Audio Transcript

We are approaching Halloween. It will be here on Sunday. For many, it’s a day about ghosts and ghouls and goblins and pumpkins and candy. But for some of us, the day serves as an annual reminder of the Protestant Reformation. Reformation Day reminds us how Paul’s epistle to the Romans ignited a fire in Martin Luther’s soul, a fire so bold that he stood against an entire religious system that wanted to shut him up and shut him down. It didn’t. Luther gave his life to preach the gospel of justification before a holy God through the vicarious substitution of Jesus Christ. The Reformer epitomizes lionhearted boldness. So where does such boldness come from? And why are sinners so fearful in life? As we move toward Reformation Day, this is a great clip from a 1993 John Piper sermon, a sermon on Proverbs 28:1, which reads, “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” It begins with Pastor John mentioning Proverbs 14:16 and talking about the guilty conscience. Here he is.

Bold for Justice

“The fool rages and is bold” (Proverbs 14:16, author’s translation). And the word bold is the same word as in Proverbs 28:1: “The righteous are bold as a lion.” So fools can be bold and the righteous can be bold, which causes me to think — as you find with so many Proverbs — that what is being said here in this verse is that, in general, there’s something about wickedness that kindles fear, and there’s something about righteousness that kindles boldness. But it’s not so absolute that there isn’t a kind of boldness that the wicked can have and there isn’t a kind of timidity that, now and then, the righteous can have.

And we all know that from experience, and we know it from the Bible, that there is a reckless boldness that the wicked have, especially in the pursuit of their wickedness: dirty needles, promiscuous sex, speeding, reckless crime. It takes a lot of stupid boldness to do what many wicked do. They are not often cowardly in the pursuit of sin. They take manifold risks with their lives and their freedom and their eternity.

So there is a kind of boldness that the wicked have; it’s just not the kind that’s being talked about in verse 1. The kind of boldness that’s being talked about here is the boldness that’s required in the atmosphere of justice. And there’s something about wickedness that, in the atmosphere of justice, flees even when there’s no one pursuing. And there’s something about the righteous that is bold as a lion for the cause of justice.

Scared from the Start

What is it about the wicked that makes them flee when no one is pursuing? I think you know the answer to that. We can find it from the Bible. We can find it in our experience. The answer is that a bad conscience, a guilty conscience, an evil conscience, makes the person flee when no one is pursuing. When you see a police car, is your first response gratitude that there are law-keepers? When you play basketball, or used to play basketball or soccer or football, did the way you play affect the response you felt every time the whistle blew? When you’re in a conversation, do you begin to defend yourself even before there’s been any accusation or anything clearly said against what you think? Do you flee because you can hear an accuser where there may even be none?

We flee when we’re not being pursued because we have a bad conscience. There are a lot of things stored up in our lives, bad things that we have done that we have not made right, and a voice inside is telling us that someone is after us, even when they are not. Guilt is the parent of fear, and our conscience is very creative. Conscience creates pursuers where there ought to be some and are not any. The breeze turns into a burglar. The shadows turn into ghosts. Police turn into adversaries. Parents turn into police. God turns into an enemy — all when they are not.

Genesis 3:8 says, “The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” He wasn’t pursuing. He didn’t have a gun. And God said to Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). And Adam said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid” (Genesis 3:10). And we’ve been afraid ever since. We’ve been afraid of him ever since.

“We flee when we’re not being pursued because we have a bad conscience.”

A guilty conscience will turn shadows into phantoms, and ambulances into police cars, and innocent inquiries into indictments, and doorbells into threats, and mailmen into warrant officers, and schoolteachers into wardens, and parents into cross-examiners, and friends into traitors, and simple office memos into termination papers. The conscience is almost infinitely creative, and the wicked flee where there is no one pursuing — but there ought to be. The conscience makes up for what isn’t by creating out of nothing the pursuers we need to have to bring us to justice and repentance and reconciliation and forgiveness with people we’ve wronged.

A guilty conscience creates pursuers where there are none, unless you drown it with alcohol, or numb it with drugs, or blast it with constant loud music, and constant escapes from solitude, or endless denials — “It isn’t there, it isn’t conscience, it doesn’t count, it’s not important; I can live without talking to them” — until you go so far in hardening yourself against this God-given voice that it ceases, and you can no more hear the steps of God in the garden. And that is a dreadful place to be.

Lionhearted in Christ

The righteous ones are the people who trust in the Lord, and not in themselves and their own merit and their own deeds and their own righteousness. They trust in the Lord and his mercy and his steadfast kindness. And then they are the ones who, according to Psalm 32:1–2, have their sins covered, and their iniquities are not imputed to them. Their iniquities simply are not counted because they trust in the Lord. Now that’s who the righteous are in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and everywhere in this universe: the righteous are people who trust in the Lord and bank on Jesus Christ for everything they have and need. And they are as bold as a lion.

“Fear with men is rooted in the fear of not being right with God.”

If you can have that kind of boldness with God like Martin Luther had — so that you know, as you look the almighty, holy, infinitely wise and beautiful God in the face, that he imputes no iniquity to you — you will be as lionhearted as can be with men. Fear with men is rooted in the fear of not being right with God. If you knew God was standing at your right hand with infinite power, with his right hand on your shoulder, you’d be bold as a lion.

Here We Stand

Now I want to take Martin Luther as an example of that. In 1521, the lionheartedness came out. His whole life was one of incredible courage, but let me close with one illustration of his boldness. It was the fall of 1521. It was in the city of Worms. Charles, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and who had the biggest empire since Charlemagne, was there in the cathedral. Fredrick the Wise, the local governor, was there. The Archbishop of Trier, named Eck, was there. And a room at least as large as our sanctuary was filled with lords and nobles. Every one of them was against Martin Luther, and all of them had the capacity to sentence him to death for heresy and treason if he did not recant his criticisms of the Holy Catholic Church.

Eck said, “Do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors which they contain?” And first in German, and then in Latin so that it could go down in the official register, he responded like this:

Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason — I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other — my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. [Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.] God help me. Amen. (Here I Stand, 182)

“The righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1). They are as bold as a lion because they are righteous in Christ. They look into the face of God, and they see a smile that imputes to them no iniquity, but rather makes “him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). And standing clothed with the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, they are as bold as a lion before God and before men.

And my prayer for us in these days as a church is that God, by the gospel of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ through faith, might deliver us from fear of God and fear of men and make us valiant for the truth in this city.

ABSTRACT: What many call “the Septuagint” today was a collection of varied Greek translations of the Hebrew Old Testament that circulated among Jews and Christians in antiquity. The apostles both read and referenced these Greek translations often, especially as they wrote to Greek-speaking churches throughout the Greek-speaking world. Sometimes, their use of the Septuagint comes across through translations of key words; other times, they quote directly from the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew. Their familiarity with the Greek Old Testament also exerts a behind-the-scenes influence on broader New Testament themes. Familiarity with the Septuagint, then, offers a fresh window into the study of the Scriptures, for pastors and engaged laypeople as well as for scholars.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Greg Lanier, Associate Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, to offer an introduction to the Septuagint.

If your personal Bible is the ESV or NIV, you first come across it in a footnote at Genesis 4:8. If you are using the NET, you will spot it even earlier in a translators’ note at Genesis 3:15. But if you cut against the grain and use the CSB, you will see it make a cameo as early as Genesis 2:2. In fact, you will bump into it roughly 96 times in the CSB’s footnotes for Genesis–Deuteronomy.

It is called the Septuagint, or LXX for short: in a nutshell, the Greek form of the Old Testament (OT). Often ignored or misunderstood, it is one of the more important words in your Bible’s footnotes.

Septuagint studies has enjoyed a bit of an academic renaissance in recent decades, but many pastors and laypersons still know little about it. It sounds esoteric, especially with its difficult-to-say title — which scholars do not pronounce uniformly anyhow — and fancy nickname. The aim of this article is to bring it out of the shadows of footnotes and into the light, focusing on clarifying what it is and why it matters to everyday Christians.

