A Misplaced Altar

            “To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and ‘improved’ by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries.”

            I trust that got your attention.  It is a quote from Richard Dawkins.  Dawkins is an English evolutionary biologist and one of the leading architects of the modern anti-God movement to discredit the Bible and eliminate even the notion of God from the collective consciousness of mankind.  That particular quote is from Dawkins’s 2006 book titled “The God Delusion.”

            I open with this sobering statement from Dawkins not primarily to focus upon him.  Rather, my point is that Dawkins is not on the fringe of societal perceptions of God and the Bible.  I would argue that his perspective is rapidly becoming the normative attitude of our world.  In 2017 the Gallup company reported that 47 percent of Americans view the Bible as consisting of fables and legends.  That is compared to only 14 percent in the early nineteen nineties.  In the fifteen years or so between those two dates, the number of people in our country who think the Scriptures are a bunch of fairy tales has more than tripled, to the point that now almost half the population is firmly in the camp of Dawkins and his ilk.  They believe the Word of God is a collection of myths and fictional stories that is not capable of providing answers for today’s problems.

            I hope that most of the people reading this do not share that opinion.  I trust that many of us do hold fast to the authority and inerrancy and sufficiency of the Scriptures.  But, even if that is true, the reality is that people like us, who take such a position, are increasingly in the minority of culture today.  And, in the face of such opposition I believe we, as Christians, need to be ready and willing to formulate intelligent, considerate, and reasoned responses to the criticisms of our opponents, rather than simply being content with our beliefs and writing off the culture as a lost cause. 

One of the principle objections that God’s enemies level against the Scriptures, as highlighted in Dawkins’s quote, is that they are full of contradictions.  And, while solid Bible believing Christians may dismiss such notions and hold fast to their faith that the Bible is inerrant, I am convinced that we need to openly confront apparent paradoxes when we come across them.  This is obviously not for the purpose of discrediting the Bible.  Rather, it is founded upon the conviction that the Scriptures are in fact perfect, what may appear at first glance to be a problem does have a rational and truthful explanation, and if we seek a resolution in good faith then God will help us find it.

            In the words of Jonathan Edwards, as one of his resolutions, “Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances do not hinder.”

            It is in this context that I would like to draw your attention to a puzzle in Hebrews 9:3-4.  There is one of these apparent contradictions in this passage.  And, I would suggest to you that not only is there a perfectly reasonable explanation, but that in exploring a solution to the dilemma we will find an amazing pearl of wisdom that will inform, enrich, and transform our lives.

            First, we need to acknowledge the context of Hebrews 9 before diving into the details of verses 3 and 4.  This entire epistle has one singular over-arching purpose – to conclusively prove the superiority of Christ and the New Covenant in His blood to the previous system that God had instituted as the means by which man could interact with Him.  This consisted of the Mosaic Covenant and the Levitical priesthood that went along with it.

            The author has made several arguments prior to chapter 9.  He has argued that Christ is superior even to the angels, let alone to men.  The point has been made that Christ is like us, therefore He is eligible to be our high priest.  Not only that, but He is the perfect high priest.  He is superior to any man in his priestly office.  Furthermore, His priesthood is greater than Aaron’s, which came before it, because it has a better minister to perform it, a better ministry to accompany it, and a better covenant backing it.

            However, the author of Hebrews is, as the name of the book implies, writing to the Jews.  He knows perfectly well that they have 1,500 years of history, lineage, and tradition backing their conviction that their way of life is superior to all others.  They will not simply take at face value unsupported claims that something and someone has eclipsed their religious practices.

            So, in chapter 9 we see some of the specific regulations and customs of the Mosaic covenant contrasted with what now exists in Christ.  The chapter opens with a description of the original Tabernacle.  Verses 2 through 5 read: For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread; this is called the holy place.  Behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant; and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat; but of these we cannot now speak in detail.

            Here is the problem.  Verse 4 says that the golden altar of incense was in the Holy of Holies.  But, it was not.  If we take the description from those verses, we can see that the tabernacle, also known as the tent of meeting, was composed of two compartments that were divided by a curtain, called the veil.  First was the holy place.  In this room were the golden lampstand, to provide light, and the golden table of showbread, for the priests to eat.  Behind the veil was the second compartment, called the most holy place or the Holy of Holies.  Here were placed the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant.

