Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Well, how much jewelry is too much jewelry? It’s a question of concern on the podcast because you ask about it. More importantly, it’s a question of concern because it’s a topic of concern in the Bible, specifically in 1 Peter 3:3, a text that has provoked many emails to us over the years on how to limit adornments. Here’s a representative question I pulled out, from a husband and father. “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for this podcast! My wife and I are trying to figure out if it’s good to allow our daughter to wear nail polish. She’s 2 and loves to play dress-up. I don’t want this to become a necessity, but I suppose it’s fine as an expression of her childlike creativity. It’s ultimately a question for my wife as well. She doesn’t wear makeup or jewelry often and I’m happy with that. She does, however, enjoy having her toes painted. Considering 1 Peter 3:3–4, I don’t know many people who argue that all feminine adornments are bad. But clearly some are wrong. Where do we draw that line today?”

Let me start with a general observation and analogy from the New Testament and then talk about some specifics. Consider an analogy between adornment of hair and stylish clothing and use of makeup, on the one hand, and riches and wealth, on the other hand. Here’s the analogy. The New Testament does not call riches and wealth evil in and of themselves, but almost the entire New Testament has a trajectory away from luxury, away from opulence, and toward simplicity, toward a kind of wartime lifestyle that is aware of the dangers of money and the appearance of loving this world more than we love God.

Now the comparison or the analogy is this: the Bible does not call fashion or makeup or hair styling evil in and of itself. But the trajectory of the New Testament is toward simplicity and modesty and inward beauty of character and what you might call undistracting personhood-revealing — as opposed to body-revealing — apparel. That’s my general observation. Now let’s talk a few specifics.

Two Texts on Beauty

It would be good to put in front of us two of the most straightforward texts about a woman’s clothing and adornment and how she presents herself. And there are, as you can see in these texts, clear implications for men as well, but they’re addressed to women.

So, 1 Peter 3:3–4. He’s saying this to wives who are married to unbelieving husbands, probably because of the temptation to use their sexual reality to somehow influence this unbelieving husband. And Peter’s saying,

Do not let your adorning be external — the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear — but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Now here’s 1 Timothy 2:9–10:

[I desire] that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness — with good works.

Now, from these two texts, we can say the following.

Three Principles for Modesty

First, don’t focus more on the external beauty than the internal beauty. “Do not let your adorning be external . . . but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart” (1 Peter 3:3–4). So there’s the great principle for women — and, I would say, obviously for men as well. It’s like bodily exercise. We like to quote this: “While bodily exercise is of some value, godliness is of value in every way” (1 Timothy 4:8). And so outward adornment, you could say, is of little value, and internal adornment is valuable in every way. That’s the first thing we can infer from those texts.

“Don’t focus more on the external beauty than the internal beauty.”

Second, Peter’s and Paul’s restrictions are not meant to be total. And the reason we know that is because right after saying, “Do not let your adorning be . . . the braiding of hair and jewelry,” he says, “Do not let your adorning be . . . the clothing that you wear” (1 Peter 3:3). That does not mean, “Don’t wear clothing.” It means, “Don’t devote your main efforts and concerns to your clothing but to inner beauty.” It doesn’t mean no jewelry or no hairstyles.

Third, the language of Paul in 1 Timothy 2:9–10 about clothing is almost entirely about what is “fitting” or “becoming” or “appropriate” (these are Greek phrases that I made sure I got right):

katastolē kosmiō: “becoming attire”
meta aidous: “with respect for convention or what’s fitting”
mē himatismō . . . polytelei: “not in costly attire, not lavish or gaudy”
prepei gynaixin epangellomenais theosebeian: “as is proper for women who profess godliness”

Now, the implication of these guidelines seems to be this: within an ever-changing, highly corrupt culture then and now, with fringe elements of grunge and gaudy and provocation, focus on what your clothing and adornment and makeup say about you as a person, not you as skin or you as shape. Paul calls this “what is proper for women who profess godliness” (1 Timothy 2:10).

