The Gospel is preached to the poor: The Day of Atonement
This message came to me concerning Edom: Someone from Edom keeps calling to me, “Watchman, how much longer until morning? When will the night be over?” The watchman replies, “Morning is coming, but night will soon return (1 Thess. 5:1, 2, 5, 6). If you wish to ask again, then come back and ask.” Isaiah 21:11–12
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. Matthew 11:2–5
The proclamation to the poor comes at the end because it gives meaning to—that is, interprets—the miracles done by Jesus. Moreover, the miracle that heals only the body does not accomplish as much as the word that heals mind and heart and brings eschatological salvation. John has, according to Mat.11:2, already heard of ‘the deeds of the Christ’. What then is the function of Mat.11:5?
Being a summary of what is already known to both John and the reader, is it not superfluous? The answer is No, for the verse contains more than a list of miracles: it also supplies a hermeneutical suggestion. Jesus’ language directs one to Isaiah and is therefore an invitation to put Jesus’ ministry and Isaiah’s oracles side by side. Are not the promises of salvation being fulfilled? Is not eschatology in the process of being realized?
The man through whom the poor have good news preached to them and through whom miracles have come can only be the anointed one of Isa 61:1, the bearer of the Spirit, who, in the latter days, comforts the mourners and thereby brings promise to fulfillment. Mat.11:2–6 is also very instructive with regard to Jesus’ eschatological outlook. One must not miss the selective character of the scriptural allusions in Mat.11:4–6.
Jesus draws upon (Isa' 29:18–19; 35:5–6; and 61:1.) Each of these texts, in its OT context, is closely associated with judgement (cf. Isa. 29:20; 35:4; 61:2): It is not coincidence that Jesus picks up only the promises of salvation. The central message for him, in contrast with the Baptist, is not the prospect of judgement—although that is hardly negated—but the presence of eschatological salvation. (Lk. 4:18–19, whatever its origin, offers a parallel: Jesus breaks off reading the OT right at the point at which the theme becomes judgement.)
Recall also that in the OT God is the special protector of the poor; see esp. the laws in Exod. 21–3; cf. (2 Sam. 22:28; Eze. 22:29; Psa. 72:2, 4, 12, 13; 132:15.)
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 2, International Critical Commentary (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 243–246.
But most important for the sake of this argument, coherence between Luke 6:20//Matt 5:3 and Luke 7:23//Matt 11:4 indicates a link between the beatitude form and Jesus’ fulfillment of the eschatological expectations of Isaiah’s herald. The emphasis is the same in both Q passages: the blessed poor are blessed because in encountering Jesus they have come upon the anointed one, whose arrival has inaugurated good news to the afflicted, healing for the brokenhearted, liberty to captives, freedom to prisoners, the favorable year of the Lord, the day of vengeance of God, and comfort to all who mourn.
Jesus’ anointed work thus signals the commencement of the new eschatological age of God’s saving rule. This messianic foundation naturally coheres with the other messianic texts addressed in this article and explains the harsh judgment spoken of in Q which awaits those who reject Jesus’ ministry. Edward P. Meadors, “The ‘Messianic’ Implications of the Q Material,” Journal of Biblical Literature 118 (1999): 276.
When the oracle of the prophet Zechariah comes true, “O sword, be lively and smite my shepherd and the man loyal to Me—so says God. If you strike down the shepherd, the flock will scatter. Then I will turn My power against the little ones” (Zech. 13:7). But those who give heed to God are “the poor of the flock” (Zech. 11:7): they will escape in the time of punishment, but all the rest will be handed over to the sword when the Messiah of Aaron and of Israel comes, just as it happened during the time of the first punishment, as Ezekiel said, “Make a mark on the foreheads of those who moan and lament” (Ezek. 9:4), but the rest were given to the sword that makes retaliation for covenant violations. Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 59.
With probably the majority or at least many of Jesus’ audience, the religious state of poverty was matched by an outward condition: they suffered literal poverty or at least experienced first-hand economic inequities. They knew the meaning of need because they were poor in spirit and poor in fact (cf. Ps. Sol. 15:1–3). This interpretation is confirmed by the ties between Isa. 61:1–2 and Mt. 5:3 and 4
In the OT prophetic passage, the oppressed people of God are promised salvation: ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn’.
Both Jesus himself and his followers saw the earthly ministry as a fulfillment of this prophecy (Mt. 11:5; Lk. 4:16–21; 7:22); and presumably they understood rightly that the text promises salvation for those who face oppression and poverty in the world and in their need turn to God. Thus when the eschatological reversal (περιπέτεια) takes place, the sick are made well, the humble are exalted, and the poor are made rich.
