Written by Matthew H. Patton |
Thursday, February 29, 2024
The book of Jeremiah, therefore, was given to help Judah navigate this dire and climactic end to their story. Even as their nation was uprooted at every level (king, temple, land, covenant), Jeremiah shows that the Lord had a redemptive purpose. He removed these shadowy gifts to prepare the way for ultimate, eschatological gifts that will never pass away. The real end of Israel’s story will not ultimately be wrath, but grace and glory.

Jeremiah is one of the most daunting books of the Bible. In terms of word count, it is the longest in the whole Bible. It flits between poetic images and narratives, often with little warning, and it does not follow a chronological order. Most of its content is about grim judgment and dire sin, with few glimmers of hope. People often feel perplexed when they try to read it.
But God gave us this book for our encouragement (Rom. 15:4). If we keep three things in mind as we read, we will begin to understand God’s genius and love in giving us this challenging book.
1. The book’s theme is judgment unto restoration.
For all its complexity, the whole book of Jeremiah expounds two basic themes: judgment and restoration. The theme verse highlights these two themes: the Lord set Jeremiah “over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jer. 1:10). The first four verbs are about judgment (plucking up, breaking down, destroying, and overthrowing). The latter two are about restoration (building and planting).
The judgment texts refer primarily to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BC. The Lord is keen to establish that this dreadful event was the just consequence for Judah’s awful sin. The many allusions to the covenant curses in Deuteronomy 28 show that the Lord is being faithful to what He said He would do when His people betray Him. Indeed, He has been more than patient.
During Jeremiah’s ministry, Judah’s fall became an inevitable event. No amount of repentance or prayer could avert it. That is why the Lord forbids Jeremiah to pray for the people (Jer. 7:16; 11:14). Thus, the only way forward for Judah was to accept judgment, including exile from the land of promise (Jer. 21:8–10).
But the most amazing part of Jeremiah’s message is that the Lord—the same God who brought severe judgment on them—also intends to reverse the curse (Jer. 31:28) and heal His people (Jer. 30:12–17; cf. Deut. 32:39). He will do more than simply returning Judah to the pre-exile status quo.
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Written by Vern S. Poythress |
Sunday, April 14, 2024
We should not overlook the role of Balaam’s donkey. The donkey spoke and functioned as a prophet to Balaam himself, serving to rescue him from death by avoiding the angel with his drawn sword (Num. 22:22–35). The rescue of Balaam is a type pointing us to Christ, who permanently and definitively rescues us from sin and death. This list is a beginning. By studying the Old Testament carefully, we can find many other points at which the Old Testament provides shadows and symbols pointing forward to the definitive redemption in Christ.

The Old Testament contains “types,” that is, symbolic personages and things and events that point forward to fulfillment, especially the climactic fulfillment in Christ. Some types are obvious because the New Testament talks about them at length. For example, the priesthood of Aaron and his sons, described in the Mosaic law, is fulfilled in the heavenly priesthood of Christ, according to Hebrews 5–10. The Passover feast, commemorating God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery, is fulfilled in the death of Christ, the Passover lamb: “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). Christ delivered us from slavery to sin and death. The Last Supper, recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, was a Passover meal but filled with new meaning as Jesus inaugurates the “new covenant” (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). The Lord’s Supper is now the church’s commemorative feast, analogous to Israel’s annual Passover celebration.
But these obvious types are only the beginning. Many personages and events and institutions in the Old Testament have a symbolic dimension and point to Christ and his work. At the same time, they never measure up to Christ’s work, which is unique. So we may miss some of their significance if we do not notice that there is a symbolic meaning, even when there is not exact correspondence.
Here are ten lesser-known types that point forward to Jesus. Not everyone agrees—which is one reason why they are lesser known. See whether you agree that there is a symbolic aspect pointing forward to Christ.
1. Let There Be Light
God created by speaking, including the creation of light in Genesis 1:3. The individual speeches in Genesis 1 are derivative from the great, eternal speech of God mentioned in John 1:1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1 goes on to indicate that “[a]ll things were made through him [the Word]” (verse 3), thus alluding to Genesis 1. John 1 confirms that the eternal Word, now become incarnate, was the agent of creation along with the Father and the Spirit.
Jesus also says in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world.” Physical light, created by God in Genesis, anticipates Jesus who is the climactic spiritual light.
2. Enoch
As for Enoch, God “took him” when he was 365 years old (Gen. 5:23–24). He did not die. His victory over death anticipates Christ’s resurrection.
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Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
If we decide to send our children to secular institutions, we had better do so with our eyes wide open to the worldview their minds will be filled with on a daily basis. If we send our children to public schools, we must be aware that the bewitching influence of secularism runs swift and strong. Maximally, this is a call for Christians to seriously consider the need for Christian schooling.

Secularism is a religion. Make no mistake about it. Though many seek to advance it as a neutralizing alternative to a religiously structured society, it is, in its own right, a religion. A secular worldview is not content until it has permeated every fabric of society–civics, ethics, media, and education. Just as the Christian worldview is meant to permeate all human activity, so secularism seeks to stand in the gap and block a truly consistent application of Christianity to every aspect of life. There is a bewitching element of secularism to which many–even many Christians–are blind.
Prior to considering one important measure to counter the permeating influence of secularism, a brief history of secularism as an ideological movement is in order. In the chapter, “Atheism and Secularism,” in the Ligonier Field Guide on False Teaching, we read,
“The Enlightenment in France particularly fueled atheism and secularism in the Western world. Baron Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach—an atheist intellectual—taught a form of mechanistic metaphysics that served as a catalyst for the modern atheism movement. D’Holbach devoted two works to the defense and propagation of atheism: Système de la Nature and Le Bon Sens. His contemporary Denis Diderot is believed to have assisted him in the production of the strongly atheistic and materialistic book Système de la Nature. Diderot was the first to give a modern definition of atheism, including it in his Encyclopédie.
With the rise of the scientific revolution, materialistic understandings of the origins of the universe became more widely accepted in the West. Accordingly, the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species in 1859 was seized upon by atheists as providing a scientific justification for their view. Darwin’s work fostered secularist agendas in Western countries, primarily through Karl Marx’s application of Darwin’s principles to his economic and political theories. In Das Kapital, Marx appealed to Darwin’s contributions. Although Darwin was not supportive of Marx’s use of his philosophy for the propagation of political and economic socialism, the rise of secularsm can be directly tied to the influence of Darwin on Marx.
After Marx, the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche further advanced anti-theistic philosophy throughout the Western world. On numerous occasions, Nietzsche used the phrase ‘God is dead’ to explain the effects of the Enlightenment in producing an increasing disbelief in God and subsequent secularization in Western society.
In 1927, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell gave a talk at the National Secular Society in London that was later published in 1969 under the title Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. This book had a significant effect on readers in Britain and America, further popularizing atheism and secularism. Russell helped pave the way for the “new atheist” movement—a contemporary form of atheist apologetics popularized by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Dawkins’ The God Delusion, released in 2006, was a New York Times best seller and the second-best-selling book on Amazon that year. New atheism distinguishes itself from older forms of atheism in that it does not simply reject belief in God but also is hostile to those who hold religious views.
The term “secularism” was first coined by George Holyoake in the mid-nineteenth century in his work Principles of Secularism. Holyoake defined secularism in this way:
‘Secularism is a series of principles intended for the guidance of those who find theology indefinite, or inadequate, or deem it unreliable. It replaces theology, which mainly regards life as a sinful necessity, as a scene of tribulation through which we pass to a better world.’
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