Nielsen’s Nook

This was the mystery long hidden from the world in the secret counsels of God and the wisdom that Israel did not expect. Israel expected the Jewish Messiah to come, to exalt the Jews to a place of prominence in the world (with the Gentiles as their servants) [much like some Christians today], and to reign physically from the city of Jerusalem. the full glory and political prominence would come with the first appearance of the Messiah. (That was what the Jewish crowds were expecting when they welcomed the Lord into Jerusalem on that fateful Palm Sunday; see Mark 11:10.) They did not suspect the riches of the glory of God’s mystery, or the overflowing generosity of His grace. They did not suspect that God would pour out His grace upon all flesh — even the Gentiles, thereby abolishing the distinction between Jew and Gentile.

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Farley, Lawrence. The Prison Epistles, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series. (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2003) , p. 162. Commenting on Colossians 1:26-28.

Translation

4 And likewise also those who were condemned [1] to wild animals [2] endured patiently terrible punishments, being laid out on top of trumpet shells [3] and beaten [4] with other manifold sorts of torture, so that the devil might, if possible, through the persistence of punishment turn them to denial [5] - for he contrives much against them.

[1] κριθέντες (κρίνω) i.e., condemned by courtly decision.

[2] θηρία (θηρίον) These were the wild animals bred for fighting in the arenas.

[3] κήρυκας comes from the familiar κῆρυξ (herald, preacher); however, in this form (acc. pl. masc.) and context it refers to the “trumpet-shell,” which is a “large, sharp seashell, used in torturing.” (BAGD, 431) Here, one would suspect that the subjects here were stretched out over broken shards of trumpet-shells.

[4] For NT usage of κολαφίζω see Mt 26:67; Mk 14:65; 1 Cor 4:11; 1 Pt 2:20.

[5] i.e., a denial of faith.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Translation

the forgiveness [1] of sins

[1] When used with ἁμαρτία, ἄφεσις speaks of the forgiveness or “cancellation of the guilt” of sins (BAGD). 1 Esdr 4:62 employs the word to denote “release from captivity” in the context of Israel being allowed to return from exile to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. The LXX of Isaiah, regarding the Day of the Lord, is compelled “κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν” (Isa 61:1 LXX) to proclaim the release of the captives and restoring sight to the blind. Here ἄφεσιν is used to translate the Hebrew דְּרוֹר (dərôr), which has the idea of liberty or free flowing as in Ex 30:23 where it is used to describe myrrh (BDB). So when ἄφεσιν arrives in the NT there is a tremendous history and colorful circumference to its semantic field (cf. this list from BAGD: Mt 26:28; Mk 1:4; Lk 1:77; Lk 3:3; Lk 24:47; Acts 2:38; Acts 5:31). Thus, the nature of the forgiveness Christians confess is one that is liberating and free-flowing, one that deals with the forensic (cancellation of the guilt) and the existential (liberation from sin’s dark grip).

³²And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” ³³And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. ³⁴And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” ³⁵And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. ³⁶And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” ³⁷And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? ³⁸Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” ³⁹And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. ⁴⁰And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. ⁴¹And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. ⁴²Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Mark 14:32-42)

I was talking with my friend Pastor Jeff Hatton of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Waco, Texas this evening at a Southwest Church Planting Network dinner. In an amazing pastoral moment, Jeff listened to far more of my story than I probably should have encumbered him with. I was telling him about how the Lord had burdened me to preach to myself in the midst of a year long fiery trial. In addition, I shared with Jeff that one of the initial passages that the Lord used to teach me about preaching first to myself was Mark 14:32-42, where our Lord suffers the agony of anticipation on the precipice of his execution. Our conversation was cut short as the events of the evening progressed and I did not have the opportunity to clarify what I had in mind by saying that I believed that Jesus seems to “redeem even suffering", which is what I am attempting to do here.

Most of us would very much like to know the future or at least certain parts of it if, we’re the types who enjoy a little suspense. We want to know about the hurricanes and tsunamis that would come and wash us out, hoping that we might avoid them. What we find in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-42) is the one who designed the future, the one upon whom the future is predicated, embracing the uncertainty, the angst of suffering. We ourselves would never do such things – or at least most of us wouldn’t. We have come across people with terminal diseases that talk about gracious contentment in their dire state. Those kind of people used to make me very uncomfortable. I always wondered if it was merely an opiate that they had swallowed to help them cope with the unbearable.

