Centuries after God’s forceful intervention allowed Israel to finally kick its idolatry habit, they had a new problem. Long past were the days of David and Solomon, who ruled not only Israel’s inherited lands, but most of their neighbors as well. Now they were oppressed by Rome, and even their supposedly native king Herod was really descended from Edomites. God had made promises to send David back to them and rekindle the old glory, but hope was wearing thin, and the old, bloated institutions seemed to be losing their relevance in the modern world. One day in the midst of this frustration, a nobody priest finally got his turn to perform the ritual incense offering during yet another hour of prayer, when an angel appeared to him in the temple’s holy place, terrifying the old man.

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard…”

(Luke 1.13)

Months later, a young woman of a hated town in a hated region was looking forward to her marriage with a local carpenter. She was of the royal lineage, but it didn’t seem to be doing her much good. Her name was the same as seemingly every other young Jewish woman, and her fiancé, a simple carpenter, couldn’t be expected to raise her station in life much. She was a nobody from nowhere, utterly unimportant, until the same angel who’d spoken to Zechariah also confronted her, troubling her greatly (Lk 1.29). But he

said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

(Luke 1.30)

A few months later again, the carpenter discovered a problem—his fiancée was pregnant. He knew he couldn’t possibly be the child’s father, so he faced a dilemma. He genuinely cared for Mary. Discovering that she’d been unfaithful to him had not erased his love for her, but this was someone else’s child! The carpenter was another no one from nowhere, deeply conscious of his own royal lineage, but rather than becoming bitter over his family’s decline, he was a just and conscientious man. He’d been dealt a major blow when Mary could no longer hide her baby bump from him, but he decided to spare her as much shame as possible and initiate a quiet divorce. Then

an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife…”

(Matthew 1.20)

Thirty-some years later, some women got up early the day after Sabbath and went to visit a tomb occupied by the remains of a man recently executed. He was the child born of Mary and raised by Joseph. He had grown up, taken over the family business, then left it for a short career of public preaching, whose business model seemed to include accepting occasional donations, and then giving away far more than he ever received, in effort, time, and care as well as money. Against all odds he’d actually made quite a stir with the common people, and eventually had been recognized by the Jewish authorities as a threat to their status—so they killed him. A few women, more nobodies who’d been deeply affected by his teaching, wanted to show one last kindness to his memory—the completion of the burial rites that had been interrupted by the Sabbath. Instead of the body they sought, they found an angel with a terrifying appearance, but who

said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen…”

(Matthew 28.5-6)

Almost thirty more years had passed, when a political prisoner stood on a doomed ship surrounded by despairing men exhausted from several days vainly attempting to ride out a horrible storm on the Mediterranean Sea. His life hadn’t started out this way. He’d been the golden boy, smart as a whip, a rule-follower, a hard worker, with all the self-assurance of a well-maned lion. Due to his age he hadn’t yet risen to a real leadership post in Jerusalem, but he was clearly on his way. An unsentimental go-getter, he’d done every task given to him with zeal, and asked for more. Then, following a strange incident while traveling through the desert one day, it all changed. He traded honor for anonymity, going home to Tarsus, becoming a nobody. When he finally crawled back out of his hole, he was subjected to outright scorn. Former friends turned against him, even conspiring to kill him. He’d been arrested on trumped-up charges, imprisoned without a real trial for years, and now, finally on his way to force a verdict, even the common sailors and soldiers had ignored his warning and foolishly sailed off into this mess, leaving no hope for survival. But an angel appeared to the man,

and he said, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar…”

(Acts 27.24)

§

It’s not that fear is never appropriate. It’s not even that God doesn’t want us to fear him—his word tells us directly, “Fear God” (1Pe 2.17). But while he wants us to regard him, respect him, and acknowledge his power to reward and punish, he doesn’t want fear to be the sum of our relationship. The better we know him, the better we see that his will is for our good, and that his goal is to empower us, not frighten us, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2Ti 1.7). When we surrender to God, we find his fearsomeness a comfort. Because of it, we have no reason to fear the dangers of this world. In fact, if we’re on God’s side, our enemies should be afraid of us!

