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Enthroned above the powers—Ephesians 1:20-23

Today, at least in the West, most of us do not ordinarily think of spiritual powers influencing nations. Western culture emphasizes human autonomy; we run our own lives. But in Paul’s day, many people envisioned spiritual powers setting the tone for nations’ political, moral and intellectual life in powerful ways. Greeks and Romans thought of guardian spirits of nations; Jewish people viewed these as angels under God’s authority, though often as unruly angels hostile to God’s people.

It is significant, therefore, that in Ephesians 1:20-21, Paul depicts Jesus Christ our Lord as enthroned above all hostile spiritual authorities. (Some attribute Ephesians to a disciple reflecting Paul’s thought. For reasons that would require too much digression here, I think that Paul authored Ephesians more directly.)

Paul wrote Ephesians to believers in Asia Minor, including Paul’s previous center of ministry there, Ephesus. Spiritual power was no merely theoretical matter for his audience; many believers there had experienced deliverance from occult practices (Acts 19:18-19). Ancient sources show us that fear of spirits was widespread and gradually growing, reaching a peak by the third or fourth century.

Many such spirits were “ground forces,” but concern about heavenly spiritual powers also abounded. Many believed that the lowest of the heavens, the “air” realm where birds fly, was full of spirits. On a higher level, however, many also believed that Fate ruled through the stars; astrology was thus growing in popularity.

Jewish thinkers usually taught that the stars could not control the destiny of God’s people, whom God ruled directly and protected through his archangel Michael. Nevertheless, they believed in angels who ruled the nations, an idea already found in Daniel (Dan 10:13, 20) and in the Greek translation of Deuteronomy. Paul refers to these powerful guardian spirits as “rulers and authorities in heavenly realms” (Eph 1:20-21; 6:12).

Yet Paul also emphasizes that Christ is enthroned above these powers (Eph 1:20-21). That Christ is above the angels of the nations would have important ethical implications for the problem of ethnic disunity among believers (a major problem in the Ephesian church—2:11-22).

Although of the Gospels only Luke narrates Christ’s ascension, the rest of the New Testament presupposes it, emphasizing that Christ is at the Father’s right hand; “seated” in Eph 1:20 recalls Ps 110:1: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” He has triumphed over the spirits through his exaltation (also 1 Pet 3:22).

The church in the Roman province of Asia had concrete experience with Jesus’s triumph over the powers. The seven sons of Sceva tried to invoke Jesus’s name like a magical formula, thinking that this was how Paul cast out demons. They quickly discovered, however, that Jesus was no spirit they could manipulate; only someone like Paul, authorized as Jesus’s agent to use his name, could use it with authority. Consequently, many turned from their secret practices and acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord (Acts 19:13-20). They had discovered that Jesus’s name is genuinely above all names, including every name that is invoked (Eph 1:21). It was not a magical formula to be invoked by those who do not know him.

Ephesians would encourage such believers, and all of us, that we too are enthroned with Christ above such powers. These powers are under Christ’s feet, and Paul emphatically combines this stark image with the image of the church as Christ’s body (1:22-23). Combined, the images reveal that if the powers are under Christ’s feet, they are also under Christ’s body. Paul certainly envisions Christ being seated with his head at the top of his body and the feet at the bottom. It is thus no surprise that in Eph 2:6 Paul declares explicitly that we have been seated or enthroned with Christ in heavenly places! Someday we will be enthroned with him in a fuller sense (Rev 3:21), but we already experience a foretaste of that reality now.

But what does this mean? Does this mean, as some people seem to think, that we can go around ordering heavenly powers what to do? Here is what the context suggests that Paul means. Being enthroned with Christ above these powers, we are no longer subject to their influence (2:2-6), so long as we follow Christ as our Lord. Through the gospel, believers can actually challenge the corrupted arguments and ideologies through which evil powers influence societies (2 Cor 10:2-5).

