Written by O. Palmer Robertson |
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Heaven-sent messengers appear to Zechariah the father of John the Baptist; to Mary the mother of Jesus, followed by an appearance to her husband, Joseph; and upon Jesus’ birth an innumerable company of angels to shepherds in Bethlehem’s fields (Luke 1:11–20, 26–38; Matt. 1:20–21; Luke 2:8–14). A special star in the heavens guides the magi to the Messiah, while the Holy Spirit provides special revelation to aged Simeon and Anna (Matt. 2:1–2, 9; Luke 2:25–27, 36–38). These extraordinary phenomena suit well the whole realm of supernatural activity that characterized God’s redemptive revelation from the time of the patriarchs. 

The first thing that strikes the reader of the initial announcements regarding the coming of the Christ is their supernatural character, both in the means by which the message is delivered and in the content of the message itself. These initial annunciations come not by a prophet of the Lord, but by a messenger sent directly from heaven itself. Heaven-sent messengers appear to Zechariah the father of John the Baptist; to Mary the mother of Jesus, followed by an appearance to her husband, Joseph; and upon Jesus’ birth an innumerable company of angels to shepherds in Bethlehem’s fields (Luke 1:11–20, 26–38; Matt. 1:20–21; Luke 2:8–14). A special star in the heavens guides the magi to the Messiah, while the Holy Spirit provides special revelation to aged Simeon and Anna (Matt. 2:1–2, 9; Luke 2:25–27, 36–38). These extraordinary phenomena suit well the whole realm of supernatural activity that characterized God’s redemptive revelation from the time of the patriarchs. They manifest their significance even more dramatically against the stark backdrop of the four hundred years separating the age of the old covenant from the new. Yet a clear point of continuity is established by the fact that the heavenly messenger who first breaks the revelational silence by communicating with Zechariah the father of John the Baptist is none other than Gabriel, the same heavenly messenger who revealed mysteries to Daniel at the end of the old covenant era (Luke 1:19, 26; Dan. 8:16; 9:21). In addition, these supernatural announcements focus on significant supernatural events soon to take place. Elizabeth, well past the age of bearing children, will have a son (Luke 1:13). Her experience follows the pattern of divine interventions related to the bearing of a godly seed by barren women of the old covenant era (Gen. 11:30; 16:1; 18:11; 25:21; 29:31; Judg. 13:2). But even more significantly, Mary the virgin will conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:26–35). This special One to be born, unique in the history of humanity, is described by the messenger from heaven as “great” and “the Son of the Most High” (v. 32a). God will give him the “throne of his father David,” and he will “reign over the house of Jacob forever” (vv. 32b–33). By this announcement, he is clearly identified as the person destined to fulfill all the promises concerning a coming Messiah descended from David who will rule over the Israel of God.1 His supernatural birth from the virgin dramatically underscores his unique role as the only Son of God who is equal to the Father.
A Supernatural Sign
In recent days, even evangelical scholars have shown a willingness to concede that Isaiah’s prophecy spoke only of conception by a “young woman,” not a virgin. But a proper understanding of Isaiah’s prophecy hinges not only on the precise meaning of the word for “virgin” or “young woman,” but on the context as a whole. The intent of the Syro-Ephraimite coalition according to the prophet Isaiah is not simply to establish military superiority over the kingdom of Judah, but to terminate the Davidic line of royal succession that by now has continued for over 250 years (Isa. 7:6). When Isaiah offers doubting King Ahaz a sign of confirmation, he proposes the outer limits of the miraculous: “in the deepest depths or in the highest heights” (v. 11). The prophetic response to the king’s niggardly refusal must somehow come up to the prophet’s own proposed standards. What is God willing to do that will ensure the unbrokenness of his oath to David?
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Only the Doctrines of Grace, based on God’s sovereignty, are bound to His glory. Pelagianism and Arminianism, based on Man’s common sense, deceive their adherents into believing God is powerless to save anyone unless they agree to decide for Christ. The Bible teaches that saving faith is a gift of God He gives to those He chooses by His grace. Man’s responsibility is to believe and obey. The main point God used to break through my own resistance to the Doctrines of Grace was they are the only ones that glorify Him in every part. No other form of Christianity does that.

