Search Results for: mark 15

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True Purification—Matthew 15:1-31

Mere religious tradition can blind us to what really matters to God. Those whose honor derives from their religious or social status can resent those who speak truth. But Jesus transcends all boundaries and reaches out to all people. He shows true power to transform that mere religious rituals cannot.

Jerusalem was the dominant city in the region of Judea and Galilee. Jerusalem therefore had the largest concentration of scribes, or teachers of the law, and Pharisees, known for their meticulous concern with biblical laws and Pharisaic traditions. Some of these scribes and Pharisees noticed that Jesus’s disciples did not ceremonially wash their hands before a meal. Because teachers were considered responsible for their disciples’ behavior, these religious leaders challenge Jesus concerning why he allowed this breach of traditional purity (Matt 15:1-2). Their concern was not one of hygiene (which is a valuable thing) but one of ritual purity. (Unlike Mark, who writes mainly for Gentiles, Matthew does not need to explain this custom, which was common among Jews even far away in the Greek world.)

Jesus responds, however, by highlighting the inconsistent values in their religious traditions. Customs are not necessarily evil, and sometimes they can be helpful in avoiding needless offense (cf. 17:24-27); but they must never be allowed to take priority in our lives over biblical principles. Scripture demanded honoring parents (see especially Exod 20:12), which naturally included providing for aged parents (Matt 15:4). Pharisees would have agreed with Jesus on this point. Yet Jesus explains that they value secondary rules in the name of religion so highly that they could ignore someone using religion as an excuse to dishonor parents (15:5-6). They were inconsistent to value human traditions to this extent, because in so doing they valued them above what Scripture, God’s own Word, said (15:3, 6). Thus they were hypocrites, just like those whom the biblical prophets condemned (15:8-9).

The real issue here, Jesus points out, is not hand washing, but condemning others based on merely human rules, while ignoring what God has already explained matters most to him. Scripture reveals God’s heart; it shows God more concerned about love and justice for others (cf. 22:35-40; 23:23) than about mere rituals, especially rituals not even mentioned in the Bible! Because Jesus honors Scripture highly, as “God’s word” (15:6), we should do the same, evaluating our rules by its standards. Scripture’s central ethical concerns have to do not with rituals but with how we treat others. (See the sample prohibitions in 15:19, four or five of the six from Exod 20:13-16, the same passage as Exod 20:12 used above; compare also four of the issues in Matt 5:21-48.)

Jesus’s public reproof of the religious leaders worries the disciples; it seems imprudent to offend society’s powerful (15:12)! Jesus, however, has simply responded to the religious leaders’ criticisms of others; Jesus has been defending his disciples. He explains that the future does not lie with these apparently powerful people; God’s kingdom is about what God establishes, not about what people accomplish by their own religious ideas (15:13-14). The truly wise are not those who come up with their own ideas about God; indeed, even the disciples Jesus had chosen were not always the most intellectually proficient (15:15-16). True wisdom means recognizing that God is by far the wisest of all, and therefore we should accept God’s Word. Divine truth is what God has revealed about himself rather than human guesses about him (cf. 16:17).

Far more offensive than the impurity of unwashed hands, however, was the supposed impurity of the sorts of people that Jewish people deemed impure—Gentiles (15:21-28). Jesus takes his disciples into a Gentile region, and a woman there begs him to deliver her daughter from a demon (15:21-22). In Mark 7:26, Mark calls the woman a Syrophoenician Greek; this means that she belonged to the ruling class of Greeks who now controlled the Gentile cities to the north of Galilee. Many of the common people of this region, however, were descended from the Canaanites displaced by Israel’s earlier conquest. Matthew thus calls her a “Canaanite” (Matt 15:22; cf. two Canaanite women in 1:3, 5)—whom his Jewish contemporaries might view as the most impure among the impure Gentiles! Jesus’s disciples, who like some believers today shared the values of their culture, certainly did not want her around (15:23).

Because Jesus’s initial mission was only to Israel (15:24), Jesus initially puts this woman off in 15:26. Her class might have considered such behavior shocking. This woman belonged to the urban ruling class that heavily taxed the countryside, so that many poor people’s children went hungry at times. Now Jesus was putting “the children’s bread” first, and she, a member of the ruling class, was the outsider! “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to dogs,” he warned. Jewish people considered dogs unclean, Gentiles used “Dog!” as an insult, and even a mere comparison with dogs (as is the case here) could be offensive if someone chose to take it that way.

This woman, however, does not try to maintain her dignity or rank; nor does she maintain ethnic prejudice against the Jewish descendants of the Canaanites’ ancient enemies. Instead, she desperately refuses to give up her daughter’s cause, and humbles herself. She, a Gentile, had already recognized Jesus as Son of David—the rightful king of Israel (15:22). (This is before Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ in 16:16!) Now she is ready to accept her subordinate position beneath him and his people. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs dropped from their lord’s table!” she pleads (15:27). In her Greek culture, dogs could also be household pets; they could eat scraps from the table. In other words, she does not need a big expression of his power; even a little bit is enough to deliver her daughter. Like the Gentile centurion speaking on behalf of his servant, she recognizes that he has more than enough power that even a little will be sufficient (8:8)!

Even though it was not yet time for the mission to the Gentiles (though it soon will be, 28:19), Jesus grants the woman’s request and delivers her daughter (15:28). As he did with the centurion (8:10), so here he commends this Gentile’s faith (15:28). She has expressed faith by recognizing that Jesus is her only hope, and by accepting whatever conditions he might place on her as a sign of his rulership. Jesus responds by setting aside a rule not yet universally abolished so he could respond to her heart. Now it becomes clear, even in advance of the Gentile mission in 28:19, that Gentiles can be delivered by faith, and the impure can be made pure. The greatest purity is not the purity of ritual, but the purity of the heart in Christ (15:11, 17-20). Ultimately, Christ transcends all ethnic and class barriers for those who trust in him, for us who recognize that he alone is our hope.

