“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?”

I don’t remember the specific time and place I first read these memorable words in A.W. Tozer’s classic The Pursuit of God. But I do know that as a college sophomore and junior I read the whole of chapter 7, “The Gaze of the Soul,” over and over again. My tattered 1990s paperback has plenty of proof. Tozer continues,

[Pianos] are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. (90)

Even when I first read it, the piano-tuning resonated. Now, two decades later, the rough and tumble of adult life in my twenties and thirties has deeply confirmed it. And in the past two-plus years — which some of us consider the most generally divisive we’ve lived through — Tozer’s word about finding “closer fellowship” through a shared Godward gaze (rather than “unity” consciousness or focus) shines with fresh light.

We need not simply take Tozer’s word for it, though. We have biblical granite for this: the “vivid little psalm,” as Derek Kidner calls it, that is Psalm 133. “Behold,” the psalmist begins, “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”

Longing for Lost Unity?

The psalm is one of the fifteen “Songs of Ascents” (Psalms 120–134) that Israelite pilgrims would rehearse as they ascended the landscape to Jerusalem for three annual feasts (Deuteronomy 16:16). Psalm 133 includes no superscript locating it at any specific event in David’s life. Some speculate that its origin was that remarkable (and brief) season of a fully unified nation under the newly established king, with the ark in Jerusalem, from 2 Samuel 6–12. Or perhaps — and this would be more arresting — the occasion was later in David’s life, in days riddled with division, intrigue, and uncertainty, as the aging king longs for the unity he experienced in his youth, and looks back on those earlier days of peace with new, more appreciative eyes.

Whatever the backdrop, David attempts to seize our rapt attention with his first word: “Behold.” Listen up. Don’t miss what I’m about to say.

Brothers Don’t Always Dwell Together

“How good and pleasant it is,” he then sings. Unity is both objectively good and subjectively pleasant — and all the more so after navigating the pains and distresses of disunity and division. Many of us know this far better now and feel it far deeper than we did not long ago.

“When brothers dwell together” echoes the language of Deuteronomy 25:5 (“If brothers dwell together . . .”) and communicates two realities. First is that “brothers” are truly, objectively brothers in some sense that formally binds them together, whether by blood or covenant. But brothers in fact does not presume brothers in function. Sadly, many brothers are estranged. Others are constantly at odds. And sometimes it’s the very bonds of brotherhood that can make it all the more difficult for brothers, of all people, to live in harmony.

The second reality, then, is their dwelling together. These brothers are not only related; they live in proximity. They get along. Psalm 133 celebrates brothers who don’t move away from each other but stay together, draw near, and “dwell in unity.” Such brothers are not only unified in blood or covenant, but in practice. They are not only brothers but neighbors — for their mutual benefit and enjoyment.

In this way, we might call this a city psalm, rather than a country psalm — urban in the best sense. It makes for beautiful words to put on the lips of pilgrims as they come together from north, south, east, and west to dwell and feast together in Jerusalem.

Running Down: Mountain Dew

What about the strange and vivid pictures in the next two verses? Let’s turn first to the stranger image (at least to modern readers), then come back to oil on the head.

Verse 3 claims that such unity, brothers dwelling together, “is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion!” Hermon was (and is) the tallest mountain in the region, sitting at the northern border of the united kingdom in David’s day. Hermon is four times the height of Zion (Jerusalem) and had a reputation in that arid region as a mountain of moisture and heavy dew. At its height, it gathers snow, which melts and runs off. Its springs feed the Jordan River, which runs south to the Sea of Galilee, then further south to the Dead Sea. Hermon was proverbial for heavy dew, and was the source of life-sustaining water to those who lived below and beyond.

In an arid land like Israel, where is little to no rainfall during the summer (from May to September), even dew is seen as a blessing (Isaiah 18:4), falling from above (Proverbs 3:20; Haggai 1:10; Zechariah 8:12), indeed from God himself (Micah 5:7). The “dew of heaven” drops as life-giving, life-sustaining mercy (Isaiah 26:19) — or is withheld in divine severity. Dew, then, serves a sign of God’s blessing (Deuteronomy 33:28; 2 Samuel 1:21).

Yet, dew comes at night and goes away quickly (Hosea 6:4; 13:3). Unlike a thunderstorm, dew comes quietly, appearing, as it were, out of thin air, almost magically. The day ends dry, no thunder sounds, no rain showers fall overnight, yet morning dawns and the dew of life has formed — as a gift from heaven.

But what does dew have to do with unity? The key is in this falling (or “running down”) from above, which ties it to the other picture in the psalm.

Running Down: Beard Oil

Twice verse 2 accents the “running down” of anointing oil. Brothers dwelling in unity, David says, “is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes!” Pair those with the running down of the Hermon’s heavy dew falling on arid Jerusalem and we have an important threefold emphasis: the blessing of unity comes from above, and often unexpectedly. In other words, God is the giver of true unity.

“Unity is a gift to be received, not achieved.”

Try as we may to be unity conscious and focused, and work as we might with human effort and strategy to establish unity, it will be thin and short-lived if it is not from God. As Kidner comments, “True unity, like all good gifts, is from above; bestowed rather than contrived, a blessing far more than an achievement” (134).

The psalm’s last line, at the end of verse 3, confirms this: “For there [Zion] the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.” Unity is a gift to be received, not achieved — and God has commanded his blessing to fall on his terms, in his timing, and in a particular place. Under the terms of the old covenant, that place was Zion.

But how, then, would the psalm guide us today? Where do we look for unity in this age, if we do not turn to unity itself?

Brothers in the Elder Brother

As the pilgrims singing Psalm 133 journeyed to Jerusalem, they looked up to Zion and, in doing so, found camaraderie with others looking up and striving toward the same hill. When they finally arrived in Jerusalem, they found themselves with brothers, having ascended the mount from all directions, dwelling together for the feast.

“True unity, deep and enduring, is the divine effect and gift of the Godward gaze.”

So too today, God would have our pilgrim gaze be upwards first. Our God, and his truth, is not the servant of human endeavors at unity. Rather true unity, deep and enduring, is the divine effect and gift of the Godward gaze. To find true unity, we look elsewhere first: up to God, through his word. And as we do, and receive God’s gift of himself, we discover others in the same pursuit. Looking deeply into the Scriptures, we find comrades also living in glad submission to God’s word and in the pursuit of his truth. In this way, unity falls on us, often surprisingly, as a blessing from heaven.

And in Christ — who is our head (Ephesians 1:22; 4:15; 5:23) and whose very title means Anointed — we now experience what those ancient pilgrims longed for, and hoped for, and could not yet fully enjoy, or even fathom. What they sought in Zion and the first covenant, we now have in Jesus, as the precious oil of divine favor runs down from his beard to us, his body. We are brothers and sisters who gather not to a single appointed temple but rally to a single anointed person, dwelling together with each other as we draw closer to him.

It was a late night at the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting, almost twenty years ago. The day’s formal schedule was done, and a couple dozen young, impressionable seminarians gathered chairs around a few veteran scholars to pepper them with questions.

Among the handful of established professors, two in particular shone as the brightest lights in the room. Hands down, these two had published the most books, and had the most recognizable names beyond academic circles. When these two spoke, the room listened most intently.

By the end of the evening, however, a striking difference had emerged between the two lights. As they contributed answers to question after question, one defaulted, quite conspicuously, to quoting Westminster, and little Scripture. The other shared very little, if any, Westminster — but text after text from the Bible. I suspect it went unnoticed, at first, but eventually the pattern became pronounced. More than a handful of us had taken notice by the end.

On that night, the two Reformed lights ended up with mostly the same answers to our battery of questions, but the way they arrived at those answers exposed different instincts. One defaulted to Westminster; the other, to Scripture. It left a lasting impression on me. I knew which one I wanted to imitate. And while I couldn’t find any passage in Westminster commending the first approach, my mind did immediately run to one passage in Scripture, among others, that commends the second.

Born (Again) in a Small Town

In Acts 17, having been chased from Thessalonica by an angry, envious mob, Paul and Silas come to a small town called Berea. They start with the synagogue, as was their practice. Luke then marks a contrast with these Bereans:

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. (Acts 17:11–12)

Clearly, Luke is not just reporting. He is commending. “Oh, for all hearers of Christian preaching,” he would say, “to follow in the steps of these small-town nobles!” Luke highlights two particular aspects of what made this response “more noble.”

Like Hungry Children

First, he says they “received the word with all eagerness.”

Paul and Silas came to Berea to herald a message, a word, not their own, but from God, through Christ. They came to give what they themselves had not created but received. The noble Berean response began with openness, even readiness, to receive — to take the gospel of Jesus Christ as objective and given and unalterable and, with open hands, receive it.

And Luke doesn’t leave us guessing as to how they received it. He says “with all eagerness.” This word, from God himself in Christ, was not received with hostility, or with apathy. However much Luke commends this synagogue in Berea for an objective, level-headed examining of Scripture, let us not presume that “receiving the word” implies doing so dispassionately or with coolness. They received it eagerly. As Ajith Fernando comments, “Their nobility lay in their willingness to acknowledge their need, resulting in an eagerness to hear from God and to receive what they heard. . . . Like hungry children in need of food, they sought God’s Word” (Acts, 469).

Like Careful Prosecutors

Second, then, Luke also reports what form this eager reception took: “examining the Scriptures daily.”

Doubtless, first-century Jews did not have Christian creeds and confessions to consult, but they could have been greatly tempted to turn to a host of secondary sources: whether the Mishnah, or oral law, or the Jewish common sense and assumptions they were raised in, or the growing corpus of Second Temple literature. Like us, they had plenty of other seemingly noble sources to turn to other than the Scriptures themselves. They could have defaulted elsewhere to check the validity of Paul’s message, but by God’s grace, these Jews turned precisely to where they needed to turn: God’s own word, not human formulations.

Paul had started them in the right direction by his own practice. When he came to preach in synagogues, “he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ’” (Acts 17:2–3). Paul pointed them in the right direction. He set up his listeners to check his message in Scripture by first reasoning with them from Scripture.

“They wanted to know the truth and the true God, and neither apathy nor gullibility would benefit the pursuit.”

So, following Paul’s lead, these noble Bereans examined the Scriptures for themselves. Eagerness and examination were not at odds; Luke commends both their heartfelt concern and their deliberate care. Noble indeed, they wanted to know the true God and his truth, and neither apathy nor gullibility would benefit the pursuit. And pursuit it was. This was no mere moment or flash in the pan. They endured in their careful search. They made eager reception, with scriptural examination, a daily practice.

