Wednesday 28 November 2018

Healing is the Children's Bread

To assert that 'healing' has ceased...
...is really to deny the Jewish theology of healing, health, covenant, sin, forgiveness, Messiah, God and His kingdom and how these were each interconnected.
The claim of the New Testament was that the ancient Jewish outlook on the future - grounded as it was in their Old Testament Scriptures - was now being fulfilled, inaugurated and carried-out precisely by 'the gospel'.
That's what 'the gospel' meant - it was the glad announcement that the ancient hope of Israel was now being fulfilled - that each of those themes were now coming together, in Jesus the Messiah - for all mankind.
God was visiting His people; dealing with their sin at last; healing and health could, according to covenant, consequently be experienced; evil regimes and even death itself was to be defeated. The 'gospel of the kingdom'.
To say instead that healing had a different purpose and that it was only temporary, disconnects 'healing' from the significance given to it all through the Scriptures - in the Old Testament (the Law, promise, covenant, Psalms and Prophets) first of all; and also in the New Testament.
It would reinvent the Bible-theology of healing - and it would therefore actually be tantamount to modifying 'the gospel' itself.
By reinventing the significance of 'healing' and then eliminating it, we would in effect be minimising part of what 'the gospel' was claimed in the New Testament to actually be.
"And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the FULNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST" (Romans 15:29).

Monday 26 November 2018

Gospel = Kingdom

The 'gospel' is the gospel 'of the kingdom'.
We glean the key takeaway truths (about Jesus' death, burial and resurrection being for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole world) from WITHIN a story which in the first instance was more specifically concerned with Israel, and not in a non-kingdom sense either:
Jesus submitted to the Jews who were intent on handing Him over to death at the hands of the Romans in order to avert what they knew would otherwise mean national retribution if they were instead perceived as political revolutionaries.
And even that part of the plot was told by the gospel-writers within an OVER-ARCHING NARRATIVE of what God was doing for Israel:
God was visiting Israel, in the Person of His Son, fulfilling the promise of Abraham, inaugurating the kingdom of God and all that the Kingdom of God entailed as promised in Covenant and Prophecy (forgiveness, healing, restoration, Israel becoming a blessing to all nations, along with judgement, resurrection, the final defeat of evil regimes, and newness in every way).
The 'gospel' was the glad announcement that all of that was now being inaugurated - in Jesus Christ, by His death, burial and resurrection. An announcement to Israel first, and also to all nations.
"God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them".
Individual forgiveness, although it's central, was not so much a standalone theme which can be plucked from the gospels and labelled as 'the gospel' while the theme of the 'kingdom' gets dispensed with until later as if the theme of Israel's 'kingdom' is somehow separate from the gospel.
No, what God did in Christ Jesus through His cross and resurrection, was God's way of bringing the 'kingdom' - for Israelis first, and also for all the world.
It's just that there's timing in how some components of the achievement of the cross are to get rolled-out. But even though it's yet to be consummated, it's all already been intrinsically inaugurated, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
Kingdom already/kingdom to come.
We are saved - we're going to be saved.
We're raised with Christ - we're going to be raised at His coming.
Evil has been judged - it's going to be finally judged on the last day.
First coming/second coming.
That's the revelation of the New Testament. The 'gospel' - 'of the kingdom'.
It's 'news' and it's 'good'!

Sunday 11 November 2018

Abraham and JESUS

God announced the GOSPEL ahead of time to Abraham, when He promised him that:
"...in thy seed shall ALL FAMILIES of the earth be BLESSED..."
Not 'seeds' plural, but in thy 'seed' singular, which was Christ...
"...shall all nations of the earth..."
Without discrimination or distinction between them on the basis of ethnicity nor Judaism, which came after the promise and only temporarily...
"...be BLESSED..."
Justified, saved.
Jesus said:
"...Abraham rejoiced to see MY day, and he saw it and was glad".
JESUS is the fulfilment of the promise - and you - us - IN HIM.

Saturday 10 November 2018

What of Jerusalem?

Some people get excited about the modern State of Israel, like that's the be-all and end-all of Bible Prophecy.

I wonder if that's the view I should take of Bible Prophecy too, instead of entertaining the idea that the gospel is the highpoint.

