epistles.”

We would add it is part of the theme of how it is that the new creation (God’s Kingdom, God’s New World Order) is penetrating into and rolling back this present wicked age.

This idea of a “New Creation” is a motif consistent with Old Testament promises. Isaiah wrote of the new creation future. There God speaks of a coming new creation,

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”

Again in chapter 66 God speaks of God making a new heavens and a new earth. In Christ that new heavens and new earth have been created.

St. Paul is saying here in II Cor. 5 that the one in Christ has already now been placed in that new creation Kingdom that we might also be styled as “God’s New World Order.”

Paul says much the same thing with slightly different language when in Colossians he can say,

3 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son

That Kingdom of God’s dear Son is the New Creation and as we are placed in the New Creation we ourselves are now “New Creations.” The old has past. The New has come.

Paul speaks of this theme again in Colossians 3, speaking of how believers,

have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

The Believer then is part of this new creation community which Ezekiel recognized as once being a valley of dry bones but now a army brought to life from the dead. God has brought us up out of our graves when Christ Himself was brought out of His grave and has placed us in the future eschatological age to come with Christ … a future age that is impacting and leavening this present evil age. This new creation is the Rock that Daniel saw in his vision that rolled over all other Kingdoms that was placed in its way. This new creation is the mustard seed that became a great tree so that all the birds (nations) found a place to nest. This new creation come is the leaven that works itself through the whole.

This explains why for Paul in his preaching in the book of Acts the twin themes were the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God. Because of the Resurrection of Christ the Kingdom of God (what Paul often styles as the “new creation”) has arrived and is a hurricane force that has every intent of sucking everything in its path into its vortex to remake it consistent with the new creation Hurricane.

Now, why is this Eschatological impulse that we have noted here important?

Simply because the nowness of the “new creation” has been so long buried and continues to be buried underneath the flotsam and jetsam of those in the Church who would rather over emphasize the “not yetness” of the new creation. They accuse us who preach this nowness of a “over-realized” eschatology, by which they mean that our expectations of what Christ intends to accomplish before His return is to high to the point of being dangerous. They cast their eyes upon the landscape and they see how Christians are marginalized and they say, “Thus it has ever been, thus it is now, thus it will ever shall be. Amen,” completely ignoring the triumph of the Gospel and of Christianity in periods throughout History.

They thus make a virtue out of the expectation that the gates of Hell shall prevail. Their theology is all Crucifixion and no Resurrection and Ascension. They see the “not yet” of our Reformed Hermeneutic as corporeally incarnating itself into all of reality and all of our living but the “now” victory of our Reformed Hermeneutic in their sermons, books, and tours is all “spiritual,” which is to say, not only that it has no present tactile reality anyplace beyond the Church, but that it never will have any present tactile reality anyplace beyond the Church.

They conclude that those of us who desire to speak up regarding the “nowness” of the Kingdom and the certain incremental victory of the new creation over this present wicked age are a positive harm upon the Church.

Really, though the disagreement here is only one of differing eschatology. When Postmillennialists read the Scripture they see the triumph of Christ in space and time. When amillennialists read the Scripture they also see the triumph of Christ in space and time but then they end up defining “triumph” quite differently.

Now having spent some time here we want to consider the

II.) Soteriological Impulse

Reconciliation is the bringing together of two parties who have hostility towards one another.

The necessity of Reconciliation presupposes the existence of a barrier of enmity that needs to be removed.

In Christian theology the Reconciliation that needs to take place is both a Reconciliation of God to man and of man to God. The main emphasis of what St. Paul is speaking of here is God’s reconciliation towards man though the reciprocal idea of man’s reconciliation to God also can be gleaned.

Man’s main problem is that God needs to be Reconciled to him. God is justly at war with man because of His sin and something had to be done to provide a basis for God to be reconciled to man. That something that needed to be done God did Himself by incarnating and sending the 2nd person of the Trinity — the Lord Christ — to be the one who would remove The Father’s just hostility to His elect by taking upon Himself the Father’s just hostility towards sin.

In this text what is primarily spoken of is

A.) Objective Reconciliation (God being reconciled to man)

1.) The Author of the Reconciliation

God Himself — Paul says “… All things are of God who has reconciled us.”