Jesus goes on to heal the broken (15:30-31) and feed the hungry (15:32-38). He does not depend on the approval of the powerful or the favor of the influential (cf. 15:7, 12), nice as those may have been. Instead he reaches out to the powerless. Ultimately this course will lead to the displeasure of the powerful people (such as some of the aristocratic priests) who exploited the powerless, and would lead Jesus to the cross. The gospel is realistic, warning us that there is a price for meeting desperate needs more than seeking worldly power. Yet Jesus, like the woman in this story, had faith: he depended on the Father alone, and gave his life knowing that the Father would raise him up.

–Craig Keener is professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary and author of The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (revised edition, InterVarsity, 2014).

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The Spirit-baptized life: a model–Mark 1:8-13

What does the Spirit-baptized life look like? Jesus is the model, and Mark presents him as such in his opening verses.

The Gospel of Mark mentions God’s Spirit explicitly only six times, but half of them appear in Mark’s introduction (1:8-13), where he introduces some of his central themes. (That is what ancient introductions often did.) Mark’s other uses emphasize the Spirit’s work in empowering Jesus for exorcism (Mk 3:29-30), Old Testament prophets to speak God’s message (12:26) or Jesus’ witnesses to speak his message (13:11).

In the introduction, John the Baptist announces the mighty one who will baptize others in the Holy Spirit (1:8); this Spirit-baptizer is Jesus of Nazareth. Immediately after this announcement, we see Jesus baptized and the Spirit coming on him (1:9-10). The Spirit-baptizer thus gives us a model of what the Spirit-baptized life will look like, for he himself receives the Spirit first. That is why what the Spirit does next appears all the more stunning: the Spirit thrusts Jesus into the wilderness for conflict with the devil (1:12-13). The Spirit-filled life is not a life of ease and comfort, but of conflict with the devil’s forces!

The rest of the Gospel of Mark continues this pattern. Shortly after Jesus emerges from the wilderness, he must confront an evil spirit in a religious gathering (1:21-27). Throughout the rest of the Gospel, Jesus continues to defeat the devil by healing the sick and driving out demons (cf. 3:27), while the devil continues to strike at Jesus through the devil’s religious and political agents. In the end, the devil manages to get Jesus killed–but Jesus triumphs by rising from the dead.

In the same way, Jesus expects his disciples to heal the sick and drive out demons (3:14-15; 4:40; 6:13; 9:19, 28-29; 11:22-24), and also to join him in suffering (8:34-38; 10:29-31, 38-40; 13:9-13). His disciples seemed more happy to share his triumphs than his sufferings, but the Gospel of Mark emphasizes that we cannot share his glory without also sharing his suffering. That lesson remains as relevant for modern disciples as for ancient ones!

Of course, Jesus is different from us. In light of the Old Testament, where only God can pour out God’s Spirit, Jesus’s role of Spirit-baptizer identifies him as divine. That is why John the Baptist feels himself unworthy to carry even his sandals—to take the posture of a servant–though the Old Testament prophets were called “servants of the Lord.” Nevertheless, Jesus also identifies with us fully in our humanity, and Mark shows that he depended on the Spirit’s power. Jesus both empowers us and shows us what a Spirit-empowered life can look like.

–For other posts about the Spirit and life in the Spirit, see http://wp.me/p1MUNd-eN (The fruit of the Spirit — Galatians 5:22-23); http://wp.me/p1MUNd-3N (How can we hear the Holy Spirit accurately?); http://wp.me/p1MUNd-fD (In God’s presence—John 14—16); http://wp.me/p1MUNd-fq (As the Father sent me, I send you—John 20:21); http://wp.me/p1MUNd-fO (“The down payment”); and other posts in the file marked “Holy Spirit”
For Craig’s video lectures about the Spirit, see (for short ones): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U2sk-POYC4 (Pentecost); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdcwx18dIWw (Water Imagery in the Gospel of John)
For a longer one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9FzsR6rY6w (Luke’s Theology of Mission in Acts)

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The last supper — Mark 14:12-21

Verse 12: Technically the feast of unleavened bread immediately followed Passover, but by this period popular usage counted the Passover as part of the larger unleavened bread festival. Representatives from each household would have the lamb sacrificed at the temple, and the household would eat the meat that night.

13: Commentators often observe that, in contrast to leather wineskins, water jars were usually carried by women (often the matron of the home); thus a man doing so would be unusual enough to be recognizable. In well-to-do households (as apparently here), slaves would carry the water; running water was a great luxury, and in many cities people would collect water at public fountains.

14: People wanted to eat Passover within the city limits, so they often sought local hospitality, often leading to crowded accommodations, except in well-to-do homes (as apparently in 14:15).

15: Unless the house was unusually large (some were), the upper room would provide an intimate environment for just a few disciples (say, the Twelve; not many more). This house was presumably of significant size to support an upper room large enough even for twelve to recline. This suggests that this was a spacious home, apparently in Upper City Jerusalem (as opposed to the poorer Lower City, downwind of the sewers).

17: The Passover had to be eaten at night; because sundown came by about 6 p.m. in Jerusalem in April, they could have begun the meal at that time. Normally one or two families banded together to eat the lamb; here Jesus and the twelve function as a family unit.

20: Dipping bowls were particularly used at Passover; the dish here is probably Passover’s dish of bitter herbs. Hospitality and table fellowship established a covenant of friendship; to betray a former host or guest, much less a current one, was considered among the most despicable acts of treachery.

Some scholars suggest that dipping “with” Jesus could imply rebellion, since (as in the Dead Sea Scrolls) the leader should act first, and many ancient banquets seated people by rank. This interpretation would be likeliest if Judas reclined near Jesus, on the same couch (cf. Jn 13:26).