Samekh113 I hate those who are double-minded,But I love Your law.114 You are my hiding place and my shield;I wait for Your word.115 Depart from me, evildoers,That I may observe the commandments of my God.116 Sustain me according to Your word, that I may live;And do not put me to shame because of my hope.117 Uphold me that I may be saved,That I may have regard for Your statutes continually.118 You have rejected all those who stray from Your statutes,For their deceitfulness is a lie.119 You remove all the wicked of the earth like dross;Therefore I love Your testimonies.120 My flesh quakes for dread of You,And I am afraid of Your judgments. Psalms 119:112-120 (LSB)
There are really only two religions in the world. The first is God-based Christianity. The other includes all other religions in the world including all forms of Man-based Christianity. Man-based Christianity is heretical. What is the difference? All religions except God-based Christianity are false. The false religions’ focus is on Man’s performance in an attempt to do good works to attain salvation.
Not all forms of Christianity are truly Christian because the basis for some of them is unbiblical doctrines. This makes them heresies and they have been invading the Church from the beginning. For example, parts of the New Testament attack Gnosticism. Paul also wrote against the false teaching of some Jewish believers that all Gentile believers must become Jewish proselytes. Both are heretical views because they teach false views of God and Man. The history of Christianity is replete with heresies. Heresies spring from pride, which is the root of Man’s rebellion against God. Pride causes Man to come up with false doctrines that attempt to elevate Man’s ability to accomplish salvation. Natural Man has a problem grasping the wonderful truth that the shed blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient to cover Man’s sin. The Bible clearly teaches that salvation is a merciful gift from God to Man by His grace through faith. It also clearly teaches that Man is completely incapable of coming to salvation without it.
Aurelius Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the fifth century A.D. The Roman Catholics call him Saint Augustine. He was a godly man who was a first-line theologian. His books, City of God and Confessions remain with us today. He published a book of prayers, which contained one that incited a tremendous controversy. The offending prayer was rendered thus, “O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.” I have prayed prayers similar to that many times. I have asked God to help me obey Him by commanding me to do whatever He willed and to empower me to obey Him. That was the essence of that prayer. The one who took offense to that prayer was a British Monk named Pelagius. He was living in Rome. He saw that a lack of morality was the cause of that city’s corruption. He began looking for ways to inspire those citizens to seek to elevate their standards. His solution was to teach a theology based on legalism called Moralism. This teaches salvation by good works. It sees people coming to God by being good. When Pelagius read Augustine’s prayer, he took offense because it was the antithesis of what he taught. It seemed to defeat his efforts in cleaning up Rome. He protested and appealed to the Bishop of Rome to have Augustine’s prayer censured. He was not arguing against the first part of the prayer, “Command what you wouldst.” His problem was with the second part. Pelagius contended God, who is just and righteous and holy, would never command people to do something unless they already had the power within along with the moral ability to obey. He logically concluded that moral responsibility always and everywhere implies moral capability. He was offended at Augustine’s appeal for God’s grace to empower us to obey Him. He said that simple request offended God. However, his motive was to have the Bishop of Rome declare salvation by works as valid.
This debate eventually led to the Council at Orange, which declared Pelagianism a heresy. Prior to the convening of the council Pelagius’ disciples had time to prepare their own doctrinal statement. The essence of their doctrine was there was no such thing as original sin via Adam and Eve. They stated all of Adam’s descendents were responsible for their own sin. Augustine made it clear in his writings that sin entered man via the original sin and all of us are helpless to save ourselves without God intervening. Pelagianism contends any one of us is capable of not sinning and thereby living perfect lives, which would allow us to earn eternal life. What Bible were they reading?
Why am I going over all this ancient history? This heresy is still with us. Arminianism is a form of semi-Pelagianism. It states Man is capable of coming to salvation on his own accord. It states there is enough righteousness left in each of us to seek God and salvation. On top of that, it teaches that after salvation we can live perfect lives, but if we sin, we lose our salvation. Pelagianism and Arminianism are doctrines of men and of devils. They are contrary to what the Bible teaches. Their roots are in pride and they are false gospels, which portray a false Christ. They are the culprits behind the Western Church’s spiritual bankruptcy. They have infiltrated the church so well they appear to be orthodox. On the other hand, most church people see the Doctrines of Grace as a suspicious interloper. Some theologians, pastors, and Bible teachers believe the reason the present form of evangelism has supplanted the Doctrines of Grace is that the Holy Spirit has moved on. They contend it is a silly, sentimental mistake to seek to return to these old-fashioned doctrines. They think those who seek return to the form of Christianity that was the essence of the Protestant Reformation are actually seeking to return to the 16th Century way of doing things. That conception is misinformed and missing the point. Let us be honest. Which glorifies God? Only the Doctrines of Grace, based on God’s sovereignty, are bound to His glory. Pelagianism and Arminianism, based on Man’s common sense, deceive their adherents into believing God is powerless to save anyone unless they agree to decide for Christ. The Bible teaches that saving faith is a gift of God He gives to those He chooses by His grace. Man’s responsibility is to believe and obey. The main point God used to break through my own resistance to the Doctrines of Grace was they are the only ones that glorify Him in every part. No other form of Christianity does that.