Here we note that the chief and only actor in our reconciliation and salvation is God. This is why Biblical Christians will talk about “Salvation being all of God.” God took the initiative to reconcile His people. God did all the saving and He did it in the provision of Christ.

Who, Paul teaches here is,

2.) The Basis of our Reconciliation ?

Yes, God is the author of our reconciliation but He elected to provide that reconciliation only through Christ. This explains why Biblical Christians insist on the absolute necessity of a known Christ in order to have peace with God. There is no concourse with God apart from the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ is the one who extinguished the necessary and just opposition of God that was a immovable force set against us.

The plain meaning, thus, is that through Jesus Christ, God established the basis of agreement between men and God as estranged, removed the barrier to the sinner’s approach to Himself, and accepted the work of propitiation in Christ.

3.) The Preached Word of our Reconciliation (18, 20f)

Paul says here that he was set aside unto the ministry of reconciliation. By this he means that it is his calling to make known that God’s has been propitiated. Paul lets men know that God himself has appeased Himself in the appearance of Himself in the person and work of the second person of the Godhead.

4.) Reconciling the World to Himself.

Here I think we need to see that the reconciling work of Christ accomplished on the cross was designed so that in the outworking of history what would eventually come to pass was the salvation of the whole cosmos (“World”). In Christ’s death all things were reconciled in principle and definitively but that reconciliation was to take place progressively in history and culminate in all things being reconciled finally in the consummation of all things. The redemptive effects of Christ’s death was accomplished at the cross and those same redemptive effects continue to extend out into the future so that the all things that were reconciled in principle and definitively in the death of Christ are progressively reconciled as the future unfolds. The final end of Christ’s work is the reconciliation of the World that was accomplished in principle and definitively in the work of our Lord Christ in his Cross work.

Conclusion

Missionary Impulse (20f)

1.) Not reckoning their trespasses to them

2.) Based on the fact that God has provided His reconciliation to men because of Christ men now are responsible to be reconciled to God.

3.) Become the righteousness of God in Him

Objective — Based on the fact that Paul says that God counted Christ as being sin for us, I understand when Paul talks about our becoming the Righteousness of God he is referring first to the reality that because Christ’s righteousness is counted as ours we are said to be the righteousness of God.

Subjective — Becoming.

We become what we have been freely declared to be.

Introduction

Conversation with Friend concerning preparing the Church for what looks to be coming

Article by one of the Church’s Theologians on living as Exiles

Any honest appraisal of the era that we are currently living in includes the idea that Christians are and that the Christian belief system is being pushed to the margins of our culture. In my estimation a good case can be made that as the perverted are being allowed out of the closet, the Christian is being shoved into the closet, being required to keep silent now as perversion previously had been. Our cultural absolutizing of Science and the technological as the arbiter of all truth has resulted in the claims of Christianity being seen as worthy of derision. Belief in the supernatural is made to look fairly tale-ish compared to evolution. Abortifacients, no-fault divorce, and now the push to the accepting of sodomite marriage have made orthodox Christian sexual ethics look pass’e, out of date, and mean. In some cultural circles to even espouse a traditional Christian mindset is to invite charges of “hate crimes.”

Of course we are not the first ones to have to live with Christianity being seen as culturally unacceptable. The book of Hebrews gives us insight into some early Christians who were exiles among their own people. In the book of Hebrews the congregation is informed to bear the reproach of Christ. They are reminded that given their times they have no continuing city and they are told to seek the city to come.

We will look closer at that theme in just a moment but for now we want to consider other options that some Christians will choose in order to avoid being marginalized in this culture and in order to avoid becoming cultural outcasts.

Obviously one tactic will be to compromise,

I.) Biblical Christianity will be reinterpreted through a different grid

The result of this will be that what was once seen as beyond the pale, will now be seen as needful to support if one is to be seen as “Christian.

This is happening already.

Over the past decade, evangelical support for same sex marriage has more than doubled, according to polling by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. About a quarter of evangelicals now support same-sex unions, the institute has found, with an equal number occupying what researchers at Baylor University last year called the “messy middle” of those who oppose gay marriage on moral grounds but no longer support efforts to outlaw it.

This compromise and reinterpretation is seen especially among the Church’s young people under 35. Among that age group just slightly less than 50% now support same-sex marriage. Reflecting that homosexual student organizations have become to crop up at various “Christian” colleges across the nation including Wheaton College.