Faithful Femininity

Now, back to the question about the little girl who wants to paint her nails. This brings up the issue — and it’s such a relevant issue — of male and female sexuality and what they are. What’s the difference between male and female? Twenty years ago, we might have felt like we didn’t need to talk about that. Everybody knew what that is. Well, now we need to be alert to the fact that our little girl should grow up with a happy, thoughtful awareness that God made her a girl and not a boy. And our son should grow up with a happy, thoughtful awareness that God made him a boy and not a girl.

So I will unashamedly say we should be happy when our daughter at 2 years old wants to paint her nails, and our son does not want to paint his nails. We should affirm her inclination toward this expression of femininity, and we should discourage our son’s dabbling in this expression of femininity (and there are sensitive ways to do that). And I use the term “expression of femininity” because I’m fully aware that nail polish is a cultural expression, not an innate one. It’s not in her genes that nail polish has to be on her fingernails. Girls aren’t born with painted nails.

But what is innate, God-given innate, is that healthy boys moving toward mature manhood are inclined by God-given nature to embrace culturally appropriate expressions of manhood. And we should help them with this. And healthy girls moving toward mature womanhood are inclined by God-given nature to embrace culturally appropriate expressions of womanhood. And I believe Paul teaches that very thing in 1 Corinthians 11:14. “Does not nature itself teach you?” he says. And he teaches the same in Romans 1, where he says people are acting against nature (Romans 1:21–28).

So I would be thankful that my daughter wants to paint her nails. And I would, along with my wife, train her up in how innocent and utterly insignificant nail polish is to her worth as a person and her influence in the world. We want her to have a worldview such that even if her fingers are all cut off in a machine accident, she would know she can be a beautiful, worthwhile, fruitful person as a believer in Jesus Christ and as the daughter of the King of the universe.

Drawing Eyes Upward

So besides getting our priorities right, besides embracing the goodness of maleness and femaleness, and dressing in ways that are becoming and fitting to our devotion to Christ, and dressing in ways that point to our personhood instead of our body, and besides avoiding the arrogance that seeks to defy convention in shocking ways — besides all that, I would add a special concern here that we raise our daughters and sons not to be sexually provocative.

“The eyes that are drawn to more skin are not drawn to more skin because it’s beautiful, but because it’s more skin.”

Now, that means exposing less skin, not more skin. And it means less tight-fitting leggings and shirts. And if a woman gets upset with me at this point and says, “I don’t need to calculate my clothing according to male sexual temptation” (which is such a common retort if you try to say anything about modesty these days), my response is, “Well, that’s true. You don’t have to calculate your clothing that way. But I would ask you this question (which I think women understand who want to embrace feminine beauty and feminine godliness): Do you believe that beautiful attractiveness is increased by the amount of skin you expose?”

Now, here’s my answer: the eyes that are drawn to more skin are not drawn to more skin because it’s beautiful, but because it’s more skin — period. More skin is not beauty; it’s a magnet. It has nothing to do with beauty. It has everything to do with pure, physical, magnetizing skin. The real test of whether one is beautifully attractive is not how sexy she can be or he can be, because sex and beauty are not at all the same. And a godly woman knows this. She does not want to be a skin magnet. She wants to say with her clothing, “I’m thankful I’m a woman, I love beautiful simplicity, and Christ is my greatest treasure.”

The mother of a first grader asked me if she could have a minute. “I’m concerned about what’s going on in Sunday school.” I asked what she meant. “Last week my son came home and told me you’d been talking about the crucifixion of Jesus.” I nodded. “He told me the whole story.” Children retelling the Bible story to their families was just what we hoped would happen. What could be the problem?

“He cried as he told me,” she went on. “The cross upset him very much.” I wanted to be sympathetic, but I was too thrilled. The whole point of our program was to make the stories come alive for our students. Before I could stop myself, I said, “I wish I would still cry whenever I heard that story.”

Do you ever feel indifference during Holy Week? Perhaps the cross seems more like a formula than an event. A method for dispensing forgiveness rather than a horror our Savior endured for us. As a professional Bible-teller, I experience how detachment can set in during the most sacred of seasons. But I’ve found help in Christina Rossetti’s (1830–94) short poem “Good Friday.”