We must look at one other heresy. It, too, is pride based. On one extreme, we have Pelagianism and Arminianism supplanting the sovereignty of God with Man’s responsibility. This other heresy supplants the responsibility of Man with the sovereignty of God. Both extremes are heretical. This heresy is Hyper-Calvinism. It takes the Doctrines of Grace and logically extends them to the extreme thereby exterminating Man’s responsibility to believe. Hyper-Calvinism suppresses evangelism. It teaches that all of the elect will come to salvation eventually no matter what so we really should not share the gospel freely because that would expose the non-elect, the reprobate, to it. Many Arminians falsely believe all adherents to the Doctrines of Grace are Hyper-Calvinists. That is not true at all. Many Calvinists have fought hard against Hyper-Calvinism. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Bunyan, and Charles Spurgeon were Calvinists who were evangelical to the extreme. True adherents to the Doctrines of Grace teach the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of Man. They do not teach that God does His all to save us and we do nothing or that He does His part as we do our part in cooperation with the Holy Spirit. No, they teach what the Bible teaches. God saves us by grace through faith. His regeneration of our hearts enables us to believe. However, we must believe. That is our responsibility. We must exercise that faith He gives us for salvation to come. God does all, we do all. It is not cooperation. Salvation is surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by the new believer. This surrender is our recognition that we are sinners and, in turn, trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ to cover our sins. Jesus is the Lord and savior of all who do this.
God’s sovereignty is the basis for the Doctrines of Grace. They glorify God in every part as they reveal Man’s utter helplessness to come to salvation by his own initiative or ability. The Born Again believers who are adherents to the Doctrines of Grace should not be the proud. Instead, they should walk humbly before God fully recognizing they are unworthy of His grace. There is no reason to become puffed up with pride about being one of the chosen of God. He did not choose anyone based on any trait inherent in him or her. He chose whom He chose according to His sovereignty. With this fully understood the path to becoming a Spirit-led believer opens up because humility is a key component in our becoming Christ-like.
Those who reject the Doctrines of Grace may come to salvation, but it is via a watered-down gospel, which does not teach anyone to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Since these believers do not know to do that, they have a huge chance of remaining Soul-led and frustrated in their powerless religiosity. The path to becoming a Spirit-led believer from this gospel is going to be much more difficult since they do not understand the importance of humility in their walk. Those who come to salvation via Hyper-Calvinism are in even worse shape. They think they have no responsibility at all. God saved them because of who they are and He will mature them as He sees fit. It should be obvious how both extremes are out of balance with the precepts from sacred scripture.
In this post, we are looking at the stanza titled, “Samekh.” The first line in this stanza is, “II hate those who are double-minded, But I love Your law“ The King James translates this passage as, “I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love.” The Hebrew word translated as “double-minded in the LSB and “vain thoughts” in the KJV means “divided mind.” What sort of person is the psalmist describing here? The person the psalmist is describing is the opposite of the believer who has an undivided heart. The undivided heart is one that is Spirit-led. The Spirit of that believer is predominate over his or her Soul. That believer’s Soul is performing its original function of expressing and reflecting God. The psalmist expresses it correctly that the Soul-led condition where the Soul is predominate over the Spirit produces a heart that is full of vain thoughts. All adherences to false doctrines, heresies, come from these vain thoughts.
The Hebrew grammar in this verse shows us the psalmist was not referring to other people that he hated. He was stating to God how he hates for his own mind to be dominated by double-mindedness or vain thoughts. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit we struggle with this as well. However, if we cultivate and maintain a clear conscience there will be no peace with double-mindedness in our being. It is our enemy and it must be mortified. We must hate it and seek to kill it. Of course, when we are Spirit-led we are walking in the Spirit and are wearing the full armor of God. We do not have these vain thoughts when we are walking in the Lord’s light communing with Him as we pray continually. However, the step out of His light back into flesh-dominated darkness is very short and quick. When that happens, we must repent and turn back to God. If we do not do this, our vain thoughts will dominate us.