He has called them that staggeredto [marvelous mighty deeds],
and has gathered in the assembly of the nations
to destruction without any remnant.
He has lifted up in judgement the fearful of heart
and has opened the mouth of the dumb
that they might praise [the mighty] works [of God].
He has taught war [to the hand] of the feeble
and steadied the trembling knee;
he has braced the back of the smitten.
Among the poor in spirit [there is power]
over the hard of heart,
and by the perfect of way
all the nations of wickedness have come to an end:
not one of their mighty men stands,
but we are the remnant [of Thy people.]
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 139–140. 1QM 14:7
This leaves us with the sense, ‘spiritually poor’, which fits 1QM 14:7 and Mt. 5:3 and has to commend it the vast majority of exegetical opinion.(Flusser, ‘poor’, offers a novel interpretation: ‘the poor’ are those who are enriched by the Holy Spirit.) It also allows ‘poor in spirit’ to find an antonym in 1QS 11:1: ‘the haughty of spirit’.
I will distribute the Preceptby the measuring-cord of the times,
and … righteousness
and loving-kindness towards the oppressed,
encouragement to the troubled heart
and discernment to the erring spirit,
teaching understanding to them that murmur
that they may answer meekly before
the haughty of spirit
and humbly before men of injustice
who point the finger and speak of iniquity
and who are zealous for wealth.
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 86. 1QS 11:1
The ‘in heart’ of Mt. 5:8 and the ‘meek and lowly in heart’ of Mt.11:29 argue that the spirit is the sphere of poverty. The emphasis is not simply on external conditions but on internal disposition. For similar phrases see Ps. 24:4 (‘pure in heart’) Ps.34:18 (‘crushed in spirit’); Prov 29:23 (‘lowly of spirit’); Prov.7:8 (‘proud in spirit’); Ps. 11:2 (‘upright in heart’).
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 1, International Critical Commentary (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 443;444
For Thou wilt deliver into the hands of the poor the enemies from all the lands, to humble the mighty of the peoples by the hand of those bent to the dust, to bring upon the [head of Thine enemies] the reward of the wicked, and to justify Thy true judgement in the midst of all the sons of men, and to make for Thyself an everlasting Name among the people [whom Thou hast redeemed] … of battles to be magnified and sanctified in the eyes of the remnant of the peoples, that they may know … when Thou chastises Gog and all his assembly gathered about him …
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 137. 1Q33 Col. xi
In that day the Branch of Yahweh will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the honor of those of Israel who escape. It will be that he who remains in Zion and is left in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is written down for life in Jerusalem.
When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and rinsed away the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then Yahweh will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her convocation a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. And there will be a booth to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and a hiding place from the storm and the rain. Isaiah 4:2–6 LSB
The picture that emerges in the Tabernacles festival is then one of the Glory-Spirit re-creatively overshadowing the redeemed Israelite community in the wilderness, fashioning them in his own glory-likeness. Consequently, the exodus typology depicts the mission of the coming Christ as a work of new creation, especially the creation of the new humanity in the image of God, a transformation perfected at last in their glorification and reception into the heavenly tabernacle.
Meredith G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 24.
The Bible unanimously declares that now is the time of salvation. In the Old Testament, on the basis of Israel’s redemption from Egypt, every succeeding generation was to respond in loving obedience to the laws issued at Sinai by God their Savior (Deut. 11; Ps. 95:7–8). The injunction “it is time to seek the LORD” (Hos. 10:12) was to be Israel’s perpetual desire.
In the New Testament, Jesus’ coming as the Messiah inaugurated “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19, 21). The time interval between the incarnation and the second coming appears symbolically as a jubilee year (Luke 4:19/Isa. 61:1–2; cf. Lev. 25:10), a time when salvation has been made available to all people through God’s saving work in Jesus. Thus, “now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2); now is the appointed season to declare this divine mystery hidden from ages past (Col. 1:26; Titus 1:3).