Reformation Warning

In our own day, we too know the temptation of defaulting to voices other than Scripture to tell us what Scripture says. We have access to a stunning (and growing!) wealth of secondary literature, old and new. And best among it all are our creeds and confessions. They are precious — to be cherished far above the latest title off the press. Too few modern Christians appreciate the wisdom and value of the ancient creeds and faithful confessions like Westminster and others in its wake. And particularly those of us who gladly profess ourselves to be “Reformed” and unashamed sympathizers with the Reformation and its legacy.

“Do we daily, with eagerness, examine the Scriptures for ourselves?”

However, as those who rally to sola Scriptura — Scripture alone as our supreme and final authority — we do well to regularly check our practice with those noble readers in Berea. Do we daily, with eagerness, examine the Scriptures for ourselves?

Our best creeds, if we’ll let them, will remind us precisely of this, and encourage us to make a practice of this, even as useful as confessions can be when checking our work.

Keep Searching the Scriptures

For instance, the first section of the Desiring God Affirmation of Faith, though recognizing that “limited abilities, traditional biases, personal sin, and cultural assumptions often obscure biblical texts,” commends “humble and careful effort to find in the language of Scripture” itself what God has to say to us through his prophets and apostles (1.4).

It’s a warning worthy of sounding at not only the outset but the conclusion. The fifteenth and final section reprises the confession,

We do not claim infallibility for this affirmation and are open to refinement and correction from Scripture. Yet we do hold firmly to these truths as we see them and call on others to search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. As conversation and debate take place, it may be that we will learn from each other, and the boundaries will be adjusted, even possibly folding formerly disagreeing groups into closer fellowship. (15.4)

For now, we see much in the Scriptures dimly, not yet as we will (1 Corinthians 13:12). Young and old, we’re all to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord, as given in his word (2 Peter 3:18). How tragic would it be, then, in self-identifying as “Reformed,” to keep Scripture at arm’s length in our admiration for those who so memorably championed Scripture, whether Luther, Calvin, Owen, Edwards, Westminster, or the Second London Confession.

So too, cutting the other way, as those genuinely eager to “receive the word” and “examine the Scriptures daily,” we do well to beware of letting sola Scriptura be a cloak for our own personal interpretations. Remembering those noble saints in Berea can renew in us the resolve to hold looser to human opinions and assumptions, especially our own. It’s a subtle but real and well-worn danger: we can fly the banner of “sola Scriptura” as a guise for rejecting the time-tested wisdom of creeds and confessions in service of our own personal instincts and interpretations.

Default to God’s Own Words

Those who teach faithfully and fruitfully in the church in the coming generation, as in the past, will be eager to herald scriptural truth, and they also will be eager to keep learning and growing themselves. No pastor or Christian leader has arrived, and the best know it well. Good pastors and teachers are ready to stand for what they know Scripture to teach, and yet are humbly willing to grow, and be shown to be wrong from Scripture.

However much we cherish and rehearse and draw wisdom from time-tested creeds and confessions, we learn to default to Scripture itself. We relish the very words of God even more. Not just in theory. In daily practice. In eager daily examination.

Justice shall be done to the memory of my Hamilton.

According to her daughter, this was the compounding yearning of Eliza Hamilton in the fifty years she survived her husband, after his tragic, and dishonorable, death in an “affair of honor.” In the summer of 1804, he took a duel with Aaron Burr Jr., the sitting Vice President and grandson of Jonathan Edwards. Alexander Hamilton, citing Christian conviction, “threw away his shot” by not firing at his opponent. Burr, however, took aim and struck his political rival. Hamilton died 31 hours later on July 12, 1804.

Not only had the controversial circumstances of his death tarnished her Hamilton’s reputation, but so too had an another “affair” made public in 1797. And after Hamilton’s death in 1804, rivals John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both lived another 22 years to strengthen their own founding legacies, and bury Hamilton’s.

Justice Done to Hamilton?

Remarkably, Ron Chernow’s 800-page biography in 2004 — some 150 years after Eliza’s death in 1854 — began the work of doing justice to Hamilton’s memory in the twenty-first century. More than a decade later, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, inspired by the biography, and with Chernow as historical consultant, sent Hamilton skyrocketing back into broader American awareness — just in time to save his face on the ten-dollar bill.

Of Christian interest, Hamilton appeared to have experienced a remarkable conversion, under Reformed teaching, as a teen when the Great Awakening came to his native West Indies in the early 1770s. Presbyterian minister Hugh Knox, who had studied at the College of New Jersey (where Edwards had been president briefly in 1758) mentored the 17-year-old Hamilton. When a hurricane passed through the Caribbean in August of 1772, Hamilton wrote markedly Christian reflections on the event. Knox read them and, impressed with the teen’s ability, guided them to press in the local paper. Enough readers took notice of the words from “a Youth of this Island” that it became an occasion for Knox to raise money to send Hamilton to New Jersey to study.

Journey into a Far Country

Hamilton soon left the West Indies, never to return, and arrived in New Jersey as the revolutionary spirit was fomenting. With his unusually able brain and pen, he was swept up into the Revolution and found himself at the heart of American politics from 1775–1800, perhaps surpassed only by George Washington in that quarter century. His Christian interests, however, seemed to cool as they were eclipsed by political ambition and zeal for his work as Washington’s aide-de-camp, then in establishing a law practice in New York, and climactically as the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury from 1789–1795. Alongside James Madison, Hamilton proved to be one of the great intellects of the founding generation. And while being every bit Madison’s match in political thought (if not exceeding him), Hamilton far surpassed Madison, and the other leading founders, in economics.

Yet in his late forties, before dying in the infamous duel at age 49, Hamilton experienced a succession of great humblings, which appear to have prompted him, doubtless with the encouragement of his enduringly faithful evangelical wife, to blow again on the embers of the Christianity of his youth. Chernow, for one, recognizes that Hamilton’s late-life preoccupation “with spiritual matters . . . eliminates all doubt about the sincerity of his late-flowering religious interests” (707).

As the United States celebrates 246 years of independence, and Americans newly remember the ten-dollar founding father, what might Christians learn from the rise and fall, and redemption, of the “wandering and reticent” Alexander Hamilton?

Hamilton’s Tragic Success

Politically speaking, we could identify many important insights from a recovery of Hamilton’s legacy, but far more important, as Christians, whether American or not, is learning from his spiritual journey into the far country. And these are not the kind of lessons we might glean even from a man who professed, say, deism or atheism throughout his life. Rather, Hamilton, by all accounts, evidenced a vibrant Christian faith in his teens and gave clear affirmations of faith in Christ on his deathbed. However, sadly, he was a prodigal of sorts — captured by politics and establishing himself in the world — for much of his twenties and thirties. His meteoric rise to political power appears to have eclipsed the fires of his fledgling teenage faith. Yet he did, it seems, come to himself, once humbled, and eventually return home seeking the arms of a Father.

His Early Faith

His 1772 published letter that proved to be his way out of the West Indies “viewed the hurricane as a divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity” (Chernow, 37). The storm thundered, according to the 17-year-old Hamilton, “Despise thyself and adore thy God.” Yet Hamilton, in his faith, found safety.

See thy wretched helpless state, and learn to know thyself. Learn to know thy best support. Despise thyself, and adore thy God. . . . [W]hat have I to dread? My staff can never be broken — in Omnipotence I trusted. . . . He who gave the winds to blow, and the lightnings to rage — even him have I always loved and served. His precepts have I observed. His commandments have I obeyed — and his perfections have I adored.

That same year, he wrote a Christian hymn, one that Eliza would come to prize and cling to during the half century she outlived him. There he confessed, “O Lamb of God! thrice gracious Lord / Now, now I feel how true thy word.”

His Meteoric Rise — and Fall

However, his way with words was soon put to other purposes. Once in America, his wordsmithing would propel him into revolutionary leadership, then to Washington’s side, and eventually to the most powerful seat in the first executive administration from 1789 until 1795.

Hamilton’s long-standing relationship with Washington proved to be a stabilizing force. In hindsight, his most productive (and least self-destructive) work came when he was most proximate to Washington, leading to the first of four lessons.

1. The right relationships can provide wonderfully fruitful restraints.

Chernow observes, “After Alexander Hamilton left the Treasury Department [in 1795], he lost the strong, restraining hand of George Washington and the invaluable sense of tact and proportion that went with it.” Washington was magnanimous. Few were willing to stomach such personal offenses as he endured without retaliating. The fatherless and insecure Hamilton badly needed this stabilizing presence. “Hamilton had been forced, as Washington’s representative, to take on some of his decorum. Now that he was no longer subordinate to Washington, Hamilton was even quicker to perceive threats, issue challenges, and take a high-handed tone in controversies. Some vital layer of inhibition disappeared” (Chernow, 488).

But it was not only Washington, whose guidance was political, but also Eliza, whose influence was gently but relentlessly spiritual. “As a woman of deep spirituality, Eliza believed firmly in [Christian] instruction for her children,” and it would prove to have effects on her husband as they raised them together, and particularly as his great humblings came in late 1799, throughout 1800, and into 1801. She endured his wandering and, in the end, it appears, won him with her life and conduct (1 Peter 3:1).

2. Ambition to make one’s way in the world can cool the fires of young faith.

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus tells about seed sown among thorns: “They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Mark 4:18–19).

“Ambition to make one’s way in the world can cool the fires of young faith.”

Hamilton, admirably, was not undone by the deceitfulness of riches — his financial integrity was sterling — but “the cares of the world” and “desires for other things” haunted his extended season of spiritual reticence (from his seeming indifference to Christianity from 1777 to 1792, to his opportunist use of it for party purposes until 1801). Fatherless since age 10, and orphaned at 14, Hamilton seemed bent on proving himself in his new country. The flame and striking warmth of his teenage faith cooled as “cares of this world” began to energize him — first the Revolution, then becoming a respected New York lawyer, then rescuing the fledgling nation from its inadequate Articles of Confederation, and finally trying to preserve his power once Washington left office.

Such a story is not his alone. Countless Christian youths, flames burning bright, have found themselves crashing on the hard rocks, and hard knocks, of adult life. How might it have been different? That leads to a third lesson.