Impassive as a Stone

The poem, written in 1866, offers the relief of honest realism and an effective remedy for when I no longer connect to the sorrow of this day. Full of biblical allusions, it still speaks strikingly to us. Rosetti begins,

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,     That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,     And yet not weep?

Here’s the truth. This week I will sing, “Beneath the cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand.” But instead of my heart roiling with awe, shame, sorrow, and gratitude, I may well just go through the motions.

“I can stare right up at Jesus from beneath his cross . . . and yet keep my face, my life, as impassive as a rock.”

If I let myself reflect on this indifference, I take up Rossetti’s opening question: “Am I as cold as a stone to Jesus? Am I unable to reach even the level of a mere sheep?” Though lacking in courage and common sense, a sheep at least knows the shepherd’s voice and responds. Through Ezekiel, the Lord described us as having a “heart of stone” (Ezekiel 36:26). I feel the truth of the description even as one who now has, in Christ, a new heart. It’s not just that I’m distracted. I can stare right up at Jesus from beneath his cross, close enough to see his blood leave him, and yet keep my face, my life, as impassive as a rock.

Standing Among the Weepers

Rossetti convicts me, because I know how a stony callousness grows over my heart. But she also relieves me, because I see I am not alone. Her admission invites me to bring the shame of my apathy into the light. Sometimes, when I imagine Jesus on the cross, I just don’t feel moved. We read the passion story in worship, and I just want to get home and watch TV. There. I said it.

Rossetti keeps driving home the point, but as she does so, she also offers a remedy for my indifference. Her strategy is to take us to those characters who did weep. Perhaps we cannot summon deep feelings for Jesus in his passion. But we may be moved by the women and men who cried during those dreadful hours. We might feel for them, and in so doing rekindle our emotions for Jesus. So Rossetti leads us deeper into the biblical narrative, with three allusions to Luke’s account.

Not so those women loved     Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;     Not so the thief was moved.

HEARTBROKEN WOMEN

First, we’re directed to the “women who were mourning and lamenting for him” (Luke 23:27) as Jesus carried his cross toward Golgotha. The loud, inarticulate wails of a Middle Eastern lament eloquently declared, “This is not right! This is so sad!”

Perhaps you’ve been at a funeral for a young person. For many teenagers, this is their first loss of a peer. They cry openly and loudly, not yet having learned how to live with ongoing grief. Their fresh dismay makes the death all the more devastating. Yes, I remember the girl who sobbed in my arms, and I feel the death once more through her. So could sympathizing with the wailing daughters of Jerusalem connect me anew to Jesus?

DISLOYAL FRIEND

Luke’s simple, direct language about Peter’s denial cuts to the heart. “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. . . . And [Peter] went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61–62). I remember telling one of our children I could not do what I had promised. The pain in his eyes just slayed me. I remember the disappointment in the look of a parent that cut me more deeply than any words. Worst of all, recalling the sorrow in my wife’s eyes from something cruel I had said devastates me still. I feel a bit of what Peter felt.

Could that lead me to see the pain on Jesus’s face from my participation in the world’s rejection of him? And then once again feel sorrow for him?

CONDEMNED CRIMINAL

Luke does not tell us of tears from the thief on the cross. But the criminal’s words connect us to Psalm 88, the most hopeless of biblical laments. This thief painfully knew he was soon to die. He was condemned by the Romans, but worse, felt himself cursed by God. He felt as the psalmist before the Lord: “like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. . . . Your wrath lies heavy upon me” (Psalm 88:5, 7).

Fearing an everlasting separation, he called, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). I can connect to the sickening feeling of being past the point of no return — beyond redemption — and from there look over to the Son of Man about to die and know that his punishment is unjust. He will be vindicated by his Father. So might he carry me with him through death? My desperate hope opens a channel to Jesus’s sufferings.

While Sun and Moon Weep

In the third stanza, Rossetti imagines nature itself recoiling over the cruel cross. Luke reports, “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed” (Luke 23:44–45). So she writes,

Not so the Sun and Moon     Which hid their faces in a starless sky,A horror of great darkness at broad noon —     I, only I.