21: Various biblical passages (Job 3:3-26; Jer 20:14-18), early Jewish and Greek lamentations spoke of never having been born alive being preferable to selected worse fates.

 

(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)

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Enemy soldiers torture and mock Jesus in Matthew 27:27-34

Over six hundred Roman soldiers were staying at the Fortress Antonia and at Pilate’s palace (which once belonged to Herod the Great).  Not recognizing that the true king of Israel and humanity stood before them, they mocked him as a pretend king.  Roman soldiers were known for abusing and taunting prisoners; one ancient form of mockery was to dress someone as a king.  Since soldiers wore red robes, they probably used a faded soldier’s cloak to imitate the purple robe of earlier Greek rulers.  People venerating such rulers would kneel before them, as here.  Military floggings often used bamboo canes, so the soldiers may  have had one available they could use as a mock king’s sceptre.  “Hail!” was the standard salute people gave to the Roman Emperor.

Spitting on a person was one of the most grievous insults a person could offer, and Jewish people considered the spittle of non-Jews particularly unclean.  Romans stripped their captives naked–especially shameful for Palestinian Jews; then they hanged the convict publicly.

Normally the condemned person was to carry the horizontal beam (Latin patibulum) of the cross himself, out to the site where the upright stake (Latin palus) awaited him; but Jesus’ back had been too severely scourged beforehand for him to do this (27:26).  Such scourgings often left the flesh of the person’s back hanging down in bloody strips, sometimes left his bones showing, and sometimes led to the person’s death from shock and blood loss.  Thus the soldiers had to draft Simon of Cyrene to carry the crossbeam.  Cyrene, a large city in what is now Libya in North Africa, had a large Jewish community (perhaps one quarter of the city) which no doubt included local converts.  Like multitudes of foreign Jews and converts, Simon had come to Jerusalem for the feast.  Roman soldiers could “impress” any person into service to carry things for them.  Despite Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 16:24, the soldiers had to draft a bystander to do what Jesus’ disciples proved unwilling to do.

Crucifixion was the most shameful and painful form of execution known in the Roman world.  Unable to privately excrete his wastes the dying person would excrete them publicly.  Sometimes soldiers tied the condemned person to the cross; at other times they nailed them, as with Jesus.  The dying man thus could not swat away insects attracted to his bloodied back or other wounds.  Crucifixion victims sometimes took three days to finish dying.

The women of Jerusalem prepared a pain-killing potion of drugged wine for condemned men to drink; Jesus refused it (cf. 26:29).  The myrrh-mixed wine of Mark 15:23, a delicacy and possibly an external pain reliever, becomes wine mixed with gall in Matthew; cf. Ps. 69:21 and the similarity between the Aramaic word for “myrrh” and Hebrew for “gall.”  Even without myrrh, wine itself was a painkiller (Prov 31:6-7).  But Jesus refused it.  Though we forsook him and fled when he needed us most, he came to bear our pain, and chose to bear it in full measure.  Such is God’s love for us all.

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The call and the cost—Jeremiah 1:4-19

God had a plan for your life long before you started learning about it. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” God told Jeremiah. “Before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jer 1:5 NIV). There is often a rush of excitement learning that God has a special plan and significance for us, special gifts and roles in his larger plan.

We may, however, also experience a sense of apprehension. What if we already had different plans of our own? Different plans do not always prove incompatible, but sometimes they do. Jeremiah’s mission would end up consuming his attention and most of the rest of his life. If our plans prove incompatible with God’s, it’s wise to scrap ours straight off and not waste time fooling around. (Moses and especially Jonah took a good bit of persuasion, and, especially in Jonah’s case, it wasn’t pretty.)

Jeremiah’s objection was different. “Oh, Lord, I can’t speak in front of people! I’m just a kid!” he protested (Jer 1:6). Protocol back then meant that people’s rank in society dictated the weight attached to their words. Who would listen to Jeremiah? Protesting one’s calling was not a new thing. Moses, who could have protested that he was too old (eighty, Exod 7:7), tried to explain to God that he was a bad speaker. Nobody was going to listen to this old shepherd from the backside of the wilderness (Exod 4:10; 6:12, 30). Gideon protested that he was youngest member of the least respected family in his tribe (Judg 6:15). Most of us could at least voice Isaiah’s objection: confronted with God’s absolute holiness, he recognized the finiteness and weakness of his own lips (Isa 6:5).

Most of us would love our lives to have significance in God’s plan. But most of us also recognize that having such a role demands something more than what we seem to be made of. A prophet to the nations? (Jer 1:5) (Jeremiah was mostly a prophet to Judah, but also offered oracles concerning many nations, which helped put his prophecies to Judah in perspective. Later Paul as an apostle to the nations/gentiles would actually proclaim the message of Christ in many gentile cities.)

The bad news is that our initial fear is correct: we’re not capable of doing what God called us to do. The good news is that we’re in good company, as neither is anybody else. God delights to use people who can’t fulfill his call in our own strength, so that we have to depend on him. By the time God fulfills what he calls us to do, we recognize that he gets the credit, not us. (Some of you read my blogs because you know me as a Bible scholar. You probably didn’t know that for a few years I was really worried whether I would even get into a PhD program. I’m doing now what I was made to do, but though it burned in my heart back then, it seemed entirely possible that I would just pastor small congregations and support myself by flipping burgers. And there are still aspects of my calling for which I look to the Lord.)

The really good news is that when God calls us, he is with us to fulfill his calling. It’s not our doing: it’s him using us (Jer 1:8-10, 18-19). God’s word was going to come to pass, because God was speaking it (1:12, 14-16); but Judah needed to hear the message beforehand, so that they would understand why God was judging them.