H. Douglas Buckwalter, “Time,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, electronic ed., Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 774–775.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because of which he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to send out in freedom those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” Lk 4:18–19.LEB
Most exegetes have been reluctant to accept the third possible reading of this passage—namely, that Jesus’ message met with unequivocal unbelief—but it is nevertheless most likely that this is how Luke intended us to understand the narrative. Steadfast Savior Dr. Lane G. Tipton
We can get some indication of the way in which at least some contemporaries of Jesus read this passage by studying the Qumran Melchizedek fragment (11QMelch) In this document citations are made from passages relating to the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:13; Deut. 15:2); these are linked with Isaiah 52:7 and Psalms 82:1–2 and 7:8–9, and all are interpreted in the light of Isaiah 61:1–2. After referring to Leviticus 25:13 and Deuteronomy 15:2, the text continues as follows:
G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle, Cumbria: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; The Paternoster Press, 1986), 86,89
And concerning that which He said, In [this] year of Jubilee [each of you shall return to his property (Lev. 25:13); and likewise, And this is the manner of release:] every creditor shall release that which he has lent [to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother], for God’s release [has been proclaimed] (Deut. 15:2). [And it will be proclaimed at] the end of days concerning the captives as [He said, To proclaim liberty to the captives (Isa. 61:1).
Its interpretation is that He] will assign them to the Sons of Heaven and to the inheritance of Melchizedek; f[or He will cast] their [lot] amid the po[rtions of Melchize]dek, who will return them there and will proclaim to them liberty, forgiving them [the wrong-doings] of all their iniquities.
This is the day of [Peace/Salvation] concerning which [God] spoke [through Isa]iah the prophet, who said, [How] beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who proclaims peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion: Your ELOHIM [reigns] (Isa. 52:7).
Its interpretation; the mountains are the prophets … and the messenger is the Anointed one of the spirit, concerning whom Dan[iel] said, [Until an anointed one, a prince (Dan. 9:25)] … [And he who brings] good [news], who proclaims [salvation]: it is concerning him that it is written … [To comfort all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion] (Isa. 61:2–3). To comfort [those who mourn: its interpretation], to make them understand all the ages of t[ime] … In truth … will turn away from Satan … by the judgement[s] of God, as it is written concerning him, [who says to Zion]; your ELOHIM reigns.
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 361.
The preserved text, of which the beginning is lost, opens in the middle of an explanation of the jubilee year, citing Lev. 25:13 and Deut. 15:2, focusing on the release of slaves and debts. This law is then expanded by means of Isa. 61:1, which also speaks of the release of prisoners. Therefore, the text refers to a jubilee.
Since debts to God take the form of sins (note the different wording of the “Lord’s prayer” in Matt. 6:12 [opheilēmata] and Luke 11:4 [hamartia]) and are atoned for on behalf of all Israel every year by the High Priest at the Day of Atonement, the agent of this final release of debts to God will be the heavenly High Priest on the final day of atonement in history. This heavenly figure is identified as Melchizedek, and the date is “the end of the tenth jubilee,” that is, after 490 or 500 years from the start of the calendar (which is the destruction of the temple and the beginning of the Babylonian exile), depending on whether one counts a jubilee as 49 or 50 years.
Philip R. Davies, “Biblical Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in A History of Biblical Interpretation: The Ancient Period, ed. Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 159–160.
On the Day of Atonement a herald went throughout the land proclaiming the year of Jubilee, the year of liberty, deror, the key Hebrew word for identifying Jubilee material (Lev. 25:10).
The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures rendered deror, liberty, by aphesis the word found in Matthew’s account of the Last Supper: ‘my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the aphesis of sins’ (Matt. 26:28). The atonement effected by the sacrificial death of Jesus must have been the renewal of the everlasting covenant which inaugurated the great Jubilee.
Now the enigmatic prophecy in Daniel 9:24–27 also spoke of a period of 490 years, but described it as seventy weeks of years, 70 × 7, and the period was reckoned from the rebuilding of Jerusalem, by those whom Enoch called the impure apostates. Daniel’s prophecy predicted that after 490 years there would be a great atonement to put an end to transgression and iniquity; vision and prophecy would be fulfilled, and the Most Holy One would be anointed. If we assume that Daniel’s 490 years were the same as those of the Melchizedek text, we find that the ministry of Jesus fell within the early years of the tenth Jubilee.
Melchizedek would inaugurate the judgement described in Psalm 82: ‘God has taken his place in the heavenly council; in the midst of the elohim he sits in Judgement’—which is the setting for the Book of Revelation, where the Lamb takes his place on the heavenly throne and then the seals are opened. The Melchizedek text then quotes Isaiah 52:7, the feet of the herald who proclaims peace and brings the good news—our word gospel—who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’.
The passage in Isaiah goes on to refer to ‘the day of vengeance of our God’ Isa.61:2, a reference to the liberty and judgement of the Day of Atonement. Jesus then said: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4:21).