3. Faith does not thrive (and may not survive) apart from the church.

Chernow notes that “Hamilton had been devout when younger, but he seemed more skeptical about organized religion during the Revolution” (132). Perhaps circumstances from his childhood, and particularly his mother’s death, “help to explain a mystifying ambivalence that Hamilton always felt about regular church attendance, despite a pronounced religious bent” (25). Recently, historian and pastor Obbie Tyler Todd has written that Hamilton, from his arrival in America, was a man torn between two denominations (Presbyterian and Episcopal) “while finding no real home in the communion of believers.”

In Hamilton’s case, the ominous absence of the church may be the clearest warning sign we can point to. At 17, Hamilton seemed to thrive under Hugh Knox’s pastoral influence. But without the strengthening and constraining influence of a local church, a faithful evangelical wife was not enough to keep him from wandering, even if she would be vital to his late-life renewal.

4. We can be most vulnerable when we feel strongest.

Hamilton’s 1791 adulterous affair with Maria Reynolds showed how far he had wandered — and reminds us of the delusion of power and success. There once was a great king in Israel who, as a prelude to infidelity, remained in the city when others went to war (2 Samuel 11:1). So too the 36-year-old Hamilton, at the height of his power — and with so much work to do — stayed in New York while his family summered upstate.

That summer a 23-year-old woman approached him telling of an abusive husband and asking for help. Later, in the notorious Reynolds Pamphlet, his extended public confession in 1797, written to vindicate his financial reputation, he would write that he came to her door with monetary assistance and, “Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable.” This is the first of several 1790s instances about which Chernow, even as the cool-headed biographer, appears stunned by Hamilton’s folly:

Such stellar success might have bred an intoxicating sense of invincibility. But his vigorous reign had also made him the enfant terrible of the early republic, and a substantial minority of the country was mobilized against him. This should have made him especially watchful of his reputation. Instead, in one of history’s most mystifying cases of bad judgment, he entered into a sordid affair with a married woman named Maria Reynolds that, if it did not blacken his name forever, certainly sullied it. From the lofty heights of statesmanship, Hamilton fell back into something reminiscent of the squalid world of his West Indian boyhood. (362)

For Christians, the stakes are far greater than political reputation. Hamilton knew better — not only as a man and stateman, but as one who had professed faith in Christ. Perhaps he thought, for six years, that he had gotten away with it (politically speaking), with only the checks it took to pay off her husband’s blackmail. But the whispers were proclaimed from rooftops in 1797 and threatened not only to undo his future prospects, but also his past work.

Quiet Uptown: His Redemption

The late Adams administration held one humbling after another. Adams broke from his cabinet (and Hamilton) and sought peace with France in October of 1799. Two months later, Washington died suddenly. By February 1810, it became clear the Federalist party was turning from Hamilton to Adams. Then, by the end of April, Burr and his opposing coalition won control of New York. In a matter of months, Hamilton’s political power and influence crumbled.

To top it all off, in the election of 1800, his old cabinet rival Jefferson won the presidency — and with Burr as vice president. As Douglass Adair and Marvin Harvey wrote in 1955, “Perhaps never in all American political history has there been a fall from power so rapid, so complete, so final as Hamilton’s in the period from October, 1799 to November, 1800” (“Was Alexander Hamilton a Christian Statesman?” 322). Devasted, he began to consider again the God of his youth. Then it was in late November 1801 that he endured his greatest trial, when his 19-year-old son, Philip, was shot in a duel and died 14 hours later. Later he wrote to a friend that Philip’s death was “beyond comparison the most afflicting of my life.”

Yet by late 1801, as part of “his late-flowering religious interests,” Hamilton was taking solace in Christianity and Philip’s profession of faith. “It was the will of heaven and [Philip] is now out of the reach of the seductions and calamities of a world full of folly, full of vice, full of danger, of least value in proportion as it is best known. I firmly trust also that he has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity.”

“Hamilton’s spiritual renewal is too pronounced to ignore, whether in a biography or on Broadway.”

“Hamilton’s spiritual renewal” is too pronounced to ignore, whether in a biography or on Broadway. His re-awakening appears to have preceded (and prepared him for) Philip’s death, even if Miranda captures it in the aftermath of his loss, in the culminating song “Quiet Uptown”:

I take the children to church on Sunday,A sign of the cross at the door,And I pray.That never used to happen before.

What may be a “grace too powerful to name” on Broadway is precisely the name we know as powerful, and we name: Jesus.

In July of 1804, on the night before his own deadly duel, he would write,

This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality. . . . The consolations of [Christianity], my beloved, can alone support you and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of women.

Tender Reliance on Christ

Todd’s recent work focuses on those final 31 hours after the duel, and Hamilton’s clear affirmations of (what Chernow calls) “his late-flowering religious interests.” Not only did Hamilton there confirm, in general, “I am a sinner: I look to his mercy,” but more specifically, “I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

His end-of-life confessions were as clear as his teenage faith was warm. But for those of us who grieve his long, tragic journey into the far country of seeming political success and pride, we redouble our resolve to live now for what matters eternally, and welcome God’s humbling hand if we realize ourselves to have cooled and wandered.

Puritan Roots and Prayers

Lest Hamilton’s late-life Christian faith contribute to a distorted impression of the nation’s founding, we’re wise to concede that this, meager as it is, may be one of the clearer affirmations of evangelical faith among the inner circle of the founders. You will not find such in Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, or Madison. (One exception, among others, is Hamilton’s longtime friend and collaborator, and first Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay.) And this is not to make much of Hamilton’s reticent and late-flowering faith, but to own how unevangelical was the nation’s founding.

On July 4, we remember a nation founded far more in step with the life Hamilton lived in his twenties and thirties, than his teenage profession and late-life renewal. However, from its dawning, the nation has not been able to shake its Puritan roots that grew up together with its deep Enlightenment influences. We do celebrate a nation that, however secular its founding, provided the soil in which the Second Great Awakening could grow and flourish in the first half of the nineteenth century and change the landscape, a nation still enduring under the world’s oldest active codified constitution, a nation we pray will again see future awakenings, even as it still today, with every new dawn, provides space for countless personal conversions to the true God, in Jesus Christ.

I almost missed Harry Potter.

When the first book released on June 26, 1997 — now a quarter century ago — I was sixteen years old and consumed with American Legion baseball. That summer revolved around nine-inning games, at least three times each week, in full catcher’s gear, in the South Carolina heat and humidity. At the time, I had very little interest in reading anything, much less made-up stories about wizards and magic. Besides, I was about to be a junior in high school, and I fancied myself far too old for a book about 11-year-olds.

In the coming years, as enthusiasm for the series spread like wildfire around me, I observed with reluctance the increasing length of each volume. I’m a slow reader. Perhaps I could make time for the first book, but not thousands of pages after that. Honestly, my growing aversion to the series wasn’t the well-meaning Christian cautions about magic and wizards — but it was easy to join that chorus.

The final book appeared in 2007, at almost 800 pages. It took me fifteen years to finally take up and read the whole (1-million-word) series, which I did, aloud, to my twin boys during lockdowns and quarantines. I’m glad I did. And especially the final book.

Spiritually-Aware Stories

Something else happened along the way, after 1997, to open my mind beyond the simplistic criticism (and convenient excuse) of magical fiction: I read The Lord of the Rings. In Middle-earth, I discovered how an intentional, spiritually-aware visit to a fantasy world can have real-world value. Too many trusted and deeply Christian friends who shared my love for Gandalf and Frodo also appreciated Dumbledore and Harry. Eventually I wanted to see Hogwarts for myself, and with my sons inching closer to age appropriateness, I thought it might be a good journey to take together.

Elsewhere I’ve mentioned the roughly 100 hours it took to read the whole series aloud. I have grown to love reading aloud to our kids, and think it’s an especially good investment for dads to make in fostering life and growth apart from screens. But here, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first book, I’d like to share some of what I saw in Harry Potter, with Christian eyes, as a father, that made the long trek worthwhile.

I could recount many simple (and useful) moral takeaways — lessons, for instance, about humility, self-control, and childlikeness (not childishness) which I often paused over to drive home with my boys. But here I’ll mention just three related expressions of one great, deeper, and markedly Christian theme. (Surely, these few simple lessons will not be enough for some readers. For those who want more, I’d recommend Alan Jacob’s 2007 review of the final book, as well as Kyle Strobel’s 50-minute lecture from 2017.)

As for Christian voices still disapproving of Harry Potter on the basis of it advocating witchcraft, I’ll say this: that criticism seemed to fade after the final volume appeared in 2007. In hindsight, the lesson we might learn is that wisdom often holds judgment till the end. Be careful judging a book without its conclusion. Alan Jacobs has observed that once the series finished, the (premature) Christian concerns about magic were soon eclipsed by “another and different set of critics . . . for whom the evident traditionalism of the books is their greatest flaw” — that is, the progressives that found the conclusion “defaced by ‘heteronormativity.’”

In contrast to the final movie, the final volume contains deeply Christian themes (along with two references to Scripture) that, for many of us, demonstrates the value of the whole series.

Weakness That Shames the Powerful

However deliberate J.K. Rowling was in simply writing a great story versus a Christian one (it is often hard to separate the two), we Christians might see a fresh expression of an ancient truth, ever in need of reminders: that Jesus’s counterintuitive way triumphs over the way of the world.

“Harry comes to see the power of self-sacrificial love over the love of power.”

In other words, the key themes of the final book in particular draw together threads of the whole series, to echo how the divine ways of God are so often unexpected in the present age. The world around us, our society, has its standards and expectations for wisdom, strength, and nobility — on natural terms. But Harry, with Dumbledore’s guidance and well-timed help from his friends, comes to see the power of self-sacrificial love over the love of power.

So too is the counterintuitive way of Christ, as captured in 1 Corinthians 1:27–28:

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

In Christ, we have come to know what it means to glory in what the world sees as folly, weakness, and shame.

“Hogwarts at its best resembles how Christ builds his church, not with the world’s best and brightest.”

A first expression of this is Hogwarts under Dumbledore’s leadership. Rather than a club for the wise, strong, and pure-blooded (as some would have it), it is a refuge for all kinds, and particularly for misfits who are not welcomed and appreciated elsewhere. Outcasts like Hagrid are received, and even contribute, at Hogwarts. Jake Meador has pointed out how in this respect Hogwarts at its best resembles how Christ builds his church, not with the world’s best and brightest — the wise, strong, and noble. Outcasts and untouchables find welcome at Hogwarts, and usefulness, that they find nowhere else.