What Exactly Is the Septuagint?

Before discussing its relevance, we have to clarify what is meant by Septuagint. But that is part of the problem. The term itself, when paired with the (the Septuagint, or the LXX), and combined with the fact that you can purchase a copy, might give the false impression that “the Septuagint” is a singular book, produced by a single committee, and published in a single place at a single time. But since we are looking back to a time before printing presses, publishers, computers, and online booksellers, little of this impression is accurate. It is better to think of the word Septuagint as a pointer to the process by which the Hebrew Scriptures circulated in the Greek language among Jews and Christians in antiquity. The details are complex, but some key ideas can be sketched.

Clear Starting Point

Most Christians know that their personal copy of the OT is a translation from the ancient Hebrew text, aimed at conveying God’s word to people unfamiliar with Hebrew. Jews in antiquity faced the same issue. After the conquest of Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC), much of the Mediterranean world adopted Greek as the functional language. Jews inside and outside Palestine followed suit to varying degrees, and competency in Hebrew began to wane. In the mid-third century BC, a group of Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt (likely Alexandria) undertook translating the Torah (or Pentateuch, Genesis–Deuteronomy) from Hebrew into Greek, not only to give their own people access to Scripture in their daily language for use in worship but also (possibly) to provide a copy of their law code to the Ptolemaic rulers.

The embellished account of this translation (in the Letter of Aristeas, from the second or third century BC) states there were 72 translators, which, over the course of time, became 70 — the Latin of which is septuaginta or LXX. Strictly speaking, then, Septuagint or LXX refers only to this initial endeavor.

The Plot Thickens

The Greek Pentateuch may have been first in the pool, but over the next centuries more swimmers entered, the water itself began changing, lane markers started crisscrossing, and so on. Five overlapping developments are worth mentioning.

First, more books of the traditional OT were translated from Hebrew into Greek, starting perhaps with Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the minor prophets. The precise sequence, location, and timing are unknown, but most, if not all, were completed by the time of the early church. Swimming in this same pool of activity were the writings known as Apocrypha. Their association with the Greek copies of scriptural books greatly influenced how, in due course, they were designated as deuterocanonical books within Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

Second, translation strategies evolved over time. Some books were translated in a way similar to today’s NASB (stricter correspondence to the Hebrew) while others were closer to the NLT (less strictness, more paraphrastic). The translations are all adequate as Greek but had different philosophies, needs, and audiences in view.

Third, existing Greek translations were not carved in stone but began to be revised (or even retranslated), often with the goal of bringing them closer to the Hebrew. Some books like Daniel and Esther even branched into two distinct Greek forms. Such activities are traditionally associated with the Kaige movement, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Origen, Lucian of Antioch, and possibly others. One could compare these translations to the different editions of, say, the NIV (1978, 1984, 1996 NIrV, 1999, 2002 TNIV, 2011).

Fourth, manuscripts of the emerging Greek versions of the OT themselves took on a life of their own, as they were copied and passed on by Jewish and, in turn, Christian scribes. No scribe was perfect, and accidental or intentional changes entered the stream over time.

Fifth, running through all these developments is the fact that the Hebrew source text itself — which translators were attempting to capture in Greek — was itself not 100 percent stable at the margins. The Hebrew text was passed on with exceptional accuracy, but there is no guarantee that any given translator was working from an identical copy of the Hebrew. (This is why modern Bibles sometimes mention alternative wording found in certain Hebrew manuscripts like the Dead Sea Scrolls — as, e.g., the ESV at Psalm 22:16.)

We could go further into the weeds, but this suffices to prove the point: there really was no such thing as the Septuagint. Talking about it as such is like asking a churchgoer where to find the Bible. Do you want the ESV? NIV? KJV? RVR (Spanish)? A study Bible? Devotional Bible? Interlinear? App? Audio Bible? Even for those who can read the biblical languages, there are multiple options.

Septuagint, then, is at best a kind of shorthand for the complex but fascinating history by which God’s word in Hebrew made its way throughout the empire in various Greek forms.

Why Is It Relevant to the Study of the NT?

Precisely here — the use of Greek Bible(s) in antiquity — the relevance of the so-called Septuagint for us today becomes evident.

By definition, it is clearly relevant to studying the OT, particularly for reconstructing the authentic OT text (e.g., ESV at 1 Samuel 10:1; 14:41), exploring canon-related issues, and tracing early Jewish interpretation — vital topics that would merit a standalone article.

But it is also of great relevance to studying the New Testament (NT), which is our focus here. Early Christians, like their Jewish predecessors, were immersed in a Greek-speaking world. We see this not only in how some of Jesus’s disciples bore Greek names alongside Semitic ones (Saul/Paul, Levi/Matthew, Simon/Peter) or were from Hellenistic backgrounds (Acts 6), but most clearly in the writing of the entire NT in Greek. It should come as no surprise, then, that the authors sometimes make direct use of the Greek form of the OT in addition to or even in place of the known Hebrew form. Just as a Korean-speaking pastor would naturally quote from a Korean Bible in a sermon to a Korean congregation, so also the Greek-speaking apostolic authors would often default to a Greek Bible when writing to Greek-speaking congregations.

Matthew offers a helpful example to prove the point. On the one hand, he uses the specific Hebrew form of Hosea 11:1 (“I have called my son”) and not the Greek (“I have called my children”) in Matthew 2:15. On the other hand, he draws on the Greek form of Isaiah 40:3, even where it differs from the Hebrew, in Matthew 3:2. Since Matthew was a bilingual tax collector, it makes sense that he would be able to navigate the OT in both Hebrew and Greek.

In short, the Greek tradition of the OT influenced the writing of the NT in various ways alongside the Hebrew tradition, which means that today’s student of the Bible would benefit to know something about it. I will trace three ways we can detect this influence, offering brief implications at each step.

The Greek OT shaped the contours of certain words.

When my church congregation prays the Lord’s Prayer, I self-consciously avoid using thy and thine embedded in memory from the KJV. Your Bible influences your theological vocabulary. Similarly, the Greek of the Septuagint texts shaped to varying degrees the specific ways certain words were used by NT authors.

A marquee example is the use of ekklēsia for “church.” Other options existed, and in secular Greek ekklēsia often carried the sense of a civic assembly. So why did this term get applied immediately (and with no apparent debate) to the spiritual gathering of believers (Matthew 16:18; Galatians 1:2)? The Jewish community had already settled on this word as a suitable way of translating Hebrew terms for the congregation or gathering of the Israelites for religious worship and instruction (e.g., Deuteronomy 4:10; Joshua 8:5). Indeed, ekklēsia is used for the assembly of the Israelites in Acts 7:38 and, only a few breaths later, for the early church in 8:1. Knowing something about the Greek OT, then, is crucial to grasping the identity of today’s church as the people of God.

Another key example is “gospel” or “good news.” Euangelion vocabulary was often used for reports of military victories in antiquity. But in the Greek tradition of the prophets (especially Isaiah), it was applied to spiritual good news related to the saving work of God, doubtless shaping the apostolic authors. For instance, Mark 1:1–3 traces the good news directly to Isaiah 40, and Paul treats the good news as something pre-promised to the prophets as well (Romans 1:1–2).

A final example is the term used in the Greek OT for the “sin offering,” namely, peri hamartias (e.g., Leviticus 5:6). Strictly speaking, this phrase means “concerning sin,” but it became a technical term for the specific Levitical sacrifice (see Hebrews 10:6). Its influence can be felt most vividly in Romans 8:3, where Paul refers to Jesus as peri hamartias; though some English translations take this as “for sin” (KJV, RSV), it is more accurate to render it “sin offering” (CSB, NIV), which concretely captures how Jesus’s blood fulfills the Levitical sacrificial system.

Implication: Students of the NT can benefit from adding the Greek OT to their set of tools for studying the semantic ranges of NT words (from covenant to mercy seat/propitiation and beyond). The Greek OT may not answer every question for every word, but it can be a window on common use in the first century — and sure beats using Merriam-Webster!

