We use many different tools to make sense of the world around us.  Some of these tools were built by people like us—the instruments in our vehicles that tell us how fast we’re moving, the news media we use to stay informed about what’s happening across the world, the phones that allow us to easily communicate and make plans with distant friends and relatives, and other things like these.  Then, there are tools we didn’t build, that were given to us by God—our eyes and ears, which help us to create a 3-dimensional map of our surroundings; our nerves, which give us immediate feedback when we touch something, including whether it’s going to immediately damage our bodies; our memories, which allow us to store information we’ve already gathered and recall it later in order to make decisions or analyze complex situations; and there are many more of these, too.

One of these tools, which God has built into our minds, is narrative.  We use it to see the relationship between cause and effect, to predict the outcomes of our present decisions, to sort out our moral obligations, and more.  Much of the Bible is written in a narrative style.  Sometimes the narrative is meant to be taken literally, like the story of Nehemiah overseeing the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem.  Other times, the narrative is not the relation of facts, but a metaphor, such as the parable that begins, 
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. (Isaiah 5.1-2)

In this case and others like it, we don’t ask, “where was the hill?” or “how tall was the tower?” because we understand that it is an analogy.  That doesn’t make the point of the story any less true, of course.  The narrative conveys a point that the audience may have struggled to understand when the simple facts were related.  But when a story was presented—even a figurative one—the lesson became more clear.

As we automatically frame our understanding of the world through narrative, we often oversimplify the reality in order to better relate to the story.  One of these oversimplifications is the casual way we toss characters into one of two buckets: the good guys, and the bad guys.  This is a childish way of looking at things, of course.  Young boys for ages have played games and participated in fantasies that make use of this simple distinction, with names like “cops and robbers,” the now grossly offensive “cowboys and Indians,” or even the amusingly simplified version simply called, “good guys and bad guys.”  But it’s not just kids.  When we watch a movie, read a book, or hear a story being told, the first question we generally ask ourselves without even realizing it is, “who’s the hero, and who’s the villain?”  Everything about the story hinges on the answer to that question.  Sometimes it becomes fashionable to show that the hero has a flaw, and in the genre of tragedy, the biggest flaw is a villain in itself, bringing about the hero’s downfall.  But he’s still clearly the hero, and the audience still roots for him, even while disapproving of his bad behavior and, hopefully, taking home the lesson: don’t exhibit that flaw, if you don’t want to end up like Hamlet, or Oedipus—or for some more modern examples, Harvey Dent, Ned Stark, or Anakin Skywalker.

Since we understand reality through storytelling, it’s worth asking, who’s the hero in your story?  We see the world through our own perspective, and so the most natural answer is that you yourself are the hero.  But now, we have a problem.  If you’re the hero, then you can either be an oversimplified and unrealistic “good guy”—a character we don’t see around us in reality—or if you are willing to acknowledge that you are flawed, you could be a tragic hero—in which case the story ends with your downfall.  If you’re unsure, or think that maybe you’re the white knight in shining armor, let’s remind ourselves that God tells us very plainly, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Ro 3.23).  

There are other options: you could be an antihero, or the villain, or any one of many types of second- or third-order supporting characters, but some of those are off the table due to unacceptable endings, and others would mean it’s not really your story, but someone else’s.  Let’s tug on that final thread.  Is it really all about you, or could there, perhaps, be another figure at the center of the story?  Has there ever been anyone who truly lived up to the shining white knight character trope?  Of course!  Jesus is even portrayed in the Bible as follows: 
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. (Revelation 19.11)

We’ve been looking at the story from the wrong perspective.  You’re not the hero of your own story, nor are you the villain.  The hero is Jesus, and the villain is Satan.  But you don’t have to be some random, uncredited extra on the film set.  In fact, each of us is a uniquely important character, a member of the hero’s love interest, the human race.  That doesn’t mean the story will necessarily end with a “happily-ever-after” for you, though.  That’s only for Christ’s Bride.  He has already defeated the great red dragon in order to rescue you.  Soon, he’ll slay the beast.  The choice is up to you: do you prefer to stay imprisoned with the dragon until the end, or will you go with the hero?

Jeremy Nettles

Each of the four Gospels has its own flavor, and the distinguishing features have lessons to teach us.  Let’s examine one of Matthew’s tendencies.  From the very start, he stresses the fulfillment of prophecy.  All that led up to Jesus’ birth happened in order
to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1.22-23)

That prophet was Isaiah, and this is just the first of many times Matthew refers to his book for a 700-year-old prediction fulfilled in Jesus.  But Isaiah is not alone.  A few verses later, when king Herod asks the priests and scribes where the messiah would be born,
They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” (Matthew 2.5-6)

This time, the prophet is Micah, who doesn’t get very much attention these days.  But he was pointing toward the Christ, and while Herod, unsurprisingly, was not terribly familiar with his predictions, the religious leaders at the time were easily able to recognize what God had foretold.