Sadly, believers often reflect values of our cultures. In the U.S., for example, this sometimes means materialism, racial and class insensitivity, political polarization and harsh rhetoric. But we can rise above those values, if we allow Christ to renew our understanding. We are no longer subject to the old powers—unless we choose to be.

 

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Should prophecies always be positive?—1 Corinthians 14:3. Part 2

Some people may want prophecies to be positive to guard against abuses, though this is subject to its own abuses (see part 1). Others, however, may prophesy positively as a way of expressing faith.

Prophecy as positive confession?

Some may insist on prophesying only positively as a vestige of an emphasis on positive confession (a more distinctive emphasis in some earlier charismatic circles). When the New Testament speaks of “confessing” something other than sin, however (Mark 1:5; James 5:16; 1 John 1:9), it usually refers to Christ’s followers confessing Christ (e.g., Matt 10:32; Rom 10:9-10; Phil 2:11; 1 John 2:23; 4:2-3, 15; 2 John 7; Rev 3:5). The one exception familiar to me is a more specific confession of faith in Heb 11:13: some heroes of the faith confessed that they were outsiders to this world, because they awaited the promised New Jerusalem to come (11:16). If we examine biblical proverbs about the tongue together as a whole rather than speculating about some verses in isolation, it is clear that Proverbs also speaks not about “confessing” something to make it happen but about how we speak affects others and our relationships with them.

Of course we should speak and live like those who believe what God has spoken! And of course we should pray in faith in God’s grace and power—why waste words praying if we’re not trusting God to hear us? But that’s not the same as confessing something as an intended act of faith that God will do it and calling that prophecy. “Who speaks and it comes to pass, if the Lord has not commanded it?” (Lam 3:37). That limitation is surely implicit even in Mark 11:23 (“whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and hurled into the sea,’ … it will happen for them”). If you don’t believe me, go test it empirically on some mountain and see what happens, especially if there’s not been any seismic activity there recently.

 

Faith is only as good as its object. God is absolutely trustworthy. His voice is absolutely trustworthy. Our hearing … well, most of us do need to mature in that. Our fallibility limits both our prophesying and our teaching. “For we know only partially and we prophesy only partially” (1 Cor 13:9).

When the Bible talks about humility, that principle should invite attention to being epistemically humble too. I was quite impressed with my knowledge in my 20s. I know far more in my 50s, but also am far more aware of how much I have yet to learn. Hopefully by my 200s, I will know fully as I am known; what I know now is very limited compared to that future knowledge.

Recognizing true prophecy

There are some who are specially gifted in hearing God’s voice, have cultivated that gift, and walk humbly before God. Mesfin, a brother from Ethiopia, did not know that I was a writer. Yet he prophesied to me about two big books that I would write, the second larger than the first. Since I was already working on my Acts commentary (which turned out to be 4500 pages) and could not imagine writing a book larger than that, I was confident that he was at least partly mistaken. Only later did I discover that my miracles book (merely 1100 pages) would be completed and published before the Acts commentary. Similarly, three people in Congo who did not know each other independently prophesied to Médine Moussounga, who later became my wife, that she would marry a white man with a big ministry. I am glad to be married to her, but my whiteness was not something that I arranged.

Conversely, on some major personal decisions (such as whom to marry), it is not always easy for us to hear God clearly. Sometimes, in fact, our personal biases can get in the way (e.g., as in whom to marry—did I mention that?) It helps when wisdom and whatever ways we have learned to hear the Lord line up. But the issue of personal guidance better belongs to a different post, so I mention it here just to reinforce what most of us already know: God is infallible, but God is not who we are.

 

True prophecy must be consistent with Spirit-inspired Scripture and led by the same Spirit who inspired Scripture. The biblical gift does not always tell people what they want to hear. If we’re just learning to hear God’s voice, if we don’t have mentors like Samuel or Elisha (who supervised some younger prophets in the OT), and if we don’t have the safety net of other first-generation hearers of God for peer review (as in 1 Cor 14:29), some messages remain fairly safe.