The Greek OT was often used in specific quotations.

Additionally, NT authors often use wording from the Greek tradition when directly quoting an OT passage. When studying such reuses of the OT in the NT, it is important to keep four basic patterns in mind.

The wording matches both the Hebrew and the Greek, particularly if the latter is a straightforward rendering of the former (e.g., Leviticus 19:18 in Matthew 19:19).
The wording matches the Hebrew more closely, and not the Greek (e.g., Zechariah 12:10 in John 19:37).
The wording matches neither fully but appears to involve apostolic retranslation or interpretation (e.g., Psalm 68:19 in Ephesians 4:8).
The wording matches the Greek more closely, even where it deviates from the Hebrew.

The fourth category is of most interest here, since it demonstrates the vital importance of the Greek translation(s) of the OT to NT study. I will provide a few examples to illustrate the point.

Let us begin with instances where the use of the Greek OT is important Christologically.

In Jesus’s visit to the Nazareth synagogue, his reading of Isaiah 61:1–2 as recorded in Luke 4:18–19 includes “and recovering of sight to the blind,” found only in Greek Isaiah and not the known Hebrew. This line is important to the Lukan context because it frames Jesus as the Spirit-anointed deliverer who will, indeed, bring healing to both physical and spiritual blindness.
Amid the rapid-fire set of quotations in Hebrews 1:5–14, the author writes, “When he [God] brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him’” (Hebrews 1:6). This line is apparently drawn from the Greek tradition of Deuteronomy 32:43 and is absent in the standard Hebrew tradition, providing the author with helpful wording to express the divinity of Jesus. (Note: some English translations incorporate the line into the text of Deuteronomy, effectively blending the Hebrew and Greek.)
Hebrews also reflects the distinct wording of the Greek of Psalm 40:6–8 in order to capture the humanity of Jesus via “A body have you prepared for me” (Hebrews 10:5), whereas the Hebrew reads, “You have given me an open ear.”

These are but a few instances where the OT — and the Greek form, at that — is key to articulating the person and work of Christ.

The Greek OT is also missionally important to the NT authors. Occasionally, the ancient Greek translators had already enhanced how a given passage anticipates the inclusion of the nations/Gentiles in the plan of God, allowing the apostolic authors more readily to root the global mission of the church in Scripture.

Matthew draws on the distinctive Greek wording of Isaiah 42:1–3 to plant the seed that Jesus’s ministry is not only for Jews but encompasses Gentiles, too: while the Hebrew reads, “The coastlands await his laws,” the Greek form that is used in Matthew 12:21 reads, “In his name the Gentiles will hope.”
At the Jerusalem council, the decisive evidence in favor of not imposing circumcision on Gentiles comes from Amos 9:11–12. The wording of the quotation in Acts 15:17, “that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,” aligns more closely with the clearer Gentile-inclusive wording of the Greek of Amos rather than the Hebrew.
Among Paul’s string of OT quotations about the Gentile-embracing work of Jesus is another use of the unique Greek form of Deuteronomy 32:43 (see above), “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people” (Romans 15:10), which is not found in the Hebrew.

No doubt other Hebrew Scriptures would suffice to make the same points, but the apostolic authors apparently opted to draw on Greek translations that were already ripe for use.

Lastly, knowledge of the NT authors’ use of the Greek OT is also helpful apologetically for today’s readers. On occasion, an OT quotation in the NT seems at first glance to contradict what one finds when looking it up in the English Bible (which, recall, uses the Hebrew). In such cases, the Greek OT can sometimes shed light.

Luke references a figure named “Cainan” in Jesus’s genealogy (Luke 3:36) as well as “seventy-five persons” emigrating to Egypt (Acts 7:14). The former figure is not found in the Hebrew genealogies, and the latter is presented as “seventy” in the Hebrew of Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5. In both cases, however, Luke is seemingly drawing on the Greek tradition, which mentions “Cainan” at Genesis 10:24 and tabulates the descendants (via a different way of counting) as “seventy-five.”
The quotation of Psalm 95:7–8 in Hebrews 3:7–11 reads, in part, “as you did in the rebellion, on the day of testing.” This seems to contradict the Hebrew: “as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah.” But the author is using the Greek form that has translated those place-names.
Hebrews 11:21 states that the dying patriarch Jacob worshiped “over the head of his staff,” pointing to Genesis 47:31. The Hebrew reads “upon the head of his bed,” but the NT author has simply used the Greek form.

In these instances and a few others, any apparent misstep by a NT author is ameliorated by recognizing that he is drawing on a Greek form of the text known to his audience.

Implication: Students of the NT, when encountering an OT quotation, should consider consulting not only the English translation (from the Hebrew) but also the Greek form, to see if any specific nuances in the Greek tradition have influenced the apostolic writer. Those who are unable to read Greek can use a modern translation, specifically LES or NETS.

The Greek OT exerts behind-the-scenes influence on broader concepts/themes.

Finally, we see telltale signs of the formative influence of the Greek OT on the NT exegesis of Scripture beyond word-for-word quotations. In such scenarios, knowledge of the broader context of the specifically Greek form of an OT passage often enhances our understanding of what a given NT author is doing.

A simple example involves the Greek form of Numbers 24:17, picturing a royal star that “will rise” (anatelei) from Jacob (versus Hebrew “walk”). The Greek verb provides a clue as to why the magi seek a new Jewish king when they see a star “in its rising” (anatolē, Matthew 2:2).

A more potent example appears in John 12:41, where the evangelist comments that Isaiah “said these things” — referring to two quotations of Isaiah in 12:38, 40 — because he “saw his glory and spoke of him.” The “him” here is Jesus, and the key connection is “glory” (doxa). The quoted passages are from Isaiah 53:1 and 6:10, respectively, and the quoted wording is not otherwise notable. But if one reads each passage in Greek, light bulbs start turning on. In the Greek of Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the “servant” is “glorified,” but his “glory” is rejected (versus Hebrew “lifted up” and “form”); and in the Greek of Isaiah 6:1, the Lord’s “glory” fills heaven (versus Hebrew “train of his robe”). John taps into both “glory” connections in Greek to express what Isaiah “saw” in each scene: namely, the suffering-doxa and heavenly-doxa of the Son of God.

Sticking with Isaiah, another intriguing example is Isaiah 65:17–22, the grand vision for the new heavens and new earth. When the heavenly Jerusalem comes, death will be defeated and God’s people will rest secure. The Greek tradition includes a reference to the “tree of life” (65:22) — a rare mention of this Edenic plant — where the Hebrew reads only “tree.” This detail may to some degree influence the appearance of this same “tree of life” in Revelation 21:1–22:5 (specifically 22:2), where the author is capturing vividly the fulfillment of Isaiah 65.

Staying in Revelation, the initial vision of the “son of man” (Jesus) in Revelation 1:13–14 is intriguing because his attributes (e.g., hair as white as snow/wool) match those of the “Ancient of Days” in Daniel 7:9–14, where “son of man” first appears. In Revelation, the identity of the son of man seems almost to merge with the Ancient of Days, though in Daniel 7 they are distinct. Intriguingly, this close identification of the two figures already occurs in the older Greek tradition of Daniel 7:13, which has the “son of man” coming “as” the “Ancient of Days” (versus “to” or “before the presence of” in Aramaic). Perhaps such an exegetical tradition had taken root before John’s writing of the Apocalypse.

More examples could be mentioned, but the key point is this: in such cases, the influence of the Greek OT is felt not so much onstage (the wording of a given quotation) but more behind-the-scenes, reflecting the NT authors’ rich and multifaceted engagement with God’s word.

Implication: Students of the NT should strive to be sensitive to how the particular Greek form of the OT could shape an NT author’s argument or narrative at the conceptual level. One way to do this is simply to read the Greek OT (even in translation) regularly when studying OT passages that are instrumental to NT theology.

