Category Archives: New Testament

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A virgin will be with child: Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah — Matthew 1:23, Isaiah 7:14

We are familiar with the New Testament use of the virgin-born son passage as a reference to Jesus in Matthew 1:23, but most of us have never considered how Matthew came to this conclusion.  Matthew does not use all his Old Testament prophecies the same way.  Some of Matthew’s other Scripture texts refer in the Old Testament not to Jesus but to Israel; for instance, “out of Egypt I called My son” clearly refers to Israel’s exodus from Egypt in Hosea 11:1, but Matthew applies it to Jesus’ exodus from Egypt (Matt. 2:15).  Matthew is not saying that Hosea had Jesus in mind; he is saying that Jesus as the ultimate son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1) recapitulates Israel’s experiences (for instance, his forty days in the wilderness and His quotations from Deuteronomy in Matt. 4:1-11).  That very chapter of Hosea goes on to speak of a new exodus, a new era of salvation comparable to the old one.  Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1 because he knows that Hosea himself pointed to a future salvation.

So before we read Matthew’s application of Isaiah 7:14 into Isaiah, we must carefully examine what Isaiah 7:14 means in context.  (If this exercise makes you nervous, you can skip to our conclusion, but make sure you come back and follow our discussion the whole way through.)  Although Matthew 1:23 clearly refers to Jesus being born of a virgin (the Greek term is clear), scholars dispute whether the Hebrew words in Isaiah also refer necessarily to a “virgin” or, more generally, to a “young woman.”  For the sake of argument, we will avoid this point and examine the context only.

The king of Assyria was encroaching on the boundaries of Israel (the kingdom of Samaria) and Syria (Aram, the kingdom of Damascus).  Realizing that they were in trouble, they tried to get the king of Judah (the kingdom of Jerusalem) to join them in fighting the Assyrians.  When he proved uncooperative, they sought to force him to join their coalition.  At this time, God sent the prophet Isaiah to Ahaz, king of Judah, to warn him not to join the coalition of Israel and Syria.  (Keep in mind that Judah and Israel were two separate countries by this point in their history.)  Syria or Aram (represented by its capital Damascus) and Israel or Ephraim (represented by Samaria) would be crushed shortly (7:4-9).

Isaiah even offered the Judean king Ahaz a sign to confirm that Aram and Israel would quickly fall (7:10-13).  The sign was one that would get Ahaz’s attention: a woman would bear a son and name him Immanuel, “God is with us” (7:14).  Before the son would know right from wrong, while still eating curds (7:15; this was in Isaiah’s day, 7:21-25), the Assyrian king would devastate Aram and Israel (7:16-20).  In other words, the child would be born in Ahaz’s generation!  But then, why was the son named, “God is with us”?  Perhaps for the same reason that all Isaiah’s children bore symbolic names (8:18), just as Hosea’s children were prophetic signs to the northern kingdom of Israel in roughly the same period (Hosea 2:4-9).  We will come back to this point later in our discussion.

After offering this prophecy to Ahaz, Isaiah was sent in to “the prophetess” (presumably his young, new wife, who may have also had the gift of prophecy) and she got pregnant.  They named the son “Mahershalalhashbaz”—”Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey.”  God said to name the child this as a sign to Judah that God would quickly give Judah’s enemies into the hands of the Assyrian army.  Before the boy was old enough to utter the most childish form of, “Mother” or “Father,” Assyria would plunder Aram and Israel (8:1-10).  In other words, Isaiah’s own son would be the sign to Ahaz: his birth would be quickly followed by the devastation of the lands to the north that had sought to force Judah into their coalition.  Judah needed to know that “God is with us,” and that Aram’s and Israel’s “booty” would be carried away “speedily,” and its “prey…swiftly” (7:14; 8:3).

So why did Matthew think Isaiah 7:14 could be applied to Jesus?  Probably not for the same reason we often do.  We apply Isaiah 7:14 to Jesus because we never read its immediate context; Matthew probably applied it to Jesus because he read past the immediate context to the broader context of surrounding passages.  As we mentioned before, Isaiah’s children were for “signs,” each teaching Judah of what God would do (8:18).  The immediate sign of God being with Judah would be the conquest of their enemies to the north; but the ultimate act of God being with them would be when God Himself actually came to be with them.  In the very next passage, Isaiah announces a hope that would extend beyond Judah even to the northern kingdom of Israel (9:1-2), a conquering king, a child who would be born to the house of Judah (9:3-7).  Not only would He be called “God is with us”; like his other titles, which appropriately apply to Him, “Mighty God” would apply to Him (9:6, a title of God also found in the context, 10:21).  This Davidic King (9:7) would be God in the flesh (9:6); in the ancient near East, where Israel may have been unusual for not turning its kings into gods, Isaiah certainly would not have risked calling this king “Mighty God” if he had not meant that God Himself was coming to reign as one of David’s descendants.  Matthew was right, but not for the reason we would have assumed!