Just after this, Joseph and Mary acted in such a way as to fulfill another prophecy.  God warned them to escape those seeking to harm the child, by going to Egypt.  Why?
This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2.15)

This one came from Hosea.  More than 7 centuries beforehand, God predicted what would happen when his Son became flesh, and gave his servants Joseph and Mary instructions to fulfill that prediction.

Then Matthew mentions another prophecy that pertained to the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, given by yet another prophet.  When Herod acted on the information he’d just received and had all the boys under age 2 killed in Bethlehem, Matthew tells us that this
fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2.17-18)

This one is less specific, and somewhat confusing—didn’t this occur in Bethlehem, not Ramah?  And isn’t Bethlehem in the territory of Judah, whose mother was Leah, and not in the territory of Rachel’s descendants—Benjamin, Manasseh, or Ephraim?  Yet Rachel “was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)” (Ge 35.19), and by the time of Jesus’ birth, it wasn’t just the descendants of Judah living in that territory, but a mishmash of the members of different tribes of Israel who had returned from the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles.  It’s a roundabout way of getting there, but when these innocent young Jewish boys were slaughtered to preserve Herod’s false sense of security on his throne, some of them were the descendants of Rachel, whose remains were buried just down the road from Bethlehem.  Another prophecy, fulfilled.

We’re still in chapter 2, and there’s one more left!  While Jesus is yet a very young child, Joseph brings the family back from Egypt as instructed, and takes them to live 
in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2.23)

This is one of the oddest fulfillments of prophecy mentioned in Matthew, because there’s no explicit prophecy to this effect to be found in the Old Testament.  However, above and beyond the general theme that the messiah would be despised, which is certainly fulfilled in his Nazarene origins, Isaiah calls him a “branch” from the roots of Jesse (Is 11.1), and the Hebrew word behind that term is נֵצֶר-nēṣer-“sprout.”  Matthew’s point relies on some typical Hebrew wordplay, since Isaiah’s label for the Messiah sounds just like the town in which he grew up.  When Jesus was called a Nazarene, in a sense he was also being called the Branch!

We could go on for some time like this, finding prophecy after prophecy not just being fulfilled, but being pointed out to the reader.  Why?  Well, it’s not just that Matthew enjoyed the scavenger hunt for prophecies; for him, the main reason to stress all of these is that they served as evidence for those who already accepted the authority of the Old Testament.  These are proofs for the Jews that the Messiah they’d been awaiting and expecting for so long is Jesus.

For us, that’s actually a bit less important.  The New Testament is a much better testimony to Christ than the Old.  So what does all this fulfillment of prophecy do for us?  It shows us the power, wisdom, foreknowledge, and the plan of God.  From the beginning, he intended to redeem his broken creation by sending his Son to open the door for us.  This wasn’t a lucky guess or an afterthought, it was always the plan.  At each step he was marching forward and arranging the events of history not just with a view toward justice in the present time, but also redemption to come in the age of Christ.

You’re a part of that plan, too.  Like everyone else, you have the opportunity and obligation to take refuge in him, to obey his will, to be rescued from your sins and have your name added to the book of life.  God has followed his plan to the letter.  Will you?

Jeremy Nettles

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.” (Luke 21.20-23)

Jesus spoke these words foretelling the days that would culminate in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and they are very effective at creating a sense of fear and foreboding in us even today.  We live in a relatively safe and secure society, in which we generally trust that strangers have no interest in murdering us for our shoes.  We’re even more inclined to trust civil authorities, and we trust members of our own family perhaps most of all.  It hasn’t always been so prudent to assume all of that goodwill.  As Jesus said a few verses prior, “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death” (Lk 21.16).  The Bible tells us what was going to happen through these prophecies of Jesus, and if we know what to look for, assorted details of some later books confirm it for us, but it’s obscure, and we often get the wrong impression about how it looked when the time came.

The main problem is that we assume it was a sudden and unexpected occurrence.  Never mind that Jesus told his followers of many signs they could use to see its approach; since we focus on the simplest facts of the matter, we forget that soon-to-be-emperor Titus’ destruction of the city and temple in 70AD were part of a long series of events that led logically to that conclusion.  But Josephus—a Jewish leader who saw the signs and defected to the Romans while the getting was good—did record those events in detail.  We ought to take everything he says with a grain of salt, knowing that he has an interest in painting the Romans in the best possible light, that he has every reason to sanitize his own part in the story, and most importantly that he is not among those commissioned by the Holy Spirit to write the scriptures for us.  Nevertheless, a few details from his account are worth considering.  If they’re even half true, they teach us a lot.