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

        whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

        of whom shall I be afraid?

(Psalm 27.1)

Jeremy Nettles

We’ve considered the first two chapters of Hebrews over the last two months. The first chapter focused on Christ’s superiority to angels and other messengers. Chapter 2 extended the comparison to us, illuminating not only Jesus’ superiority over us, but his similarity to us, at the same time. This was a valuable insight all its own, but the author was driving at the next point—that Jesus, because he relates perfectly both to man and to God, is the perfect mediator between us.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

(Hebrews 2.17)

Of course, this unknown author is a bit of a tease—although this observation seems plain to us now, it is made in no other book of the New Testament! In the next chapter, he begins by restating the priesthood of Jesus.

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.

(Hebrews 3.1-2)

That’s right, he just leaves it there, ignoring that his audience wants to hear more about Jesus’ priesthood, which is surely a new concept for them despite making a great deal of sense! He’ll get back to it after a while, and develop the point over several chapters, but for now, he just moves on to talking about Moses! His point is, first, that Jesus repeats Moses’ faithfulness, and he’s still following the same pattern he established chapters 1 and 2, where he quoted Old Testament passages to establish each point. He doesn’t mention that he’s doing so here, but he’s clearly paraphrasing the Scripture—

“Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house.”

(Numbers 12.7)

Yet, as Jesus outshone angels despite his similarities to them, he also surpassed Moses.

For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

(Hebrews 3.3-6)

For a Jewish audience, it was a bold move to declare anyone greater than Moses—that was one of the charges that led to Stephen’s murder, after all (Ac 6.11)! It should have been perfectly acceptable to Jewish Christians, of course—but the purpose of this book is to dissuade them from taking their hearts back from Jesus, to go after Moses again.

The author’s next point in pursuit of that goal, is to draw his audience’s attention to the need for perseverance, and the alarming possibility of losing their promised reward. He does this by—again—quoting from the Old Testament, this time Psalm 95.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

        on the day of testing in the wilderness,

where your fathers put me to the test

        and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;

        they have not known my ways.’

As I swore in my wrath,

        ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

(Hebrews 3.7-11)

He’ll really drop the hammer on them in the next chapter, telling them that this psalm was written for them, not just their ancestors; but for now he contents himself to pretend he’s merely creating an allegory between the ancient psalm, and their present needs.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

(Hebrews 3.12-13)

His audience knows the old stories. They were raised on them! Their fathers rebelled against God time and time again. David was raised on them, too, and he used their bad example as a warning to God’s people in his own time, that “today” they should guard their hearts against rebellious attitudes toward God. Following David’s example, the author extends the warning to his brothers and sisters, who had more to lose than David could have understood.

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,

        “Today, if you hear his voice,

        do not harden your hearts as in the

                        rebellion.”

(Hebrews 3.14-15)

What’s the connection between observation and quotation? He means that David’s later admonition for Israel not to follow the bad example of their forefathers, implies that they faced a similar danger of being judged unfaithful and shut out. Their fathers lost their inheritance when they hardened their hearts against God, and Christians “today” are subject to the same risk. They know to avoid open rebellion, but rebellion begins as a hardening of the heart. That’s this chapter’s final point, relying on the ambiguity of the Greek verb πείθομαι-peithomai. In its negative form (ἀπειθέω) it usually implies action—disobedience. But the root means to be convinced, or persuaded, tying outward action to inward motivation—an unpersuaded, unbelieving, hardened heart.

And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

(Hebrews 3.18-19)

Jeremy Nettles

In William Shakespeare’s play King Lear, the title character decides in his old age to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, in proportion to their love for him. The older two lavish praise on their father and wax poetic about their devotion, but Cordelia, the youngest, simply says, “I love your majesty / According to my bond; nor more nor less” (I.1.101-102). The older two were flattering their dotard father in order to secure a better inheritance, but Lear is too foolish to see it, and gives half his kingdom to each, while disinheriting and banishing Cordelia.