Some critics of Matthew, who believe that he simply did not know the context, are skeptical.  It is fair to point out to them that Matthew demonstrates his knowledge of the context just three chapters later.  There he applies to Jesus a passage from Isaiah 9:1-2 (Matt 4:15-16), showing that the context of Isaiah 7:14 remains fresh in his mind!

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Jesus’ second coming: is it referenced in John 14:2-3?

Jesus tells His disciples, “In my Father’s house are many ‘dwelling-places’” (14:2; “mansions” comes from the Latin translation–it is not in the original Greek text).  Jesus promises that He is going to prepare a place for His disciples, but will return and take them to be with Him where He is (John 14:2-3).  Usually readers today assume that Jesus here refers to his future coming to take us to heaven or the new earth.  If we had these verses by themselves, that view would make as much sense as any other; after all, Jesus often spoke of His second coming, and we will be with him forever.

But the context indicates that Jesus is speaking of an earlier coming here: not just being with Jesus after he comes back in the future, but being with him in our daily lives in the present.  How can this be?

Peter wants to follow Jesus wherever He goes, but Jesus tells him that if he wants to follow Jesus where He is going, he must follow Him to the death (John 13:31-38).  Nevertheless, Peter and the other disciples should not be afraid; they should trust in Jesus the same way they trusted in the Father (14:1).  He would prepare a dwelling-place for them in His Father’s house, and would come back afterwards to receive them to Himself (14:2-3).  “You know where I’m going and how I will get there,” He told them (14:4).  Perhaps like us, the disciples were confused, and Thomas spoke for all of them: “Lord, we don’t even know where You’re going; how can we know the way you’re getting there?” (14:5)  So Jesus clarifies His point: Where He is going to the Father (14:6), and He is going there by dying on the Cross but would return afterward to give them the Spirit (14:18-19; 16:18-22).  How would they get to the Father?  By coming through Jesus, who is the way (14:6).

We often cite John 14:2-3 as a proof-text for Jesus’ future coming; conversely, we cite John 14:6 as a proof-text for salvation.  But if we follow the flow of conversation, we have to be wrong about one of them.  14:2-3 declares that Jesus will bring them where He is going, but 14:6 tells us where He’s going and how we His followers will get there: He is going to the Father, and we come to the Father when we get saved through Jesus (14:6).  Do we come to the Father through Jesus only when He returns in the future, or have we come to Him already through faith?  The entire context makes this point clear.  We enter the Father’s house when we become followers of Jesus Christ!

In the context of John’s entire Gospel, there is no reason to assume that the “Father’s house” refers to heaven, though it might be an allusion to the Temple (John 2:16) or to the Father’s household (John 8:35; and we are His new temple and His household).  More helpfully, Jesus goes on to explain the “dwelling-places” (NIV: “rooms”) explicitly in the following context.  The Greek word for “dwelling-place” used in 14:2 occurs in only one other verse in the New Testament—in this very context, in 14:23, part of Jesus’ continuing explanation of 14:2-4.  “The one who loves Me will obey Me, and My Father will love that one and we will come make our ‘dwelling-place’ with that person” (14:23).  The related verb appears throughout John 15:1-10: “Dwell [abide]” in Christ, and let Christ “dwell” in you.  We all know that Jesus will return someday in the future, but if we read the rest of John we learn that Jesus also returned to them from the Father after His resurrection, when He gave the disciples the Spirit, peace and joy (20:19-23), just as He had promised (14:16-17, 26-27; 16:20-22).  This is in fact the only coming the context addresses (14:18 in the context of 14:15-27; 16:12-24).