If it’s truly biblical, it’s good. (If you feel like God is telling someone that he loves them, there’s no risk of getting that one wrong.) If it’s an appropriately encouraging word spoken in a timely way, it’s good (Prov 15:23; 25:11). If it exalts Jesus and builds people up in faith in him, it’s good. If it draws people to Christ, it’s good. But of course, such words can be Spirit-led without even calling them prophecy, or without us always even being conscious that the Spirit’s fruit moves us to such words.

But for beginners in hearing God’s voice, such basic discernment is a great place to start, allowing us to “test” our own words (cf. 1 Cor 14:29). And for brothers and sisters striving to serve the Lord, most such words will indeed encourage and strengthen them. May we have encouraging words all the more!

Nevertheless, a rule that limits all prophecy, or even all exhortation, to what sounds encouraging runs the risk of missing larger divine warnings if judgment or suffering lies on the horizon (cf. Jer 28:6-9). This was a serious mistake of most prophets in Jeremiah’s day. “They have healed the wound of my people flippantly, declaring, ‘Peace! Peace!’—when there is no peace” (Jer 6:14; 8:11). Biblical prophets sometimes told people where their lost donkeys were. But we had better not lose sight of the bigger picture—because what lies on the horizon will impact many of us.

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Should prophecies always be positive?—1 Corinthians 14:3

When as a young Christian I attended a Pentecostal college, a beloved administrator warned me that prophecies should always be positive. That did not match all the prophecies I read about in the Bible.

It also did not match all the prophecies I had given; for example, I had felt led to warn one Christian friend who was living unmarried with their partner that they knew better and that God was displeased. That is actually a very tame way of putting it. The message was more like, “Because you have esteemed the Lord lightly, you are lightly esteemed. Because you have dishonored the Lord, the Lord will dishonor you,” etc. I felt awful delivering that message to a friend, and I felt that I was not allowed even to stay for tea; I had to leave right after delivering the message. Had it been anything but that I felt the Lord leading me to do it, I would have talked it over with my friend in a friendlier way. (Soon after that they did quit living together—after the partner disappeared with some of my friend’s property.)

But some of the ideas about prophecy at this training school were formulated, I think, in understandable reaction against stories about a recent movement that abused prophecies and prophesied falsely and harmfully. In any case, one of the ideas was that you should never prophesy to individuals (despite how common that was in the Bible), and another was that prophecies should always be encouraging.

New Testament prophecy is for encouragement—always?

The administrator supported his position with 1 Cor 14:3, which declares that prophecy is for “strengthening, encouraging and comfort” (NIV), “edification and exhortation and consolation” (NASB), or “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (NRSV, a translation that didn’t yet exist back then). The second Greek term can include an appeal or (as in the NASB) exhortation as well as comfort, but the idea is generally positive. Paul probably did expect mostly positive prophecy for the Corinthian house church gatherings.

At the same time, the prophetic process could not have been entirely positive. Prophetically gifted persons were to collectively evaluate the prophecies (1 Cor 14:29), which would probably mean that not all prophecies would pass muster. Even when spoken in an encouraging way, such corrections may not have felt entirely positive to some of those whose prophecies were not confirmed by their peers. Often in 1 Corinthians, Paul himself corrects the church, and believes that his own (apostolic) authority is greater than that of the local church prophets (14:37-38). And ideally, prophecy included revealing people’s secret sins (1 Cor 14:24-25)—although one had certainly better be sure one has genuinely heard from the Lord before trying something like that. (Even if one is right about the sins, blurting them out is not always the most effective way to bring restoration; cf. Gal 6:1.)

A couple of the clearest samples of prophecy recorded in the New Testament are the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2—3 (what “the Spirit says to the churches”) and Agabus’s prophecy to Paul in Acts 21:11. The prophecy in Acts 21:11 was that Paul was going to be bound in Jerusalem. This was not very encouraging news, but it was consistent with what the Spirit had been saying to Paul in other cities as well (20:23; cf. 21:4).