This being Shakespeare, the truth comes out and just about everyone dies by the play’s end; but not before Lear faces his folly. His older daughters refuse to show him even basic hospitality, whereupon Lear rushes into the wilderness and wanders through a raging storm, airing his frustration to the weather, as much as to his companions. Eventually, he begins a fresh rant, then stops short:

Pour on; I will endure;—

In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!—

Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—

O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;

No more of that.

(King Lear, III.4.21-25)

Shakespeare’s genius is not in the mechanics of his writing; rather, it’s how they beautifully express his vision of the world. Here, he’s captured the all-too-common plight of the person who accepts a lie, does great sin in his deluded state, then struggles to reconcile himself to the plainly visible truth, for fear of the inner pain involved in admitting his error.

That’s madness in itself, isn’t it? Lear tortures himself and imperils his own life, in an effort to avoid accepting some shame. He’s already humiliated in everyone else’s eyes, so he doesn’t stand to lose status by turning around—in fact, he’d gain some! But people often do as Lear does. We entrench ourselves so deeply in the lie, that we stop caring about other people’s opinion of us, and focus on our own! That is to say, we jealously guard our stubborn, foolish, insane sense of pride.

The fictional King Lear’s failed attempt to avert madness is mirrored in real people, in real situations. Pontius Pilate didn’t want to sentence an innocent man to death. When the Jewish authorities brought Jesus to him, he “said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law’” (Jn 18.31); they refused. He questioned Jesus and found “no guilt” in him (Lk 23.4), but they persisted. He tried to dump the problem off on Herod (v7), but Herod sent him back. He tried to satisfy the mob by flogging Jesus (Jn 19.1-5); but it wasn’t enough. Still he “sought to release” Jesus (v12), but the authorities tacitly threatened to denounce him as a traitor, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend.” (v12). Pilate finally “took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood’” (Mt 27.24), then “delivered him to be crucified” (v26).

Isn’t that ridiculous? Pilate was given the power of life and death by the Roman State, and by God. He was to be “God’s servant,” for the good of the governed, wielding “the sword” in order to dispense “God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Ro 13.4). But he abdicated his responsibility and attempted to soothe his own conscience by the hollow of gesture of washing his hands before handing down the most unjust verdict in history. But although everyone could see what he was doing, like King Lear he avoided honest introspection, thinking, “that way madness lies.”

It’s not limited to the sins of unbelievers, though. Paul (somewhat confusingly) illustrates the Christian’s ongoing struggle:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

(Romans 7.15-19)

We can admit we’re broken and persist in the struggle, knowing that we have “an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1Jn 2.1); or we could remain self-righteous, while also wallowing in our desire to sin, refusing to acknowledge it and let Jesus help us, doing what is mad, for fear of madness.

It doesn’t even stop at overtly transgressive sins. There has always been a segment of the church that devotes itself to “speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith” (1Ti 1.4). It starts with a view toward piety—that is, a manner of life in keeping with God’s commandments. But we all have to interpret those commandments, and while the center is always clear—“Flee from sexual immorality” (1Co 6.18), for example—on the margins, questions remain about precisely what is sexual immorality, and these require the use of our judgment. It’s good to be careful, but attempts to stay well clear of the line grow from custom, to conviction, to a mandate for all. Before you know it, someone is preaching, “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (7.1), which is not exactly false, but is also far from the whole story! Thus, someone concerned with obeying God ends up putting forth traditions and interpretations as God’s holy word.

This is why Paul counseled Timothy,

charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.

(2 Timothy 2.14)

Be careful not to think yourself immune to these follies, for that way, truly, madness lies.