While the Romans were besieging Jerusalem, a group of Idumeans about 20,000 strong was called to the city to help the Jews.  These were the people of king Herod, who reigned during Jesus’ ministry.  Far from helping, though, they simply took a side in the internal divisions, which quickly became violent on a massive scale.  These Idumeans 
vented their rage on the men who had shut them out, making no distinction between those who cried for mercy and those who fought. …The entire outer court of the Temple was deluged with blood, and 8,500 corpses greeted the rising sun. (Josephus, BJ IV.310-313)

Not content with attacking the assembled militia, they then 
plundered every house and killed anyone they met.  Then thinking the common people not worth bothering about they went after the high priests.  It was against them that the main rush was made, and they were soon caught and killed. (IV.314-316)

They committed many more atrocities before leaving the city, but even then the problems weren’t over.  After their departure, the Zealots—among whom Simon the apostle was formerly numbered—gained control of the city and began killing anyone suspected of defecting to the Romans outside the walls.

[A]nyone caught going out…was assumed to be on his way to the Romans and dispatched forthwith.  However, if he paid enough they let him go, and only if he failed to pay was he a traitor, so that the rich purchased their escape and only the poor were slaughtered.  Dead bodies along all the main roads were heaped up high.... (IV.378-380)

You can well imagine how difficult this sort of treatment made it for Christians to heed Jesus’ warning, “flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart” (Lk 21.21).  The really astonishing thing is that this occurred two full years before the final destruction of the city, and it’s not as if this was the beginning of the unrest, nor did life in Jerusalem improve much between these events and the end of the war.

These poor people lived day by day in a situation in which the Gentiles “trample the holy city for forty-two months” (Re 11.2), and yet it wasn’t until the bodies were literally piling up in the streets that many of them decided it might be time to consider going somewhere else to live.  There are implications from this on the state of our society right now, although we’re only in the early stages this kind of strife.  But more importantly, how often do we behave in this foolish and carefree manner toward sin?

Sin poses a much greater threat to us than enemies foreign or domestic—as Jesus said, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10.28).  Yet we allow this eternal danger to become normal and mundane, and we often don’t take it seriously, even while it is harming souls all around us, and perhaps even our own.  We must be on guard, ever watchful against our adversary, the devil.

“But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21.36)

Everyone's got an opinion.  Most people have one for every issue.  Increasingly, we struggle to differentiate between our opinions and objective truth.  Nowhere is this more glaringly obvious than in the growing acceptance of the phrase, “my truth,” as if it not only makes sense, but is somehow nobler and more authentic than the alternative.  If my truth differs from your truth, then at least one of us is at odds with reality, which doesn’t take either of our opinions into consideration!

Yet members of our society usually assume that their opinion is the correct one, and have nothing but derision for any who disagree.  Look at the state of our politics, for abundant examples.  It’s also apparent in the absurd level of fragmentation in practically every religious movement today, so that it’s a fool’s errand to count all of the different flavors of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity.  By the time you finish tallying them up, the number will have increased noticeably over what it was when you began!  Disagreements lead to divisions, and both sides of each division are usually willing to reconcile, just as soon as the other side admits they were totally wrong about everything, and it was all their fault.  For a more mundane demonstration, just listen to the low-level employees at most businesses discussing how things really work, when the boss isn’t around.  The boss probably has a very different opinion.  Which side is right?  Is either?

We’re inclined to pass judgment about everything, at every opportunity.  Jesus warns us, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Mt 7.1).  On the other hand, he tells us to “judge with right judgment” (Jn 7.24).  Which is it?  Well, the prohibition was followed with an assumption that we will, in fact, judge: “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Mt 7.2).  He’s not saying that every act of judgment is a sin—he’s warning us that God will take our standard of judgment into account, and throw it right back at us.  “Judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (Ja 2.13).  We’re not going to make it through life without passing a few judgments, but we’d better be careful to use God’s standards, not our own—to judge with “right judgment.”  How does God’s judgment look?