He claimed to be Melchizedek. And so Mark begins his account of the ministry: ‘The time is fulfilled [a reference to the tenth Jubilee], and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent [because the day of judgement is also at hand], and believe in the gospel [the good news of the Jubilee]’ (Mark 1:15).
Then the ministry is presented as the work of Melchizedek: forgiving sins, performing exorcisms and gathering in the unclean and the excluded. Caiaphas’ sarcasm, recorded in John 11:50, also assumes this expectation: ‘you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people’—to which John added (Jn.11:51–52): ‘He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.’ This was the ingathering of the tenth Jubilee. Margaret Barker, Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 70–73.
We may assume that the hearers of Jesus would have understood the passage as relating to the great day of release for their people, the final Jubilee of history. When Jesus proceeded to affirm, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” they would have understood him to be announcing that the Jubilee had arrived, that the acceptable year of the Lord had begun. And that is what Jesus wished them to understand.
This is no prophecy of an impending emancipation from heaven. What the scripture speaks of has attained its fulfillment in its pronouncement by Jesus. The statement is not simply a scripture quotation, therefore; it is a declaration that the time has arrived. As G. B. Caird expressed it, “He has not merely read the scripture; as King’s messenger he has turned it into a royal proclamation of majesty and release.” Moreover, the Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to make known this good news and to put it into effect. Jesus had been sent with the word of release, which is a word of power; he had been sent to “set free those who had been crushed.”
G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle, Cumbria: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; The Paternoster Press, 1986), 88–89.
According to Hebrews 13:9–12, God has given believers an altar at which they have higher privileges than the priests who ministered at the altar in the sanctuary. This altar is a metaphor for Jesus’ death on the cross. In fact, his sacrifice was the perfect antitype of the purification (sin) offerings made on the Day of Atonement, for like the carcasses and remains of those offerings, which were completely consumed by fire outside the camp (Lev 16:27), Jesus died outside the walls of Jerusalem. His blood, therefore, sanctifies all those who believe, giving them firm confidence in their relationship with God. At this altar believers continually receive spiritual nourishment by faith.
Thus what the annual observance of the Day of Atonement achieved for all Israelites for the coming year, Jesus achieved in his sacrificial death on the cross both for all people and for all time. Christ, as sacrifice and priest, accomplished also the benefits gained by the people’s two goats offered on that day: like the goat for Yahweh, his death atoned for all human sins; like the goat for Azazel, his death and resurrection broke the power of evil energized by those sins.
J. E. Hartley, “Atonement, Day Of,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 60.
Gabriel, (Dan. 9:21; Lk. 1:19,26) explain the vision to this man.” So he approached where I was standing; when he came near, I was terrified and fell facedown. (Ez. 1:28; 44:4; Dan. 2:46; Rev. 1:17) “Son of man,” he said to me, “understand that the vision refers to the time of the end.” (Dan. 11:35, 40) While he was speaking to me, I fell into a deep sleep, (Dan. 10:9; Lk. 9:32) with my face to the ground. Then he touched me, made me stand up, (Ez. 2:2; Dan. 10:10, 16, 18) and said, “I am here to tell you what will happen at the conclusion of the time of wrath, because it refers to the appointed time of the end.(Mt. 13:7) Dan. 8:16–19 CSV
Christ died ‘when the week was coming to an end’: His death abolished the Old Law, and a new temple (the Messianic kingdom—the Church) was beginning to be built ‘in splendor’ (cf. Acts 2). It was built ‘in the name of the Lord’ (a reference to Christian baptism; see Acts 2:38). It is likely, however, that ‘the week’ is a condensed expression for Daniel’s ‘seventy weeks of years’ (Dan. 9:2, 24–27). See Jer. 25:12 and 29:10.
Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, eds., The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Epistles and the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, The Fragments of Papias and The Epistle to Diognetus, trans. James A. Kleist, 6th ed., Ancient Christian Writers (New York; Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, 1948).
Seventy weeks have been decreed concerning your people and your holy city: to restrain transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for lawlessness, to establish everlasting righteousness, to conclude vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Da 9:24 ISV
“Upon thy people and upon thy holy city.” Daniel has been praying long and earnestly for his people; so there would be no inability to see what was meant by “his city and his people.” “To finish transgression” is equivalent to “to restrain transgression.” Transgression is apt to become bold and imperious; it is a great deal when it is even somewhat “restrained.” It is to be noted that, as Daniel’s prayer was greatly confession of the sins of the people and prayer for forgiveness, the promises here are largely moral; but still the Messianic period even was not to be expected to be one in which there will be no sin—it is to be restrained.