Septuagint and Scripture

Much more could be said, but the hope is that this brief survey has whetted the reader’s appetite to explore the texts of the Septuagint further (see here or here). It offers an exciting gateway to studying both OT and NT afresh, not only for scholars but for ministers and laypersons too.

Many Christians often ask at this point, “If the apostles sometimes used the Septuagint, does that make it inspired?” A common answer is that a NT quotation of the Greek OT does sanction its wording, even when it deviates from the Hebrew. This answer hits the rocks, however, when NT authors do not always use identical wording for the same OT quotations (e.g., Isaiah 6:9–10 in Matthew 13:14–15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:39–40; Acts 28:25–27), making it hard to say which wording is “sanctioned.”

A better answer is this: the Jewish community and early Christians clearly privileged the Hebrew text as the locus of inspiration. However, there were no efforts (then or now) at linguistic Judaizing, whereby new converts would be forced to learn Hebrew to access Scripture. The Greek OT in its varied forms was seen as more than adequate as a translation of the word of God to reach a Greek-speaking world, and the apostles used it accordingly. Does this mean that apostolic use of the Greek OT where it appears to deviate from the Hebrew is an exercise in building theology off a faulty translation? Not at all — it simply means the NT writers felt that the Greek “pew Bible” (in modern terminology) familiar to their readers faithfully captured the theological intent of God-given words, so they used it accordingly.

Studying the Septuagint, if nothing else, is an illuminating exercise in tracing God’s faithfulness in using his word to motivate and sustain the early church in proclaiming Christ from the Scriptures to the ends of the earth (Luke 24:44–47).

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14835147/how-do-we-learn-christ

If an old-time preacher, one who believed in uncomfortable realities like the wrath of God, human depravity, and divine judgment, rode his horse through some of the streets of American Christianity, what might he experience?

Sounding the alarm as Paul Revere, this watchman might gallop down our paved roads yelling,

“Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming! Make way for the King! Repent and believe! Stay awake! Keep the faith! Only those who endure to the end will be saved! Put the flesh to death by the Spirit! Obey him! Finish the race! Look to Jesus! Trust him for his grace! He is coming to judge the world in righteousness!”

To his delight, a good number would trim (or would have already trimmed) their lamps. These already live looking out the window — trusting, praying, fellowshipping, killing sin, living awake — ready for their Master to return.

But to his amazement, some voices would shoot back from dimmed rooms:

“You must be lost, dear sir. We are Christians. You must have meant to stir up the next town of Never-Heard or perhaps Secular City down the way.”

“Good works,” laughs another. “Why, good sir, do not tell me you are Roman. ‘By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight’ (Romans 3:20). Our faith justifies, we will not quiver as though our doings made us right with God.”

“Forgive me,” the preacher says, taken aback. “I did not mean to have you rise and live and work to earn salvation — it cannot be done and cursed are all who try. I meant rise with your new nature, new affections, new allegiances, new Spirit, and new commandments, live and stay alert with holy urgency. Walk the narrow way, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Strive for the holiness without which we cannot see the Lord. Confirm your calling and election.”

“Yes. Yes. We have heard of your kind before,” remarks the first. “More emphasis on our works than Christ’s. Listen here, Christ lived a perfect life for me and died in my place. I have failed, will fail — and often fail — but Christ, sir, Christ lived such a life in my place. I refuse to return to law. I am gospel-centered, you see.”

“Oh, sir,” adds the second, “now I know you to be trouble. What is this talk of wrath and judgment? We are Christians. All these warnings, threats, exhortations, admonishments come to my ears as the fearmongerings of a legal religion. No condemnation is mine in Christ. I wish you a speedy return to Heretics Highway.”

With that, before another word could be spoken, several windows might shut, otherwise their snores would soon become audible from the street.

Are the Warnings for Me?

The above account, albeit exaggerated, captures the instinct of some professing Christians today when they come across the imperatives and the warnings of Scripture.

Some self-professed “gospel-centered” Christian teaching leaves little room for discussing our efforts and actions besides repeating that they do not justify; sees Christian living as an almost irrelevant holding cell before heaven; understands justification as the totality of salvation; has little-to-no category for conditional divine promises; and holds dismissive ideas about the warnings and commandments of Scripture.

“Once saved always saved,” they say in defense. “Jesus obeyed so I do not have to.” When they stumble across an imperative or warning, they dismiss it as yet another gospel-reminder — “Of course I could never cut off my hand of lust, or live a self-disciplined, pure, humble, hospitable, forgiving, or faithful life — but thank God Jesus did all that for me.” However, true cross-centeredness takes up all the aims of the cross: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).

“The red ink falling from the cross did not redact the imperatives or cautions of the New Testament for believers.”

Now, thank God that Jesus has lived the life we could not live, and died the death we should have died, and rose again from the grave in victory — the heart of our faith. But the red ink falling from the cross did not redact the imperatives or cautions of the New Testament for believers. The cross does not silence its Lord.

God, from the beginning, has graciously warned his people of the hidden and inevitable consequences of their rebellion. Beginning in the garden, he spoke to the sinless man, “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). When he commands and warns us in the New Testament, do we listen?

Passing over Verses

Let’s take, for example, the cohabitating realities of justification by faith alone and a living warning of hell bound up together in Romans 8.

First, the treasured language of justification of Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” For the true believer, joined to Christ by faith: zero condemnation right now because of what Jesus has accomplished. We stand “not guilty” in the courtroom — and more than that, declared righteous through faith (Romans 3:28). Because of a work done outside of us yet applied to us, all our sins are forgiven, our guilt taken, no condemnation.

Some, then, take this promise, this glory, and infer that they are safe, already in heaven, with essentially nothing required of them until Jesus returns. Nothing but sunny skies ahead. But such forecast changes just a few verses later: “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).

Huh?

“If we live according to the flesh, we will die, no matter what we profess about justification.”

After telling them (and us) no condemnation exists in Christ, the apostle Paul tells them — the same group he addressed in Romans 8:1 — that if we live according to the flesh, we will die, no matter what we profess about justification. Does our gospel-centeredness mute this warning? Do we skip over these verses? We shouldn’t.

To Professing Christians

Again, Paul warns, “Professing Christian, if you do not put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, you will surely die” — meaning, the eternal death of conscious punishment in hell. The true belief that no condemnation remains for them right now in Christ did not negate the true warning right now against living in sin.

Now note, for those wondering about assurance, Paul also will soon remind us that all the truly justified (the same ones who persevere in killing their sin by the Spirit) — will be glorified. “Those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). And by the end of the chapter, he exclaims that nothing in all the universe can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:37–39).

So which is it? Do I believe I am free from condemnation, or do I fear the possibility of condemnation? Both.

Contemplating Life Apart from Christ

We believe in the assurance Christ offers, and we fear turning from him, being lured away by the flesh, the devil, and the world. God issues real warnings about hell to keep us from that very hell. They serve as real (not hypothetical) means God uses for our perseverance.

God promises and God warns — carrot and stick — to bring us home to himself safely. His “precious and very great promises” sing us to unseen realms where his glory dwells, while his thunder shakes us from earthly temptations toward suicidal pleasures. All of his sheep will make it home treasuring both his promises (Romans 8:1) and his warnings (Romans 8:13).

And God promised this long ago:

They shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:38–40)

The fear of God is a new-covenant adhesive to keep us near God. Israel did not have this fear; a fear that fastens when temptation comes. Such dread is unlike fearing an abusive father, a violent fear sending us cowering away. The Christian’s fear draws him ever to Christ in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:22). Christ will find us at peace at his return (2 Peter 3:14). In Christ, we know that God won’t renege his covenant, nor do we look over our shoulder waiting for unexpected blows.

The fear soberly considers life outside of Christ, weighs the real consequences of jumping from the ark into God’s waves of judgment — and trembles.