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2.1-5)

Now we’ve got another problem.  It’s easy to protest: “I condemn murderers, and I’ve never murdered anyone!  I condemn adulterers, and I’ve never committed adultery!  I condemn those who swear falsely, and I’ve never done that, either!”  Jesus covered all of those, and more, saying:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment...” (Matthew 5.21-22)

And again:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5.27-28)

And finally: 

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all...” (Matthew 5.33-34)

From our own perspective, we sure seemed innocent; but God sees the heart, and in our hearts we have done “the very same things” we judge in others.  God’s wrath is stored up for us.  But that’s not the whole story.  The only man who didn’t deserve God’s wrath already paid the penalty for the sins the rest of us have committed.  Mercy triumphs over judgment, and he offers it to all who will to take it.  In light of this, we should be a little more grateful to him for shielding us from the consequences of our sin.  Be a little less harsh and certain of the judgments we pass on others, and more merciful, regardless of what they deserve.  Consider withholding judgment more often, and busy yourself encouraging repentance and salvation, not perfect earthly justice.  And finally, we should be a little more concerned with cleaning up our own hearts and behaviors.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.” (Luke 18.10-14)

Be the tax collector, not the Pharisee.

Jeremy Nettles

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21.1)

Here is another among many confusing statements in the book of Revelation, subject to several different interpretations.  Most of them rely to some degree on the meaning of the “thousand years” in the previous chapter, and some involve a very sophisticated set of expectations built on the language of many prophecies in the Old and New Testament alike.  We can simplify all of this considerably, by focusing just on the topic at hand, and tracing the new heaven and new earth through the Bible.

Revelation is not the only place we find this phrase in the New Testament.  2 Peter 3 describes the destruction of the earth and heavens, and then says, “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3.13).  The same elements as in Revelation appear here, along with the indication that this is in line with God’s promise.  If Peter was already able to say we await the fulfillment, it’s clear that the promise had already been announced to his people.  But where, and when?  

In the final two chapters of Isaiah, God lists the sins of his people Israel, and passes judgment.  He promises that the punishment will be followed by restoration of the faithful remnant, saying, “my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry,” and many more such things (v13ff).  Then, he explains how this will occur: “behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind” (v17).  We could interpret this as pertaining to something still to come in the distant future, but as with nearly everything in Isaiah, there’s an appropriate fulfillment of the prophecy within a reasonable period after Isaiah prophesied in the 8th century BC.  The people of Judah were soon to go into exile, in punishment for their sins.  Then, a remnant would return and rebuild a Jewish kingdom in their ancestral lands, with God’s help.  It remains a mere shadow of its former glory, and so it’s a rather underwhelming fulfillment, but nevertheless, there it is.

But it doesn’t stop there.  In chapter 66, God describes bringing his people together from the corners of the earth, and opening up the priesthood to them.
“For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord. And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” (Isaiah 66.22-24)

That’s the end of the book, and Jesus quotes the last verse in Mark 9.48, explicitly describing hell in the final judgment.  Sure, this could be construed as simply a prediction of the restoration of Israel’s nationhood, but by this point it’s pretty clear that there’s more to this.  Perhaps the “brothers” mentioned in verse 20 aren’t brothers in the sense of sharing a common physical ancestry, so much as brothers because of a shared spiritual heritage, as Paul describes in Galatians 3.7, “it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”  Perhaps the eternal priesthood isn’t the one established by Moses, but the one established by Christ.  Perhaps the coming judgment isn’t confined to suffering and death in this life, but an eternal consequence.  If that’s the case, then the new heavens and new earth aren’t just a disappointing fulfillment of a grandiose promise, but reason to expect something far greater in the age of Christ.  Maybe it’s about a reinvented earth, to be Jesus’ kingdom while the Father reigns in heaven; maybe we’d remain in this creation as Christ’s physical, earthly kingdom, forever.  That’s the route some interpreters have gone.  But we haven’t traced this idea all the way back to its source, yet.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Ge 1.1).  These are the original new heavens and new earth.  From the very start, God and his servants have described the entirety of his physical creation by the terms, heaven and earth.  We tend to think of heaven as God’s home, and often that’s how the term is used.  But here in Genesis 1, as it very often does, it just means the sky.  “The heavens and the earth” is just a straightforward way of expressing the entirety of creation.  What God is promising, when he says he’ll create new heavens and a new earth, is a new creation.

There are shades of this in the restoration of Israel’s nationhood; there’s a much greater fulfillment in the spiritual kingdom established by Christ; and we still look forward to the greatest fulfillment of all, a new creation in which we may dwell with God forever after this vain world is dead and gone.  We’ve messed this creation up, with our sin.  But Jesus has redeemed the creation through his perfect self-sacrifice, and begun to re-create his chosen people, the church, as we were originally intended to be: innocent and faithful, walking with God.  In the church, we have the firstfruits of this new creation, but we’re still stuck living in the tainted, fallen world.  We await a final transformation, and the final re-creation, when Christ returns.  Be ready.  Be one of his people.  Be remade in Christ’s image.

Jeremy Nettles