Professor Bevan is right in maintaining that, despite the accents, this clause is to be connected with the next. To bring in everlasting righteousness. This is more than merely the termination of the suit of God against his people (Isa. 27:9). The phrase occurs in Ps. 119:142, and is applied to the righteousness of God. These two, “atonement for sin” and “the everlasting righteousness,” are found in Christ—his atoning death and the righteousness which he brings into the world.
The words of Gabriel thus point forward to a time when all iniquity shall be restrained, sin atoned for, and a priest anointed.(H. D. M. Spence, Daniel, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 267,268.)
These verses then do not present Antichrist but rather the opposite. The identity of Messiah who will be cut off is obvious. His “cutting off” is the inauguration or “cutting” of the new covenant in fulfillment of the Abrahamic symbolism (cf. Gen. 15:17–18). The Prince who has already come is that same Messiah. His “people” who will “destroy the sanctuary city” (taking “the city and the holy place” as a hendiadys) are the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70.
They are “his people” just as the Lord could refer to a pagan king, Cyrus, as “my messiah” (Isa. 45:1). They come as an invading “flood” (cf. Isaiah’s characterization of the Assyrian invasion—brought by the Lord—as a flood, Isa. 8:7). (Cf. also Assyria as the rod of the Lord’s anger (Isa. 10:5).) The Messiah “will make a covenant prevail with many” cf. Isa. 53:12 for the final week, that is, the final period of human history. The first half of the week comes to an end with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70. The second half of the week is the remainder of human history until the eschaton.
Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Biblical Theology: The Special Grace Covenants (New Testament), vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 259–260.
But You, O [G]od, You protect its fruit with the mystery of powerful warriors, holy spirits, and the whirling flame of fire so that none may [come to the] fountain of life, nor with eternal trees drink the waters of holiness, nor make his fruit flourish with [the plan]t of the heavens. Namely, the one though he sees has not recognized, and considering has not believed in the spring of life and so gives […] eternal. I have become the mockery of flooding rivers, for they toss up their slime over me.
But You, O my God, have placed Your words in my mouth, as showers of early rain, for all [who thirst] and as a spring of living waters.
Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 192.
It is like the dew of Hermon, Prov. 19:12; Mic. 5:7; Deut. 3:9; 4:48 which falls on the mountains of Zion! Ps. 48:1 For there the LORD has commanded the blessing, Lev. 25:21; Deut. 28:8; Ps. 42:8 life forevermore. Ps 133:3 ESV
Celebrate, you people of Zion! Rejoice in the LORD your God, because he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. "Or he has given you the Teacher of Righteousness." The word used here for autumn rain sounds the same as the word for teacher. The life-giving rain then would be a symbol for the showers of blessing brought by the Messiah. Joel 2:23 EHV
“Shout, you skies above, and you clouds,and let righteousness stream down.
I am the one who says to the earth, ‘Let salvation blossom,
Contrary to what some Christian theologies have taught, salvation for Paul is not some metaphysical drama whose palpable reality or unreality in daily life is more or less irrelevant. It is not ‘a tangent barely touching a circle’; nor is it merely an abstract language game for ‘re-imagining ourselves differently’. Instead,
it is the sovereign gift of God in Christ which is accepted by faith alone and then concretely embodied
(cf. 2 Cor. 4:10f.; Rom. 8:11) in the banal, sublime and excruciating realities of the believer’s life—by ‘the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings’. The stage for the drama is here: that is the meaning of the incarnation. Resurrection, then, is for believers no doubtful and uncertain desire but the sure hope for what God in Christ has promised.
Yet the only road to it is the race-track of the expectant, Christ-orientated ‘mind’ that Paul himself exemplifies: forgetting the pride in his own status and achievements and reaching forward to the heavenly prize of fellowship with Christ (Rom.8: 13f.). There lies the contingency. As the Lucan Paul puts it, ‘Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22). Markus Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians, Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1997), 217–218.
As presented in the New Testament, this hope for the future is never its own goal. It dominates and directs life in the present, and important consequences are inseparably integrated with it. In a real sense the future, with the order and integrity of the coming Kingdom, steps into man’s existence in the form of this hope.
The Christian community is addressed from out of the future, because it cannot and may not remain unaffected by its message.
The community must live in patience and establish the hearts of its members, “for the coming of the Lord is at hand”. (James 5:8).