Delight to Fear

Such faith believes that if we deny Christ, Christ will deny us (2 Timothy 2:12); if we forsake God’s kindness, we will be cut off (Romans 11:20–22); if we sow to corruption, we will reap corruption (Galatians 6:7–8); if we pamper our right eye of lust, we will be thrown into hell (Matthew 5:29); if we do not hold our original confidence to the end, we will be lost (Hebrews 3:12–14); if we continue sinning deliberately, no sacrifice for our sins remains (Hebrews 10:26–27); if we live according to the flesh, we will die (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:19–21).

This faith takes hold of the promises that woo us to Christ, and gladly receives the warnings that shout to our souls, Do not leave him!

The new-covenant warnings are not washed away by the blood of Christ. The new-covenant people of God are those that fear him forever, with the fear of faith, for their good. Like Nehemiah, they “delight” to fear God’s name (Nehemiah 1:11) and believe, with gratitude, the cautions he gives about falling from him. They mind his warnings and rest in his promises. They love his word, serve his people, and cherish his likeness. They sing, “No condemnation in Christ,” and cry, “Flee from the wrath to come.”

Audio Transcript

We’ve talked a lot about Bible-study principles on the podcast — specifically, arcing: the practice of breaking down a paragraph in the Bible to its individual statements, its propositions, to determine how those propositions relate to one another logically, so we can see for ourselves the main point of a text. It’s a powerful way to employ discourse analysis. We talked about this back in episode 1056. But in that episode, you only used examples from Paul’s epistles. And I think the epistles are rather intuitive for arcing. But Nicholas in Ontario, Canada — who is, I gather, a pastor — writes in to ask about narrative texts.

“Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for your tireless work on this podcast. It is such a blessing to have these concise and thoughtful responses to the perennial questions of life. I am currently listening on Audible to your book Reading the Bible Supernaturally. It has been such a wonderful refresher on why to read the Bible and how to focus my reading and study for personal devotion and sermon prep. Thank you. My question is regarding narratives. You make the point that your revolution in reading came when you discovered that the Bible’s authors were making arguments and that tracing those arguments well was key to understanding the author, and thus God’s intention in the word. I see how this applies to the epistles of the New Testament and even wisdom literature. But what about narratives? My church is currently preaching through Luke, and while there is indeed structure, how do you ‘arc out’ a narrative? Are there different keys you look for? Are there specific transitions, markers, or triggers you are looking for in the narrative texts?”

Seeing What an Author Is Saying

Well, let me see if I can get everybody up to speed with what he’s asking. I put a huge emphasis on following an author’s train of thought in order to find his true intention. And I do believe that the most fundamental goal of reading is to discover the author’s intention, what he wants to communicate. Now, there may be other good effects of reading besides that discovery. You might just find entertainment, for example. But without pursuing this foundational effect of finding an author’s intention, we’re being discourteous, and we’re treating authors the way we don’t like to be treated when we try to communicate something and somebody says, “I don’t really care what you’re trying to communicate. I’m going to take your words to mean this or that.”

“Without pursuing this foundational effect of finding an author’s intention, we’re being discourteous.”

And in the process, we’re going to lose a great opportunity for growing. If we don’t care about finding what another person has discovered in reality, and we’re just going to read our own ideas in, we’re not going to grow. And 2 Peter 3:18 says, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” So, I argue that one essential means of pursuing that goal of finding an author’s intention and growing in knowledge and grace is to carefully trace an author’s argument.

And by argument, I don’t mean quarrel. I know that sometimes people use the word argument differently than I do. I mean a sequence of thought that builds from foundations to conclusions. For example, Romans 1:15–17 goes like this. (There are going to be three becauses.)

I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Because I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. . . . Because in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

I read my Bible for two decades before I discovered that’s the way Paul wrote. So there are four massively important statements here, right? And my point is that you can’t understand Paul’s intention, what he’s trying to communicate, unless you understand the logical relationships between those four statements. And Paul signals, loud and clear, those relationships by using the word because three times. He’s building an argument from foundations to conclusions.

Clues in the Narrative

Now, Nicholas’s question is how that detailed, rigorous focus on the logical relationships between particular statements relates to the interpretation of big sections of narrative in the Bible or story in the Bible. And he could expand it out and ask, “How does it relate to poetry and parable and so on?” Events that are woven together in a certain way — that’s what I mean by narrative. Should we seek the author’s intention in the same way?

And my answer is this: In principle, yes. But in the details of how the author signals his intention, we’re going to have to watch for other things than simply one proposition following another proposition with a logical connector in between. Stories don’t work like that. But biblical authors write stories for a reason. They are trying to communicate something to us. They want us to find it.

I remember when I wrote Reading the Bible Supernaturally, which he referred to, I was just blown away by this. I saw this really for the first time. One of Jesus’s main criticisms of the Pharisees was that he said they didn’t know how to read. I mean, it must absolutely have galled them. I mean, they were the readers, right? Over and over he says, “Have you not read? . . . Have you not read?” (Matthew 12:3; 19:4; 22:31). And they’re scratching their heads and saying, “All we do is read!” Of course they read. So what does he mean? He means they were reading and not reading, seeing and not seeing.

“Biblical authors write stories for a reason. They are trying to communicate something to us. They want us to find it.”

In other words, there are real intentions that the inspired authors communicate — in this case, the Old Testament authors that the Pharisees read every day — whether through careful, sentence-by-sentence exposition, or whether through poetry, or whether through narrative, and those Pharisees weren’t seeing it at all. That’s what Jesus was upset about.

So yes, we should look for an author’s intention in all writing — all writing that’s worth its salt. And yes, we should look for whatever clues the author gives us, and all good authors do give clues to help us find what he’s trying to communicate. Those clues with regard to narrative might be repetitions, or the order of events, or what the dialogues actually say, or the effects of certain events, or actual inserted interpretive comments by the author, and so on.

Joseph and the Story of Many Layers

So let me just give a few illustrations from one of the best stories in the Old Testament. I’m thinking of Joseph now in Genesis 37–50. Some regard this as one of the best short stories that’s ever been written, if you want to put it in those categories. It’s an absolutely riveting story, and you wonder, What in the world is going on here? Where is this going, this story?

There are fourteen whole chapters about Joseph’s dreams, the hatred of his brothers, their selling him into slavery, his fall further and further into misery as Potiphar’s wife lies about him — and then he goes to prison, and he’s forgotten in prison. And then he becomes the second-ranked ruler in Egypt, and the people of God are saved from starvation in the famine, and the line of the Messiah is preserved. Oh, that’s what was going on!

And there are numerous layers of intentions in this writing. I want to get it out of people’s minds that when you read a narrative, you get the big picture or get the one big point. Well, yes, by all means, get the one big point. It may govern all the others, but there are a lot of little points that authors make along the way.

The Bible in Parable

So let’s start with the big picture of this story. I think Moses wrote Genesis, and he does not leave us wondering about the big overarching intention of the story. He fills us in with a couple of very clear, pointed summary statements of what he’s been talking about. For example, Joseph says in Genesis 45:7–8,

God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here [even though you sold me into slavery!], but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

In other words, all these apparently human events that we’ve been reading about for fourteen chapters, even the sinful ones, were in the control of the sovereign God, who is sending his emissary through sinful actions down to Egypt to save his people. That’s crazy. That’s wonderful. That’s almost the meaning of the Bible in parable.

And then in Genesis 50:20, Joseph says to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.” I think when you read that, you almost have to go back and reread the story, because now you get it. Now you say, “Oh, that’s where it was all going.” And you can reread the story and say with that clue in your mind, “This meant that, and this was going here.” You see God’s hand more immediately.

So, the big point is that the human sinfulness of God’s people or human sinfulness against God’s people not only do not thwart his saving plans, but they advance his saving plans. They are part of the plans of God to save his people and finally bring his Messiah into the world through that line. So that’s the big picture. And he clues us in with hints all along the way and with that big explanatory statement at the end.