Jeremy Nettles

In our Sunday morning adult class at River Ridge, we’re just over halfway through the oft-ignored book of Deuteronomy. Each week it’s a challenge to cover the assigned chapters in the detail they deserve; but it would be easy to get so bogged down in this 34-chapter tome, that we’d take a year to complete our study, forget where we started by the time we finished, and profit little from the ordeal. As such, it’s good to keep up our pace and complete the book in just a quarter, leaving some chance that students will retain a general sense of the materials therein, and be prepared to study and understand the details better, the next time it comes up. But it also means we have to entirely skip over some portions of the text. In one of these, left out of our study this very morning, Moses relays God’s command that Israel appoint six cities in the soon-to-be-conquered promised land, and designate them as cities of refuge.

“This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past—as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live, lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past.”

(Deuteronomy 19.4-6)

It seems odd to see God taking the side of the “manslayer,” but the details make all the difference. Rather than a murderer, the focus here is on someone guilty of a lesser—though still heavy—offense. Our legal system differentiates between degrees of murder and manslaughter, and it’s not difficult to see that it has taken its cue from God. While the dead man is equally dead regardless of whether he was killed purposely or by accident, intentions do matter, and the guilt of common negligence is not in the same class as the guilt of malevolent hatred.

The law of Moses generally, and Deuteronomy in particular establish a clear-cut system for dealing with homicide—in short, accusation was to be brought by the witnesses to the local judges (e.g. 16.18), who would weigh the testimony and reach a verdict, or refer the case to a higher court, if it was too difficult to decide (17.8ff). If found guilty, the murderer was to be stoned to death by the local populace, starting with the witnesses against him (e.g. 17.7). However, a more primitive method was deeply rooted, and God allowed it continue, although clearly with the intent that it should die away from among his people over time.

The ancient way required the closest male relative of the person killed to act as the “avenger of blood” (19.6). His job was simple: track down the killer and return the favor, not necessarily waiting to hear his side of the story first. This was not really what God wanted, but Israel wasn’t ready to flip that switch yet, and the tradition existed for good reasons, although they grew less legitimate, as the nation became better organized under God’s instruction. So, as he did with other foul but deeply rooted practices like slavery (cf. 15.12ff), divorce (cf. 24.1ff), and polygamy (cf. 21.15ff), God imposed strict limitations on the exercise of this ancient judicial duty.

Of course, it wasn’t a get-away-with-murder card, either!

“But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die. Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you.”

(Deuteronomy 19.11-13)

Without endorsing this savage method of dispensing justice, God instructed his people to cooperate with it, when it was clear the killer had no right to live. That’s really the key here—preventing and atoning for the shedding of “innocent blood.” In the verses just quoted, that phrase means the blood of the murder victim. Yet it was also used in the prior section, in which Moses said to appoint additional cities of refuge, if the nation’s borders expanded enough to warrant it,

“lest innocent blood be shed in your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.”

(Deuteronomy 19.10)

In this instance, it refers not to the original victim, but to the man who accidentally caused his death, who Moses imagines will be unjustly killed by the familial avenger, if he lives too far from a city of refuge to obtain asylum before being caught and lynched!

It’s a complicated situation, and (one hopes) it will remain a foreign notion to us through lack of related experience. But perhaps it can help us to imagine the very real and difficult questions that often arose in that darker and more brutal time. Such scenarios often exceed man’s wisdom and ability to give each person what he deserves. There is tension between justice—of which God told Israel, “Justice, and only justice, you shall follow” (16.20), and vengeance, of which he told them, “Vengeance is mine” (32.35). In the end, however, due to our sins we all deserve God’s vengeance! Yet, blessedly, he has appointed a refuge for his people today, too, not in a walled city, but someplace far more inviting and secure!

Kiss the Son,

        lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,

        for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

(Psalm 2.12)

Jeremy Nettles

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—

                let Israel now say—

if it had not been the Lord who was on our side

                when people rose up against us,

then they would have swallowed us up alive,

                when their anger was kindled against us;

then the flood would have swept us away,

                the torrent would have gone over us;

then over us would have gone

                the raging waters.

Blessed be the Lord,

                who has not given us

                as prey to their teeth!