Last Enemy to Be Destroyed

A second expression comes in the theme of death, one of the series’s main emphases. In the contrast between Voldemort and Harry, we’re confronted with the question, Will you dedicate your life to avoiding death at all costs, or look to life beyond it and embrace it when your time comes?

When the time came, Christ did not avoid death, but embraced it, and conquered it on the other side. He went through death, not around it — and until his return, so do we (Hebrews 2:14–15). Remarkably, Rowling quotes 1 Corinthians 15:26, etched into the gravestone of Harry’s parents: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” At first, this confuses Harry. Noting death as the last enemy to be destroyed sounded like the dark lord and his minions. Or perhaps there’s another meaning. For us, we know Christ as risen, but death still lingers in this age. Death will be the last enemy to fall, but it will fall. Death is not only an enemy, but one that will be destroyed.

Dumbledore comments as early as the first book, “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” There is a profoundly Christian way to read in that statement what Jacobs calls “Dumbledore’s governing principle,” which is “repeatedly opposed to Voldemort’s belief that death is the worst thing imaginable and that it must therefore be mastered, ‘eaten.’”

Christ’s Way Proves Greater

Finally is the theme of power, which resonates deeply with the way the Christian gospel turns our wielding of power upside down.

First come the warnings against worldly power — from Harry’s Godfather, Sirius (“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals,” Book 4, Chapter 27), to Dumbledore’s unmasking of the insecurity of tyrants (“Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!” Book 6, Chapter 23).

In the end, it is not the natural perspective and use of power (the way of the world) that wins the war. It is the unexpected, subversive power of humility and self-sacrificial love. Of all people, are not Christians the least caught off guard by this? Our Lord “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He is the one, then, that God highly exalted and gave all authority in heaven and on earth (Philippians 2:9; Matthew 28:18). And while we may not be surprised to find this theme, it is still glorious to see it afresh in a new portrayal, and love what we have in Christ. Oh, how important to remember the surprising glory of the gospel of the God whose ways and thoughts are not ours, but his, and far superior.

I don’t have any regrets waiting 25 years to get these reminders — and just enjoy a fantastic story besides. I’m sure I was able to see (and apply) more at age 40 than I would have in my teens, or twenties. I also think I saw and enjoyed more seeing it through my boys’ 11-year-old eyes. Maybe this is the best way to navigate the darkness and light of the Potter series, with young and old journeying together.

ABSTRACT: In Hebrews 6, the author charges his audience to “leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.” Most commentators read this command as a summons to advance beyond basic Christian teachings. A close look at Hebrews 6:1–2 within the context of the whole letter, however, uncovers several problems with the typical interpretation. The writer’s use of the words baptisms and foundation, the lack of distinctly Christian teachings, the dire warning in Hebrews 6:4–6, and especially the meaning of the word maturity all point to a different meaning: the author charges his audience not to leave behind Christian basics, but to leave behind old-covenant ways of relating to God.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors, leaders, and teachers, David Mathis takes a fresh look at the meaning of Hebrews 6:1–2.

Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:1–2)

Does Hebrews teach its readers to “leave behind” the basics of the Christian faith in order to press on to maturity?

In the past generation, a chorus of voices, including Tim Keller, D.A. Carson, and John Piper, have encouraged their audiences, in various ways, toward a “gospel-centered” or “cross-centered” faith. Rather than leaving behind Christian basics such as the cross and Christian gospel, they would have us go deeper into them, and find true Christian maturity in these basics, not beyond them. The origins of such a gospel-centered Christianity are found in the pages of the New Testament, drawing most explicitly from the epistles of Paul, John, and Peter, as well as Hebrews.

It is Hebrews, after all, that opens with a stunning celebration of the uniqueness and centrality of God’s eternal Son, made human as the long-awaited Christ — an opening that culminates in the charge in Hebrews 3:1 to “consider Jesus.” This directive, programmatic for the entire epistle, then leads to a striking focus on Jesus’s person and work (as high priest and sacrifice) at the heart of the letter (chapters 7–10), and recurs in Hebrews 12:1–2, at the climax of the great tour of the faithful (11:1–40), in the charge to “run with endurance . . . looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:3 then follows immediately with the reprise, “Consider him . . .”

‘Leave the Elementary Doctrine’

However, readers today might find, at least on the face of the text, an exception to this gospel-centered focus in Hebrews 6:1–2. Before advancing to make his Melchizedek argument (in chapter 7), Hebrews pauses, from 5:11–6:20, to freshly secure his readers’ attention because, he says, they “have become dull of hearing” (Hebrews 5:11). “Though by this time you ought to be teachers,” he explains, “you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food” (Hebrews 5:12). Most commentators then take the list of six items in Hebrews 6:1–2 as Christian basics from which Hebrews’ audience should “move on” (or “leave behind,” Greek afentes, 6:1) in order to advance to Christian maturity:

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

We can understand why most commentators would read this as a summons to leave behind the Christian basics. Nevertheless, when read in light of the full text of Hebrews, an apparent problem surfaces. Commentators generally agree that Hebrews addresses Jewish converts to Christianity pressured (and persecuted) by non-Christian Jews to discard Christianity’s distinctive faith in Jesus (as Messiah and eternal divine Son) and return to the emphases of their former Judaism.1 Within this understanding, viewing the list as basic Christian teachings fits less cogently (though not impossibly) with the design of the letter as a whole.2

Stirred by this tension, I undertake in this essay to newly examine Hebrews 6:1–2, and make the case that the six items in this list are not Christian basics, but pre-Christian (Jewish) teachings.

Usual Reading: Christian Basics

One caution to take in revisiting Hebrews 6:1–2 is that we are working against a long-established majority opinion. As we’ll see, however, several voices acknowledge some (serious) problems with the typical interpretation.

Andrew Lincoln sees the list in 6:1–2 as a reference to basic Christian teaching,3 as does William Lane, author of the magisterial two-volume commentary.4 Lane argues elsewhere5 that the list refers to “the firm foundation of Christian truth they had received when they first came to faith. . . . The men and women of the house-church had received catechetical instruction concerning these matters of Christian conviction when they first came to faith.”6 Harold Attridge finds that “the phrase [“elementary doctrine of Christ”] refers to the proclamation that Christ himself delivered. The phrase may allude to the same schematic view of the development of Christian preaching that was evident in 2:3.”7 Yet Attridge also concedes an enigma about the claim: “It is striking how little in this summary is distinctive of Christianity. This suggests that the formula was at least inspired by, and is, in fact, a catalogue of Jewish catechesis.”8 Importantly, Attridge adds, “Most conspicuously absent is any explicit Christological affirmation.” So too John Owen (1616–1683) catalogues another hesitation. He sees the list as basic Christian teaching, but acknowledges, “There is no little difficulty by the word ‘baptisms’ being in the plural.”9

Leon Morris10 and David deSilva11 both view verses 1–2 in reference to Christian basics.12 Interestingly, F.F. Bruce, finding something amiss with the usual reading, points out how surprising it is that verse 1 begins with therefore rather than nevertheless.”13 In the end, though, Bruce concludes that the list represents basic Christian teaching, but he notes how such basic teaching would correspond to Jewish teaching:

When we consider the “rudiments” one by one, it is remarkable how little in the list is distinctive of Christianity, for practically every item could have its place in a fairly orthodox Jewish community. Each of them, indeed, acquires a new significance in a Christian context; but the impression we get is that existing Jewish beliefs and practices were used as a foundation on which to build Christian truth.14

Overall, the mainstream of Hebrews commentators take the items in 6:1–2 as a list of Christian basics that the author is challenging his audience to “leave behind” or “leave standing” (afentes) so that they might be carried (ferometha) into Christian maturity (teleioteta). However, as we have seen, several observe some latent difficulties in this majority view, difficulties that I hope to show are better explained by a different interpretation.

Arguments for Pre-Christian (Jewish) Reference

The following five observations and arguments lead me in a different direction: that the six items in this list are not Christian basics, but pre-Christian (Jewish) teachings. This reading is both preferable exegetically and more coherent with the thrust of the letter as a whole.

1. ‘Washings’ (baptismōn) in the Plural

Hebrews’ use of baptismōn (“baptisms” or “washings”) is one of the reasons, on the surface, why this passage appears to offer a list of Christian basics. Our English baptism so closely resembles the Greek baptismōn that we might be prone to overlook two important realities.

First, as observed by John Owen, among others, baptismōn is plural, not the singular that would be expected in a Christian (new-covenant) context, where, as the apostle Paul notes in Ephesians 4:4–5, there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Second, and more significantly, as noted by Bruce, “It may be significant that our author does not use baptisma, the Greek noun regularly employed in the New Testament to denote Christian baptism (and the baptism of John), but baptismos, which in its two other indubitable New Testament occurrences refers to Jewish ceremonial washings.”15 The other two occurrences are Mark 7:4 and Hebrews 9:10.

In Mark 7:4, Jesus refers to “many other traditions that [the Pharisees] observe, such as the washing [baptismous] of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.” The reference to the Pharisees gives to this use the plain association of Judaism and the old covenant, not of Christianity and the new. The same is true for Hebrews 9:10, which is, of course, even more important for our purposes since it occurs within the same letter.

Hebrews 9:9–10 reads, “According to this arrangement [namely, the old covenant], gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings [baptismois], regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.” Not only are these “washings” in Hebrews 9:10 unmistakably associated with the old covenant, but also they have an important “expiration date,” so to speak, in the temporal marker “until the time of reformation,” which has now come in Christ and corresponds with Hebrews’ underlying chronological and redemptive-historical framework throughout the letter.