            Everything in that description from Hebrews matches with the original design that God gave Moses in Exodus, except for one thing – the altar of incense is out of place.  We can see this clearly in Exodus 30:6, where God, describing the altar says: “You shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you.”

            What we have here is what appears to be a blatant contradiction between two passages of Scripture.  As stated, the world would be quick to highlight this as yet another reason to distrust the Bible.  We, who hold to the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture, would reject such a notion.  Yet, there still remains the question of how to resolve this paradox.  To attempt it, we have to get into the original language and translations a bit.  This will get a little technical, but hang with me, because I am convinced the payoff is going to be worth it for you.

            Two primary explanations for the discrepancy in Hebrews 9:4 have been offered by theologians over the years, revolving around how to translate the Greek word that is used to refer to the altar of incense.  The word in Greek is thumiasterion (thoo-me-ah-stay-ree-on).  The translators of the King James Bible chose to use the English word “censer” in place of the Greek.  A censer is a small metal firepan used to carry hot coals.  The ancients would use a censer to literally transport fire from one place to another.  So, for example, if someone had a fire going and they wanted to start a second blaze at a different location, they would gather some of the hot coals in a censer and transport them to the other spot to use as an ignition source.  The translation team of King James thought censer was the best English word to translate thumiasterion.  In contrast to the KJV, most modern English translations use “altar of incense” instead, as seen above.  The difference in translation stems from a couple of factors. 

First is that this is the only place in the entire New Testament where this word is used.  The word only shows up twice in the Septuagint, which is an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.  This makes cross referencing other uses of the word to gain context particularly difficult.  Failing to find much help from the Bible itself, scholars have no choice but to seek out extra-biblical Greek sources to see how this word is used in the wider culture.

But, this leads to the second problem.  Thumiasterion, like many other words, has multiple definitions.  Herodotus, a Greek historian, used it to refer to a censer.  On the other hand, Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, tended to have altars in mind when he wrote thumiasterion.  Adding to our difficulty, Josephus, the great Jewish historian, used the word both ways, for altar and censer. 

So, we have two completely different yet apparently equally valid ways to translate thumiasterion.  And, either path we take gives us problems of interpretation.  The difficulty with using altar of incense is obvious, as mentioned above.  So, I will focus on the legitimacy of censer as the correct translation first.

Lending support to censer is the fact that the aforementioned Septuagint does use thumiasterion to clearly refer to a censer rather than an altar.  2^nd Chronicles 26:19 is an example of this: But Uzziah, with a censer in his hand for burning incense…  Another place thumiasterion is used this way is Ezekiel 8:11.  Moreover, adopting censer as the correct translation is a clear and obvious way to resolve the dilemma of the discrepancy between Hebrews 9:4 and Exodus 30:6.  Put simply, if the author of Hebrews was referring to the censer that the high priest would carry inside the veil of the tabernacle on the Day of Atonement once per year (more on that later), then it would indeed be correct to attach it to the Holy of Holies.  Thus, there is no contradiction at all.

However, there are a number of problems with this approach.  First, the censer of the high priest is nowhere described as golden, yet the author of Hebrews deliberately uses that adjective.  In fact, the material to be used for the high priest’s censer is not specified by God directly in the Torah.  Solomon had one constructed out of gold for the first temple, as recorded in 1^st Kings 7:50.  And, the utensils for the bronze altar were all to be made out of bronze, which we find in Exodus 27:3.  But, the firepan for the altar of incense is only described in its function, rather than its construction, and that not until Leviticus 16 where the rituals for the Day of Atonement are described, which is the only time this particular censer was used.  Therefore, given a lack of any other evidence, and with the related detail of the bronze workmanship of the other utensils in the Tabernacle, I would conclude that the censer for the Day of Atonement was made out of bronze rather than gold.

Second, it seems unlikely that the author of Hebrews would have neglected to mention one of the central pieces of furniture in the Tabernacle.  This was a man clearly versed in Jewish religious rituals, who was writing directly to the people group most familiar with them.  To suppose that he would have chosen to mention the priest’s censer rather than one of the critical pieces of furniture in the Tabernacle seems to strain credulity.

Third, as stated, thumiasterion is used twice in the Septuagint to translate one of the Hebrew words for firepan, miqtereth.  But, that is not the usual word the Hebrews used in their writings.  Instead, the word machtah was the prevalent term the authors used when they wanted to refer to a firepan.  A different Greek word, pureion (pyur-ay-on) is used in the Septuagint to translate machtah nine of the times it appears.  So, although thumiasterion is a legitimate Greek translation for firepan, it is not the norm.  Therefore, if the author of Hebrews had a censer in mind, it is more likely that he would have used pureion instead of thumiasterion.