Now some more bad news, at least from the human perspective: people were not going to like what God was giving Jeremiah to say. This may be harder on those of us who are sensitive to what others think than on somebody thick-skinned and pugnacious. It was certainly going to be hard on Jeremiah. God’s assurance, “Don’t let them scare you! I’ll rescue you!” (Jer 1:8) gave a hint where this was going. “If you give in to them, you’re through,” God essentially says (1:17). Jeremiah would struggle inwardly, but he never did renounce his message to Judah.

“They’ll fight against you,” God warns, but it will be okay because God will be with him and rescue him (1:19). Centuries earlier, Moses asked, “Who am I?” (Exod 3:11), and instead of answering who Moses was, God reminded him that God was with him (3:12). God also provided a more important declaration of identity: “I AM who I AM” (Exod 3:14). It’s not who we are but who God is that makes the difference.

In the short run, this was bad news for Jeremiah. Following God’s will meant that he would be ostracized and attacked. “Nobody owes me money, nor do I owe money to anybody else, but everybody curses me anyway!” (Jer 15:10). He would have to stay single—to spare him from the grief of having to lose a family when judgment came (16:2-4). He couldn’t attend parties or funerals; separated by his devotion to God, he fed on God’s words but was isolated from what mattered to the rest of society (15:16-17; 16:5-9). His closest friends would turn on him (20:10). He would endure public beating, humiliation and imprisonment for not being appropriately “patriotic” (20:1-3). His own relatives, priests in Anathoth (cf. 1:1), would want to kill him (11:21).

Yet in the long run, he turned out to be the one true prophet of his generation. His generation didn’t listen to him, but after judgment fell, Judah learned their lesson. Three books of the Bible written after Jeremiah’s lifetime emphasize that God’s words to Jeremiah were fulfilled: Daniel (Dan 9:2), the conclusion of 2 Chronicles (2 Chron 36:21-22) and the beginning of Ezra (Ezra 1:1).

When Jesus called disciples to follow him, they had to leave their professions and everything they owned behind, at least for awhile (Mark 1:18, 20). In the end, they found themselves unprepared for Jesus’s even greater demands to take up their cross and follow him (8:34; 15:21)—although that changed after Easter and Pentecost (Acts 2:14, 37, 42).

We live on the other side of Easter and Pentecost. Your calling might seem big or small in others’ eyes. Maybe all you know about God’s plan for you so far is the basics: love him, love your neighbor, love your fellow believers, and share Christ with the world. Whatever God’s plan is for you, are you ready to surrender everything to him? Are you ready to recognize that his plan for you is what is best, and is worth any price you must pay along the way?

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How much is one life worth?

In light of COVID, some have asked the worth of an individual life. I’m not qualified to answer from the perspective of biochemists, information scientists, healthcare workers, or economists (poverty and hunger are also taking a toll globally). All have important information to share, and public policy debates on this, and casualty projections, are beyond my sphere of competence.

But as to how much a life is worth to God: Jesus deemed one person more valuable than 2000 pigs (Mark 5:1-20). No wealth can pay the price for a life; only God can (Ps 49:7-9, 15). There’s nothing one can give in exchange to keep one’s life for eternity (Mark 8:37)—but Jesus gave his life as a complete ransom for us (Mark 10:45).

God counted you worth the death of his Son: don’t waste the opportunity to devote your life back to him.

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Filled with the Spirit, Worship God in Spiritual Songs—Ephesians 5:18-20

In my times in Africa, I have often noticed women singing while they work. My wife, son and daughter, who are from Africa, tend to do the same. Well, I guess I have sometimes done the same, though normally when I think nobody is around. (They all sing a lot better than I do.)

But this need not be a characteristic limited to African life, as we shall see with respect to Eph 5:18-20.

In my work on Acts, I initially treated Eph 5:18 as a different expression of being filled with the Spirit than what we find in Acts. Luke’s emphasis about the Spirit in Acts is empowerment for mission (Acts 1:8), with filling by the Spirit usually expressed in Luke’s work by Spirit-inspired (prophetic-like) speech for God (2:17-18; cf. 4:8, 31; 13:9; 19:6; 28:25; Luke 1:15-17, 41-42, 67). In keeping with Acts’ emphasis on mission to the nations (Acts 1:8), this inspired speech is often expressed by worshiping God in other people’s languages (2:4; 10:46; 19:6).

I argued that Paul aproaches tongues (in 1 Corinthians) and being filled with the Spirit (in Ephesians) from a different, if complementary, perspective. In 1 Cor 14, Paul focuses on the role of tongues in private prayer, also viewing it in the context of gifts from the Spirit generally (1 Cor 12—14). Although Paul prays in tongues privately more than do all the Corinthians (14:18), Paul emphasizes that in corporate worship tongues should be interpreted so as to benefit all the hearers. He is correcting abuses in Corinth, but the believers there presumably learned the practice through him, perhaps some of them even in the sort of collective outpourings of the Spirit like those sometimes narrated in Acts. But the way Paul articulates his focus differs from that which Luke associates with corporate outpourings of the Spirit narrated in Acts (e.g., 4:31; 13:52), which sometimes mention tongues (2:4; 10:46; 19:6).

In Eph 5:18-20, I argued, Paul emphasizes a different expression of being filled with the Spirit, and he is probably urging a regular or continuous experience with God. He is not narrating collective experiences, often (as in Acts 2, 10, 13 and 19; not 4) inauguratory ones, as Luke is doing in Acts. (The Greek term for “filled” also differs from the usual term used by Luke, except in Acts 13:52, but that might be merely stylistic preference.)