2. No Distinctly Christian Item

Second, no explicitly Christian reference appears in the list of six — and this in a letter that is at pains to show the distinctiveness of the new covenant with reference to the old. This is the concern Attridge captures: “Most conspicuously absent is any explicit Christological affirmation.”16 Thus, he concludes, “This suggests that the formula was at least inspired by, and is, in fact, a catalogue of Jewish catechesis.”17

Most notable, in this regard, is the mention of “faith in God,” rather than in Jesus.18 Also, “repentance” is said to be “from dead works,” which Hebrews clearly associates with the terms of the (pre-Christian) first covenant in Hebrews 9:14. “Laying on of hands,” “resurrection from the dead,” and “eternal judgment” — while all having a place in Christianity — were all taught and established in the first-covenant milieu as part of the Jewish preparatory period for the coming of Christ.19 They each arise in the pre-Christian (Hebrew) Scriptures and serve to prepare the way for the Christ, rather than being a distinct development that came with him and his apostles.20

3. ‘Maturity’/‘Completion’ (teleiotēta)

Third is the appearance of teleiotēta in verse 1. Most translations render this word as “maturity,” which may be a desirable alternative to “perfection” in this context; however, what’s lost is the linguistic connection with a central theme in Hebrews — namely, the movement toward “perfection” (or “completion,” as in eschatological “fulfillment”) bound up with the Greek verb teleioō and related words.21 As D.A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo write, “Perfection in this epistle is essentially a matter of completion — in particular, the completion of God’s plan of salvation.”22

Varying forms of the verb teleioō appear nine times in Hebrews (2:10; 5:9; 7:19, 28; 9:9; 10:1, 14; 11:40; and 12:23) — with only thirteen other occurrences in the New Testament. Additionally, we find two related nouns in 7:11 (teleiōsis) and here in 6:1 (teleiotēs), the adjective teleios in 5:14 (in the same context) and 9:11, as well as the unusual noun teleiōtēs (“perfecter”) in 12:2. In all, fourteen occurrences of the telei- word group in Hebrews contribute to what is one of the letter’s major themes.23

Moisés Silva provides the following “cursory examination of the contexts” of the fourteen usages in Hebrews in this summary:

Old Testament saints are perfected only with us (11:40; cf. 12:23), for only the divine arrangement mediated by Christ, who is the perfecter of our faith (12:2), may be called perfect (7:11, 19; cf. 9:11), and consequently only his blood can perfect the conscience (9:9; 10:1, 14); further, the author calls Christians to perfection (5:14; 6:1), and even Jesus, we are told, experienced perfection through his sufferings (2:10; 5:9; 7:28).24

The theme of “perfection” or “completion” unfolds in what we might see as three main streams in Hebrews — Christological, redemptive-historical (or covenantal), and ethical — all set against a profoundly eschatological backdrop. It may be most helpful in addressing 6:1 that we summarize these three avenues in that order, and make the connections as needed to what Silva calls an “eschatological interpretation of perfection in terms of fulfillment.”25

Christological Maturity

By “Christological maturity,” I mean the God-appointed maturation of Christ, as man, in his human life in preparation for his salvific work as both priest and sacrifice. While never being “imperfect” in the sense of being a sinner, Jesus was “made perfect” or “complete” by what he endured in life leading up to, and at, the cross. Karen Jobes writes, “Understanding the sense of perfection in Hebrews must begin with how the word is applied to Jesus in 2:10; 5:9; and 7:28.”26 The author’s first two uses of teleioō are 2:10 and 5:9, both contributing to memorable claims about Jesus’s being “made perfect” (and demonstrating how difficult is it to render teleioō in English). “Made perfect” is unideal given the implicit sense of previous “imperfection” it might convey about the one being “made perfect.” “Made mature” is no obvious improvement. Perhaps “made complete” carries the least baggage, but still, there’s no easy English equivalent.

In 2:10 and 5:9, Jesus is “made ready” or “prepared” for his role as “founder” (archēgos) and “source” (aitios) through suffering.27 Hebrews 12:2, where Jesus is said to be “the pioneer and perfecter (teleiōtēn) of our faith,”28 functions at least in this Christological sense. More than that, though, Hebrews 12:2 may bring all three lines together and thus demonstrate that the three are profoundly tied together eschatologically. Silva notes the parallelism between 2:10, 5:9, and 12:2 and rightly comments, “Any interpretation of teleiōtēn in 12:2 that is not consonant with teleioō in 2:10 and 5:9 stands self-condemned.”29

Redemptive-Historical (or Covenantal) Maturity

In addition to the overtones in 7:28, a redemptive-historical context is the backdrop for 7:11:

Now if perfection [teleiōsis] had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?

Here may be some reference to the eschatological “completion” of the individual (connected with what we will call moral or ethical maturity below), but the main force, confirmed by 7:19, comes along the redemptive-historical axis. The Levitical priesthood (and indeed, the whole law-covenant) was “incomplete” (unfulfilled) and pointed forward to a redemptive-historical “completion” (fulfillment) in Jesus, his priesthood, and new covenant. There are ethical implications to 7:19 (“the law made nothing perfect [eteleiōsen]”), but the covenantal and salvation-historical concerns are central.

Hebrews 9–10 develops this redemptive-historical fulfillment introduced in chapter 7. In 9:11 (“Christ entered through the greater and more perfect tent”), the reference is clearly objective and covenantal, whereas 9:9 (“gifts and sacrifices are offered [in the old covenant] that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper”) introduces the idea of “completing the conscience” (or “fulfilling the conscience”) which is echoed again in 10:1 and 10:14. Here completion is cast more in terms of the ethical (than, say, in 9:11), but only as an explicit effect of the covenant. Thus, eschatological fulfillment remains in view. Silva notes that “the perfecting of human conscience (9:9; 10:1, 14) is not a reference to forgiveness or fitness to approach God, which Old Testament saints did experience (cf. Psalm 32 and Romans 4), but to the enjoyment of the time of fulfillment, the new epoch introduced by the Messiah through his exaltation.”30

Ethical Maturity

Finally, Hebrews 11:40 and 12:23 develop the perfection/fulfillment theme in terms of the completion of the believing individual. In 11:40, God has arranged history, in the coming of his Son and the inauguration of a new covenant, such that “apart from us they [i.e., old covenant saints] should not be made complete.” Perhaps most difficult of all to see in terms of eschatological fulfillment is 12:23 and the reference to “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made complete [teteleiōmenōn].” Silva explains that “if the reference is indeed to those who have died, perhaps the author intends us to understand that finally they too have received the promises; that is, they have now, though in heaven, been perfected together with us (11:40), and thus the eschatological note is present here too.”31

This brings us back to Hebrews 6:1 and its neighboring appearance of the telei- word group in 5:14.

Eschatological Maturity in 5:14 and 6:1

Silva has 5:14 and 6:1 in view when he observes that “the author of Hebrews in some contexts may restrict the meaning of perfect to those who are giving proper manifestation that they belong to the age of fulfillment.”32 Then he adds, “Indeed, the danger faced by the recipients of the letter was that of going back to the old, obsolete, pre-eschatological (!) covenant.”33 In other words, this “completeness” or “maturity” in 6:1 is not mainly a kind of moral or ethical maturity but eschatological fulfillment, as we’ve seen with the other uses of the telei- word group in Hebrews. Jobes says, “This eschatological understanding of perfection . . . makes good sense of the claims that the Christian believer is ‘perfect’ in Hebrews 10:14; 11:40; and 12:22–23.”34 Such a meaning also applies to the summons to be carried along to “perfection” in 6:1.

“Far more is at stake here than greater or lesser maturity within the new covenant.”

This, then, entails that the negative images in 5:11–14 (dull of hearing; not teachers; needing milk, not solid food; unskilled in the word of righteousness; children, not discerning) are not references to two stages of Christianity (beginning and advanced), but to two stages of redemptive history (the old covenant and the new). The old covenant is the milk; the new, solid food. But regardless of how the particular imagery works out in 5:11–14, the other usages of the telei- word group, alongside the arguments we have already rehearsed, prove sufficiently persuasive with regard to 6:1.35

4. ‘Foundation’ (themelion)

This fourth reason is far briefer than our treatment of the third. The use of themelion, well captured in the English foundation, better corresponds to the reading we’ve been developing of moving from old covenant (Jewish) to new covenant (Christian), rather than from beginning Christianity to advanced Christianity. There is an organic unity in the new covenant between new Christians and longtime, “mature” Christians that makes the foundation metaphor less appropriate than in the context of moving from old covenant to a distinct new covenant. “Foundation” is a fitting metaphor for the eschatological fulfillment anticipated in the Hebrew Scriptures and which will be embodied in Jesus and his new covenant. The metaphor would be more strained in an intra-covenantal comparison of the neophytes and the well-versed.

5. The Nature of the Warning in 6:4–6

A fifth and final argument concerns the dire nature of the warning in 6:4–6, which comes immediately subsequent to our passage. Apparently far more is at stake here than greater or lesser maturity within the new covenant. Rather, what is in the balance is the abandoning of the new covenant (or the demonstration that one is not, in fact, a final partaker of the benefits of the new covenant, which include the grace of perseverance).

“The danger is the temptation to ‘go back’ to the first covenant, forsaking Jesus as its fulfillment.”

Now we return to the composite of the audience we get from the rest of the letter and ask, What is the specific case in Hebrews that threatens apostasy? The answer is not that the readers have been merely coasting or not taking their “growth in grace” seriously enough. It’s emphatically not that they know the gospel all too well, but are proving stubborn in “moving on” to other, more “mature” topics. Rather, the danger is the temptation to “go back” to the first covenant, forsaking Jesus as its fulfillment. Under pressure, the readers are seeking to return to the types, while minimizing (if not abandoning) the antitypes, and in doing so they are relativizing the exclusive sufficiency of Christ and his work.36

These five reasons, arising from the exegesis of 6:1–2, its context, and related passages, lead to the conclusion that the contrast intended by the author of Hebrews in 6:1–2 is not ethical (immature-mature Christianity), but redemptive-historical (old-new covenant). The “beginning-of-the-Christ word” (ton tēs archēs tou Christou logon), then, is not a reference to the basic Christian gospel but to “the beginning word” about the Christ/Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures and the old covenant that prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah and what we might call “the finishing word” of the new covenant. The author of Hebrews would have his readers “leave standing” or “leave behind” (afentes) the old covenant and its practices (now “obsolete,” palaioo, twice in Hebrews 8:13), which pointed forward to the Christ, and acknowledge the coming of this promised Christ and that with his coming an eschatological fulfillment (“maturity”) has come from which there is no viable going back.

Deeper in the Gospel

This reading of Hebrews 6:1–2 guards Christians today from finding in this text any encouragement to somehow “leave behind” the basic Christian gospel and attempt to “move on” to some form of “maturity” that assumes the gospel. Such an understanding would create pronounced tension, if not contradiction, with clear emphases in the epistles, and the New Testament as a whole. Christian maturity does not consist in leaving behind Christian basics, but rather in moving more and more deeply into the good news about Jesus and all God is revealed to be for us, at present, in him.37 And specifically, as we noted above, Hebrews itself is perhaps as good an example as any New Testament document of such “gospel-centeredness.”

“Christian maturity does not consist in leaving behind the basics of the good news about Jesus.”