Rossetti invests the heavenly lights with personality, though she knows, as we do, that it was the Creator who caused this unnatural occurrence in his world. The phenomenon reflected the contradiction that creatures had hung up the Creator. Slaves of sin assassinated the Sovereign. The reliable day went dark over our audacious assault on Christ.

Again, we have resonance with this from our experience of nature’s power. We jump when thunder claps simultaneously with the lightning. We fall quiet at a solar eclipse. We shudder inside when solid ground trembles in an earthquake. When the normalcy we take for granted shifts suddenly, horror rises at our precarious position. Can I now feel very nature’s shame at our murder of the Savior? By now, some passion should be returning to my muffled soul.

Surrendered to Indifference

Rossetti does not let up. She voices the isolation that continued apathy creates. “I, only I” remain indifferent while men and women, disciples and criminals, sun and moon weep for Jesus. This sin of benumbed attention runs perilously close to the loneliness of very hell.

So she turns us from reflection to ardent prayer:

Yet give not o’er,     But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;Greater than Moses, turn and look once more     And smite a rock.

“This sin of benumbed attention runs perilously close to the loneliness of very hell.”

Scripture never fails to jolt me out of complacency when I read, “God gave them up . . . because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1:24–25). “All right then, have it your way,” the Sovereign seems to say. “I’ll just leave you to it.” Suddenly, like a toddler, I am running back to the Father, begging for him not to walk away. Rossetti’s prayer bleats out from the lostness of a wandering sheep, “Don’t leave me here. Come find me! I am your lamb! Please. Don’t give me over to me.”

Lord, Smite a Rock

The poet knows what power it will take to crack through a hard heart. She recalls the Lord’s instructions to Moses when his doubting people cried out for water in the wilderness. “You shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink” (Exodus 17:6). Paul builds on the episode to connect Jesus to the rock. When he was struck upon the cross, living water flowed forth to quench all who would drink in faith (1 Corinthians 10:4). But another blow, this one to the stony heart, must crack open indifference so that warm responsive faith in Christ may flow.

Rossetti longs for the great prophecy of Ezekiel to be fulfilled anew in her: “I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you . . . and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:26–28). But she knows that heart transplant must begin with a mighty interruption. “Smite a rock.”

Maybe, in the end, the remedy to our indifference in Holy Week comes down to such a stark prayer. Just crack open my hard heart. Smack this boulder of a soul. Take me to those who wept for you, and let my jaded heart be moved by their ardor. Turn me from a stone back into a sheep. Let me hear your voice that I may with fresh tears love you in your passion.

Audio Transcript

Part of mature Bible reading is the willingness to stop and ponder the hardest realities that God reveals to us in his word. We don’t skim over hard texts. We press in with questions, seeking understanding.

So this summer we’re addressing three sobering questions inspired by serious Bible readers working through the first two chapters of 2 Thessalonians. Namely, is God present or is he absent in his eternal judgment? Second Thessalonians 1:9 seems to say he’s absent. On Monday we addressed that in APJ 1801. Next, many of you have written us asking Pastor John to identify the mysterious “man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2. Who is he? That’s today. And then a question about God sending strong delusions into the world. Does he still do something like that today? And if so, what is that? This third question, on 2 Thessalonians 2:11, is on the table in a week — next Friday in APJ 1806.

So today, we approach this topic of the man of lawlessness. Here’s one representative email from many: “Pastor John, my name is Jared, and I live in San Jose, California. I was reading through my Bible and recently came across the section about ‘the man of lawlessness’ in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12. At first, I assumed this man was Satan himself. But it becomes clear in verse 9 that this ‘lawless one’ is ‘by the activity of Satan.’ So, it’s not Satan. In your estimation, who is this lawless man?”

I don’t usually read twelve verses of Scripture when we do an APJ. But Jared’s question can only be answered by specifics from the text of 2 Thessalonians. So, let me read the first twelve verses of 2 Thessalonians. I think people will find it riveting, frankly. This is the sort of Scripture people hang on. They say, “Whoa! What’s that talking about?”