Now, at this point your head is probably swimming with hard to pronounce words from ancient languages.  So, let me recap the arguments thus far and then dig just a little deeper, because I think we are very close to hitting pay dirt.  In Hebrews 9:4 the author uses a word to describe an object in the tabernacle.  He places this object in the Holy of Holies.  We know from the Old Testament that the Holy of Holies only had one piece of furniture in it, the Ark of the Covenant.  So, a question of both translation and interpretation arises to avoid a contradiction of Scripture.

Some have chosen to solve this by making the writer of Hebrews mean the censer that the High Priest took into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.  While there is a legitimate warrant for this approach, it presupposes that the author would have neglected to even mention one of the pieces of furniture that God clearly instructed Moses to make.  Furthermore, it has him replace this piece of furniture with an item of secondary importance, which God did not think was important enough to even specify the material it was to be made out of.  Not only that, but, although the writer of Hebrews could have used the word he did to refer to a firepan, it is unlikely, based on the word occurrences we see in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Clearly, I do not think censer is the right way to translate Hebrews 9:4.  Yet, if we place altar of incense in the verse we are still left with our original dilemma.  How are we to understand the fact that Hebrews places the altar of incense in the Holy of Holies, yet Exodus places it in the holy place?

I think a solution will emerge if we examine the roots of the two Greek words we have been discussing – thumiasterion and pureion.  The root of pureion is pur, a noun simply meaning fire.  The root of thumiasterion is thumiao (thoo-me-ah-oh), a verb meaning to burn incense.  Suddenly, with this additional clue, I think the author’s intent in Hebrews 9:4 becomes crystal clear.  He deliberately used a word with the verbal connotation of the act of burning fragrant incense.  And, he used an adjective, gold, that is definitely linked to the altar of incense.  Therefore, I think he did in fact mean the altar itself, but he is referring to its functional use in the ritual of atonement rather than its spatial location within the tent of meeting.

Taking that understanding raises an interesting question with a fascinating answer.  Namely, why was it so important for our author to place such an emphasis on the act of burning incense?  What is the significance of the burning of incense, specifically on the golden altar of incense in the Tabernacle, in the Jewish religious system?  Was it just part of the ritual?  Or, was there a legitimate functional purpose and/or a symbolic point God was trying to make?  There are two clues that will provide us with an answer.  Here is where things start to get really interesting.

The first clue is found back in Exodus 30, this time in verse 8.  In referring to the altar of incense, Moses writes out God’s instructions: “When Aaron trims the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense.  There shall be perpetual incense before the LORD throughout your generations.”  God specifically instructed the priests to burn a special blend of incense upon this altar.  They were never to let this flame go out.  The altar itself was situated directly in front of the veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place, where God Himself placed His physical presence.  So, what we have is a continuous cloud of fragrance that was never to die out, that was positioned between the presence of God and the Levitical priests.

Adding to that, we have the detailed instructions in Leviticus 16 that God gave for the high priest on the Day of Atonement.  This was the consecrated day once per year, when the high priest was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies and make a special atonement for the sins of himself and the whole nation of Israel.  It is a rigid series of 20 different steps that had to be carried out with exact attention to detail.  The Lord was imposing upon His priests a clear image of how serious it was to enter the very presence of God and how vast a gulf existed between them and Him.

In this strict procedure detailed in Leviticus 16, there are only two infractions mentioned for which the high priest might die.  One is in verse 2: “Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, or he will die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.”  The other criteria for death is found in verse 13: “He shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, otherwise he will die.”

So, the fragrant aroma from the altar of incense was to hang in the air of the tent of meeting at all times, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year.  The high priest was never to enter the Holy of Holies where the Lord’s presence was, except on the Day of Atonement.  And, on that day, when he did enter by invitation, he had to be very careful to carry the aroma of the incense with him in a censer, so that the cloud would surround him within the most holy place, when he was in direct proximity to the very presence of God.

Do you see what is going on here?  Do you catch what God was trying to communicate to His servants?  To put it bluntly…they stunk – quite literally to high heaven.  In Scripture the Lord takes great pains to communicate to men how distasteful their sin is to Him.  In order for us to understand Him better, God often does this through human concepts and images.  So, although God has no physical form he refers to Himself as having eyes that see man’s wickedness (Prov. 15:3), ears that do not hear the prayers of wicked men (Prov. 15:29), or, more to our point here, a nose that smells man’s stench.