While, on the one hand, the argument from Psalm 110 about Christ as our great high priest (in the order of Melchizedek, not Aaron) is complex, the subject manner at the heart of the letter is Christ’s person and work (chapters 7–10). The basics (stoicheion, 5:12) that the epistle clearly moves beyond, again and again, are readings of the Hebrews Scriptures with pre-Christian eyes. The “maturity” into which Hebrews hopes God will be pleased to carry his readers is, in essence, a Christian understanding of the Old Testament as fulfilled in Christ.

Hebrews’ concern is not that his readers are plenty familiar with gospel basics and now need to advance to other deeper Christian teachings. Rather, his concern is that in toying with the idea of returning to Judaism, they are demonstrating that what they lack is precisely an understanding of the gospel itself, the exclusive sufficiency of Christ and his work, and that the Old Testament Scriptures themselves testify to Christ as the great high priest and final sacrifice.

One of my favorite details about Easter Sunday, and Jesus’s resurrection body, is his scars. The victory of Easter is so great, the triumph of the risen Christ over sin and death is so resounding, that we might be prone to overlook, or quickly forget, an unexpected detail like this.

When Jesus first appeared to his disciples, “they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit” (Luke 24:37). So Jesus says to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:38–39). Then Luke comments, “And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet” — meaning, he showed them his scars (Luke 24:40).

In the Gospel of John, when Jesus finally appears to doubting Thomas after eight long days, he says to him, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27).

That Jesus’s resurrected body would still show evidence of his wounds, that the scars of crucifixion could still be seen and touched, was both a confirmation and a surprise. The confirmation was that this was in fact him — and him risen. The same body that was killed on the cross rose from the grave. He was not a spirit or ghost. He was risen, fully alive, now in glorified humanity.

“Jesus’s scars are marks of his love. His scars tell the good news that he did not die for his own sins but for ours.”

The surprise is that we might expect a resurrected body not to have scars. That might seem like a defect. But it is not a defect. It is a feature. Because these scars, these rich wounds, are marks of his love. These scars tell the good news that he did not die for his own sins, but for ours. His wounds are invitations to sinners and assurances to his saints. His scars preach good news. They are marks of Easter glory, the very glory that makes the horrors of his death into what we now call “Good Friday.”

The Gospel in All Caps

And so on Easter Sunday, we come to the end of Galatians, and one of the last things Paul writes with his own hand is this: “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Like Jesus, Paul also had gospel scars — scars which pointed not to his own work, but to Jesus’s work.

Just as sinners had struck and killed the Son of God, so too sinners had struck and scarred his messenger. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul mentions some of what he has suffered for the sake of Christ: “. . . countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned” (2 Corinthians 11:23–25). Paul’s scars, “the marks of Jesus” he received from preaching the resurrection of Christ, are his final argument in Galatians. Before he closes in Galatians 6:18 with, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen,” he puts the final period in place with his own life — with what he has been willing to suffer in order to preach and defend the meaning of Good Friday and the news of Easter Sunday.

But not only is Paul’s final argument “the marks of Jesus” that he carries in his own body, but in this last section, he takes up the pen himself, relieving the secretary to whom he has dictated the rest of the letter. And so he says in Galatians 6:11, “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.”

This is Paul’s way — here at the end, with so much on the line in Galatians — of shifting into bold font. This is the apostle Paul in all caps. So, these precious five sentences of Galatians 6:12–17 that will follow are direct and blood-earnest, with a power that is very fitting for Easter Sunday. And what we see is that this last flourish of Paul’s pen turns on the reality of boasting. Let’s look at these verses in that light, with Easter eyes, in three steps.

1. Humans are born to boast.

We are born boasters. You are a born boaster — in two senses. The first sense is that we are boasters by creation. God designed us, before sin entered in, with the capacity to boast. Indeed, he designed us with the calling to boast. And what I mean by boasting is rejoicing out loud in words.

God made humans not only to think and do, but to feel and to speak. He gave us hearts, and he gave us mouths. He created us in his image, meaning he created us to image him in this world, to represent him and remind others of him — both fellow humans and the watching angels.

And he not only gave us the ability to think and consider, but also to feel. He not only gave us bodies to move and work and do, but tongues to speak, giving meaning to our works with words. In other words, God made us to boast in him — that is, to not only know him with our minds, but rejoice in him in our hearts, and to not only live in obedience to him, but speak words out of our hearts that point others to him. God made us to boast in him.

Because of Sin

And as we know all too well, though, there is a second sense in which we are born to boast. We are born into sin, and so our natural inclination to boast often becomes sinful boasting. Instead of rejoicing out loud about God, we rejoice out loud about ourselves in all the various and complex forms this takes. We all know this. We all have lived this. And of course, we’re often far quicker to recognize it in others than in ourselves.

As a youth baseball coach, let me tell you that we don’t have to teach kids to boast. Rather, we try to help them not indulge their instinct to boast in the heat of the game. We say things like, “Let your play do the talking.”

What about your own soul? What are your boasts? What aspects of life — whether manifest gifts from God or seeming abilities and accomplishments — do you rejoice in most and feel most drawn to express in words? What are you so regularly excited about that you can’t help but talk about? What qualities, possessions, abilities, achievements, or relational connections make you look good when others hear about them?

“The question isn’t whether we will boast, but in what and in whom.”

When Paul takes up the pen for himself in Galatians 6:11, he puts boasting at the heart of his last push toward the Galatians. They, as well as the false teachers trying to influence them, and Paul himself, are all born boasters. We are born boasters. The question isn’t whether we will boast, but in what and in whom we will boast.

How Will You Boast?

First, Paul turns to what not to boast in:

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. (Galatians 6:12–13)

I think this is the most direct and succinct summary of what motivates the troublemakers in Galatia. They are putting on a show to appease unbelieving Jews. They are play-acting. They themselves do not keep the whole Jewish law. They know they can’t, and they don’t want to, besides.

But what they do want to do is avoid persecution. This new movement of Christians, claiming that Jesus is the long-awaited Christ, is troubling Jewish leaders. And now the movement is spreading to Gentiles. Non-Christian Jews want to snuff this out. They begin persecuting Christians — like Paul himself had done, before the risen Christ appeared to him and turned his life upside down.

And so the false teachers are trying to avoid persecution. They want to appease non-Christian Jews by boasting to them that Gentile converts to Christ are coming under the Jewish law. The word here for “make a good showing” is literally “have a good face.” The false teachers themselves don’t keep the law, but they are trying to get Gentile Christians to receive circumcision so they can boast in their flesh and “have a good face” to avoid persecution.

And Paul says that however well-intentioned or naïve this may be, it is dead wrong, and it compromises the very heart of the Christian message that promises Jesus is enough for right standing with God.

So, we are born boasters — by God’s design, and also in our sin. And the false teachers, to save their own flesh (from persecution) want to be able to boast in the flesh (from circumcision) of these Gentile Christians in Galatia.

2. Jesus turns boasting upside down.

Second, Paul contrasts their sinful boast with his own holy boast, which he wants the Galatians, and us, to join him in. This is how he wants us to rejoice in words.

Paul does not say that becoming a Christian banishes all boasting. We still boast. Oh, do we! Worship is boasting. Preaching is boasting. Sharing the gospel is a holy and humble kind of boasting — rejoicing in words. But Christian boasting is not like the natural, sinful boasting into which we’re born. It is not boasting in the flesh. It is not boasting in outward appearance. It is not boasting in our own strength.

Christian boasting is boasting turned upside down because of the worth and beauty and power of Jesus Christ. Look at Galatians 6:14, which says: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” So Paul does boast. But he boasts in the cross, of all things. The cross.

Christ on the Cross

Today, it’s easy for us to be all too familiar with the cross. We see them on steeples. We wear them on necklaces. We sing about the cross. And it’s easy to forget or to overlook what the cross meant in the first century.

Some might be familiar with the hymn “Old Rugged Cross,” which calls the cross “an emblem of suffering and shame.” The cross was horrific. It was reserved for the worst of rebels against the Roman empire, and it was designed to not only make death literally excruciating and lengthy, but also utterly shameful.

And Paul says, “May I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What a turn, that the very thing — a crucified Messiah — that seemed so shameful, such a stumbling block to Jews, and such folly to Gentiles, would be not only a critical truth for Christians, but central. We talk about the cross every Sunday. We remember it at the Lord’s Table. We depict it in baptism. The cross — the public execution of the Son of God — is not just a barrier to overcome to embrace the Christian faith, but it is at the very heart of our faith. We celebrate it, and we draw attention to it. We boast in it.

Why is that? Because the wounds Jesus received at the cross were not for his own sins, but for ours. Isaiah 53:5 says,

He was pierced for our transgressions;     he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,     and with his wounds we are healed.

The eternal Son of God took on human flesh and blood and went to that rugged, offensive, horrific, shamefully public cross, as the spotless Lamb, to die for our sins. For our rebellion, for our countless sinful boasts in our own flesh, we were the ones who deserved to spill our own blood in violent death and be eternally separated from God.

But the wonder of Christianity, the heart of our faith, the very good news which we call “the gospel,” is that Jesus went to the cross for us — for all those who would take Paul’s invitation to turn our boasting upside down and rejoice in words, “Jesus is Lord.”

Our Suffering and Weakness

We see elsewhere in Paul how Jesus turns our boasting upside down. Instead of boasting in comfort and ease in this life, Paul says in Romans 5:3, “We boast in our sufferings.” If God works the greatest good through the greatest evil — that is, the crucifixion of the Son of God — then our sufferings in this life are turned upside down. We grieve them, yet even as we do, we rejoice in what God is doing in and through them.

And instead of boasting in our own strengths and abilities, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:30, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” And in 2 Corinthians 12:9 he says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Jesus turns our boasting upside down. Instead of boasting in our comforts, we boast in our sufferings. Instead of boasting in our strengths, we boast in our weaknesses. Instead of boasting in natural human conceptions of glory and power, just like the world, we boast in the offense of the cross.

Cross-Conscious Boasting

But it’s Easter Sunday. What about the resurrection? When Paul says in Galatians 6:14, “May I never boast unless in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” how does Easter fit? If all Christian boasting is a boasting in and under the banner of the cross, what do we make of our Easter boast that he is risen?

The answer is that, yes, we boast in the resurrection, but it is a certain kind of boasting. It is a humbled boast. It is a God-magnifying boast. It is a Christ-treasuring boast. It is a cross-conscious boast. It is a boast in the surpassing power of God uniquely on display in and through human weakness, and suffering, and even death. It is the kind of boasting that comes on the other side of the grave, on the other side of crucifixion, on the other side of Christ turning the world, and us, upside down.