This crucial question concerning the reality of the expectation has often been raised in sharp criticism of a church that has forgotten what it is to live out of the expectation of the future, a church that has not understood the meaning of the “not yet,” a church that, assuming itself to live in the fulfillment already, full of perfect insight, dismisses the warning that the Christian can know only in part.
The unfulfilled condition (the “not yet”) and the expectation of what is to come are so correlatively joined that a denial or distortion of the one will naturally have an adverse effect on the other. Those of mystical leanings who pretend to experience the presence of God in all its perfection, claiming to have life in all its fulness and glory, and dismissing life on earth as “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16), leave no room for an expectation.
For them the challenges to climb the watchtower (Hab. 2:1) or to ask, “Watchman, what of the night?” (Isa. 21:11) become wholly superfluous. There can be a real expectation only when one does not get all wrapped up in the events preceding the last things and remembers that he is still only on the road to the future. Only in the realization that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come” Heb. 13:14 can there be a real expectation.
So we see that the nature and intensity of the expectation are closely connected to the perspective on, and engagement in, the present life. The church has been accused throughout its history of gross distortion in its search for the meaning of the eschaton. In the light of the eschatological expectation, is it still a constantly searching church?
Has it fallen prey to a thoroughgoing secularization of the eschaton? Does it remain true to the biblical expectation, or does it presume itself already to have entered a lasting city, forgetting the abiding city “whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10)? Has it lost the mark of the pilgrim and the joyous expectation, claiming instead with the Laodicean church “I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing” (Rev. 3:17), symbolizing self-satisfaction and self-sufficiency without awareness of the “not yet,” hence, without real, biblical expectation? Has it given itself over to smug complacency, drifting aimlessly because it has lost its goal of hope in the things that are not seen? G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 21–23.
Strictly speaking, “postapocalyptic” is an oxymoron.
In the biblical mode of the worldview, the end time is a literal event, not a literary setting. Armageddon is the last battle; the final judgment is for all time. After the salvation, the narrative terminates; there is no sequel.
Lorenzo Ditommaso, “Apocalypticism and Popular Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. John J. Collins, Oxford Handbooks (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 496.
The ‘eschaton’ of an eschatology which works with the concept of God suggested here, and with this advent understanding of the future, is not an eternity which can neither enter time, nor remain outside time. This eschaton means a change in the transcendental conditions of time. With the coming of God’s glory, future time ends and eternal time begins.
Futurist eschatology is a contradiction in terms, because the future (in the static sense of Future) cannot be an eschatological category. An eschatology of the eternal present is a contradiction in terms, because it abolishes time.
Only the idea of the coming God, and the advent concept of time which is in accord with him, open up categories for eschatology.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004), 26.
Eschatological expectation is not just ordinary longing fortified by some kind of self-evidence. It is rather the response to a promise, an aroused response triggered by the living promise of which Peter speaks (1 Pet. 1:3): “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope.” It is clearly impossible to place this Christian expectation on the same level with other human expectations, as if there were only a difference in content and not in structure.
The Christian expectation differs profoundly from ordinary longing or hoping precisely because it obtains its certainty from the promised—therefore assured—future. This promised future envelops the present and forms the touchstone of the veracity of the expectation. This spirit can also be detected in the apostolic exhortation to the faithful: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23). G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 19.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to a command of God our Saviour, and of the Lord Jesus Christ our hope, 1 Timothy 1:1
You have loosed the boundary of death, You who are the Maker of life for the dead, through Jesus Christ, our hope!
James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985), 680.
The Writer, Judas Jerome repeats Eusebius’ notice of Judas, but adds nothing to it, and we know no more about him. Since he believed that the appearance of Antichrist was at hand, he must have written before the persecutions had given place again to peace, and hence not long after 202, the date to which he extended his chronology. Whether the work mentioned by Eusebius was a commentary or a work on chronology is not clear. It was possibly an historical demonstration of the truth of Daniel’s prophecies, and an interpretation of those yet unfulfilled, in which case it combined and exegesis.
Judas, discoursing about the seventy weeks in Daniel, brings down the chronology to the tenth year of the reign of Severus. He thought that the coming of Antichrist, which was much talked about, was then near. So greatly did the agitation caused by the persecution of our people at this time disturb the minds of many.
It was the common belief in the Church, from the time of the apostles until the time of Constantine, that the second coming of Christ would very speedily take place. This belief was especially pronounced among the Montanists, Montanus having proclaimed that the Parousia would occur before his death, and even having gone so far as to attempt to collect all the faithful (Montanists) in one place in Phrygia, where they were to await that event and where the new Jerusalem was to be set up.