Even some of the most prominent evangelicals—megachurch pastors, seminary professors and bestselling authors—have publicly announced their compromise on this subject recently. In April a fairly prominent Pastor in Ann Arbor let the world know that he had “seen the light” on the issue and was now recanting his former views.

This tactic of compromise has been a time honored maneuver in the Church over the decades and even centuries. On another subject it was seen again most recently in a well known Church publication. In this article, compromise was being urged on in the way that the Scriptures define Adam and Eve.

“Adam and Eve: Traditionally we’ve been taught that Adam and Eve were the first human pair, Adam made out of dust and Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. But sustaining this doctrine is extremely difficult when we take seriously the human race as we know it today sharing ancestry with other primates such as chimpanzees. Where in the slow evolution of homo erectus and homo habilis and homo sapiens do Adam and Eve fit? We will have to find a better way of understanding what Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve. . . .”

We could spend the whole morning elucidating compromises in Church history. It is sufficient to understand that one way of avoiding the Hebrews counsel to be willing to bear the reproach of Christ is to compromise the faith in order that we may remain “relevant” to our culture.

II.) The Scriptures themselves warn against this turn to compromise when Paul spoke to the Ephesian Elders,

“I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverted things, to draw away disciples after them.”

In the letter to the Hebrews the author likewise warns against this temptation to compromise by giving them the example of Moses,

“24 By faith Moses when he was come to age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 And chose rather to suffer adversity with the people of God, than to enjoy the [z]pleasures of sin for a season, 26 Esteeming the rebuke of Christ greater riches, than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
27 By faith he forsook Egypt, and feared not the fierceness of the king: for he endured, as he that saw him which is invisible.”

And then the author of Hebrews, sets forth the Lord Christ as an example as one who did not compromise to gain relief from the threat of cultural irrelevance and exile.

“…let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set at the right hand of the throne of God.”

III.) Exile in the OT as a Pattern

Being exiles is not a theme that is that foreign to Scripture. Joseph was exiled by His Brothers. Moses was exiled and rejected by Israel. It is not too much to say that the law typologically foreshadows Christ as the rejected and exiled prophet. Jesus came unto His own and His own received Him not. Exile.

And yet Scripture also seems to set forth the pattern that God uses His exiled people to be the means of deliverance for God’s people. Joseph was rejected and exiled but eventually God judged Joseph’s brothers, (Gen. 43:21-22; 44:16) exalted Joseph (Gen. 45:9), and through judgment brought the brothers to repentance (44:16, 18-34, 50:15-18) and all along what they meant for evil God meant for good (50:20). So also with Moses; though Israel had rejected him (Ex. 2:14), God exalted Moses (Ex. 4:16), judged Israel when they grumbled against him (Numbers 14:1-23), through judgment brought them into the Promised Land (Dt. 2:16), and made his glory known (Ex. 14:4, 34:6-7, Num. 14:21).

The pattern is fulfilled in Jesus who was rejected and exiled, with the book of Hebrews informing us that Jesus suffered outside the gate, while despising the cross and enduring the shame. He was a exile. And yet we know that God exalted this rejected exile and that through the judgment that fell on Him, His people are delivered as they trust in Christ alone. The Lord Christ is the fulfillment of all the previous typological OT prophets who were rejected and exiled and yet finally were vindicated and used as the means by which God’s people would be delivered.

III.) Exile in the NT and in Church History

However, that which was true about Christ as being rejected and exiled is true not only about the OT saints who anticipated Him but it seems that in some epochs of History it is also true about those that belong to Christ. They likewise are a rejected and exiled people. Whether we speak of the Apostles in the New Testament,

9 For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. 11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; 12 And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: 13 Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

or whether we look at the congregation of the Hebrews here, or whether in history we consider the Huguenots, Covenanters, or the Puritans, God’s people have in their History this living their lives as those considered exiles.