“We boast in the cross because the one who died there for our sins rose again Sunday morning to be our living Lord.”

And not only is the Easter boast permissible; it is essential. Paul’s boasting in the cross implies the Easter boast. If there is no Easter boast, there is no boasting in the cross. If Jesus stays dead, there is no glory in his cross. We boast in the cross, because the one who died there for our sins rose again Sunday morning to be our living, breathing, loving, reigning Lord. And our boasting in the resurrection is a certain kind of boasting because it is also a boasting in the cross.

3. Christians boast in the resurrection too.

Let’s see the resurrection for ourselves in Galatians 6:15–16, which begin with the word for and explain what Paul has just said Galatians 6:14. Galatians 6:15–16 says, “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” The first and most obvious link to resurrection is “new creation.” New creation points to God’s action and initiative and power, not ours.

That’s the contrast between circumcision and new creation. In this context, circumcision would be an action the Galatians would take in an effort to make sure they’re in right standing with God. And remarkably, Paul says uncircumcision doesn’t count either. Neither taking that step in the flesh, or refusing to take that step, wins you God’s acceptance. You cannot, in your flesh, earn God’s full and final favor.

What counts is what he does. His work in Christ. His new creation. And the beginning of this new creation is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday is the great first and decisive initiative, the great burst of divine power that launches a new creation, beginning with Christ then coming to us, as God makes us new creatures in Christ, through faith, and then culminating someday with a new heavens and new earth. So “new creation” is the first glimpse of Easter.

Crucified with Christ

The second link to resurrection is the connection to Galatians 2:20, a connection which appears at the end of Galatians 6:14. Here Paul says that by the cross “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” The other place in this letter where Paul talks about being crucified with Christ is Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 6:14 only mentions crucifixion, but what Galatians 2:20 makes plain is that crucifixion with Christ by faith means resurrection with him. Just as Christ was crucified and raised, so Paul’s old self — our old self — was crucified with Christ by faith, and we too have been raised to new life. We now live with a new heart, a new center, a new ultimate allegiance; we are new creatures, indwelt by God’s Spirit, even as we continue to battle and make headway against remaining sin.

And this reality of being a “new creation” in Christ is both personal and individual, as well as corporate. Not only did Christ very personally “love me and give himself for me” at the cross, but he loved us, his church, and made us a people together in him.

Galatians 6:16 says that “all who walk by this rule” — that is, all who own God’s work and power in making them new creatures — are God’s true people. He calls them “the Israel of God.” This is the church, the true Israel. “The Jerusalem above,” as he says in Galatians 4:36. Or like he says in Philippians 3:3, “We are the [true] circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and [boast] in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”

There is a twist of irony here in response to the false teachers. Do you want to be God’s people? Do you want to be in “the Israel of God,” in contrast to the Israel of the flesh? Then leave behind the life of flesh, circumcision, and law, and live instead according to the Spirit and faith and love, as those who have been loved by God in Christ.

Scarred for Christ

Finally, we end with one last Easter connection to the resurrection: “the marks of Jesus.” Paul comes to the end of Galatians, takes the pen in his own hand to write Galatians 6:11–16, and then his one last word, before the concluding benediction, is one final boast. And it is a boast in the cross: “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).

In other words, Paul is saying, “Not only do I answer with this letter, but I answer with my life. My skin is scarred — from being beaten, and lashed, and stoned — because I have stood by this gospel with my own life.”

He is saying, “Rather than trying to tweak the message to avoid persecution, as the false teachers are doing, I have not been deterred by threats. Rather than seeking, under pressure, to make marks in other people’s flesh and boast in a head count of circumcisions, marks have been made in my flesh as I have preached and defended the truth that Jesus’s cross and resurrection, embraced by faith alone, are enough to get and keep us right with God.”

“And so I bear on my own body,” Paul says, “as faint echoes and pointers, the very ‘marks of Jesus’ that he bears on his resurrection body — marks that are no defect, but shine with glory.” Paul boasts in the cross and the resurrection. And so we boast, The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed.

Commune with the Living Christ

As we come to the Lord’s Table on this Easter Sunday, we celebrate that the Jesus whom we remember here is alive. His resurrection not only makes good on God’s word, and not only vindicates his sinless life, and not only confirms that his cross-work was effective to cover our sins, and not only gives us access to that salvation by union with him, but the resurrection means he is alive, right now, in glorified humanity, scars and all, at God’s right hand, to know and enjoy forever.

We call this “Communion” not only because we commune with each other as we come together to his Table, but first and foremost because we commune with him — the risen, living Christ. As we eat in faith, we receive him afresh, by his Spirit, and commune with our risen, living Lord.

First, they worshiped him.

Before Jesus gave them any tasks to be done, any commission to fulfill, any directions as to how they might, in some sense, carry on his work once he was gone, first they went to their knees before him. Matthew reports that

the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him . . . . (Matthew 28:16–17)

Before they might imitate aspects of his human life, and echo his teachings in their own words and obedience, they bowed before Jesus — not only as man but God himself.

What’s more, before Jesus uttered the lone imperative of his Great Commission to his men, for his church, he declared his unique authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). The church has one Groom, one Chief Shepherd, one Lord, one risen Son seated at the right hand of the Father, supplying the Spirit. And more than that, when the disciples did receive their charge, it would be strikingly focused on “the Son” — baptizing in his name, with the Father and Spirit, and teaching all nations to observe all that Jesus commanded.

Yet, the other foot would land. Not only would utterly inimitable aspects of the God-man’s life have their clear markings here, at his giving of the Commission, but his disciples would have a call to answer, a part to play, genuine obedience to render. There was actual imitation of their master to own and realize, however qualified it might be.

At the heart of this final, culminating report at the end of Matthew’s Gospel stands a particular directive — work to be done, an imperative to heed, a mission to embrace, and yes, a pronounced dimension of Christ’s life to imitate: make disciples.

He Made Them Fishers

How would this charge — one that encompasses all the other commands of Christ’s teaching — have landed on his own men in that moment, and in the days and years that followed as they reflected on it? After all, this was the particular band who knew him best. These were his disciples. What might his disciples hear when he told his disciples to make disciples?

For Peter and Andrew, James and John, Jesus had first framed his call to disciple them in terms of their native profession. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Having been trained, their whole lives long, to use boats and nets to draw food from the sea, what would have been plain to them then, and all the more plain after three years with Jesus, was that you don’t make fishermen, or disciples, overnight or in an instant.

Making good fishermen is a long, involved process, as they knew all too well. It requires teaching and training over time. Not only hearing, and internalizing, clear words of instruction and direction but also watching a master fisherman at work — and catching the unspoken rhythms and patterns of his craft. Such apprenticing requires, according to pastor Tom Nelson, “the kind of knowing that is difficult to capture in propositional terms or categories, but that emerges in the context of a close relationship and in the imitation of another” (The Flourishing Pastor, 94). Nelson cites philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) who calls it “tacit knowledge”:

By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 53)

Such disciple-making, as seen in the life of Christ, involves more than formal, verbal instruction. Disciples not only hear their master talk about his craft, but they watch him at work, and then receive ongoing instruction as he, in turn, watches their early efforts and speaks into their emerging abilities.

Now You Make Fishers

How, then, did this spiritual fisher-making unfold during Jesus’s ministry? In Matthew’s Gospel in particular, from Jesus’s summons in chapter 4, to his commission in chapter 28, it is remarkable to observe his recurring attention to and prioritizing and investment in his disciples.

Again and again, from one chapter to the next, and often one account to the next, Jesus navigates public and private dimensions of life, showing rhythms of welcoming “the crowds” (in public) and then giving undivided attention to “his disciples” (in private). He is willing to receive and bless the masses as they come seeking, yet he himself seeks out his disciples, to invest in the few. (Observe it for yourself by skimming through the Gospel of Matthew and watching for the words crowd and disciples in the first and last lines of various sections.)

“Christ himself showed his disciples the Christian life, inside and out, in pubic teaching and private prayer.”

Jesus, the Master, had called them to follow him, and for more than three years, in setting after setting, in private homes and in the midst of great crowds, walking long journeys between towns and enjoying unhurried meals — one conversation at a time, one day at a time — Jesus had discipled them. Christ himself showed them the Christian life, inside and out, in public teaching and private prayer. Now they too were to make disciples.

In particular, he says, “Disciple all nations” — which must have landed on them with at least a double force.

‘Disciple’ as a Verb

First is the relational context we’ve been observing.

Christians today often talk about “discipleship,” and so it might be helpful to clarify what sort of action and process Jesus’s disciples would have heard when their discipler said to “make disciples.” Disciple-making, in this context, is the process in which a stable, mature believer invests himself, for a particular period of time, in one or a few younger believers, in order to help their growth in the faith — including helping them also to invest in others who will invest in others. (Paul gives such directions to his disciple, in 2 Timothy 2:2, for raising up leaders in the Ephesian church.)

“Disciple-making is both engineered and organic, involving both truth-speaking and life-sharing.”

Such disciple-making requires both structure (particular lessons and topics to work through) as well as margin that allows the discipler to speak into unplanned teachable moments as they arise. Such a process is both engineered and organic, involving both truth-speaking and life-sharing. Quantity time is the soil in which quality time grows.

Formal and Informal

The vast majority of Jesus’s time with his men wasn’t formal. Mark 3:14 says, “He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him . . .” Before he sent them out to preach, they first needed to be with their Master, to hear his instruction, watch his life, and absorb his ways — not with a clock ticking in the background but with the space and time and overlap of everyday life that encourages the kind of effect that Jesus had on his men.

It is nothing short of amazing what three years with Jesus did for this ragtag band of young Galileans. All of them were outsiders to the religious establishment of the time; none of them were rabbi-trained like Paul. And yet, after Christ’s ascension and the pouring out of his Spirit, the religious authorities could see with their own eyes the profound imprints of Christ on his men:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Jesus did not despise the crowds. He received them. He taught them. He healed them. But he didn’t pursue them. His days revolved around his disciples. And when it came time to turn to them, and give them his Commission, he didn’t say, “Draw crowds.” He said, “Disciple the nations.”

‘All Nations’ as the Goal

Second is the outward push of all nations.