There is nothing surprising in Judas’ idea that this severe persecution must be the beginning of the end, for all through the earlier centuries of the Church (and even to some extent in later centuries) there were never wanting those who interpreted similar catastrophes in the same way; although after the third century the belief that the end was at hand grew constantly weaker.
Eusebius of Caesaria, “The Church History of Eusebius,” in Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, vol. 1, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 254.
Har Magedon—well named, this heavenly mount, the mountain of God. For it is the mount of gathering in multiple senses. Primarily and forever it is the temple-mount, the assembly place of the worshipping, celebrating entourage of the King of glory, a myriad congregation of angels and men (cf. Heb. 12:18–29; Psa. 47:9; 48; 102:21, 22 ). Here is the council chamber where God assembles the heavenly elders for deliberation (cf. Psa. 82:1). This celestial mount is the paradise to which God’s exiled people of every nation are regathered (cf. Deut. 30:3–5; Isa 27:12, 13; 43:5; Jer. 32:37–41; Ezek. 11:17–20; 36:24).
Har Magedon is the palace-fortress against which Satan’s antichrist, aspiring to the throne on this mountain, gathers his hordes in the final battle of Har Magedon (cf. Ezekiel 38–39; Rev. 16:14–16; 19:19; 20:8), an event which, from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, is a divine gathering of the nations to Zion for their final judgment (cf. Joel 3 [4]; Zech. 12:3; 14:2; Matt. 25:31, 32). This Mount of Assembly is the heavenly hearth to which the Lord gathers his elect, one by one in their passing from the earthly scene (cf. Isa. 26:20; Luke 16:22; Rev. 6:9–11) and as a resplendent multitude raised from the dust in resurrection glory at his final harvesting of the earth at his parousia (Dan. 12:2; Matt. 13:30; 24:31; Mark 13:26, 27; 2 Thess. 2:1; Rev 14:14–16).
Meredith G. Kline, God, Heaven and Har Magedon: A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 56–57.
All that is now and ever shall be originates with the God of knowledge. Before things come to be, He has ordered all their designs, so that when they do come to exist—at their appointed times as ordained by His glorious plan—they fulfill their destiny, a destiny impossible to change. He controls the laws governing all things, and He provides for all their pursuits.
The authority of the Angel of Darkness further extends to the corruption of all the righteous. All their sins, iniquities, shameful and rebellious deeds are at his prompting, a situation God in His mysteries allows to continue until His era dawns.
Moreover, all the afflictions of the righteous, and every trial in its season, occur because of this Angel’s diabolic rule. All the spirits allied with him share but a single resolve: to cause the Sons of Light to stumble. Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 120.
And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin.’
Robert Henry Charles, ed., Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 194.
But those who have led the world astray shall be bound with chains; and their ruinous congregation shall be imprisoned; all their deeds shall vanish from before the face of the earth. Thenceforth nothing that is corruptible shall be found; for that Son of Man has appeared and has seated himself upon the throne of his glory; and all evil shall disappear from before his face; he shall go and tell to that Son of Man, and he shall be strong before the Lord of the Spirits. James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York; London: Yale University Press, 1983), 49.
This section of the Book of Enoch is not well preserved, but the context of the poem is how the fallen angels corrupted the creation, the power of the great oath and how it had been broken. The story seems to be that they succeeded in corrupting the visible creation, but they did not have the power to corrupt and destroy the invisible unity, because they did not have the Name.
Margaret Barker, Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 44.
This had also been the vision of Isaiah. The wolf would lie down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, and there would be no more pain or destruction when the earth was filled with the knowledge of the LORD. Isaiah 11:9
In Isaiah’s context, we can read this as an implied contrast with the knowledge of the fallen angels, which brought pain and destruction, and caused the eternal covenant to collapse. Isaiah’s vision of the peaceful creation, as we might now expect, began with a description of the transformation of the human mind.
Someone was anointed with the Spirit of the LORD, the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of the LORD. These gifts of the Spirit transform the human mind—‘change the mind’ is the literal meaning of the Greek word for repentance, metanoia. We have heard a great deal in recent years about the gifts of the Spirit as Paul described them in Corinth—but very little about the effect of the Spirit in transforming the human mind.
The Spirit-transformed mind sees with anointed eyes and hears with anointed ears, and so judges with righteousness and decides with equity for the meek of the earth.
This is the gift of Wisdom which joins all things together.