Two letters to churches in Revelation were quite comforting; both were to persecuted churches, although one was told that the Lord would deliver them from their trial, whereas the other (Smyrna, in Rev 2:10) was encouraged to be faithful to death. Meanwhile, the other five churches received varying degrees of reproofs, two or three of them rather severe. (As an aside, those who claim that prophecy should never claim, “Thus says the Lord,” also overlook these same most explicit passages of prophecy in the NT. But again, one had better be sure before one frames a message in those terms. The more we claim to speak for the Lord, the stricter our judgment if we are wrong; that is true even with the gift of teaching—James 3:1. Ouch.)

Guarding against immaturity

Some circles that insist that all prophecies must be positive may intend this limitation as a precaution against those who are immature in the gift harming people with harsh messages. If you’re going to make a mistake in a setting where prophecy can’t be quickly tested, it seems better for it to be harmless. To be truly harmless, though, it shouldn’t promise blessing to the wicked any more than God’s disfavor on the righteous (Prov 24:24; Isa 3:10-11). And Samuel was probably fairly immature in prophecy when, in his first experience of it as a boy, he was sent with a harsh message to the high priest who was raising him (1 Sam 3:11-14). Although Eli believed him (3:18), and I confess to envying Samuel’s clarity in hearing from God (3:19), I would not want to have been in Samuel’s sandals right then.

It is true that we should seek to encourage people with our words whenever possible—that is definitely a good rule of thumb for what is normal (cf. Prov 12:18; 15:1, 4; 25:15; Eph 4:29; Col 4:6). But if you’re going to be arrested in Jerusalem it might be helpful to know that in advance (Acts 21:11), and if your church’s lampstand is going to be removed if the church fails to repent of its lovelessness (Rev 2:5), it’s better to know that so we can respond. In fact, if we fail to warn people to turn from genuinely sinful ways, their blood is on our head (Ezek 3:18-20; 33:6-8; Acts 20:26-27).

Some people, however, may prophesy only positively as a way of expressing their faith. Is this biblical? I will address this question in part 2.

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The Zealot

The other day I was laughing while recounting to my wife about an incident that took place when I was maybe 22 or 23 years old. A Bible college student who was about my age had invited me to speak at a worship service that he was leading. I was feeling nervous, as always before I spoke, conscious that I was better at “teaching”—explaining biblical passages—than at rousing hearers’ emotions with stirring rhetoric.

But the young man who invited me was indeed a rousing speaker. He got everybody stirred up. He was urging everybody to vote for a particular political candidate, a mixture of church and state that one of my classes had taught me was illegal under IRS rules. (His candidate was Ronald Reagan. I did vote for Reagan in that election, and though earlier too young to vote, I had campaigned for Jimmy Carter. To avoid offending members of either major U.S. political party now, I shall simply insist for both cases that I was very young back then. Though if Jimmy Carter wanted to run for his second term in this next election …)

Worse, in my view, he was shouting that we were going to kick in the devil’s teeth and stomp on him. I took such rhetoric to be a violation of Jude 8-10:

“Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.” (ESV)

He got the crowd really worked up, but I, meanwhile, was growing angrier and angrier at his rehearsal of old-time Pentecostal rhetorical tropes without regard for the context of passages that I lost my fear of speaking. If he could get up there and spout unresearched drivel, I could get up and preach the text soundly. I preached confidently, at points fiercely, just the way the same audience liked it. It was thoroughly rousing, both biblical and in fairly old-time American Pentecostal preaching style. And when it was done, the brother congratulated me.

And I took that opportunity to rebuke him for his violation of IRS policy, for his inappropriate mockery of (fallen) angelic majesties, and probably for speaking (as I recall—it’s been many years) about things like “binding the devil” based on Pentecostal tradition instead of on what the “binding” texts meant in context.

As I was recounting this story to my wife, I suddenly stopped laughing. At this more mature stage of my life, it occurred to me to consider not what this brother had done, but what I had done to him. This was a kind brother, doing his best, but I laid into him. Yes, he probably had some unsound elements of Word of Faith teaching, and maybe nobody had explained to him about IRS regulations. But he was my brother in Christ. He was a Bible college undergraduate in his 20s, not a scholar; I should have shown him some mercy. I could have met with him and challenged him gently on some point if I thought they were matters of grave concern. My reproof was deeply unkind, yet he responded with grace and humility.