Of course this sense of exile has not been the burden of Christians in the West for some time. The West was built by the Christian faith of Christian men and women. The Christian faith dwelt in the hearts, hearths, and homes of the West. This was so true that they often refer to the West as “Christendom.” This Christendom was never utopia but it was a place where Christian beliefs and mores could be found in wide acceptance. Christ was seen as the Redeemer and Savior of His people. God’s law was seen as the standard, not only for personal ethics, but also for the ethics that were enshrined into the laws and institutions of the West. Confessing Christ was seen as necessary and required for holding different political offices. Being Christians Mothers and Fathers, raising a Christian family, giving the children who would eventually arrive a Christian education was seen as the the goal of every newlywed young Christian man and wife. The Christian Church with its Christian worldview echoing from the pulpit, and ensconced in a myriad of weekly publications was the predominant molder and shaper of the culture. Exile was not a familiar theme.

That time has gone into eclipse and now we must reckon with the fact that we live, as the congregation did in the book of Hebrews, as Exiles.

IV.) Well how shall we successfully live as Exiles in this Brave New World

A.) First, we realize that our status as exiles has no need to be the only theme among Christians. There is currently a theology in the Reformed Church in existence that wants to absolutize the theme of exile so that any suggestion of building successful Christian culture is seen as Triumphalism or as a dastardly theology of glory. We understand because of our own antinomian unfaithfulness we are living in an age of Exile but there is no reason to absolutize this Exile as if it is the norm for all times and places. Scripture speaks repeatedly of the Triumph of Christ in time and space. The Kingdoms of this world are shattered by the rock cut out of the Mountain that rolls over the Kingdom statue. The Knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. The Kingdom of heaven leavens all. The mustard seed of Christianity becomes a great tree in which all the Nations (Birds) find refuge.

There is something altogether unseemly in a theology that says “we’ve always lost, we are losing now, and we will only ever lose, though spiritually speaking that losing is really winning. If we want to be faithful we have to see ourselves as perpetual exiles in every generation.”

Continuing on with addressing how to successfully live as Exiles …

B.) Church and Worship

1.) For Exiles Church and Worship becomes a haven where identity is reinforced.

I’m convinced that this is one reason why the author to the Hebrews can tell this congregation of Exiles to,

23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

As Exiles a way to maintain or identity and also a way to continue to fight is to have our identity reinforced in the gathering of the saints for Worship. In worship we walk out of the liturgies of the world which would shape us consistent with the belief systems of the zeitgeist and we walk into the liturgy of the Church where the centrality of Word and Sacrament permeates the whole of the rest of the liturgy.

In our worship the Word informs the Liturgy and during the dance of worship our identity in Christ is underscored and so we rejoice at being Exiles for and in Christ. In the Word Christ is championed as being the great reconciler between God and man and in whom we find a peace with God that the zeitgeist can never offer. In the word Christ is our great liege Lord to whom all our loyalty gladly belongs. In the Word Christ is seen as the one in whom are hidden all the treasuries of Wisdom and knowledge which reminds us of the zeitgeist follies we walked out of in order to enter the sanctuary.

So important is Worship that Dr. Peter Leithart can ask and then answer his own question by observing,

“Christians in the US are entering a period of crisis that will lead to martyrdom…

How do we prepare? Not by military exercises or organizing militias. We prepare by learning to use finger-weapons, not hand-weapons, which is to say, by learning to battle with musical instruments. We prepare by training our bodies as musical instruments, by learning to sing lustily, especially by learning to sing God’s songs.”

Via the singing of God’s songs … via the Heart of Christianity communicated via Reformed Liturgy … via the emphasis that one finds in Reformed Sermons of a Christian worldview that takes captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ the Exile and marginalized retain their Christian identity.

Now, I would never contend that Worship is the only means of living successfully as Exiles but I would contend that it is one of the means of resistance. Via Biblical Worship we are washed of the foul false word and liturgies of the zeitgeist and we are re-oriented by the Word and Sacrament as they inform our Liturgy and so we are able to once again find ourselves rooted and grounded in Christ. This simple but beautiful Worship where the Word saturated Liturgy finds us Welcomed by the God who reminds us of His law every week. This Liturgy where upon the hearing of God’s law God’s people confess their sin and then find comfort in God’s absolution of their sin and the turning away of His judgment because of the finished work of Christ. Then because of this pronounced absolution God’s people are reminded of their resurrection in Christ. This liturgy where God speaks to His people through the voice of His spokesman who brings to God’s people from the Holy desk both the harmony and disharmony of Law and Gospel.