Hysteria in Thessalonica

The situation is that some kind of rumor is going around in Thessalonica to the effect that Paul has taught, by some letter or some revelation, that the day of the Lord has come — meaning that Jesus is going to show up in the clouds any day. People were quitting their jobs and mooching off of others, and Paul had to handle this feeling that was running through the church. And here’s how he did it. These are the first verses of 2 Thessalonians 2:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the rebellion [apostasy or falling away] comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:1–12)

So Paul says that the day of the second coming cannot have arrived and will not arrive until the great apostasy happens and the man of lawlessness is revealed. That’s his basic answer to the hysteria in Thessalonica.

Who Is This Man?

Here’s my summary, then, from that text of what we can say about the man of lawlessness. There are questions that are left unanswered, but we can say something.

1. He’s a man — a human, not an angel, not a demon. A “man of lawlessness.”

2. He is quintessentially lawless. That is, he’s called a man of lawlessness. He considers himself absolutely above law. He is lawless in considering himself subject to no law and no lawgiver and no authority.

3. Since there’s only one person who’s above law — namely, God, who writes it — the man of lawlessness claims to be God. He says so explicitly. Verse 4: “. . . who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.”

“This man of lawlessness claims to be the final climactic antichrist.”

So, this man of lawlessness claims to be the final climactic antichrist. “I am a man. I am God. But I’m not Jesus. And I don’t believe in Jesus. I’m against Jesus.” That’s the ultimate expression of antichrist. “Many antichrists have come,” John says (1 John 2:18). And this one is the last. He’s going to be destroyed by the mouth of Jesus, and the fire of heaven, when he comes.

4. He’s born for destruction. Paul calls him “the son of destruction” in verse 3. His DNA, so to speak, is from his satanic father, so he’s going to be destroyed. That’s what his DNA is. He is going to be destroyed. He has no future. He is quintessentially lawless and doomed.

5. As a man, he is coming, nevertheless, by the power of Satan. Verse 9: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan.” He’s not Satan. Jared got that exactly right. He is empowered and driven by Satan, animated by Satan, serving Satan, accomplishing Satan’s purposes in vain.

6. Therefore, as a man, he will nevertheless have supernatural power. Paul calls it “all power” in verse 9. And he will work signs and wonders. And when the ESV translates verse 9 and calls them false signs and wonders, be careful. We should not read that to mean “They don’t really happen; they’re really not supernatural. This is cloak and dagger. This is the rabbit out of a hat.”

No, no, no. It’s not. It means they really do happen. Satanic power really is at work in them, but they happen in the service of falsehood. That’s what it means by calling them false signs and wonders. They serve a lie. They are signs and wonders in the service of a great lie, but the satanic supernatural power is real. That’s why it’s going to be so deceptive.

7. Therefore, the man of lawlessness will be unparalleled in his ability to deceive. Verse 10 says he comes “with all wicked deception for those who are perishing” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Literally, it reads, “in all deception of unrighteousness,” because two verses later, we see that the way he deceives is by making unrighteousness seem pleasurable. They found “pleasure in unrighteousness” (verse 12).

Still Waiting

Now I would argue that Paul is unpacking in these words the prophecies of Jesus. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 24:10–13:

And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another [these are Christians; this is a great apostasy]. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

“This man of lawlessness is going to be destroyed by the final fiery second coming.”

So Jesus foresaw a great deception, betrayal — a great betrayal, a great apostasy. And he foresaw a horrible season of lawlessness in which the love of many grows cold. So no matter how many forerunners of this man of lawlessness there have been in history, we know that none of them is what Paul is talking about.

I think some people try to get around this text by saying, “Oh, there’ve been lots of men of lawlessness. They’ve cropped up in all kinds of seasons of history.” Well, that’s true, but it’s irrelevant because this man of lawlessness is going to be destroyed by the final fiery second coming. Verse 8: “Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

This is it. It’s over — end of the age. This is the coming of verse 1, when Christ gathers his elect from the four winds. It’s the coming of 2 Thessalonians 1:7, when he comes with his mighty angels in flaming fire. It’s the coming of 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15, when the saints will be raised from the dead to meet the Lord in the air. In other words, the great apostasy and this man of lawlessness are at the climactic end of the age. They are brought to an end by the glorious appearing of the coming of the Lord. This is what we hope for. This is what we pray for. Come, Lord Jesus.