As I recounted the story to my wife, I realized that I had been severely guilty of pride, and of judging others more harshly than I would want to be judged. Granted, sound doctrine is important. But I was in my early 20s, enthralled with my new (but still so small) academic knowledge. I, no less than he, had a whole lot yet to learn. I, probably even more than he, needed God’s mercy in my life. Yet I did not show it to my brother in Christ, and my hit-and-run correction probably did him little good. If perhaps he was neglecting Jude 8-10, I was neglecting 2 Tim 2:23-26:

“Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.” (NRSV)

In context, 2 Timothy 2:23-26 speaks of correcting those in serious heresy. How much more should I be gentle with those whose errors were comparatively minor and who were open to correction! I should have been gracious and gentle with my brother, the way I wanted the Lord to be with me. I was a young guy who knew a fraction of what I knew now, yet I acted from a position of arrogant superiority. I still think that what my brother said was in error, but in my rightful zeal for truth I wrongly crushed the spirit of my brother. From God’s perspective, which of us was in greater error?

Since then I have taught in some academic settings alongside non-Christians or alongside those who would claim to be Christians yet denied something as central as Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. I maintained my ground, looking out for the welfare of my students and honoring what I believe to be true. But I also had to learn, for the sake of those colleagues and of the same students, to be at peace with and love my colleagues. During the most notable of those periods, my chief allies in clearly articulating the saving message of the gospel were a cessationist and someone influenced by Word of Faith teaching. In an environment not disposed toward the gospel, the gospel that united us was bigger than the important differences that divided us.

Through the prism of more decades in the real world, I look back at how I treated my brother in Christ on that day and instead of laughing at how his error made me “preach well” I am filled with remorse for how I treated him.

One reason that Truth matters is that it changes people’s lives. But I brandished it as a weapon instead of caring for my brother who had given no indication of unwillingness to rethink things. I was still in my old Bible college mindset of debating ideas without much sensitivity to those who held them, or to why they held them. (I am not blaming the Bible college for this; rather, I was young and inexperienced, reveling in academic theory without much pastoral experience yet working with real and usually broken people.) Now I would want to be patient with my students, and especially the youngest and greenest ones. It horrifies me now, in my fifties, to think of how I treated a guy in his twenties (though I was his peer back then).

When I was pastoring, I assaulted a certain doctrinal stronghold in the congregation (varying elements of Word of Faith teaching) so firmly that one young man, who did find himself forced to abandon some tenets he had held dear, nicknamed me a heresy hunter. I hope that today in a similar situation people would find me a friendlier dialogue partner: bringing to bear the Scriptures, but in love and without arrogance. I still have plenty of room to grow. The kingdom is not about me. It’s about Jesus. And when Jesus found people like sheep without a shepherd, he had compassion on them and taught them (Mark 6:34). Granted, he lambasted the arrogant who taught others falsely (and there is a place for this today as well). But he welcomed the humble, including those ostracized by others as immoral or as traitors to God’s people.

There are brothers and sisters who might have less knowledge than I do in some areas yet love Jesus with all their hearts. If I am gifted with knowledge, my role is to serve them, not to crush them. Even regarding food offered to idols, Paul warned, “… knowledge puffs up while love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). We need to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15); if we have all knowledge, but don’t express it in love, we are nothing (1 Cor 13:2).

I still need grace. A few decades from now I will probably have some remorse about my present blind spots. In light of eternity with Christ, when we know as we are known, what will matter most is that we acted in love. People need truth; and teachers will be judged most strictly (James 3:1). But people also need patient teachers, and teachers who can distinguish issues of the gospel from errors that may cause them trouble yet do not in themselves constitute apostasy. Zeal without knowledge is not good; and knowledge without love just puffs up arrogance. Forgive me, my Lord.