Consider just one example.  In Isaiah 65 the prophet writes from the perspective of God as he describes the Lord’s opinion of Israel.  He calls them a rebellious people in verse 2 and a people who continually provoke Him to His face in verse 3.  Then in verse 4 we read that the Jews sit among graves, eat swine’s flesh, and have unclean meat in their pots.  The implication of this is the rottenness of the dead, the stink of wild animals, and the foul smell of rancid food.  Finally, in verse 5 God says that these people “are a smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.”  The noxious odor of the Israelites was like acrid smoke searing the tender flesh on the inside of the nose.

In contrast, we see God use the concept of “pleasing aromas” as a method of soothing Him and providing a respite from His wrath.  The first occurrence of this is in Genesis 8.  Noah built an altar to God after leaving the ark.  On this altar he sacrificed some of every clean animal and bird.  We find God’s response in verse 21: The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man.”

Again, in Leviticus 26 we come across the idea of soothing aromas.  Only this time it is in the context of God refusing to be mollified by them because of Israel’s rebellion.  In verse 31 He says: “I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas.”

The point is this.  God wanted His sinful people to understand just how reprehensible they were to Him because of their sin contamination.  The filth of it covered them like a repugnant skim of foul slime.  This pungent stench could not be removed even by the washing of the body with water.  It clung to them like a skin tight suit of decay that could never be removed.  And, if any of the Hebrew priests ever dared to enter the room where the presence of God resided without the aroma of incense to cover and mask their stench, God’s consuming hatred of the sin that infused them would instantly kill them on the spot.

            Into this arena of odorific symbolism steps the God-man Himself, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Messiah of Israel, the seed of Abraham, and the focal point of the epistle to the Hebrews.  What no mere man could ever hope to accomplish in appeasing the wrath of God and providing a pleasing perfume in the nostrils of the Lord, Christ did.  Paul makes exactly this point in Ephesians 5:2, where he writes: Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

            This is precisely the point that the whole book of Hebrews is trying to make.  That is, Christ is superior to everything that has come before.  He is a superior prophet.  He is an eternal perfect high priest.  And, He is the greatest of all sovereign kings.  The Levites previously had to carefully follow God’s regulations to avoid being put to death, and had to repeat their efforts without ceasing.  On the Day of Atonement, they had to carefully and with great trepidation enter the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God.  They had to use the blood of animals to satisfy the wrath of God and the aroma of incense to mask their stench.

But now, coming full circle back to our original passage, consider what Christ has done in Hebrews 9:11-12: But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

            I think the reason the author of Hebrews wrote 9:4 the way he did was not because he made a mistake.  It was not because he did not know the proper placement of the altar of incense.  Rather, it was because he was trying to draw our attention to the extreme difficulty with which human priests had to perform their duties.  They had to be exceeding careful not to offend God’s holy sensibilities.  Thus, the altar of incense, while positionally in the holy place, was functionally attached to the most holy place.  Its purpose was to shield the priests from the holiness of God, which they could not be in the presence of and live. 

In contrast to all that, I think the author of Hebrews is saying, the work of Christ is all sufficient, perfect, singular, and eternal.  Christ needs no respite from the holiness of God, because He is the perfect image of God in the flesh.  As John writes in Revelation, Jesus, or the Lamb of God, is the only person in the entire universe worthy to be given the keys to God’s kingdom.

            More than that, the person of Christ and your union with Him, if indeed you are truly in Him, is the only thing that gives you the right to stand unashamed and with confidence before God.  After having explored how difficult it was for Levitical priests to enter God’s presence, do you appreciate the significance of the veil of the temple being torn from top to bottom when Jesus died on the cross?  There is no longer a separation between God and anyone who is united to His Son, Jesus.  Are you taking advantage of this divine access?  Or are you ignoring God, in favor of the hustle and bustle of your life?

If you are a born-again Christian, you can commune in prayer with God any time of the day or night.  Can you conceive of the unimaginable privilege you now have to approach God with confidence in prayer whenever you want?  The omnipotent Creator God of the universe allows you to set your own schedule of interaction with Him.  It is utterly ridiculous that we have been given such freedom.  We do not deserve it.  Are you guilty of overlooking the honor given to you?  Are your prayers infrequent and insincere?