In Eph 5:18, we are to be filled and ruled by the Spirit in contrast to being filled and controlled by wine (cf. Acts 2:13-15). A drunk (or otherwise stoned or high) person may utter or sing nonsense, but being filled with the Spirit in the sense of Eph 5:18 leads to better content in one’s speech. The command “be filled with the Spirit” is followed by a string of subordinate participial clauses that express what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit, especially in relation to one another (5:19-21):

  • Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and Spirit-moved songs
  • Singing and praising [possibly even, “psalming”] the Lord with [all] your hearts (for the pairing of these same Greek terms for singing and praising, cf. LXX Ps 20:14 [ET 21:13]; 26:6 [27:6]; 32:3 [33:3]; 56:8 [57:7]; 67:5, 33 [68:4, 32]; 103:33 [104:33]; 104:2 [105:2]; 107:2 [108:1]; 143:9 [144:9])
  • Always giving thanks for everything to [our] God and Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
  • Submitting to each other because you reverence Christ

Yet Eph 5:18 is not nearly as distant from Acts as I have sometimes thought. Here, too, being filled with the Spirit is expressed in Spirit-inspired speech. Here this Spirit-inspired speech is expressed in worship in 5:19; but the tongues passages in Acts probably also involve worship (note 2:11; 10:46, with kai connecting the tongues and magnifying God more closely than te … kai in 19:6, which probably distinguishes the tongues from other prophetic speech). Paul elsewhere treats tongues in terms of prayer (1 Cor 14:13-15) and blessing and thanking God (14:16-17), so if Acts describes the same experience (albeit from a different angle), tongues there probably involves especially worship as well.

The worship in Eph 5:18 is not surely limited to, yet surely includes, tongues. “Spiritual songs” likely means “songs from the Spirit”; since Paul elsewhere speaks of tongues as a gift of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:10), and speaks of its use in song (14:13-15), this would include singing in tongues. This conclusion might follow all the more if we construed “spiritual” as referring to the human spirit, since Paul elsewhere depicts singing in a tongue and interpreting it as singing with his spirit and with his mind, respectively (14:13-15).

Again, Paul’s understanding of worship in Eph 5:18 is not limited to tongues. Paul speaks of psalms and hymns, which undoubtedly include biblical psalms (as in the synagogue). As for hymns, some scholars identify what they believe are pre-Pauline hymns in Paul’s letters. I am more inclined to see these as exalted prose (grand rhetoric), since they do not fit the structure of Greek hymns, and I am inclined to attribute most of them to Paul. (Greeks used specially exalted language for the divine or sublime; Paul applies such exalted prose especially to Christ.) Nevertheless, Paul seems to take for granted that his audience accepts as common ground what he articulates in these praises of Christ. His affirmations in these passages therefore reflect wider Christian beliefs, and such beliefs were undoubtedly expressed in actual worship.

All of this suggests that a key New Testament expression of being filled with the Spirit, not only in Luke’s writings but also in Paul’s letters, is that even our lips yield to the Spirit’s leading. (The tongue is, after all, the most difficult organ to subdue—cf. Jms 3:2!) Moreover, we can often expect that when we experience the empowerment of the Spirit, this will be expressed in worship to God.

So far I have not commented on the final subordinate clause that flows from being filled with the Spirit (5:18): submitting to one another (5:21). Humbly submitting to and serving one another an overarching Christian principle (cf. Mark 10:43-45; John 13:14-15; Rom 12:10) that Paul applies to various relationships relevant to his audience (Eph 5:22—6:9). But in Acts, also, the Spirit produces loving devotion to and service for one another (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-35).

People of the Spirit are people who, both when gathered together and as part of our normal lifestyle, joyfully praise God and care for others.

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Jesus in Ancient Historians

On a popular level, some writers dismiss all evidence for Jesus as inconsequential and view him as a pure creation of his followers. Even apart from the dismissal of many lines of evidence, this skeptical approach, if followed consistently, would make much of history unknowable.[1] As in the case of other new movements, whether from disciples of Socrates, Muhammad, Buddha, or Joseph Smith, the life of the founder was initially of little interest beyond the circle of his own followers. The Dead Sea Scrolls revere the founder of their community, the Teacher of Righteousness, yet he appears nowhere outside their own literature.

Likewise, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus claims to have been a Pharisee, yet he nowhere mentions the Pharisaic sage Hillel, whom most subsequent Pharisaic traditions name as one of their central figures.[2] Meanwhile, the Judean king Agrippa I, whom Josephus depicts as prominent even in Rome, merits only the barest passing mention in a Roman historian covering the period.[3] Another major Roman historian devotes little space even to Herod the Great.[4]

By the same criterion of relevance, the earlier Greek historian Herodotus neglected not only Judea but Rome.[5] And Josephus himself, despite his prominent role in the Judean war and as an interpreter of Judea for the gentile Greco-Roman world, merits no interest in later rabbis (who in fact show greater interest in Jesus).

This is not to imply that non-Christian reports about Jesus are altogether absent. Most scholars today recognize that the first-century Judean writer Josephus, who wrote about John the Baptist and Jesus’s brother James, also wrote about Jesus himself.[6] Josephus treats Jesus as a sage and wonder-worker executed by the governor, probably with the complicity of some of Jerusalem’s elite.[7] Many scholars argue that an early Arabic version also confirms the key points about Jesus that scholars have reconstructed as original (before scribal tampering) in Josephus’s account.[8] Possibly as early as 45 years after Jesus’s crucifixion, a Syrian philosopher named Mara bar Sarapion speaks of Jews executing their wise king, bringing judgment on Judea. (He probably heard this report from Syrian Christians.)[9]

Titus Flavius Josephus

By the early second century, one historian includes a report, from just two decades after the crucifixion, about Jewish debates in Rome, apparently concerning the Christ.[10] Another, reporting the slaughter of vast numbers of Jesus followers in Rome roughly 34 years after the crucifixion, mentions that Jesus himself was earlier crucified under Pontius Pilate.[11] Rome itself had finally taken notice, because subsequent events had made Jesus’s movement a matter of local significance. In fact, the movement had become more significant in Rome than was the governor who executed Jesus. Although Jewish sources and an inscription mention Pilate,[12] this passage marks his only appearance in surviving Roman literature.