What is the real point of John 14:2-3?  It is not that Jesus will return and we will be with Him someday—true as that teaching is from other texts.  It is that Jesus returned after His resurrection so Christians could have life with Him (14:18-19), that He has already brought us into His presence and that we can experience the reality of His presence this very moment and at all times.  This means that the same Jesus who washed his disciples feet in the preceding chapter, who taught and healed and suffered for us, is with us at this very moment.  He invites us to trust His presence with us.

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Are we to bind and loose demons? — Matthew 18:18

I used to follow a popular misinterpretation of this verse.  As a young Christian, I used to use Matthew 18:18 to “bind” and “loose” demons whenever I would pray (as if demons were always standing by listening).  Fortunately, God is more concerned with our faith than with our formulas, and graciously answered my prayers whether or not I threw any “binding” in.  But one day I read Matthew 18:18 in context, and I realized that I had been misinterpreting the passage.  Because my prayers had “worked,” I decided to keep “binding” and “loosing”—but now that I knew better, the practice did not work anymore, because I could no longer do it in the integrity of my heart before God!  Happily, I found that God still answered my prayers prayed in Jesus’ name without “binding.”

What do “binding” and “loosing” mean in this context?  In the context, Jesus indicates that if one’s fellow-Christian is living a sinful lifestyle, one must confront that Christian; if he or she refuses to listen, one should bring others so one will have two or three witnesses if one must bring the matter before the church.  If despite repeated loving confrontations that person refuses to repent, the church must put that person out of the church to teach the person repentance (Matt. 18:15-17).  In this context, Jesus declares that whatever they “bind” or “loose” on earth will have already been “bound” or “loosed” in heaven–i.e., under these circumstances, they clearly act on God’s authority (18:18).  Because the terms “binding” and “loosing” literally have to do with imprisoning or releasing people, and Jewish teachers used these terms to describe their legal authority, the terms make good sense in this context: the church must discipline its erring members, removing them from participation in the church if they continue in unapologetic sin.

The “two or three” who pray in this context (18:19) refer to the two or three witnesses (18:16).  I used to read this passage and worry that my prayers would be less efficacious if I could not find someone to join me in prayer; I did wonder, however, why my own faith would be insufficient.  But this verse does not imply that prayer is efficacious only for a minimum of two persons; it promises that even if only two witnesses are available, and even if the prayers or actions on earth involve something as serious as withdrawing a person from the church, God will back up His servants whom He has authorized.

Perhaps the specific prayer in mind is a prayer that God will bring the disfellowshiped person to repentance and restoration; if so, Jesus deliberately contrasts the attitude required of His followers with the two or three witnesses in the Old Testament law, who were to be the first to stone those against whom they testified (Deut. 17:7).  Probably alluding to a Jewish saying circulating in the early centuries of this era—”Wherever two or three gather to study God’s law, His presence is among them”—Jesus assures His followers (specifically the witnesses) of His presence even in the difficult situation of church discipline (Matt 18:20).  Of course the principle of answered prayer applies to other prayers as well, but he specifies “two or three” here because he is referring to the “two or three” he just mentioned.

Although we cannot take space here to comment further on the matter, this particular passage does not support the common practice of “binding” demons as it is done today.  Whereas “binding demons” in the way it is generally practiced today has no warrant in this text, however, it does appear in some ancient magical texts, which makes this practice even more suspect.  When Jesus claims to have “bound the strong man” (Matt 12:29), he does not first tell Satan, “I bind you” before casting out demons.  He had already defeated the strong man by overcoming temptation and obeying the Father’s will; thus He was free to exercise His authority and cast out demons.

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Behold, I stand at the door and knock — Revelation 3:20

Here Jesus knocks not at the door of the individual sinner, but rather at the door of a church that was acting like one!  Whereas Jesus had set before another church an open door, inviting them into his presence despite the false accusations of their persecutors (Rev 3:8), he was here locked out of another church.  Ancient hospitality required sharing food with a guest, but the Laodicean church had locked Jesus out by their arrogant self-sufficiency (3:17-18).  He wanted these Christians to repent and express again their need for him (3:19).

This does not make illegitimate the faith of those led to Christ using this verse; the principle applies, and it is in any case the gospel message, not the interpretation of a verse, that converted them.  But the point remains that if we misinterpret the verse, we do not learn what this passage has to say to us.  There may be arrogant churches today that have locked Jesus out.