There are several indications that it was the corruption of knowledge that led to sin which destroyed the covenant. Thus Malachi, condemning the corrupt priesthood at the beginning of the second temple period, reminded them of their ancestor Levi.
‘My covenant with him was a covenant of life and peace … True instruction was in his mouth … He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth, for the priest is a messenger [angel] of the LORD of Hosts. But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction, you have corrupted the covenant’ (Mal. 2:5–8).
Ezekiel, who was a priest in the first temple, described how an anointed cherub who had walked among the sons of fire was thrown from the Garden of Eden. This cherub had been clothed in precious stones and gold, and the description (in the LXX) makes it clear that this cherub was the high priest. The cherub’s sins were pride and the corruption of wisdom, and the punishment was to become ashes on the earth, to die (Ezek. 28:12–19). Margaret Barker, Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 49–50. cf. Dr. Michael S. Heiser What are the stones of fire? What do these verses describe?
And after he had told me these things, he spoke to the serpent in great wrath, saying to him, ‘Since you have done this and become an ungrateful vessel,(“tool of Belial” cf. Hos 8:8) so far as to lead astray the careless of heart, accursed are you beyond all wild beasts. You shall be deprived of the food which you used to eat, and shall eat dust every day of your life.
You shall crawl on your belly and you shall be deprived of your hands as well as your feet. There shall be left for you neither ear nor wing nor one limb of all that with which you enticed (them) in your depravity and caused them to be cast out of Paradise. And I will put enmity between you and his seed; he shall beware of your head and you his heel until the day of judgment. James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985), 283–285.
In Rev 16:12–16 the kings of the east team up with demonic spirits in preparing for a confrontation at [H]armagedon. In Rev.17:9–14 a coalition of ten kings falls in line with the Beast in anticipation of making war on the Lamb, who will conquer them. Rev 19:11–21 depicts the triumph of Christ and his heavenly armies against the kings of the earth with their armies. In this scene, Christ comes down from heaven riding on a horse in true warrior fashion to judge and make war. His weapon is “a sharp sword with which to strike the nations and rule them with a rod of iron” (19:15; cf. Ps 2:9; Isa 11:4). The Beast and the False Prophet are captured and thrown alive into the lake of fire.
Daniel C. Harlow, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament,” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, ed. James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 1585.
He will pay their reward with burning [fire by the hand of] those tested in the crucible. He will sharpen His weapons and will not tire until all the wicked nations are destroyed. Remember the judgement [of Nadab and Ab]ihu, sons of Aaron, by whose judgement God showed Himself holy in the eyes [of Israel. But Eleazar] and Ithamar He confirmed in an everlasting [priestly] Covenant.
Be strong and fear not; [for they tend] towards chaos and confusion, and they lean on that which is not and [shall not be. To the God] of Israel belongs all that is and shall be; [He knows] all the happenings of eternity. This is the day appointed by Him for the defeat and overthrow of the Prince of the kingdom of wickedness, and He will send eternal succor to the company of His redeemed by the might of the princely Angel of the kingdom of Michael.
With everlasting light He will enlighten with joy [the children] of Israel; peace and blessing shall be with the company of God. He will raise up the kingdom of Michael in the midst of the gods, and the realm of Israel in the midst of all flesh. Righteousness shall rejoice on high, and all the children of His truth shall jubilate in eternal knowledge. And you, the sons of His Covenant, be strong in the ordeal of God! His mysteries shall uphold you until He moves His hand for His trials to come to an end. Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 142–143.
Revelation applies the Davidic paradigm to Christ’s second coming, but even here the warrior Christ wears a robe dipped in his own blood, and he wields the sword as one whose name is the Word of God. These features reinforce what John the seer of Revelation emphasizes in other parts of the book, that the decisive battle has already been fought and won by Jesus at Calvary.
Daniel C. Harlow, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament,” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, ed. James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 1585–1586.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”; that is, since we are so weak in ourselves, that we cannot stand a moment; John 15:5; Ps. 103:14. and besides this, since our mortal enemies, the devil, 1 Pet. 5:8; Eph. 6:12. the world, John 15:19. and our own flesh, Rom. 7:23; Gal. 5:17. cease not to assault us, do thou therefore preserve and strengthen us by the power of thy Holy Spirit, that we may not be overcome in this spiritual warfare, Matt. 26:41; Mark 13:33. but constantly and strenuously may resist our foes, till at last we obtain a complete victory. 1 Thess. 3:13; 1 Thess. 5:23 (Historic Creeds and Confessions, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997).)
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