Most importantly and most early, we have considerable information about Jesus in Paul’s letters to his congregations, beginning perhaps eighteen to twenty years after Jesus’s execution. Paul was certainly a Christian, but by his own admission he began his involvement with the sect as one of its persecutors rather than as one of its friends. While focusing on Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, Paul also mentions other information about Jesus, including the Twelve, Jesus’s brothers, Jesus’s being mocked and abused, his burial, his teaching about divorce, his words at the last supper, and so forth. Paul also attests what seems to be a widespread early Christian consensus about Jesus’s role as Christ and exalted Lord. Nevertheless, Paul’s situation-occasioned letters do not supply anything like a biography of Jesus or even narrate any episodes from his life before the passion.

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This content is by Craig Keener, but edited and posted by Defenders Media, 501(c)(3).

[1] Against this approach, see e.g., Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?. Detractors cannot complain FFF: (as those who wish to avoid ad hominem arguments should not, in any case) that Ehrman, an agnostic, is motivated in this argument by religious bias. FFF: See also Casey, Evidence (from a non-Christian perspective; although sometimes polarizing and attributing more than appropriate to individuals’ psychological backgrounds, he is probably right to observe that British academia tend to show a greater commitment to fairness than do some polarized U.S. contexts);  Elliott, “Pseudo-Scholarship” (focusing on T. Freke and P. Gandy, and on 10 noting “factual errors, misstatements, and methodological misunderstandings on nearly every page”).

[2] See the comments by Israeli historian Flusser, Sage, 1; Flusser, “Ancestry,” 154; Flusser, “Love,” 154, compares the case of the Jesus movement with the followers of Simon Kimbangu or Joseph Smith. The analogies are of course inexact: for example, unlike Smith, Jesus left no written record; and unlike Jesus, Kimbangu did not train disciples (in the ancient Mediterranean sense). But the examples are sufficient for Flusser’s point.for Socrates, see Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 130; for the principle that it is those who care about a figure who preserve his or her memories, see Schwartz, “Smoke,” 11.

[3] Tacitus Ann. 12.23.

[4] Dio Cassius 49.22.6; 54.9.3.

[5] Josephus Apion 1.60-66, esp. 66.

[6] On Josephus’s genuine mention of Jesus, see Meier, “Jesus in Josephus”; idem, “Testimonium”; Whealey, “Josephus”; idem, “Testimonium”; Gramaglia, “Testimonium”; Paget, “Observations”; Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 79; Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism, 90-98; idem, “Jesus, Literature, and Archaeology,” 189-92; Dubarle, “Témoignage”; Ehrman, Prophet, 59-62; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 64-74; Van Voorst, Jesus, 81-104; Niemand, “Testimonium.”

[7] Josephus Ant. 18.63-64.

[8] See Agapius in Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism, 95-96; Hilarion, Beginning, 11-refs (noting Pines, Version, 16); but see Whealey, “Testimonium,” esp. 587-88.

[9] Theissen and Merz, Guide, 76-80.

[10] Suetonius Claud. 25.4; see Keener, Acts, 3:2697-2711, esp. 2708-11; Keener, “Edict.”

[11] Tacitus Ann. 15.44. FFF: Second-century authors also lampoon or criticize the Christian movement and its founder; see e.g., Lucian Peregrinus 11; cf. Celsus in Origen Cels.

[12] See e.g., Philo Embassy 299, 304; Josephus Ant. 18.35, 55-64, 87-89, 177; War 2.169-75.

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“In Christ”: united with Christ, immersed in Christ

I knew biblical passages about our solidarity with Christ—we are “in Christ,” we are the body of Christ, and so on. But I wasn’t sure how that connected with our personal spiritual experience of Christ. Was it related to Christ living in us (Gal 2:20)? Was it related to experiencing his resurrection life through the Spirit? After all, ancient Israelites were corporately related to Jacob without a personal experience of Jacob. Humanity is sinful without humans today having ever personally met a guy named Adam.

But of course, as I learned, the nature of the relationship is not exactly the same. We are reckoned in Adam in Rom 5:12-21 as Adam’s heirs, as descendants and fellow sinners. We become reckoned in Christ through baptism into Christ, not through genetic descent. “Adam” might dwell in us in some sense (in terms of solidarity as descendants and sinners), but the Spirit of Christ makes Christ present to us more dynamically (Rom 8:9).

Solidarity with Christ

Paul emphasizes that believers’ solidarity with Christ brings deliverance greater than the defeat effected by our solidarity with Adam (Rom 5:12-21). He then goes on to develop the theme of our union with Christ rather than with the “old person” (6:6) in Adam. Baptized into Christ (6:3-4), we share Christ’s death and resurrection (6:3-6a, 11). Paul can take for granted that being baptized into Christ entails baptism into his death because he understands that immersion into Christ includes sharing his experience. It is not merely theoretical.

“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by this baptism into this death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life. For since we’ve been grafted together/united with/identified with him in the image of his death, still more certainly we shall be united/identified with him in the image of his resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him … So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:3-5a, 11, ESV)

This sense of solidarity with Christ is not limited to one passage. Not also Colossians 3: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3 NASB); “Christ who is your life” (3:4, NRSV); you “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (3:10 NIV).

Paul finds partial analogies for this solidarity in shared experience in terms of sharers with Adam in sin (Rom 5:12-21) and Israel’s shared experience with Moses. In 1 Cor 10:2, by analogy with Christian experience of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Israelites were “baptized into Moses” (though, Paul warns, they failed to persevere). We may think similarly how Jesus recapitulates elements of Israel’s experience in the early chapters of Matthew’s Gospel.