C.) And then out of that worship we fight

The visible Church is the Church militant and like Peter on that 1st pentecost we continue to command all men everywhere to repent. And so we contend for the crown Rights of the Lord Christ.

The Dutch theologian Kuyper could say here,

“When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.”

We wrestle against principalities and powers. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. We put on the whole armor of God. We study to show ourselves approved, workmen who needeth not to be ashamed. We are ready to give an answer of the hope that lies within us. We have our minds transformed and renewed to think God’s thoughts after Him on every subject under the sun. As Exiles we are witnesses to the Nations until the Nations are converted to Christ.

Conclusion

re-cap

There are different disciplines that one is introduced to when one attends Seminary. Two of those disciplines are Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology. Both of these disciplines are based on the Bible. Biblical Theology as discipline came much later and labeled itself “Biblical Theology.” It was a good marketing move.

We are going to spend just a little bit of time seeking to help you get a laymen’s understanding of the two because the understanding of these distinctions, at least at a rudimentary level, should be owned by the Laymen as much as the Seminary Student.

When we consider Biblical Theology, which we will be emphasizing today, we find that according to one Professional Biblical Theologian,

“Biblical Theology seeks to explain the worldview behind the statements we now find in the Bible. Biblical Theology attempts to elucidate the metanarrative embraced by the Biblical authors.”

James M. Hamilton Jr.
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Because this is so Biblical sermons may not focus on one text but instead might seek to be longitudinal as the sermon seeks to give some aspect of the metanarrative soil out of which a particular Biblical truth grows.

One of the most well known Biblical Theologians has offered,

“Biblical Theology, rightly defined, is nothing else than the exhibition of the organic process of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.”

Geerhardus Vos
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Systematic Theology, for example, examines and organizes revelation systematically and logically, whereas Biblical Theology operates historically.

Example — Systematic Theology has this great dense, complicated and tangled Forrest of God’s Revelation before it. It looks at this Forest of Revelation and it asks the question, “How can I best organize all this truth so that it is understandable and digestible?”

And it concludes that the best way it can do that is to break it up into categories and sub-categories and sub sub-categories wherein it can be understood. So for example one might rightly see that the Forest of God’s revelation deals with “Soteriology” — “The Doctrine of Salvation,” and so one creates the category of “Doctrine of Salvation” with sub-categories under that of Redemption, Reconciliation, Propitiation, Expiation, Sacrifice, Blood, etc. The one might take one of those sub-Categories of the Category of Soteriology and break it down even more. In doing so there idea is that there will be ever increasing exhaustive understanding of what Scripture teaches on any one subject.

As we’ve hinted at already, the Discipline that is called “Biblical Theology,” does not ask the question that Systematic Theology asks. As we just noted Systematic Theology asks the question “How can I best organize all this truth so that it is understandable and digestible?” The discipline of Biblical Theology on the other hand asks the questions, “How did this Forest of God’s Revelation grow into the Forest it did and what are the main themes we can see in this Forest as this Forest grew?”

So systematic theology is concerned with the finished product of God’s Revelation whereas biblical theology is concerned with the unfolding process, growth, and final culmination of God’s Revelation. Now, if you were to think about it awhile you would realize that there is overlap between the two and that the two imply one another but this is the general way in which these two Disciplines are considered.

The concept of the organic nature of revelation is prominent in Biblical Theology. Good Biblical Theology traces the organic growth of revelation as it is God’s Interpretation of the work of God’s Redemption. The great events in the history of redemption were accompanied by the corresponding revelation of God to explain the meaning of the acts of Redemption. Biblical Theology understands that,

“the heart of divine truth, that by which men live, must have been present from the outset, and that each subsequent increase consisted in the unfolding of what was germinally contained in the beginning of revelation. The Gospel of Paradise is such a germ in which the Gospel of Paul is potentially present; and the Gospel of Abraham, of Moses, of David, of Isaiah and Jeremiah, are all expansions of this original message of salvation, each pointing forward to the next stage of growth, and bringing the Gospel idea one step nearer to its full realization.”

G. Vos

Now, I offer this painfully brief backdrop in order to spend a little time with you this morning looking at a theme that is constructed in a Biblical Theological fashion.

What we want to consider this morning is the process in Scripture by which the theme of the anti-thesis is begun and then traced throughout the Scriptures.