We have escaped like a bird

                from the snare of the fowlers;

the snare is broken,

                and we have escaped!

Our help is in the name of the Lord,

                who made heaven and earth.

(Psalm 124)

The book of Psalms isn’t the longest in the Bible by word count—that title goes to Jeremiah, and Genesis comes in second (at least, in Hebrew). Psalms takes third place, by a substantial margin, but that’s still pretty high on the list. Additionally, it has by far the most chapters, at 150. Second-place Isaiah has only 66! Although Psalm 119 is the longest single chapter in the Bible by a long shot, on average the psalms are each quite short, well below the length of chapters in the other books. You’d think this would make them easier to digest, and to a certain extent that’s true; but the sheer number of them leads to our eyes glazing over around Psalm 11 or so, and after that they all start to blend together into a meaningless beige in our minds. As a result, only a relative handful of them have attracted widespread attention among Christians. But each one is a gem, in its own way. This psalm, known by the extraordinarily memorable and evocative title Psalm 124, is one of these hidden gems.

It’s nestled among a collection that are all labeled, “a song of ascents.” We can only suppose this refers to the ascent toward Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Many of these psalms contain themes obviously appropriate for such journeys, undertaken especially for the annual feasts prescribed in the Law of Moses. This one recalls some some previous instance in which “people rose up against” Israel (v2), in “anger” (v3). The psalmist says that, if not for God’s intervention, his people’s enemies would have overwhelmed them like a “flood,” a “torrent,” and “raging waters” (vv4-5).

Yet, they were not swallowed up! The details of this example of salvation are not shared here; but it’s certainly consistent with many instances in which Israel seemed to be facing utter defeat, or even extermination, only to be spared against all earthly odds. The same superscript that labels this poem “a song of ascents” also attributes it to David, and it’s a good idea to take those attributions seriously, since Jesus and the Apostles certainly did (e.g. Mt 22.43, Ac 1.16-20, Ro 4.6-7); yet there is also some question as to the meaning of the preposition “of” in these attributions! Could it sometimes mean about David, or in the style of David, or something along those lines? This is a particularly worthwhile question in the case of Psalm 124, because the psalmist shifts from one metaphor—rising floodwaters—to another that is quite different!

Blessed be the Lord,

        who has not given us

        as prey to their teeth!

We have escaped like a bird

        from the snare of the fowlers;

the snare is broken,

        and we have escaped!

(Psalm 124.6-7)

Suddenly the enemy is a carnivorous predator, or even a human trapper of birds, who not only threatens to cage God’s people, but has actually succeeded! While this, again, could describe any number of occasions on which Israel faced a mortal threat, it’s also strikingly similar to the way Assyrian King Sennacherib described his siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC:

As for Hezekiah the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke, 46 of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small cities in their neighborhood…I besieged and took. …Himself, like a caged bird I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city. Earthworks I threw up against him…

(Daniel David Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib, University of Chicago Press, 1924, pp32-33)

When this happened, Hezekiah and the people penned up in the city despaired. But Isaiah the prophet sent word to him,

“Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”

(2 Kings 19.6-7)

The besieged Jews awoke one morning to find that a staggering 185,000 Assyrian soldiers had been killed by “the angel of the Lord” in the night (v35). Sennacherib and the rest left. Only yesterday the snare had been wrapped so tightly that all hope of rescue was cut off. Now the threat had vanished.

It’s possible that Psalm 124 is about an entirely different occasion; it’s possible the Israelites never even heard Sennacherib’s “caged bird” quip. Regardless, God’s salvation often appears in exactly this form. His people are the victims of forces far beyond their power to resist, let alone defeat. Even so,

Our help is in the name of the Lord,

        who made heaven and earth.

(Psalm 124.8)

Whatever entangles you, begins to devour you, or threatens to drown you, is no challenge at all, for him! Put your trust in him, surrender to his will, and let him rescue you from the snares of sin and death.

Jeremy Nettles