What we find in the Garden of Gethsemane is immeasurably far from being an opiate. Just after the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the Upper Room, (i.e., Jesus’ celebration of Passover with his disciples), Jesus predicts Peter’s threefold denial of him. “Even though they fall away, I will not.” Peter echoed with an emphatic hollowness. Jesus then invites three of the disciples, the so-called ‘inner circle’, to join him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Where the first man, Adam, began in a garden and brought suffering upon the race through disobedience, Jesus the fulfillment of humanness would turn suffering inside out through his obedience as he moved from suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross, then from the grave to resurrection glory.

Glory has never come through any other road than the the one that runs through Cross. Earlier James and John had sought glory apart from suffering: “Grant us to sit one at your left hand and one on your right hand in glory” (Mark 10:37). Jesus asks them if they can bear the cup of suffering that he would bear. “We are able,” they naively answered. “The failure to understand what it means to share in Jesus’ destiny and to be identified with his sufferings, rather than privileged status, appears to be the occasion for the isolation of the three from the others.” (Lane, 515) So we find that the three who had thought themselves able to circumvent the Cross – Peter, James and John – now found themselves invited to an object lesson on suffering. Jesus anticipated not only the nine-inch nails measured to inflict acute pain, but also the immeasurable wrath of God that would be poured out upon him for the sins of His people.

Two invitations are given in this passage. There is one to join Jesus in his suffering, to “sit here while I pray” and “remain here and watch” (Mark 14:32,34). The other is the one the disciples chose. It is the invitation to merely cope with a situation out of their ability to control. Three times Jesus asks them to join him by watching and praying for an hour (v 37,38). Three times we find that this ‘inner circle’ denied him, proving that indeed their spirit was willing but their flesh weak (v 38).

The disciples got through this hour in which Jesus was being overwhelmed. His soul was exceedingly sorrowful (v 34). Luke records that even after the Lord had been strengthened by an angel from heaven, "being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground." (Luke 22:44). Only the God-Man could be anxious to the point of sweating drops of blood for only the God-Man could understand what it meant to bear the infinite wrath of God for the sins of his people.

In Jesus we find one who demonstrates an ability to cry out to his God in the midst of great pain and anxiety. In the disciples we find those who merely cope. Coping is that invitation to skate around the outside of pain, to numb oneself and look for deliverance in something other than Christ. The disciples slept. Some of us will turn to the bottle, or television, or entertainment or over scheduling ourselves. These help us get by, so we think. All the while, in circumventing suffering, we fail to see that it is in Christ that suffering itself is redeemed. We fail to see that Christ is not waiting for us on the other side of our suffering in some kind of ethereal platonic heaven. No. He meets us in the midst of suffering in this world, even now.

It is the Cross that makes sense of suffering, giving us hope that suffering is not at the last analysis arbitrary. It often does not make sense and drives us to our wits end. What we find is that Christ is there too, redeeming the madness of suffering, bidding us to walk with him on the road to glory that at every point runs through the Cross.

Suffering will come. There is no avoiding it in this fallen world, for suffering is the reflux of sin’s corruption. For some it comes like the dripping of a leaky faucet, slowly eroding our strength and minds. For others it comes suddenly, unexpectedly, all at once, tragic. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not lessen the pain or the grief, but it recasts it. And in recasting it, we find that suffering and its cousin death do no longer have the last word. “For if we have been united with [Christ] in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5, ESV)

We go where our Lord has gone. We walk the trail that our Lord has blazed to glory. This is not some kind of positivistic mantra of which Christians attempt to iteratively convince themselves. It is the fact of this life that suffering has been recast, that while the sharp edges do in fact cut and we do indeed bleed, we are reshaped and reformed into the likeness of Christ. The one who bled the ground red at Calvary for us, did not bleed to leave us to our own devices, coping our way through this life. Rather he, who has trampled down death by his own death, has sent the Comforter, the Spirit of Christ, to walk with us in victorious union.

Whether you are one who suffers much or little, you will suffer. Jesus, our High Priest at the right hand of God the Father Almighty intercedes for us. He does not intercede as a priest who empathizes through a distant imagination of what suffering must be like, but as one who knows what it is to suffer infinitely the wrath of God for our sins. It is this crucified and risen Christ who is himself our Eucharist, our thanksgiving and hope in suffering.

Background and Context
James and John had approached Jesus and asked him if they might sit on the right and left of him when he came into his kingdom. On the one hand, they demonstrate their understanding of Christ’s Kingdom was still very much culturally conditioned. They thought it would be a kingdom like the world had known, which would overthrow the Romans who had ruled Palestine for generations. On the other hand, they demonstrate a kind of ruthlessness in which they were seeking to circumvent Peter’s place in Christ’s economy as first among equals. Peter is left out of their equation. Apparently this intercourse with the Lord had become public knowledge among the disciples and they had become indignant (ἀγανακτεῖν in verse 41) at James and John for this move. Jesus moves into the midst of the strife to calm the storm.