Of course the first mention of this warfare between the two competing seeds is found in the passage read this morning. What this passage teaches us is,

1.) I will put enmity (warfare) between the two seeds

There will be perpetual conflict placed between the people of God (seed of the Woman) and the people who oppose God (seed of the Serpent). This conflict is both between the people of God collectively and the enemy and the Champion of the people of God (Christ) and Satan.

2.) Bruising … and Crushing

This conflict will eventuate into ultimate deliverance (Salvation) for God’s people (God’s representative will crush the head of God’s opponent) but that ultimate deliverance will come via judgment (God’s opponent will strike the heel of God’s representative before that opponent is crushed.)

3.) On the belly … eating dust

Complete humiliation and total condemnation for the seed of the serpent.

So these three themes we want to trace organically and longitudinally through Scripture to see how this acorn theme in Genesis 3 grows into a mighty Oak through the rest of Scripture. In doing so we are seeking to let the Scripture interpret itself as God’s Revelation repeats and magnifies a theme that it begins in Genesis 3.

We need to keep in mind as we examine these themes that later Revelation can use different phrases and words to enlarge and expand upon the original idea.

I The Theme of Smiting and Broken Heads of Enemies

A.) Law

Numbers 24:17 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near: there shall come a [a]Star of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise of Israel and shall smite the [b]coasts of Moab, and destroy all the sons of [c]Sheth.

This is the third oracle of Balaam concerning Israel. We see the language of “smiting” in reference to Moab (one of the early enemies of God’s people). The 1599 Geneva Bible interprets the “Coasts of Moab” as standing for the “Princes of Moab.” It is Balak, the Prince of Moab, as the seed of the Serpent that will experience the Smiting. King Balak has dismissed the prophet Balaam in frustration, but Balaam departs prophesying, consistent with the Genesis passage of a time when the seed of the Serpent “Moab” will have its head crushed by the seed of the Woman.

B.) Prophets

Judges 4:21

21 Then Jael Heber’s wife took a [a]nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him (Sisera), and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground, (for he was fast asleep and weary) and so he died.

5:26 She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer: with the hammer smote she Sisera: she smote off his head, after she had wounded and pierced his temples.

Judges 9:53

53 But a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and brake his brainpan.

Here we see this promise to crush the seed of the Serpent’s head is quite literal.

1 Samuel 17:491599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

49 And David put his hand in his bag, and took out a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sticked in his forehead, and he fell groveling to the earth.

Isaiah 1:4-5

4 Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity: a [a]seed of the wicked, corrupt children: they have forsaken the Lord: they have provoked the [b]Holy one of Israel to anger: they are gone backward.
5 Wherefore should ye be [c]smitten anymore? for ye fall away more and more: the whole [d]head is sick, and the whole heart is heavy.

Here God refers to His enemies reminiscent to the language used in Gen. 3 (seed of the wicked) and speaks of the smiting that has taken place. God smites His enemies.

Isaiah 7:8-91599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

8 For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin: and within five and [a]threescore years, Ephraim shall be destroyed from being a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye believe not, surely ye shall not be established.

Here the context is that Syria and Ephraim are the “seed of the serpent,” opposing God’s seed and God is promising that His and His people’s enemies shall be destroyed.

Isaiah 28:31

3 They shall be trodden under foot, even the crown and the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim.

The head of the seed of the serpent is crushed as it is trodden under foot.

Jeremiah 23:19

19 Behold, the tempest of the Lord goeth forth in his wrath, and a violent whirlwind shall fall down upon the head of the wicked.

Jeremiah 30:23

23 Behold, [a]the tempest of the Lord goeth forth with wrath: the whirlwind that hangeth over, shall light upon the head of the wicked.

Habakkuk 3:13 Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine [a]Anointed: thou hast wounded the head of the house of the wicked, and discoveredst the foundations unto the [b]neck, Selah.

Habakkuk 3:13 From the top to the toe thou hast destroyed the enemies.

C.) Wisdom Literature

Psalm 68:22-24

21 Surely God will wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy pate of him that walketh in his sins.22 The Lord hath said, I will bring my people again from [a]Bashan: I will bring them again from the depths of the Sea: 23 That thy foot may be dipped in blood, and the tongue of thy dogs in the blood of the enemies, even in [b]it.