In his commentary on the Commission, D.A. Carson notes that while “the main imperatival force” and “the main emphasis” is on the verb “make disciples,” we should not downplay or overlook the effect of the participle going (“go and make disciples”). Lingering indefinitely in Jerusalem, or in Galilee, will not fulfill the mission. There is an irreducible “centrifugal force,” we might say, not only in the participle but also in the object of the verb “all nations.”

Jesus commissions both depth and distance. Yes, his disciples seek to “make converts” — nothing less will do. They must be evangelists. But Jesus calls for more. At the heart of his charge is the depth of making disciples. And the inevitable effect, and impulse, is outward, expansive, evangelistic, even global. The Commission directs Christ’s people to both “go deep” and “go out” — locally and to other cities and peoples.

All He Commanded

Now, as we go — across the street, down the hall, to the church building or a coffee shop, into a new relationship or another appointment, or to the other side of town, or to a new state, or across an ocean, or to a new culture or language — we make disciples, offering our words and time and attention for months, even years, and putting forward our own lives as examples.

We exercise patience, speak with grace, answer simple questions with humility, and as disciples of Jesus ourselves, we point our “disciples” not finally to us, but to him. And when our focus is making disciples, rather than the modern fascination with drawing crowds, we find that life and ministry take a whole new tenor, perhaps even that of Christ himself.

And as we seek to live and minister more like him, we own afresh that Jesus is indeed unique. All authority is his. The commission is his. The church is his. The promise of divine presence is his. We worship him, and disciple others to do the same.

The happiest families can be surprisingly competitive. And not just in moments of play and recreation when we compete against each other, in love and good humor. But all the more in the everyday “contest” to honor and bless one another.

“Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10), Paul writes for the whole church, and such a vision begins at home. And yet the glory and joy of such a “competition” is far, far larger, and more fundamental, than even our homes and churches. We might view all of history as the divine Father and his Son seeking to “outdo one another in showing honor.”

“Service is greatness,” writes Donald Macleod, “and one may even ask . . . whether the persons of the godhead do not seem to vie with one another for the privilege of serving” (Person of Christ, 88). It is an astounding and holy contest to trace through the pages of Scripture, and the story of the world — a story of their glory that delights all those who have been welcomed into the greatest of families.

One Great Design — and Medium

To marvel at the pronounced other-orientation of the Father and the Son is not to minimize the God-centeredness of God but, rather, to go deeper into it. God made the world to glorify himself. This, in short, is God’s “one great design,” as Jonathan Edwards preached in December 1744, in a sermon called “Approaching the End of God’s Grand Design.” And yet how much more can we say than simply this? Edwards says more.

He also speaks of God’s “one grand medium,” saying, “The one grand medium by which he glorifies himself in all is Jesus Christ, God-man.” Another way, then, in fuller detail, to capture God’s one great design, says Edwards, is this:

[God made the world] to present to his Son a spouse in perfect glory from amongst sinful, miserable mankind, blessing all that comply with his will in this matter and destroying all his enemies that oppose it, and so to communicate and glorify himself through Jesus Christ, God-man.

God’s God-centeredness is not at odds with the centrality of Christ. In fact, we cannot have one without the other. One is the great design; the other, the grand medium. God glorifies himself through his Son.

Prompted by Edwards, then, it is amazing to return to God’s own word, see if the dynamic is there, and watch with delight as our Father and our Lord Jesus “vie with one another,” as it were, seeking to “outdo one another in showing honor.”

Father to Glorify Son

Consider first that unexpected attribute of the Son’s glory in the magnificent opening lines of Hebrews. In these last days, God has spoken to us in his Son, “whom he appointed the heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2). Only after noting this appointment does Hebrews add “through whom also he created the world.” Before creation, the Father appointed his Son to be heir of it all; then the Father made all through him and for him. Paul backs it up in Colossians 1:16: “All things were created through [the Son] and for him.”

“The Father made the universe, and ordained all of history to unfold as it has, to glorify his Son.”

In other words, the Father made the world to give it to his Son. The Father loves his Son (John 3:35; 5:20) — with a love so full, so thick, so deep, so abounding that he overflowed to make a world to make much of his Son. The Father made the universe, and ordained all of history to unfold as it has, to glorify his Son, and demonstrate his infinite delight in and love for his Son. And that does not subtract, so to speak, from the Father’s glory, but only increases it in the increase of his Son. As the Father rightly pursues his glory in creation, he does so in and through the honor and praise of his Son.

So, in the fullness of time, the Father sent his Son, in human soul and body, visibly and audibly — as fully man, without ceasing to be God — to come, in stages, into this great appointed inheritance.

Son Glorified Father

Jesus, the God-man, lived his human life in utter dedication to his Father. Rightly did the angels proclaim “Glory to God!” at Jesus’s birth (Luke 2:14), as the glory of the Father came to the fore in the life and ministry of the Son. In his “state of humiliation,” from manger to cross, the man Christ Jesus did not “glorify himself” (John 8:54; Hebrews 5:5), but his words and deeds, and the effect and intent of his human life, were in full and glad submission to the will, and glory, of his Father. As he says without slant in John 8:49, “I honor my Father.”

“Jesus, the God-man, lived his human life in utter dedication to his Father.”

The Son loves his Father (John 14:31). And he lived as man, and strode toward the cross, propelled by his great delight in and love for his Father. He instructed his disciples to so live, and bear fruit, that his Father would be glorified (Matthew 5:16; John 15:8), and he taught them to pray for the hallowing of his Father’s name (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2). The night before he died, Jesus summarized, in prayer, his life’s work as “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4). When he sees that at last his “hour” has come, Jesus prays, “Father, glorify your name” (John 12:28).

As the Son draws near to the cross, we marvel to see both glories — of Father and of Son — coming to the fore, not in competition, yet vying to accent the other. And strikingly, the Son’s lifting up, his coming into his glory as God-man, begins not only with his resurrection, but even in the shame and horror of being “lifted up” to the cross (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32). Seeing that his hour has come, and that he will now move beyond his “state of humiliation,” and enter into glory (Luke 24:26) with his great final act of self-humbling (Philippians 2:8), Jesus says,

Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. (John 13:31)

Not only will the incarnate Son continue to glorify his Father, as he has since Bethlehem, but now he will do so in some new measure — and the Father too will glorify his Son. “So intertwined are the operations of the Father and the Son,” comments D.A. Carson, “that the entire mission can be looked at another way. . . . One may reverse the order” (John, 482). They glorify each other.

Father Glorified Son

In history’s greatest twist, the cross, in all its unspeakable odium and shame, begins the incarnate Son’s uplifting. Here, at Golgotha, the Father’s anticipated glorifying of the Son, as the Son spoke of, and prayed for, begins to be realized. The Father had glorified his Son, in measure, in his anointed life and ministry (John 8:54; 11:4), but now his glory comes decisively and fully at the cross, and in his rising again (John 7:39; 12:16, 23). Peter’s Pentecost sermon will recognize that God “glorified his servant Jesus . . . whom God raised from the dead” (Acts 3:13, 15). Or, as Peter later wrote, tying together the Son’s resurrection and glorification, “God . . . raised him from the dead and gave him glory” (1 Peter 1:21).

Christ’s resurrection, then — and with it, his ascension and enthronement in heaven — ushers in a new era, the age in which we live, of the church and the Spirit. If the Father seemed to outdo the Son in showing honor before creation, and the Son tried to outdo the Father in his earthly life, and the Father thrust the glory of his Son to the fore, in history, in the terrible cross and triumphant resurrection, we now — as happy sons of God and brothers of Christ — thrill as our Father and his Son strive all the more for the privilege of exalting each other.

Glories Together Now

The New Testament teems with the glory of God, and the glory of Christ, as the saints see what Edwards called “the great design” and “the great medium” play out before our eyes. The glory we see in Christ, the eternal Word made flesh, does not exclude the Father, but is “glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14). All God’s centuries of promises, says 2 Corinthians 1:20, find their “Yes” in Jesus — “that is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” The fruit of righteousness we bear in life “comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). To the Father, through the Son.

We serve, says 1 Peter 4:11, “by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” In our sufferings in the present time, we look to the God of all grace, who called us to “his eternal glory in Christ” (1 Peter 5:10). And in the great doxology of Hebrews, we look to the Father, “who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus” to work in us what is pleasing in his sight “through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:10–21).

Perhaps best of all is Philippians 2:9–11. God the Father has “highly exalted” his Son and given him, without envy or reservation, “the name that is above every name.” This is a stunning grant — one of the great realities the Father must have dreamed up when appointing his Son “heir of all things,” and is now delighted to fulfill. And lest we worry that the holy contest has gone too far when we learn that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” Paul has one last phrase to enchant us all in this happy family: “to the glory of God the Father.”

Glories at the End

Even now, as Christ sits enthroned in heaven, the Father is putting all things under his feet, and when that great work of redemption is done (Revelation 21:6), then “the Son himself will also be subjected to him” (1 Corinthians 15:27–28). Does the Father then, in the end, become the last recipient of glory, while the Son finally outdoes him in showing honor? Macleod encourages us “not to overlook the complexities of the situation” (88).

It is here, precisely with the end in view, that he observes how Father and Son seem to “vie with one another for the privilege of serving.” As we strain to look into the future, we find depths and dimensions to the divine glory we should be careful not to reduce. On the one hand, Jude 24–25 tells us the Father will present us before himself, while in Ephesians 5:27, Christ presents the church to himself in splendor. So too, not only will the Son present the kingdom to the Father (1 Corinthians 15), but the Father will present the bride to his Son (Revelation 21:2, 9). Macleod observes, “The idea of the Father handing over the bride to Christ is as definitive as that of the Son handing over the kingdom to the Father” (88).

Such twin emphases have for two millennia led the church to confess with Christ, and with awe, the blessed mystery, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Glory Enough to Go Around

What a thrill it is to see that our Father, and our elder Brother, are not miserly with divine glory. There is no scarcity of glory in the Godhead to be hoarded and rationed. Divine persons do not compete for glory, even as they vie to show each other honor. As Dane Ortlund observes, “The New Testament oscillates so frequently between the Son and the Father as the more immediate object of glorification that it becomes unthinkable to envision one person of the Trinity being glorified and not the other persons.”

Our God does indeed, as God, righteously and lovingly seek his own glory, but we should not think of his glory as scarce, or his fingers as tight. He does not give his glory to another, even as “the Father of glory” (Ephesians 1:17) and Jesus “the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8; James 2:1) — and so too “the Spirit of glory” (1 Peter 4:14) — vie with each other, outdoing one another in showing honor.

Such “competition” makes for the happiest family of all.