Blog Archives
A Well-Lit Church
“Nor is it that a lamp is lit and placed under a peck basket, but it is put on a candlestand and it shines for all those who are in the house.”
(Matthew 5:15)
As Jesus often does, he uses an analogy that is common to most people to make a profound point. The analogy is simple, if you light a lamp, it is counterproductive to hide the light of the lamp under a basket — in this case, a peck-sized basket (roughly about 2 gallons of dry goods). Instead, the very purpose of a light is to illuminate the house. Commonly, this is applied to the Christian life in a personal way: don’t be timid about sharing the Truth of the Gospel with those you meet. In fact, the application found here is that of a light in a house, so it is a reminder that those very personal interactions with others should be ones we use to advance the Kingdom as God so permits.
All that is said above is quite true and very applicable to the Christian life. Your neighbors should know that you are a Christian by the way you live and act. Further, you should use your homes as a tool to that end. Invite your neighbors over for a meal and encourage them to remain for your family worship or devotional time. Too often, Christians live lives that are essentially indistinguishable from those of our non-believing neighbors. Yes and amen.
Nevertheless, if our tendency is to leave this text with a personal application, we miss what can arguably be said is the more significant point. Jesus is speaking with individuals but these individuals are in a group. So, how do these same words apply to the Church as a whole? Is not the church being built up as a spiritual house and a holy priesthood where we make spiritual sacrifices to God through Christ Jesus (1 Peter 2:5)? Is not our corporate worship meant to be a sacrifice of praise to our God — the very fruit of the lips of those who acknowledge His name (Hebrews 13:15)? Is Christ not the Great High Priest by which we can enter into the house of God (Hebrews 10:21)? And if all of this is true, shall not our spiritual house (the church) be lit by the Truth of Christ?
And therein is the rub. For many churches in our age, the Truth of God’s word is considered a byword. It is apologized for, redacted, reinterpreted, or otherwise ignored. People love to cry out “Jesus saves” but neglect the language that presents Jesus as the eternal judge over mankind. People love to cry out that “God is love,” but neglect to point out that God is just and holy and that he hates the wicked. People love to call themselves “followers” of Jesus but neglect to insist that those who follow, if they are going to be called “Christians,” must also be disciples, striving to obey all that Jesus has commanded. The lamp of God’s word must be presented untarnished and unadulterated by the preferences and traditions of man, and it must be put on a lampstand so that all may see.
To the Jewish reader of Jesus’ day, this language would be particularly striking, for as one would enter the Holy Place of the Temple, there was a lampstand. That lampstand, with its seven lamps, served more than the practical purpose of providing light at night. It was also symbolic of the notion that God provides light to the world and that when you are in God’s presence, there is never darkness (think about the Apostle’s words in 1 John 1:5). There are many things that seem dark in this life, and we will only ever come to see them rightly in the light of God’s Word. Sometimes people look with disdain at the prominence of the sermon as part of the church service. People think it can be overly long or sometimes too “heady,” but in many ways, that is exactly the point. How are we going to understand the Truth of God if we are not taught and reminded of God’s ways from His Word and then exhorted to put these things into action in our lives?
When is a church not a church? It is not a church when it lacks the Biblical marks of a church: the faithful preaching of the Gospel, the right use of the sacraments, and the use of church discipline for the chastizing of sin — in other words, the church is not the church if Christ is not King of the church. It is not a church if it has no light lifted up within it to provide light. God’s house should never be a place of darkness, but should be full of light within.
Perfect in Beauty
“From Zion, from that which is made perfect in beauty, God shines forth.”
(Psalm 50:2)
The majority of translations render this a little more idiomatically, “From Zion, the perfection of beauty…” and such is a perfectly legitimate way to render the phrase מִכְלַל־יֹפִי (miklal-yopiy). Clearly the psalmist is praising God and celebrating the place of worship that God had ordained (in this case, the Tabernacle as it was placed on Zion in anticipation of a Temple being built. King David had commissioned Asaph, along with others, to prepare for the Temple worship in the days of his son, Solomon.
At the same time, we must ask, what made the Tabernacle beautiful? And, we can ask by extension, what would make the Temple a beautiful building? Certainly both were works of remarkable art and craftsmanship. They were wonders of their day and era. But, was it the artwork that is really to be commended? Could we be missing something by simply viewing the Tabernacle and Temple as beautiful places — like we might view the Parthenon or the Pyramids in Egypt.