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Faith, the assurance of things hoped for — Hebrews 11:1

Hebrews 11:1 declares that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Although the verse expresses faith in terms of what we hope for–suggesting a future emphasis–some popular preachers have emphasized the first word of the verse in many translations: “Now.”  They read “now” as if it were an adjective describing faith: “Hebrews says ‘now-faith,’ so if it’s not ‘now,’ it’s not ‘faith.’”  Thus, they claim, one must have faith for the answer now; if one merely believes that God eventually will  answer the prayer, they claim that one does not have faith.

Other passages may stress the importance of believing God in the present (like the woman with the flow of blood touching Jesus’ garment), but that is not the point of this passage.  First, the English word “now” is not an adjective but an adverb; thus the English text, if it referred to time at all, would not mean, “the now-kind-of-faith is,” but “faith currently is” (i.e., “now” does not describe faith).  But second, the passage was not written in English; it was written in Greek, and the Greek word translated “now” here does not have anything to do with time at all.  It simply means “but” or “and”—”And faith is.”  (It is “now” only as in “Now once upon a time”—this particular Greek word never has to do with time.)  The popular preachers apparently were in such a hurry to get their doctrine out that they never bothered to look the verse up in Greek.

Context makes it clear that this verse addresses reward in the future, not the present.  The first readers of Hebrews had endured great sufferings (Heb. 10:32-34), but some were no longer pursuing Christ with their whole hearts, and some were in danger of falling away (10:19-31).  The writer thus exhorts the readers not to abandon their hope, which God would reward if they persevered (10:35-37); he trusted that they would persevere in faith rather than falling back to destruction (10:38-39).  That persevering faith was the faith that laid hold on God’s promises for the future, the kind of faith great heroes of faith had exhibited in the past: for instance, we know Enoch had this faith, for the Bible says that he pleased God, and no one can please God without such faith (11:5-6).

Most of Hebrews 11’s examples of faith are examples of persevering faith in hope of future reward: Abraham left his present land seeking a city whose builder and maker was God (11:8-10); Joseph looked ahead to the exodus which would happen long after his death (11:22); Moses rejected Egypt’s present treasures in favor of future reward (11:24-26); and so on.  The writer concludes with those heroes of the faith who suffered and died without deliverance in this life (11:35-38).  In fact, though history commended the faith of all the heroes of this chapter, the writer declares that none of them received what God had promised them (11:39-40).

Finally the writer points to the ultimate hero of the faith–the author and perfecter of our faith, who endured the cross in hope of his future reward, the joy of His exaltation at God’s right hand (12:1-3).  If all these men and women of faith had endured in the past, why did the Hebrews balk at the shedding of their blood (12:4), at the trials which were just the Lord’s temporary discipline (12:5-13)?  Instead of falling away (12:14-29) because of their persecution, they were to stand firm in Christ, not being moved away from the hope of their calling.  “Faith” in this context means not a momentary burst of conviction, but a perseverance tested by trials and time that endures in light of God’s promises for the future.

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Faith comes by hearing — Romans 10:17

Some people quote Romans 10:17 to support repeating Bible verses to ourselves aloud: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Of course, repeating the Bible to ourselves is important (if we understand it in context). But those who think that is the point of this particular verse should reexamine the context of Romans 10:17.

Paul argues that no one could be saved unless they heard this word, which is the message of Christ (10:14-15), the “report” of the witnesses (10:16). This is also the “word” in their mouths and hearts through which they are saved (10:8-10). Faith could only come from hearing this word, the gospel of Christ (10:17). In contrast to Hebrews 11:1, where “faith” in context means persevering faith, this passage refers to saving faith. One cannot be saved until one hears the truth about Jesus.

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Resist the devil — James 4:7 and other verses

James contrasts the peaceful wisdom which is from God (3:13, 17-18; “from above” was a typical Jewish way of saying, “from God”) with the contentious wisdom which is from the devil (3:14-15). Then he warns his audience not to try to hold both perspectives as if they were compatible. Those who try to follow both God’s and the world’s wisdom at the same time are spiritual adulteresses (4:4).

Submitting to God and resisting the devil (4:7), then, is rejecting the world’s evil way of treating one another and preferring the gentle approach that comes from God. To adopt this new way of treating others requires repentance (4:8-10).

1 Peter refers to a situation in which Christians are being persecuted (1 Pet 4:12-16); in 1 Peter 5:8-9, the devil apparently seeks to crush believers by seeking to turn them from the faith. Resisting him therefore means withstanding the persecution.