Certainly David did have high hopes for the city of Jerusalem and did rejoice a lot in Jerusalem, in the Psalms. But is that really the high-point of God's eternal plan? What about the Psalms' mention of military warfare - is that the way to bring about the kingdom of God? Is the gospel, and the Church, only a sideline to the main theme of Prophecy instead of the means and climax of Israel's long awaited hope?

While thinking about this, wondering also about whether David had much of a concept of the place that the resurrection shall have in the ultimate victory of God, while driving to Ipswich, I put a CD on - a reading of the Psalms - and Psalm 49 happened to come on:

To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah.49  Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: Both low and high, rich and poor, together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heartshall be of understanding. I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about? They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:
 That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.10  For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.11  Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.12  Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.13  This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.14  Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.15  But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.16  Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;17  For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.18  Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself.19  He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light.20  Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.

That talks about the power of death, right? the powerlessness of all mankind in the face of it. And it talks about the victory which the righteous shall have over it - but 'in the morning', not necessarily straightaway. In the meantime, the wicked may sometimes prosper, to some extent, for some time.

So even the Psalmist understood that death might come in-between the ultimate victory which was promised to Israel - to Israelis - to all of us. The ultimate victory won't necessarily be seen, until the resurrection. The gospel is entirely consistent with this worldview - with this version of Israel's 'story'.

The Scripture didn't then, and doesn't now, imply a victory which could be obtained through military means alone. The scope of the victory described by the Bible was to involve victory even over death. Suffering was never precluded, in the interim. That's still promised to Jerusalem - to the faithful - to the true Jew, the Israel of God: but the message of the New Testament is that the same promise extends to embrace all of Abraham's children, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus from the dead - not only those who are Abraham's children after the flesh. And it's to involve the liberation of the whole of creation, at the resurrection.

And all of this in accordance with the Scriptures - in accordance with promise, allegory, the law, shadow, the Psalms, and prophecy - the story of Israel - that which was under Israeli custodianship, but which now has been made sure to all the seed. 

That takes nothing away from modern Israel - rather, it confirms what's possible for Israelis, as much as for everyone.

Could it perhaps be said then that the creation of the State of Israel last century, was not a direct fulfilment of any specific Bible Prophecy as if that is the pinnacle-theme of God's plan, but rather it is something which was possible because of fulfilled prophecy - as a derivative of it - possible because once fulfilled, the promise was never revoked, so it could always potentially be attained-to again? Not a rival eschatology, but a derivative of the Apostles' first-century realised-eschatology (realised in the sense of it having been inaugurated, though not-yet consummated, by and in Jesus).

But in any case Israel after the flesh - and their land - was always only ever going to be part of the fuller story of redemption which had been promised to Abraham. Abraham's promises included - and centred on - a promise which was for all nations. 

By Kerry Nobbs

View from Terranora, NSW
by Kerry Nobbs
oil on canvas
60x44cm
circa 1980s

Tuesday 6 November 2018

Isaiah's New Heavens and Earth

In our Post-Enlightenment, Post-Modern, Plato-influenced minds, we tend to want to force Bible Prophecies into a single category - but that's not how ancient Jews treated their sacred Scriptures.

I think a lot of Old Testament prophecies often predicted the future in very broad strokes. Grand imagery. The New Testament however unpacks that for us, rightly dividing it into what's now past, what's present and what's still future. The Old Testament passages themselves often didn't do that, but the New does. 


"New heavens and a new earth", in Isaiah 65, for instance. Firstly notice the passage doesn't mention 'Millennium'. But that aside, Peter looked forward to new heavens and earth. But he said only righteousness will live in it. So 'the sinner' and the 'curse' mentioned by Isaiah in verse 20 can't be part of Peter's new earth.

First century Jews saw that God had begun his work of 'new creation' for Israel, at the return from Babylonian captivity, but they certainly saw it as incomplete and were still hoping for more.

Paul said that new creation was already a reality, in a sense, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Though he too, like Peter, still looked forward to its culmination at Christ's coming.

So, Isaiah's prophecy looked forward in a broad sense, encompassing everything from the return from captivity, to the work of the gospel of Christ, to the still-future culmination of new creation. All of that. But the New Testament unpacks those themes for us more clearly than an Old Testament passage itself could.