‘The Lord Was with Him’

But there are other clues of meaning and layers of meaning besides the big interpretive statement at the end. Along the way, Moses mingles worsening circumstances with encouraging words. Joseph is thrown into the pit. He’s sold as a slave. He’s far from home in Egypt. He’s lied about by Potiphar’s wife. He’s forgotten in prison. Down, down, down, down — you can graph this story, and it corresponds to many of our lives. I’ve done this for our people. I graph it and say, “Where are you on this horribly descending graph of miserable circumstances in your life?” And he comes to the end, and then he seems to be forgotten by God. What in the world? It’s supposed to sound that way.

But along the way, Moses says things like, “The Lord was with him and . . . the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands” (Genesis 39:3). Or again, “The Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison” (Genesis 39:21). We get these hints along the way that even though things are getting worse for Joseph, it’s not because of his sinfulness. He’s not bringing this on himself. It’s not because he’s been abandoned by God — but because of God’s hidden purpose. And as we read, we want to know, What’s the purpose? What’s the purpose? God, you say you’re for him; you don’t look like you’re for him.

Story Within a Story

One more illustration of how the author gets across his intention, and this is one of the most perplexing things to me in the whole story. Chapter 38 totally, it seems, interrupts the flow of the story. The Joseph story begins in chapter 37 with the dreams and the selling into slavery in Egypt, and — bang! — Moses inserts chapter 38 as soon as the big story starts, and it is so extraneous. It tells this bizarre story about Judah, Joseph’s older brother, who winds up getting his daughter-in-law pregnant, thinking she’s a prostitute. Now whatever else is going on here, my question is, Moses, why here? I mean, put that chapter before chapter 37. Let the story flow. What’s the point of interrupting the narrative with this chapter 38?

Well, here’s my suggestion, and I would love to know whether it’s right or not. The very next thing after that horrible immorality of Judah in chapter 38 — the very next thing we read about in Joseph’s story — is Joseph’s incredible uprightness in sexual relations with Potiphar’s wife, who tries to seduce him. And Moses records his words: “How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). So, I think the ordering of the narrative with the insertion of Judah’s sexual immorality just before Joseph’s staggeringly effective and beautiful sexual morality is to underline in bright colors the difference between Judah’s unfaithfulness and Joseph’s amazing sexual uprightness, which simply goes to show that there can be main points to narratives and lots of sub-points to narratives that we should be alert to.

Keep Looking

So, in answer to Nicholas’s question: whether we are reading a tightly argued epistle of Paul or a sweeping narrative across fourteen chapters, we’re always looking for what the author intends to communicate. And we look for the kinds of clues that he gives us, whether in exposition or in narration, to help us find the intention.

I would just say to Nicholas that the more you read — the more I read — with that aim of spotting those tips and pointers that authors give us, the more you’re going to see.

The end to which all church order, on the Puritan view, was a means, and for which everything superstitious, misleading, and Spirit-quenching must be rooted out, was the glory of God in and through the salvation of sinners and the building up of lively congregations in which people met God.

I have read sentences I can’t escape — and I don’t want to escape them. They have helped me in deep and lasting ways. I thank the Lord.

For example, in What Is an Evangelical?, Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “Every institution tends to produce its opposite” (4). Decades later, that sentence still arrests my attention.

What is an institution? An institution is a social mechanism for making a desirable experience easily repeatable. Our church services are an institution. And it’s a good thing. What if we had to reinvent the ministry from scratch every Sunday? But a life-giving institution can drift into life-depleting institutionalization. That happens when the institutional delivery system itself becomes the goal, the end, the idol. Then undesirable experiences become absolutized and perpetuated.

And that horrible betrayal is not a distant hypothetical possibility. Every institution tends to produce its opposite. Haven’t we all seen evidence of this tendency in a church?

“A life-giving institution can drift into life-depleting institutionalization.”

Let’s keep our finger on the pulse of our churches, and keep realigning with reformation and revival. And for those of us who are pastors — who gave us the right to preside over dead and deadening religious institutionalization? Authentic Christianity is a revival movement. As long as the book of Acts remains in the Bible, which we ourselves call our final authority, we have every right in Christ to keep reaching for renewal in our churches.

His Work in His Way

Another sentence that is never far from my mind came from Francis Schaeffer in No Little People: “We must do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way” (74). I believe this is the defining issue in our generation, and in every generation.

If we serve the Lord out of our own strengths, out of our own cool, even out of our own postmodern ironic self-mockery, we are not serving the Lord. We are insulting the Lord, while we flatter ourselves that we are serving the Lord. But if we will turn and humble ourselves, doing the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way, and in his way only, then the Lord himself will enter into our work with his glorious power.

It is wonderful when the Lord blesses the work of our hands. But it is altogether more wonderful when the Lord takes up the work in his own hands. The difference is publicly obvious. The glory of Christ will compel the attention of our world.

First Upheaval, Then Glory

The sentence I want to talk about most, however, follows the trajectory set by those first two sentences. In his book about the Puritan movement, A Quest for Godliness, J.I. Packer writes,

The end to which all church order, on the Puritan view, was a means, and for which everything superstitious, misleading, and Spirit-quenching must be rooted out, was the glory of God in and through the salvation of sinners and the building up of lively congregations in which people met God. (39)

What a compelling vision for ministry priorities and pastoral courage! Packer’s bold sentence reminds me of Isaiah 40:3–5, where we read,

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,     make straight in the desert a highway for our God.Every valley shall be lifted up,     and every mountain and hill be made low;the uneven ground shall become level,     and the rough places a plain.And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,     and all flesh shall see it together,     for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

The logic of Isaiah’s prophecy can be summed up like this: “First some preparing, some rearranging, even some upheaval, and then the glory of the Lord will be revealed.” This world is not ready for the glory of the Lord. Too many of our churches are not ready for his glory.

The barriers against the historic display of his glory are firmly established in the trendy distractions of the world and in the dull routines of our churches. The only one fully ready for the display of Christ’s glory is Christ himself. Packer understood that. He understood that, for our churches to become filled with the felt presence and power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, “everything superstitious, misleading, and Spirit-quenching must be rooted out.”

Pastor, have you accepted this prophetic call?

Would We Long for Less?

Yes, there are foolish and reckless ways to pursue this sacred purpose in a church.

It remains true, however, that every mountain of life-depleting institutionalization must be made low. It remains true that every valley of brokenhearted despair must be lifted up. It remains true that the Lord’s work must be done in the Lord’s way — by humble and constant prayer, by honest confession of sin and need, by living power coming down upon us from on high. And then the glory of the Lord will appear, more and more clearly, in this generation and the next. Would we dare settle for less?

“Pastor, God is patient. You can be patient too. Just be graciously unstoppable.”

As we pastors take these convictions to heart and redirect our steps to press forward, some wisdom from my dad can help. Dad used to say about pastoral leadership, “One step ahead of your people, and you’re a leader. Two steps ahead, and you’re a visionary. Three steps ahead, and you’re a martyr!” So the way of wisdom is deliberately to stay only one step, or maybe two, out ahead. After all, God is patient. You can be patient too. Just be graciously unstoppable.

Our Call Is Clear

With winsome persuasion from your open Bible, keep leading and guiding your church forward in this high, holy, joyous direction: the glory of God in and through the salvation of sinners and the building up of a lively congregation in which people meet God. What more could you hope for? It’s worth praying for. It’s worth working toward. It is worthy of your long-haul best. And it sure beats settling for a church that’s comfortably numb, with you picking up a monthly paycheck and holding out until retirement, don’t you think?

Yes, pastor, the obstacles are real. I know that. But I also know that your call is clear. And I know that God’s faithfulness, which has carried me all these years, will carry you too. So let this sentence from our friend J.I. Packer put a new heart in you! The Lord himself will be with you.

Earnestness in our day is becoming all the more admirable for being rare. The age of scrolling, skimming, and lol’ing, by and large, has made us a lighter, more superficial, more fragile people. Many of us have slowly developed an allergy to seriousness. Our hearts faint too easily.