In the context of Ephesians 4:27, one resists the devil by refusing to deceive or stay angry with one’s fellow-believers (4:25-26); in the whole context of Ephesians, this is part of “spiritual warfare” (6:11-14, 18).

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I can do all things through Christ — Philippians 4:13

A football player at a Christian college approached his Bible professor, greatly troubled. His coach had encouraged the team that they could “do all things through Christ who strengthens” them, citing Philippians 4:13. Yet the team had lost a few games, and the student was unable to fathom why his team was not always winning, since they “could do all things through Christ.” The problem, of course, is not with the text, but with the view that the player and apparently his coach had read into the verse. The football player was assuming that Paul had in view matters like winning football games.

Thanking the Philippians for sending him a love-gift (4:10, 14), Paul noted that he had learned contentment with both little and with much (4:12); he could do all things through Christ (4:13). In this context, he is saying that by Christ’s strength he could rejoice whether he had much or little. Today we should learn to rejoice in whatever our situation, knowing that Christ strengthens us to endure: whether persecution, ridicule, or even losing a football game.

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Baptized with fire — Matthew 3:11

One modern denomination in the U.S. is the “Fire-Baptized Holiness Church”; many other Christians also happily claim to be “baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire.” We know and appreciate, of course, what they mean; they mean holiness, and holiness is essential. But is that what John the Baptist means by “fire baptism” in this passage? Fire is sometimes used as a symbol of God’s consuming holiness or of purifying trials in the Bible; but when fire is conjoined with the image of baptism in the New Testament, it has to do not with mere purification of the individual, but with purifying the whole world by judgment. (Judgment is the most common symbolic application fire in the Bible.) Rather than cross-referencing to other passages that use the image of fire in different ways, we ought to examine what the “baptized in fire” text means in its own context. We ought to use the passage itself before jumping to a concordance.

The context is a call to repentance, and much of the audience promised this fire baptism was unwilling to repent. John the Baptist was immersing people in water as a sign of their repentance and preparation for the coming Kingdom of God (Matt. 3:2, 6). (Jewish people used baptism when non-Jews would convert to Judaism, but John demanded that even religious Jewish people come to God on the same terms on which Gentiles should; cf. 3:9.) John warned the Pharisees about God’s coming wrath (3:7), and that unless they bore fruit (3:8) God’s ax of judgment would cast them into the fire (3:10; cf. 12:33). Fruitless trees were worthless except for fuel. But chaff was barely even useful as fuel (it burned quickly), yet the chaff of which John spoke would be burned with “unquenchable”—eternal—”fire” (3:12).

In the verses just before and just after our verse, “fire” is hellfire (3:10, 12). When John the Baptist speaks of a baptism in fire, he uses an image of judgment that follows through the whole paragraph. Remember that John’s hearers here are not repentant people (3:7). The Messiah is coming to give his audience a twofold baptism, and different members of his audience would experience different parts of it. Some may repent, be gathered into the barn and receive the Spirit. The unrepentant, however, would be chaff, trees cut down, and would receive the fire!

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“If I be lifted up” — Jesus’ meaning in John 12:32

In the United States, Christians often sing, “Lift Jesus higher…He said, ‘If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me,’” based on John 12:32. The Bible does talk about “exalting” God and “lifting him up” in praise, but that is not the point of this text. If one reads the next verse (which explicitly says that Jesus was referring to his death), it is clear that “lifting him up” refers to his death on the cross. (The play on words with “lifting up” was already used in both Greek and Hebrew for forms of hanging, such as crucifixion.) Thus, if the song means by lifting Him up what the biblical verse means, we would be singing, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Of course God knows our hearts, but one wonders why a song writer would base a song, which millions of people might sing, on a verse yet not take the time to look up the verse on which it is based!

John three times refers to Jesus being “lifted up”: in one case, he compares this event to the serpent being lifted up in the wilderness (Jn 3:14), to make eternal life available to everyone (3:15). In the second, Jesus declares that His adversaries will lift Him up (8:28). In other words, John means by “lifting up” what Isaiah meant by it: Jesus would be crucified (Isa. 52:13 with Isa. 52:14-53:12). John includes plays on words in his gospel, and may also indicate that we “exalt” Jesus by preaching the Cross; but leaves no doubt as to the primary sense of the term in this context: crucifixion. To read it any other way is to ignore his explicit, inspired explanation of the “lifting up.”