Reflections on Authority in Christ’s Kingdom

[The indignation of the Ten] was not, of course, that they understood that glory in the Kingdom is given as the reward of humility. Rather, it was simply that they were each coveting the best position for themselves, and resented such a sneaky ploy to snatch it away from them. ¹

Knowing that the disciples were indignant out of mixed motives at best, he turns their attention to the bad guys of the day. Jews of the first century C.E. who were interested in the idea of Messiah were interested in it because they wanted the Romans out. They hated the oppressive tyrannicalical rule that the Roman rulers had imposed upon them. They hoped that the long awaited and divinely anointed king of David’s dynasty would come and crush the Romans.

It is not subtle thing for Jesus to direct their attention to the examples that everyone would agree were evil and tyrannical in their rule. Jesus brings the Herods and Felixes of the day along side the ambition that the disciples were manifesting as a kind of mirror. As the light shown from the mirror, it is as if Jesus was asking them, “Do you see the similarity that you have with Herod? You have demonstrated that the very thing you say you despise is clearly manifest in your own hearts.”

It is a reminder to us. Often we see much in people that is rightly despised; however, let us not forget what scripture teaches us: The root of actual sins is sin and that sin is ever-present in us all. Often we can vociferously hate the sins we see in others because the thing we hate most about their sin is that it most poignantly reminds us of our own depravity. Instead of crying out like the publican, “O God, have mercy upon me (an us) a sinner!” we cry out, “Most Holy and Powerful God, how I thank Thee that Thou art pure and righteous and that I am not as such wretches like that person.”

Let me ask it this way to you, “If the disciples are not immune to this; if James and John two of the three in the so-called “inner circle” of those disciples are not immune to the sin nature, then who in God’s World do we think we are to have some how surpassed James and John?

In Christ’s Kingdom the King has given an edict of priority: the subjects of His Kingdom are to have the “priority of humility”.² It not a priority that the King requires and does not Himself follow, for He tells His disciples that He did not come to be served (passively) but to serve (actively). How would this be most clearly manifest? The priority of humility is found in the King dying upon the Cross, giving His life as a ransom for many [millions] of people.

Is it your delight to follow Christ in this priority? If you go make yourself humble, you will miss the point altogether here. When we delight in ourselves we even follow Christ in order to gain things for ourselves. When we delight in Jesus, truly enjoying Him for who He is as our King, we realize that we cannot embrace vain ambition and at the same time receive the embrace of God in Christ. The arms of our hearts will not fit around more than one object of our affections.
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¹ Farley, Lawrence. The Gospel of Mark : The Suffering Servant, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series. (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2004) , p. 173.
² ibid.

By way of introduction here, I am hoping you might help me learn. I know very little about the New Perspective on Paul in any of its variations really. However, I have found that there are tenets that are propounded in the NPP that seem to be reverberations with the Dutch Reformed writers of whom I am very fond, writers like Ridderbos and Vos. That is to say, I have great esteem for Biblical Theology and its colleague Systematic Theology. What I promise you in this article is questions with which I hope you can help me. This will not be a rant of any kind; rather a step towards dialogue, Lord willing.

That being said, one of the tenets that the NPP submits to us is that Judaism of the Second Temple Period was essentially a religion of Grace. It is maintained that the 16th century Church reformers were guilty of isogeting corruptions in the Roman church into their interpretation of Judaism of the first century A.D. For a helpful summary from the NPP point of view, you might find Mattison’s article helpful.

If we would critique the 16th century Reformers, then it would seem to be fair to consider other facets of their teachings. For instance, in dealing with Justification what I hear being said by the NPP is that Justification is not identical with the Gospel of Christ. I believe Wright would say that the Gospel is the pronouncement of Jesus’ Lordship, His Kingdom. While I do think this may be a helpful contrast to make in lieu of the modern so-called Evangelical Church, I wonder if it is really a contrast with the 16th century Reformers. Remember one of their mantras: Sola fides justificat sed non fides sola! That is, “Faith alone justifies, but not faith that is alone!” Wright does well, as I understand him, to focus on Union with Christ. While he may make some fine contributions, let us not forget that John Calvin’s unifying central thought in the Institutes of Christian Religion continues to be Union with Christ.

These are broad stroke points, and given the nature of blogging you are probably ready for some kind of conclusion. So forgive me for the brevity, and know that I would encourage us all to read broadly and think deeply about these matters.

The Reformers also taught Scriptura ex scriptura explicanda est. That is, Scripture is the explanation of Scripture. That being said, it would seem to me that on the Reformers own terms we would want to consider what the Gospels teach us about Judaism of the day and believe that the content in the Gospels would have been part of the content of Paul’s own mind.