The bright lives of a few, though, pierce through this spiritual fog, and sparkle with a reality that has grown dim for many. Their words, their priorities, their responses repeatedly reveal that Christ has captured their fuller devotion. They delight to sacrifice and serve when others would groan and make excuses. They seem stronger in the face of adversity, kinder in the midst of conflict, more joyful than others, even in suffering. They have a focus that eludes the stressed and distracted. We’re drawn to them (and perhaps sometimes intimidated by them), because their lives remind us of what really matters, of the world that exists below the surface of our senses, of the spiritual war for our souls. Time with them stimulates us to pray more, love more, and grow more.

These saints have many qualities in common, but one is that, in the words of 2 Corinthians 8:7, they excel in earnestness.

Slothful in Zeal

Christian earnestness is a settled and joy-filled intensity toward God. As Hebrews 6:11–12 says,

We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Earnestness is the opposite of spiritual dullness, laziness, apathy, complacency. Like all believers, the earnest experience seasons of doubt and struggle and discouragement, but even then (maybe especially then), the flame of their faith burns warmer and brighter than expected.

“The daily fight for faith is often fought in the trenches of our own dullness.”

Where else is this spiritual fire mentioned? The apostle Paul exhorts us, “Do not be slothful in zeal” — same word — “be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Romans 12:11). That verse alone calls for some serious reflection and prayer. How often have we felt slothful in zeal? How often have we felt spiritually aflame? And how comfortable have many of us grown with our persistent sluggishness? Do we still pray for God to rekindle the fire we once had?

The daily fight for faith is often fought in the trenches of our own dullness. Like the mercy that comes every morning, we each need a fresh awakening for the day at hand.

Sinners Set Aflame

This word for earnestness (Greek spoudei) appears most often (four times) in 2 Corinthians 7–8. In these two chapters, the apostle outlines the deadly difference between godly grief over sin and ungodly grief. “Godly grief,” he says, “produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

The Corinthians had been neglecting to discipline those who had sought to discredit and ruin Paul, so when he wrote his previous (and painful) letter (see 2 Corinthians 2:2), he meant for his words to grieve them. But he wanted them to experience a godly grief, a repentant grief, a hopeful grief, a grief that leads to salvation — not the shallow, self-centered sorrow so many, even atheists, often feel over the consequences of sin. What did the apostle want to happen in them as they were confronted with their sin?

Although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 7:12)

As you prepare to stand before God, Paul says, I want you to see your own earnestness in his eyes. I want you to savor the spiritual fire my letter has sparked in you.

And the Corinthians did grieve well. Paul affirms them, “See what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal” (2 Corinthians 7:11). As they were confronted with their sin, they not only acknowledged it, and repented of it, but they were also filled with a fresh, sobered, active sense of reality. Serious conviction before God birthed a more serious devotion to God and a more serious love for others.

Notice that this awakening, this earnestness, was seeded by a hard word from Paul. Rebuke, as unpleasant as it may feel in the moment, is often an invitation from God into greater spiritual sanity and vitality. And yet, too often, we instead wallow in self-pity, miss the invitation, and forfeit the fire we might have experienced.

Growing in Earnestness

That the Corinthians lacked earnestness and then grew to excel in it means that, however spiritually sluggish we feel, we too can grow in earnestness. What might it look like to pursue earnestness? The word appears again in 2 Peter 1:3–8 — “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,” and so on. One might say, “With all earnestness, supplement your faith with virtue . . .” In these verses, Peter gives us windows into what sets the earnest apart.

The earnest consistently live and build on a firmer foundation, with higher and more Godward priorities, while drawing on a wealth of resources so few learn to access.

Foundations of Earnestness

First, the earnest are unusually secure and settled, because they live and build on a firmer foundation. Peter writes, “[God has] called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort . . .” (2 Peter 1:3–4). Notice the convictions that fuel this earnestness:

God himself has called us to his glory and excellence.
God has granted us all of his precious and very great promises.
God has made us partakers of the divine nature — by his Spirit, he now lives in us and conforms us to himself.
God has delivered us from the corruption of this world.

Active awakeness to these realities produces gravity and freedom in a soul. They form a foundation underneath a person that keeps him or her from being tossed to and fro by circumstances. They steady and anchor our faith so that we can see more clearly and act more decisively in love.

“Christian earnestness is a settled and joy-filled intensity toward God.”

Part of pursuing earnestness is assessing the ground beneath our feet. Are we really building our lives and ministries on the rocks God has laid before us in Christ? Are we finding our footing, morning by morning, upon the most important realities in the world, or have we become preoccupied with everything else?

Directions of Earnestness

In addition to security and stability, though, souls need direction. If the earnest make every effort, where does all that effort go? Many work hard, with unfettered passion, until they’re burnt out, but in all the wrong directions. The joy-filled intensity of godly earnestness, however, aligns its effort with the priorities of heaven.

Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5–8)

Part of what sets the earnest apart is found in how they spend themselves. They devote themselves to spiritual concerns and opportunities over worldly ones — and they delight to do so.

The earnest have not fallen in love with this present world (2 Timothy 4:10), and so they refuse to pour their best energies into the passing parts of this life that feel so pressing. They seek truth like silver. They want, with God’s help, to master their cravings and impulses. They treasure godliness above anything they might achieve. They’re not content to love only a little, but want their love to “abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9).

Wells of Earnestness

As the earnest make every effort toward faith, toward steadfastness, toward holiness, toward love, they do not rely on their own strength. They carry more than most longer than most precisely because they endure in the strength and grace of another. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:3).

When it comes to life and godliness, we are helpless on our own. Jesus says, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If we really believed those seven words, they would solve an enormous amount of dysfunction in our hearts and relationships. But God did not leave us to ourselves. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” Through faith, God takes our nothing — our utter inability to think, feel, and act in ways that glorify him — and he gives us all things in Christ.

The earnest make their homes beside these wells. They know that heaven’s storehouses of strength, wisdom, courage, and love are only a prayer away. They draw constantly from the precious, great, and specific promises of God. His strength makes them look strong, but only because they know themselves weak without him.

Make Every Effort

Among those you know, who seems to live closest to Jesus? Whose life consistently pierces through the worldliness around you and shines with a supernatural quality? Whose words and actions are marked by both urgency and patience, ambition and humility, hunger and contentment? Whose conversations stimulate you to pray and love and grow more?

Make every effort to study, befriend, and imitate such saints. Their lives are a priceless testimony and reminder, and their camaraderie invaluable, in our shallow and distracted age. Disrupt any comfort you feel with your own sluggishness. Ask God for the grace to excel in earnestness.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14830404/what-happens-to-desires-without-god

The world makes its quiet but furious war against death, groping to live forever. Plastic surgery, obsessive fitness, compulsive dieting, pouring billions into scientific research searching for the holy grail of immortality. The author of Hebrews describes the condition as a lifelong slavery to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15).

Try as we may, Adam’s and Eve’s children cannot shake the ancient nightmare.

[God] drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)

Humanity, east of Eden, still reaches out in vain for that Tree of Life.

Curing Death

How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that a man had cured death? How many ages would pass celebrating the discovery? But as it stands, these same people bypass the knowledge of a true eternity because it is not the eternity they invented.

“How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that man had cured death?”

God has placed in us a sense that life continues after death: “[God] has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Yet most suppress this knowledge of their own immortality. But why?

Because they “did not see fit to acknowledge God” (Romans 1:28) — the God “who inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15). They disavow the truth their hearts would thrill to believe because they do not approve of any eternity with God. Better to steal happy moments from a broken and fleeting mortality, their dead hearts reason, than submerge in an endless existence with the God they disapprove.

Immortal Beings

All men, we know, shall live forever. We trust and love the eternal God, we believe in the resurrection from the dead, we believe Jesus’s promise of eternal life with him. And we know the everlasting fate of the wicked: “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

Eternity exists, we believe, and all men are immortal. The souls we come in contact with at the ballgame, in the restaurant, walking the dog — shall be a million years from now. The mailman, the bus driver, the nosy neighbor — immortal beings. The most decrepit among us shall outlive the galaxy.

“The most decrepit among us shall outlive the galaxy.”