Being baptized into Christ means that we have clothed ourselves with Christ (Gal 3:27); we share in him a new identity. We have put on the new person, recreated in God’s image (Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:9-10), as humanity was created in God’s image in the beginning (Gen 1:26). Obviously this solidarity has a forensic dimension: that is, how God views us in Christ. Yet it also must impact reality on our side as well as God’s. We are called to be what we are in Christ. In Christ, we must put off the old person (what we were in Adam) and put on the new, recreated in God’s image (Eph 4:22-24; cf. Col 3:8). We must live according to the new identity God has conferred on us in Christ.

Paul says that as we bore Adam’s mortal image, we shall also bear the immortal image of Christ (1 Cor 15:49). Progressively (2 Cor 3:17) and ultimately (Rom 8:29) we are conformed to the image of Christ, who is God’s image (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). We are conformed to this image by being shaped by the fruit of the Spirit within us (Gal 5:22-23), essentially by Christ living in us (Gal 2:20).

Immersed in Christ

How is this sharing of Christ effected in us? The Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9) lives in us.

The Spirit baptizes us into Christ: “by/in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:13). Ancient Jewish baptisms were ritual immersions, so the picture here is of the Spirit immersing us in Christ. This picture suggests that being clothed with Christ is not limited only to the way God sees us.

Paul’s expressions would make sense to those already familiar with early Christian language inherited from John the Baptist: “he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit” (Matt 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; 11:16). (There is also a narrower sense of this phrase in the NT, but at this point I am using the phrase in the more general way.)

Not surprisingly, then, Luke, who speaks of the church being baptized in the Spirit, in his narratives parallels the ministries of the Jerusalem Jesus movement (led by Peter) and the Diaspora mission (led by Paul) with Jesus’s ministry. The same Lord worked in both Peter and Paul (Gal 2:7-8).

Because the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ, being immersed in the Spirit entails being immersed in Christ. We read the Gospels as the story of our hero, but also our model, and the one the Spirit empowers us to follow. Thus in three successive paragraphs, Mark announces Jesus as the Spirit-baptizer (Mark 1:8), the pioneer of the Spirit-baptized life (1:9-11), and as the model of what this looks like as the Spirit thrusts him into conflict with the spiritual enemy (1:12-13). Jesus keeps warning disciples that they must share both his faith (9:19, 23, 29; 11:21-24) and his suffering (8:34; 13:13).

Walking in Christ

“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted and constructed in him” (Col 2:6-7)

“This is how we know that we’re in him: whoever claims to dwell in him ought to walk just as he walked” (1 John 2:5-6)

Our solidarity with Adamic humanity comes by birth. In Adam, we share glorious DNA designed to reflect God’s image yet alienated from God’s presence and purpose by human sin.

Our solidarity with Christ comes by baptism, yes, in water, at the entrance into new life, but also in the Spirit. We share Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection because we are immersed in him. Through the mind of the Spirit (Rom 8:5), the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16), we grow to think in his ways and act how Jesus would. The old adage, “What would Jesus do?” is more than a slogan; it invites us to think and act as Jesus thinks and acts, just as Jesus acted only as he saw the Father acting (John 5:19-20). The Spirit communicates Christ himself in the preaching of the gospel (see John 16:7-11; 1 Thess 2:13). Because Christ lives in us by the Spirit (John 14:17), we bear his fruit like branches on the vine (15:4-5), continuing many aspects of his mission (20:21-22). To walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:16) is also to walk in Christ (Col 2:6).

To the extent that we recognize that God has effected our solidarity with Christ, we can appropriate that identity as members of Christ (i.e., of his body; Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 6:15; Eph 4:25). We can remember that Christ lives in us and trust his character to live through us. The better we know what he is like, the more we can reflect that character by faith. Because we are each unique members of his body, we will individually reflect different aspects of his ministry. None of us is the entire body of Christ to himself.

It should be able to go without saying, but unfortunately often can’t go without saying, that we do not take the place of Jesus; the opposite must be the case: Jesus as Lord reigns in us so as to make his heart known. This comes through our direct relationship with the head, Jesus Christ, who is the source of our new life: Eph 4:15-16; Col 2:19; 3:4a).

We aren’t Jesus, but we are his agents. And when those agents work together, those around can see a fuller picture of Christ’s character through his body functioning together. As his body we together ideally reveal his character, his heart, his purposes, so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us (Gal 2:20). Immersed in Christ, clothed in Christ, we want our lives to reveal Christ in what we say and do and think. Together as the diverse members of Christ’s body, we are invited to show the world what Christ among them would do, proving God’s transforming power even to the heavenly rulers (Eph 3:10). Ideally, we as Christ’s body should mature into unity in trusting and knowing Christ (Eph 4:12-13). No one has seen God, but by loving one another we give the world a taste of God (1 John 4:12), and we know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us his Spirit (1 John 4:13).

Scholars debate today the meaning of “baptism in the Spirit.” More important than those debates about wording, however (which I deliberately sidestep in this post) is that we really embrace all that the Spirit wants to do in us. God desires to enable us to live like those immersed in his Spirit, and immersed in Christ. God wants people to continue to see what Jesus is like as the Spirit of Christ works in and through us.

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Even the demons submit—and your name is written in heaven (Luke 10:17-20)

Jesus’s seventy or seventy-two disciples returned to him excited after Jesus sent them out on their mission. “Lord, even the demons are subjected to us by your name!” (10:17).