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He’s worshipped and served by angels (1:6-7) — Angels have a lot of dignity, but they don’t have as much dignity and honor as Jesus. Verses 6 and 7 describe two things that angels do that make them inferior to Jesus. He quotes Psalm 97:7 and says that angels worship Jesus, and he quotes Psalm 104:4 to say that they serve Jesus. Angels may be great to us, but they’re worshipers and servants to Jesus. He is much greater than them. They are in an inferior position to Jesus. That’s why verses 8 and 9 quote Psalm 45:6-7 and apply them to Jesus. Angels serve and worship; Jesus is served and worshipped.

Big Idea: Jesus is better than angels, so if you’d pay attention to the message of angels, you’d better pay attention to the message of Jesus.
I have a beef with people who say the Old Testament is boring.
Every time I start to read the Old Testament, I’m captured by the story all over again. In the first pages, you’ve got beauty, love, tragedy, judgement, murder, more judgment, a brand new start, grace, and God’s plan to rescue the world. And that’s just the first few pages! The first twelve chapters of Genesis explain so much about the world today, and they’re anything but boring.
But that’s just the start. You’ve got family dysfunction on a major scale, conflicts between world powers, tragic heroes, deliverance, grumbling, wars, repeating cycles of judgment, and more. The Old Testament is fascinating. It’s unrivalled in all literature, and it’s God’s word.
And you have angels. Lots and lots of angels.
Angels are part of God’s creation. We don’t know when they were created — perhaps the same time as the earth, maybe even before. They’re a higher order than humans, but much lower than God. They’re created beings. They’re not omnipresent. They can only be in one place at one time. They don’t know everything. But they’re still spectacular compared to us, which is why humans tend to freak out when they encounter an angel.
They’re spirit beings. We don’t know how many angels there are, but they’re innumerable. Revelation 5:11 talks about angels “numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.” There are good angels and bad angels, and they’re involved with us.
Angels appear to humans throughout Scripture. Angels play a big role in this world and in our lives.
Angels work in the destiny of nations for the good of God’s people. Good angels withstand Satan while the word of God is being preached to the king of Persia (Zech. 3:1). They work in the protection of the righteous and encamp about them that fear the Lord (Ps. 34:7 8), and they deliver God’s people from their enemies (2 Kgs. 6:15–17). Angels deliver Peter from prison and reassure Paul in the great storm at sea (Acts 12:7; 27:23). They are given charge to keep the righteous in all their ways, and are ministering spirits to those who are heirs of salvation (Ps. 91:11; Heb. 1:14). Angels represent individuals before the throne of God (Matt. 18:10; cf. Dan. 12:1), and if heavenly angels are meant in Rev. 2–3, then they are given specific assignments to congregations of the Church. (Edward P. Myers, Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible)
This is amazing stuff.
A few years ago, I attended a study group with Tim Mackie, one of the teachers at The Bible Project. The Bible Project was about to release its video series on spiritual beings, and Tim taught a session one night on the topic. We went back to our rooms and our eyes were bulging. We don’t think enough about the reality of the spiritual world, and the ways that angels and demons interact with what’s going on in the world and our lives. It’s amazing.
The Question
So I have a question for you. If an angel appeared to you, would you listen?
Here’s what we know. You’d be terrified if you realized it was an angel. We know that because it’s the pretty consistent reaction of everyone in the Bible who saw an angel and realized it.

Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was initially afraid when he encountered the angel Gabriel in the temple (Luke 1:11-20).
The shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem were terrified when an angel appeared to them to announce the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:8-10).
The women who went to Jesus’ tomb after his crucifixion were frightened by the presence of an angel who told them that Jesus had risen (Matthew 28:2-7).
The guards at Jesus’ tomb also experienced fear when an angel appeared and rolled away the stone from the entrance (Matthew 28:3-4).
The apostle John was filled with fear when he saw a powerful angel in a vision on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:17).
The prophet Daniel was overwhelmed with fear when he saw a heavenly being in a vision by the Tigris River (Daniel 10:5-9).

You’d be terrified, but would you listen to an angel sent by God?
I’d like to think so, but you can find examples of people who did and didn’t listen to angels in the Bible. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, had an angel visit him twice, and he listened both times (Matthew 1:20-24, Matthew 2:13-15). In Acts we read:
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. (Acts 8:26-27)
You can see examples of that in Scripture: an angel appears and communicates a message from God, and people respond in obedience.
But you also see the opposite. Angels told Lot to flee Sodom, but they lingered (Genesis 19:15-16). Sarah laughed at a message from angels, although she may not have realized they were angels at the time (Genesis 18:12).
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