Even considering those who have gone before us — the deceased grandfather, the fallen child, the departed spouse — though hidden momentarily from our eyes, we know they are and shall be again. Death, we profess, is the Great Interruption, not the Great End.

Falling Leaf

While we say we believe in undying souls (a truth that the world would go delirious to acknowledge), do we give that momentous reality much thought? Does that eternal weight of glory hold much weight with us? Has it changed your week at all?

How many of us have believed upon eternity, as John Foster lamented, in vain?

The very consciousness that your minds have been capable of admitting and dismissing this subject [eternity] without a prolonged and serious emotion, ought to produce at last that seriousness, by means of wonder and alarm, which may well be awakened by the consideration how many years you have believed this truth in vain. (An Essay on the Improvement of Time, 150–151)

How many years have I believed in eternity without much effect? And not just any eternity, but eternity with the Blessed God? Eternity with Jesus Christ? How many of my waking moments of these short and numbered days have orbited around the ceaseless “day of eternity” (2 Peter 3:18)? If in Christ I have hope in this life only, do I really feel myself of all people most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19)?

How this world deceives me. The sturdy tree and its branches I call “this life”; the falling leaf I call, “eternity.”

Forgotten Forever

With one glance of the mind, I realize my madness. Who at sea would give all his affection and thought to a day’s trip onboard, completely disregarding the inescapable land ahead? I forget that “Surely a man goes about as a shadow!” (Psalm 39:6) as a dream (Psalm 78:18–20), as a flower that fades, as grass that withers (Isaiah 40:6–8), as a mere mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (James 4:14). This world, O my soul remember, “is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

I hope you have kept eternity closer at hand than I have.

Have you, Christian — possessor of the mightiest revelations, steward of sacred knowledge, keepers of the way of eternity — appropriated these truths for yourself and distributed them freely to a desperate and decaying world? Has forever bent down with you as you changed diapers? Has it drove with you to work? Has it laughed along while you had a game night with neighbors?

Has “everlasting” brought you low to plead in prayer for your children, your church, your city? Has that terrifying splendor, “immortality,” lifted your gaze from this painted and perishing kingdom to the one that cannot be shaken?

Has eternity provided you an anchor in suffering? Sent you along on a grand mission? Warned you against friendship with Here and Now? Bestowed solemnity to life? Brightened up gloomy days? Infused courage to venture on in Christ? Showed you the coming tsunami that will wash away all these splendid sandcastles? Endowed acquaintances with new significance? Lifted our eyes with abiding gratitude to God? Equipped us to drive a spear through sin?

Have you believed in eternity in vain?

Tree of Life

We must awake to the coming world without end. We are those who look “not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

People all around us live and die for the seen, the felt, the tasted, the pleasurable, the transient. But God has left you and me here to speak, to reason, to plead with immortal souls that they be reconciled to God.

Through faith in Christ, we have reached our hands out to a Tree of Life on Golgotha’s hill, and we will taste of that fruit denied to our first parents:

To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:7)

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 22:14)

This tree is within reach because Jesus Christ — the Resurrection and the Life — has drawn near to us. He promises, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die,” and asks the pertinent question, “Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26).

God give us grace to believe, and to make sure our friends know, our families know, our children know, that eternity is only a short time away.

Audio Transcript

Are the pressures in my life making me more holy or more unholy? And how would I know? This is such a great question. A lot of our emails come from Christians who are feeling extra pressure in life. That is true today in an email from a young mom named Victoria, who is facing the challenges of raising little ones. “Hello, Pastor John,” she writes. “Since becoming a mom, I have found myself battling sin like never before. New sins that I never recall struggling with are popping up, seemingly out of nowhere, especially in this season with a 2-year-old and a newborn. My desire is to be a wife and mother to the glory of God, but I feel I have never been further away from this goal. Are these new pressures of motherhood sanctifying me or making me more unholy? And how can I tell the difference? Because I often feel as though I am becoming more unholy by them.”

This is a tremendously important question because it gets at a reality of sanctification that is often overlooked — namely, that pride and various forms of that sin can lie latent, unseen in the forgiven, Spirit-indwelt Christian, often giving the impression to the Christian himself and to others that we are more holy than we are.

I picture Christians in this condition like a glass of water. While the glass of water is very still, sitting on the counter, the sediment of pride and other sins can lie unnoticed at the bottom of the glass. So the water is clear and seems cleaner than it really is. But if you bump the glass — and that bumping corresponds to the pressures of motherhood, for example — then the sediment of pride and sin is stirred up and shows itself in attitudes and words and actions that show that the glass of water isn’t as clean as we thought it was. It’s more sinful than we thought.

“God exposes the remnants of pride and sin in our lives so that we see ourselves more clearly and repent more deeply.”

Now, that is a very important reality to come to terms with as a Christian. And this question forces us to come to terms with it — all of us, not just moms. So, I’m very glad for the question, even though it’s painful for us to talk about this, because, at least for me, I don’t like it when circumstances bump my glass and bring out the worst in me.

Let me just state briefly seven biblical observations that give the foundation for this understanding of sanctification and how we should respond to it.

1. God purifies his people through trials.

First, God teaches us in his word that the pressures of motherhood — or pastoring, or any other kind of trouble or pressure, small or great — are designed by God for the purifying of his people.

For a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6–7)

The pressures of motherhood are like a fire designed not to consume but to refine the gold of the mother’s faith.

[God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:10–11)

That’s the goal of all painful or pressured circumstances in the Christian life: the peaceful fruit of righteousness, the gold of godliness refined.

2. Trials cause some to fall away.

Tribulations and pressures drive some Christians away from the faith forever. Jesus said in the parable of the soils,

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word [the glass is bumped], immediately he falls away. (Matthew 13:20–21)

3. God keeps every Christian.

God will not let his children, his elect, fall away. He will not let us be tested beyond the grace he gives us to stand (1 Corinthians 10:13). Or as it says in 1 Corinthians 1:8–9, he “will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son.”

Or Romans 8:30: “Those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he glorified.” If he called you, he will keep you.

4. We may not be as godly as we think.

The story of Job shows that some of the most godly people have latent pride in their heart that certain pressures and troubles will reveal. The book of Job starts like this: “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1).

So, Job really was a good, godly, faithful man. He did not live in a way that brought down any blame on his actions. But then came the trials. At first, Job’s response was as good as it gets. In submission, in humility, in trust, he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). But later it was more than he could bear, and he got angry at God. He said things like, “Why do you . . . count me as your enemy?” (Job 13:24). God wasn’t Job’s enemy. He wasn’t. This beautiful glass of water had now become cloudy. Job was not perfect.

And the result of Job’s glass of water becoming cloudy with pride and anger at God was this: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6). This is repentance when the glass is bumped and the sediment is stirred up that nobody knew was there.

5. God exposes pride to lead us to repentance.

This leads to the fifth observation: God exposes the remnants of pride and sin in our lives so that we will do what Job did — see ourselves more clearly and repent more deeply.

6. Our sanctification can feel sluggish.

This means that in the process of sanctification, it often feels like we are going backward. This is what she asks about. Job began so well in chapters 1–2, and later, it wasn’t going so well. He did go backward, at least temporarily. It looked like Job was getting more unholy. So what is the answer to Victoria’s question? She says that the pressures of motherhood are drawing more sin out of her, as far as she can see.

“In the process of sanctification, it often feels like we are going backward.”

So is she becoming more holy by these pressures — or more unholy? And what we’ve seen is that she is standing at a fork in the road. Will the pressures and troubles turn her into a third soil that falls away from Christ and proves she was never a Christian in the first place? Or will she be like Job in the end, which leads to repentance?

7. Fight like a forgiven child of God.

And so my final point, my seventh observation, is an exhortation: Let your pressures and troubles and the apparent increase of sin, which really was there all along, let it all make God’s grace sweeter, and let it make your heart humbler, and let it make your repentance deeper and your warfare against sin more earnest as you fight like a forgiven child of God.