First, he claimed that the Bible was written in a style to excite and inspire human imagination, not to persuade the intellect. Second, a proper reading of Scripture requires peeling back the layers of phrases and metaphors. In other words, the Bible did not record miracles but reported events robed in hyperbole and exaggeration. The seeds of Spinoza’s doubts later blossomed in nineteenth-century liberal interpretations of the Scriptures. Some New Testament scholars claimed, for example, that Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand was no miracle. Rather, Jesus stood before an opening of a cave, which was concealed by His long, flowing robe. His disciples then fed loaves of bread through the sleeves of His robe. The feeding was no miracle but rather a sleight of hand—a well-intentioned ruse meant to inspire selflessness.
In his Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza argued that the will of God is synonymous with the laws of nature. On the other hand, a miracle is a violation of the law of nature. God’s will is unbreakable; therefore, miracles are impossible. Some philosophers, such as David Hume, simply dismissed miracles because of disbelief. Hume maintained that the testimony of Christ’s resurrection, for example, was likely false. Such testimony was therefore invalid for establishing the historicity of the resurrection. In the present, New Testament scholars such as Bart Ehrman make similar claims. Ehrman defines a miracle as improbable. Historians, however, can establish only what probably occurred in the past. Thus, a historian can never ascertain the historicity of a miracle. Regardless of the variations, the simple truth behind the rejections of miracles is unbelief—a rejection of God’s Word.

Things are not right. Untold crowds protest. But in Psalm 130 we hear the perfect outcry that can, and must, arise from every heart. In this Song of Ascents we lift up our heads to Jesus Christ. We wait for him, more than the watchman waits for the morning. 

The year 2020 will be remembered, so far, for Covid-19, and large-scale protests. Vast masked crowds gather to rail against racism, policing, gender-inequality, climate change, and whatever other grievances each new week brings. Iconoclasts topple whole quarries of obnoxious memorials of the people and events of our past.
I tend to be cynical about all this. Protestors seem intent on inflaming rather than healing race and gender divisions. And they seem to give little thought to the consequences of their demands. Defund the police? Erase our history? How then will our grandchildren not repeat its mistakes?
Whatever I may think, thousands are getting off their bottoms and onto the streets. They are unhappy, distressed, and they cry out for change. “Things are not right! We want something better!”
In Psalm 130 the psalmist too was deeply unhappy and distressed.
In this they share some common ground with Psalm 130. The psalmist too was deeply unhappy and distressed. He too felt the pain of brokenness and cried out in anguish.
The difference is that Psalm 130 is a perfect outcry. It shows exactly what should be cried out, and to whom we should cry out, and for what reasons.
Psalm 130 is “A song of ascents.” The temple was on Mount Zion, the highest point of Jerusalem, which is itself a city on a hill. It may first have been sung by pilgrims as they streamed up through Jerusalem to the temple to worship. It looks up, away from self and the earthly, to the face of the Lord.
And Psalm 130 is, along with Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, and 143, one of the Penitential Psalms. We see a sinner looking up to God’s face and pleading for his mercy.
A broken heart cries out to the Lord.

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy (Psalm 130:1-2).

