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And what are we supposed to make of this Keller status?

Is Tim drawing the antithesis between Rich vs. Poor as opposed to between the Seed of the Serpent vs. The seed of the woman?

Is he forgetting that the Scripture goes out of its way to show that both Joseph and Mary and so Jesus were of the line of David… the Head of State?

Is he forgetting that the Scripture places the Kings of the East in the Incarnation narrative?

Are people who are outside of Christ who are at the bottom of the social ladder more acceptable to God merely because they are at the bottom of the social ladder?

Are people who are in Christ who are at the top of the social ladder less acceptable to God merely because they are at the top of the social ladder?

For Pete’s sake … can we ever be done with happy clappy Liberation theology in the Church?

Psst… Job was rich. Abraham was Rich.

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From here a discussion ensued where someone  named Jack offered;

• Luke 1:46-53 “And Mary said,

  “My soul magnifies the Lord,

  47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

  48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

  For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

  49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

  and holy is his name.

  50 And his mercy is for those who fear him

  from generation to generation.

  51 He has shown strength with his arm;

  he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

  52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones

  and exalted those of humble estate;

  53 he has filled the hungry with good things,

  and the rich he has sent away empty.”

• Bret L. McAtee responds,

    … The position of Mary (or Zechariah, or Simeon, or Anna, etc.) is not important because they were low on the social ladder but because they were saints of God. Poverty as poverty doesn’t score you any points if one doesn’t belong to the people of God.

  The emphasis in Mary’s Song is that God remembers His people who are being oppressed by the Wicked mighty. The point is not that God favors poor wicked people over righteous rich people.

  What “Mighty” has he brought down from their thrones? Job? Abraham? David?

  Is the New and Better covenant characterized now by God hating all rich and loving all poor regardless of their lack of faith in Christ?

  This preoccupation of the West with Marxist categories completely flummoxes me. God loves the righteous in Christ regardless of their socio-economic status and he hates the wicked outside of Christ regardless of their socio-economic status… even if they are as poor and wretched as the Artful Dodger.

  Why is it that we seem to think that God loves the impoverished more than the Wealthy simply on the basis of their impoverishment? God loves His people in Christ. The Wealthy saints have a charge to keep in terms of their brethren of low estate but those of low estate are not superior to those of wealth if they are both looking to Christ and resting in him, just as the wealthy are not superior to those of poverty in terms of status before God just because they are wealthy.

• Jack writes

  Bret – the history of the world is filled with accounts of how the rich and powerful as a class have oppressed people. To whom much is given, much is required, and the accounting for those of low estate will be different from that of the rich and powerful.
• Bret L. McAtee responds,

  Baloney on your response Jack. The accounting for those of low estate and of those of high estate will be “are they resting in Christ alone.”

  And notice in the parable of the talents the one with 5 talents and the one with two talents are both praised by the same standard. They invested what they had wisely.
• Jack

  The people who had more to work with were required to have a greater return.

  Bret L. McAtee responds,

  No … they were all merely required to be faithful with what they were given … whatever it was.

  Jack

  And the more they were given, the more return was expected.

  Bret L. McAtee responds,

  Jack … that is just bogus. Are we to think that if those with 5 talents were faithful with what they had but they only had a return on their investment of 2 talents instead of 5 that God would have chastised them?

  The standard is not the return we bring back. The standard is our faithfulness in light of Christ’s first faithfulness to us.

  • Jack  

    The Bible recognizes the fact that there are classes of people who have power, authority, and wealth and there are classes of people who do not have these things. The Bible also recognizes that there are classes of people who abuse power, authority, and wealth. It also recognizes the conflict between the two classes of people.

    Bret L. McAtee responds,

    The Bible clearly teaches that God’s only standard of acceptance of people, rich or poor, is the blood of Christ, and the only conflict the Bible recognizes as universal is the conflict between the seed of the woman vs. the seed of the serpent. Rich people in Christ are loved by Christ and if walking consistently with their Christian faith don’t oppress the poor. Further poor people outside of Christ who are oppressed by rich people outside of Christ do not find Christ championing their cause.

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Look … Christ did not redeem us so that we might walk contrary to His Law-Word. The Law’s intent is not so that by the keeping of it we can be saved. We can’t keep it as it is needed to be kept. That is why Christ came as our covenant head. Our Lord Christ fulfilled the law in our stead and because of the righteousness accounted to us we are counted Law keepers. Similarly, our covenant head, the Lord Christ, bore our penalty in our place on the Cross that our indebtedness to the Law is fulfilled as we are united to Christ.

BUT now that the law has been fulfilled for us in Christ’s law-keeping and penalty bearing we now walk in terms of God’s law. We delight in God’s law now, not as means of gaining something we do not have. We delight in God’s law now, as a consequence of being given something we could not earn or merit.

Law and grace do doth sweetly comply (agree). We can not posit Grace against law. God’s law for the Christian is gracious and God’s grace unto the Christian was due to Christ-honoring all that the law required.

So, now we study God’s law in order to more fully delight in God’s grace.

Some will contend that we have been delivered from the law and so interpret that to mean that we have nothing to do with the law. This is an unfortunate error in interpreting and thinking. The aspect of the law that we have been delivered from is the condemning aspect of the law. Because we are in Christ we are delivered from the law’s condemnation. There is, after all, therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. However, deliverance from the law’s condemnation is not equal to the idea of no longer having anything to do with the law. This is why the inspired Apostle can say that; “The law is Holy, Righteous, and Good.”

Also, consider, how could we possibly define sin that we desperately want to avoid without the law? How could we possibly know what behavior, thinking, attitudes please our great Liege-Lord apart from His Law-Word?

Praise God for His kindness to usward as expressed by giving us His Law-Word. Praise God that the Lord Christ was and remains the embodiment and incarnation of God’s Law. To properly love God’s law is to love Christ. Correspondingly a lack of love for God’s Law-Word is a lack of love for Christ.