The answer to this question is bound to the reason that I opted to translate this passage more literally. The two Hebrew root-words that are brought together in the phrase in question are כלל and יפה. The verbal form of the first refers to that which is made perfect and thus the noun (as it is being used here) has to do with the perfect presentation of something. The second noun that is found in this construction refers to beauty as a whole. To preserve the idea of “being made” in this phrase, I have rendered it as “which is made perfect in beauty.”
But, why is it important to bring out the nature of “that being made perfect” in this passage? The answer lies in the question we have been asking — what made the Tabernacle and Temple perfect and beautiful? The answer is that it is the presence of God which does so. If God’s presence is not there, no matter the craftsmanship, its beauty is not perfect — it cannot be! And thus, God’s presence is what makes Zion to be “perfect in beauty” and worthy of being a place of worship. And indeed, in context, that is what the latter half of this verse communicates: God shines forth!
And so, why is the rebuilt Temple of Nehemiah never described in such terms? Why is the modified Temple of Herod never described in these terms? It is because God’s presence never manifested itself in those places — the Son was the greater Temple to come and is yet the great Temple of God (so why do so many people want to rebuild the old one?!?). And we, as the body of Christ, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, are the new Temple — perfect in beauty when we gather together as one to worship. But remember, we are not perfect in beauty because we are any way beautiful in and of ourselves. We are beautiful because God dwells in us and shines forth from us as we commit our worship and our lives to Him.
Blasphemy and Death
“The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law and according to the law he is obliged to die for he has made himself the Son of God.’”
(John 19:7)
In a country ruled by Rome, capital punishment was a right reserved for the Romans except for one instance…and that is blasphemy in the Temple. Obviously the addition of the location (from the Roman perspective) was to keep things in a controlled context, lest they be inundated with capital cases of blasphemy from every little provide. The Jews were aware of this ruling, hence their motivation to bring this false trial before Pilate and Pilate was certainly aware of this matter, hence his willingness to say to them, “you crucify him!” because he knew that they could not legally do so.
Thus the Jews appear to the blasphemy laws, a principle not only consistent with Roman law but with Jewish law, though Jewish law does not require one blaspheme in the Temple (or Tabernacle) for the death penalty to be exercised (see Leviticus 24:10-16). Thus, it is Jewish law with Roman constraints that is being appealed to here. And, in a sense, Jesus is guilty as charged. Not only has he spoken of himself as the Son of God broadly, he has also done so in the Colonnade of Solomon which is located in the Temple (John 10:22-30). In fact, in this context he goes even further and proclaims himself to be God himself — “I and the Father are one…”
Yet, I state, “in a sense.” Because Jesus has not “made himself” out to be the Son of God as these Jewish officials suppose, he is the Son of God. He is not lying nor is he misleading others, but is speaking the truth, and by speaking the truth he is not guilty of blasphemy. The Temple and all it represents is meant to point to him…it is his Father’s house and thus it is the Chief Priests and Jewish authorities who are worthy of death because they had blasphemed the Temple by their rejection of the Son and their using it for their own purposes — turning it into a den of thieves (Mark 11:17).
It is worth noting that sometimes people are a bit set back by the command from God that blasphemers be put to death as is found in Leviticus. Why would a God of love demand an action like that for words that people would say? The answer revolves around the purpose of capital punishment. Essentially, the reason behind the state taking the life of a criminal is because that criminal has been deemed a threat to the community as a whole. In this case, no longer is it the state punishing a person for a specific crime they have done, but it is also the state practicing justice by permanently removing the person from ever being able to harm the community. Thus, as we look at the legal code given by God at Sinai for the people of Israel, we find capital punishment being applied not just to murder, but also to adultery, sabbath breaking, blasphemy, witchcraft, etc… All of these evils harm the family as well as the community as a whole. And though the church no longer exists under the ancient Israele civil code, it is the basic principle behind the church being given the authority to excommunicate from the body where people persist in such sins that harm the community of faith as a whole and will not repent, turning from their evil ways. Let it be heard and heard well that God takes very seriously the care of his little ones — the covenant families and the covenant bodies that we refer to as His Church. May we take that to heart the next time we are tempted to gloss over sin (whether our own or another’s).
The Preacher's Study 