Psalm 74:12-14

12 Even God is my king of old, working salvation [a]in the midst of the earth.
13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy power: thou brakest the heads of the [b]dragons in the waters.
14 Thou brakest the head of [c]Leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be [d]meat for the people in wilderness.

This is a reference to God’s victory at the Red Sea. As we shall see in just a bit “dragon” and “serpent” are synonymous terms. When God defeated Egypt he defeated the seed of the Serpent and God’s people were saved.

Psalm 110:6

6 He shall be judge among the heathen: he shall fill all with dead bodies, and smite the [a]head over great countries.

Now we have yet to look at similar themes consistent with Gen. 3:14-19 but what we have learned so far is that,

1.) God destroys His Enemies and those who oppose His people.

We need to keep this in mind as we live in times that are increasingly characterized by a preponderance of God’s enemies. We need to remember the Genesis promise of God that He would crush His enemies. This promise extends beyond the Cross. While it is true that ultimately God’s enemies were crushed in and by Christ’s finished work on the Cross we still look for God’s enemies to continue to be crushed after the Cross.

Romans 16:20

20 The God of peace shall tread Satan under your feet shortly….

Epoch by epoch God’s enemies arise and epoch by epoch God eventually crushes the seed of the Serpent under the feet of His people. Time and again throughout history it has seemed that the seed of the Serpent was getting the upper hand, but then God hears the groanings of His people and arises to bring forth a champion to crush the enemy. Often the seed of the Serpent has been used has cleansing judgment against the seed of the woman as just judgment against their rebellion against God but always God arises and crushes His and our enemies.

Of course this gives us great hope. It should also give us patience, endurance, and optimism. God will arise. God will not let either His name of His people to be continually trod upon.

2.) There is a permanent animosity between the competing seeds.

Naturally there is a temptation to want to make friendship with the World in order to purchase some relief from the pressures of the seed of the serpent. We should be careful of this. Our identity is in Christ and we must maintain that identity even in the face of growing warfare against the Saints. Certainly we must be wise about all this. We must pray for Wisdom. We must walk circumspectly. However, having said all that we can do nothing that would be a mar upon our identity we the seed of the woman.

3.) God’s Glory is seen in the context of this contest as His salvation is seen in the context of judgment

II The Theme of Broken Enemies

(Note that as the serpent is licking the dust of the ground there is reason why it is so often spoke of these broken enemies being trod under foot.)

A.) Law

Exodus 15:6, Numbers 24:8

6 Thy [a]right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath bruised the enemy.

8 God brought him out of Egypt: his strength shall be as an unicorn: he shall eat the nations his enemies, and bruise their bones, and shoot them through with his arrows.

B.) Prophets

I Samuel 2:10, II Samuel 22:39, 43, Isaiah 14:25, Jeremiah 13:14, 23:29, 48:4, 51:20-23

1 Samuel 2:10

10 The Lord’s adversaries shall be destroyed, and out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the world, and shall give power unto his [a]King, and exalt the horn of his Anointed.

2 Samuel 22:39

39 Yea, I have consumed them and thrust them through, and they shall not arise, but shall fall under my feet.

2 Samuel 22:43
43 Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth: I did tread them flat as the clay of the street, and did spread them abroad.

Isaiah 14:25

25 [a]That I will break to pieces Assyria in my land, and upon my mountains will I tread him under foot, so that his yoke shall depart from [b]them, and his burden shall be taken from off their shoulder.

Jeremiah 13:14

14 And I will [a]dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord: I will not spare, I will not pity, nor have compassion, but destroy them.

Jeremiah 23:29

29 Is not my word even like a fire, saith the Lord? and like an hammer, that breaketh the stone?

Jeremiah 48:4

4 Moab is destroyed: her little ones have caused their cry to be heard.

C.) Writings

Psalm 2:9, 72:4, 89:23-24, 137:9, Daniel 2:34-35, Job 34:22-25

Conclusion,

Now see what we have done this morning. We have taken one theme in Scripture and we started with its point of origin and just by moving through Scripture we have seen how God’s revelation expanded on that theme in the context of God Redemption. This is Biblical theology.

You can use this same technique to study any number of Biblical themes.

1.) the promise of God’s Kingdom and
2.) the building and expansion of God’s Law
3.) the idea of the covenant
4.) the spilling of blood for Atonement