David had once said, “I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me” (Ps. 69:2). “The depths” is the bottom of the sea, the base of the slimy pit. “The depths” can take many forms. It could be the depths of an airless dungeon, or chronic pain. It could be the depths of poverty, or of a broken heart. It could be the depths of despair, shame, or fear. It could be the depths of hopelessness, of looking forward and seeing nothing but the cold grave and endless torment. The psalmist cries out de profundis (Latin for “from the depths”) of this black and hopeless place. He dares to evoke God’s “ears” and begs that he will listen.
We should never forget that a loving Lord sometimes casts his people into the depths. Think of Joseph in the Egyptian dungeon and scabrous Job on his ash heap, consider David in the caves of exile, Jonah in the stinking whale, Daniel in the lions’ den, the Prodigal Son in the sty, and Peter in the abyss of bitter self-loathing on crucifixion eve. The Lord casts us down to death, that we might come to life and cry out to him.
Notice that the Psalmist doesn’t scramble out of the pit, and then call to God. He calls to God from the shroud. God wants our prayers from wherever we are, and even from whomever we are, at that moment.
Note two fundamental differences between the protester and the penitent.
First, the protester cries out to human authorities for change. Thus, they aim far too low and expect the impossible. Human governors can provide a degree of defense, law and order, communication, and healthcare, and we should be thankful for good government in Australia. But no government can reach into people’s hearts. They cannot make the greedy generous, the racist color-blind, the violent gentle, the selfish selfless, and the reckless responsible. The Psalmist cries out to the highest heavens. The voice of the protester, like a flapping dodo, fails to rise from earth and clay.
Second, the protestor cries for justice and rights. “Give me what I deserve!” The Psalmist cries out for the opposite. To see the Lord, the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley, the Lamb without Blemish, is to see at once the blackness of our own hearts, “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9 NKJV). To see the Holy One, sword of justice in his hand, is to see at once what we richly deserve, the fires of hell and the worm that does not die.
We must tread very carefully here. There are people who are in the pit as an immediate consequence of a sin. Think Jonah, Peter, and the Prodigal Son. And there are people in the pit, but it is not an immediate consequence of sin. Think Job, Daniel, and Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. Yet the cry in both cases is the same, “Have mercy!”
There is profound injustice in the world. “The poor you will always have with you” (Matt. 26:11 NIV). Love compels us to stand for the rights of the unborn, the impoverished, child-slaves, political prisoners, and the elderly who are abused and who live, in some nations, with euthanizing potions at hand. Christians will always want to defend the weak.
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Let us pray that God sends His Spirit to reveal the truth about His Son to Jordan Peterson.  He is no doubt a brilliant thinker and a needed voice in the public sphere where reason and logic are so often lacking. However, my hope is that Christians who are enamored with his articulate reasoning regarding modern day social issues and family values aren’t so captivated that they can’t rightly discern his error regarding Christ and Christianity.

My fascination with Jordan Peterson goes back a few years now. Here are my impressions of what he believes about Christianity based on my exposure to his videos and his book, 12 Rules for Life.  See links throughout the article for sources that inform that is article.
Jordan Peterson is a Clinical Psychologist and a prominent University Professor (Harvard University and University of Toronto) who has risen to prominence due to his public stand against political correctness, the use of genderless pronouns, and his interview regarding the gender pay gap.  That coupled with his Science-based Conservative leaning views around marriage, family, and personal responsibility has made him a darling among Politically Conservative Evangelicals.  He considers himself a Christian and the subject of God and his beliefs comes up in many of his interviews.
While I’m not here to cast aspersion on Peterson, a brilliant thinker who I love listening to,  I am pointing out that his unorthodox views about Jesus lead to a radically different understanding of how a Christian is made right with God and therefor how a Christian lives.
Peterson isn’t sure if Jesus rose from the dead.  He only believes His Spirit lives on in as much as “spirit” refers to continuing influence, saying “it’s had a massive effect across time.”  When asked about the Divinity of Christ, he questions what is meant by Divine. Peterson defines the Logos as divine, but then defines divine as “of ultimately transcendent value” and that “it’s associated with Death and Rebirth.”  We see in all of this, that the words “spirit,” ”logos,”  and “divine” don’t refer to a personal deity but rather to ultimate ideas.
In Peterson’s varying descriptions of Christ throughout his videos he jumps from ancient heresy to ancient heresy, the content of which is beyond the scope of this post.  But suffice it to say, he questions the Orthodox views of the Trinitarian formulas for God as well as the two natures in one person of Christ.  The impact of denying the Calcedonian formulations regarding Christ in this way is manifold.
Peterson talks about people increasingly embodying the Logos, holding up Buddha and Christ as those who have.  For Peterson, the implication for the Christian Life is that one can reach this higher plane of spiritual reality through suffering and seeking “the light,” although as he admits this is obviously near impossible.  In this scheme Jesus Christ is an example of what to become.  To Peterson, who believes Jesus is a historical figure, that is less important than what he symbolizes, the process of taking up one’s cross, suffering, death, and rebirth.   His 12 Rules for Life provide great life tips and advice, but repackages Christianity into a works based system for “salvation” (a process by which through suffering and hard work one more and more improves their life thereby embodying the Logos) which is absent of the essential Christian concept of Grace.
Note: His book is not meant to be Theology, but a Self-Help guide. In that it is very good.  It is a great book that is needed.  However, it does delve into Theology and Scripture quite a bit, and in that it easily can devolve into a works-based system.
As a clinical Psychologist, Peterson’s theology is heavily influenced by Carl Jung who he readily references in many interviews.  It is Jung’s archetypes that forms the basis for Peterson’s insights (some of them very good)  and classes on Genesis and Exodus.
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