Jesus will redirect some of their excitement, but before turning to that, let me make a brief comment on the seventy or seventy-two. A majority of scholars believe that the number here should be seventy-two; some other manuscripts read seventy. It’s not surprising that early scribes who were copying the number considered both numbers significant. Jesus had already sent the twelve to expel demons and heal the sick (9:1). He no doubt chosen the number twelve to reflect his plan for the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 22:30). Seventy, however, was the common Jewish reckoning of the number of gentile nations, based on the list of nations in Genesis 10. So this mission may prefigure the mission in Acts. Moses also appointed seventy elders over Israel (Num 11:16) in addition to heads of twelve tribes, and God empowered them to prophesy (11:25). But two other elders were not present, and God empowered them to prophesy also (11:26), bringing the number to seventy-two. In any case, Jesus is spreading the mission further, as Moses also would have liked (11:29).

Jesus sent them out to heal the sick and tell them while doing so, “God’s promised reign has come to you!” (Luke 10:9). That is, they were to preach that the expected kingdom of God was at hand, and people had to respond by either embracing this news or rejecting it. Jesus’s agents are heralds of God’s kingdom: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” (Isa 52:7, NRSV; cf. http://www.craigkeener.org/good-news-about-jesus-christ-and-the-introduction-to-marks-gospel-mark-11/). As elsewhere in Jesus’s ministry, healing and deliverance demonstrated that the promised time had come (Luke 7:20-23; 11:20).

Now Jesus’s 36 pairs of disciples return with great news, reporting that not only were the “normally” sick healed, but that even demons had been subjected to them in Jesus’s name (10:17). They were subject “in Jesus’s name” because Jesus’s agents, who acted and spoke faithfully on his behalf, represented him—whoever accepted or rejected them, ultimately accepted or rejected him (10:16).

Jesus replies, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning!” (10:18). Is he changing the subject, only to return to it in the next verse (10:19)? We can take Jesus’s “watching” in one of two ways. One possibility is that Jesus refers to an earlier fall of Satan, noted in Jewish tradition (and probably reapplied in another way in Rev 12:9—but that is another story). (Contrary to popular thought, it is not reflected in Isaiah 14, or at least not directly; the context there refers only to the arrogant, self-deifying king of Babylon; see http://www.craigkeener.org/does-isaiah-1412-14-refer-to-lucifers-fall-from-heaven/.)

Thus he would be saying, “You don’t need to worry about Satan. He lost his place before God a long time ago!”

This makes sense, but the other possibility might make even better sense. Jesus could be saying, “As you were preaching God’s reign, I was watching Satan fall, being displaced from his authority in heavenly places. God’s kingdom was taking back ground that the devil had usurped.” In other words, Jesus was watching Satan’s kingdom retreat during his disciples’ mission. Jesus does in fact view his ministry of deliverance as an assault on Satan’s kingdom (Luke 11:18); he is liberating the strong oppressor’s possessions (11:22; 13:16; cf. Acts 10:38). Paul, too, understood his mission of proclaiming God’s kingdom as delivering people from Satan’s authority to serve God instead (Acts 26:18). Satan does claim authority over earthly kingdoms (Luke 4:6), though only under God’s permission and ultimately God can overrule him (Dan 4:32).

But how would this second possibility fit Satan falling “from heaven”? If we use NT cosmological imagery, Satan works on earth from a position above it (see e.g., Eph 2:2; 6:12). More importantly, even the immediate context applies this language figuratively for one who is exalted being cast down. Because Capernaum, privy to much revelation of Jesus’s identity, did not respond even more radically to his identity, Jesus declares, “And you, Capernaum: you won’t be lifted up to heaven, will you? No! You’ll be thrust down to the underworld!” (Luke 10:15). Scripture often uses such language figuratively; compare Lam 2:1: “He has cast from heaven to earth the glory of Israel” (NASB). It would seem even more appropriate for Satan, already fallen and now being displaced from authority through the advance of Jesus’s kingdom forces in Luke 10:17.

Indeed, Jesus was granting them authority over Satan’s ground forces: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (10:19, NIV). Here Jesus echoes the idea in Ps 91:13: “You will subdue a lion and a snake;you will trample underfoot a young lion and a serpent” (NET). (This is the same psalm the devil earlier tried to manipulate Jesus into abusing in Luke 4:10-11; Jesus, by contrast, does have authority to apply it the right way.) We see an example of this authority in a more literal sense in Acts 28:3-5, where Paul is unharmed by a viper. Traveling dirt footpaths throughout Galilee to proclaim him, Jesus’s agents would indeed value protection against snakes. But in this context, Jesus undoubtedly also implies protection against spiritual serpents such as the devil (cf. 2 Cor 11:3, 14; Rev 12:9; 20:2).

Jesus thus acknowledges their observation: indeed, demons are subject to them (Luke 10:17-19). But then he qualifies their celebration with another observation. There is far greater cause for celebration than the subjection of demons. They can rejoice that their names are written in heaven (10:20); salvation is the greatest reason to celebrate (15:7, 10, 32; Acts 13:48; 15:3), and rewards in heaven are causes for joy (Luke 6:23). Satan has been cast down from heaven (Luke 10:18), but they are established in heaven! This draws on the earlier biblical image of God’s record book (Exod 32:32; Ps 56:8; 69:28; 139:16; Mal 3:16), elaborated in Jewish tradition and noted elsewhere in the NT as a heavenly book of life (see esp. Phil 4:3; Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27).

We celebrate many divine gifts, but the greatest of all is knowing that we can spend forever in the Lord’s presence, fulfilling the purpose for which we were designed. We may rejoice at exegetical insights, at opportunities to preach and see others turn to God, and even at discovering that as Jesus’s agents we can expel hostile spirits. But the ultimate cause of celebration is eternal life. It belongs to all who have come over to God’s side, who have embraced his kingdom, through Jesus. If you should happen to be reading this and not know whether you have that assurance, you have only to ask God for it in Jesus’s name. The God who gave his own Son to bring you to himself will certainly welcome you if you come.