            We, as a species, are so quick to take for granted what is dear to us, forget what is important, and neglect what is valuable.  God gives us the record of His interaction with mankind in the Scriptures.  He expects us to diligently read and tirelessly seek to understand it.  He wants us to see both the tremendous effort required to commune with Him prior to Christ and the unbelievable ease of communion facilitated by the sacrifice of Christ.

            For a Savior who has given us so much, how can we give Him anything less than all of ourselves?  If you already know the living Christ, then please examine your life.  Determine right now to eliminate anything that would distract you from God.  If you have never known Jesus, God’s offer of salvation through Him and the VIP access to your Creator stands open for you today.  Will you accept God’s invitation?

            Furthermore, for those reading this who are in Christ, I hope you see the value of diligent Bible study.  This passage in Hebrews was a difficult puzzle.  But it yielded such rich reward for me personally, and I hope for you as well.  2^nd Timothy 2:15 tells us to: Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.  I plead with you not to “throw your hands up” the next time you come across a challenging passage.  Stick with it, ask God for help, lean on other Christians, and I am convinced you will be amazed at how much deeper your knowledge, appreciation, and love of God will grow.

One of These Is Not Like the Others

             In November of 1969, just four months after the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, a new little children’s show named Sesame Street debuted on television screens around the country.  It went on to become one of the most famous and longest running TV series of all time.  Many people who are now middle aged grew up watching and enjoying this educational program.  In fact, some estimates state that 77 million Americans have watched Sesame Street as children. 

One of the staple sketches on the show is a song called “One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.”  It is designed to teach children to notice differences between objects.  Typically, four items are displayed on screen.  Three of them have something in common, while the fourth is distinctly different in some way.  An example is an apple, an ice cream cone, a hamburger, and a mitten.  Children are given a few moments to think it through for themselves while a human actor sings the lyrics to the song.  Then, the differences are explained.

            In one sense, this is nothing more than a silly and fun educational tool.  Yet, it must be noted that the creators of Sesame Street were attempting to teach a fundamental principle of observation and reasoning.  The ability to understand, evaluate, and determine the similarities and divergences of visual objects leads to a much subtler and deeper ability – that of comparing and contrasting thoughts and ideas.

            This is a particularly important skill to possess when it comes to Bible interpretation.  The writers of Scripture often utilize comparative reasoning, linked sequential chains, and other logical constructs when arguing and proving their points.  The Apostle Paul was particularly adept at this.  His letters are among some of the richest and most complex pieces of literature ever written. 

The final letter Paul wrote, that still exists, was written from prison, shortly before his execution.  It was addressed to his beloved disciple Timothy.  This epistle is the second of Paul’s letters to Timothy that is included in the canon of Scripture.  It was a sort of last will and testament for his dear friend.  Paul wanted to communicate to Timothy some final pieces of encouragement, advice, exhortation, and instruction.

Chief among Paul’s concerns for Timothy was that he would continue to steadfastly preach and staunchly defend the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.  In 1:8 Timothy is advised not to be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord.  In 1:14 Paul instructs him to guard the treasure which has been entrusted to him.  In the next verse we see a striking contrast as Timothy is reminded that others have abandoned the faith.  In 2:1 Paul tells his “son” to be strong in the grace of Christ.  In 2:2 Timothy is advised to entrust Paul’s teaching to faithful men.

Paul uses various nouns throughout these verses: testimony, treasure, and grace.  But, his ultimate meaning is the same every time.  He longs for Timothy to remain true to God’s plan of redemption and salvation through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is in this context that we come to the eleventh verse of chapter 2.  Here we find a fascinating little historical anecdote.  Paul writes: It is a trustworthy statement.  He is setting up what follows by characterizing it as a saying of note.  What follows in verses 11 through 13 was probably a common formula recited by Christians and well known throughout the churches of Asia Minor.  In fact, it may even have been a fragment of a larger hymn that was sung during times of corporate worship. 

This is an excellent reminder that the Bible is not a dusty, antiquated collection of impersonal literature.  It was written by living, breathing, laughing, crying, active, weary, struggling people.  They were probably not altogether unlike us.  They certainly gathered together to worship the Lord.  They most definitely sang corporately in an effort to praise God.  If we met them today, I suspect we would have quite a lot in common.

Furthermore, as we will see, this trustworthy statement that Paul is about to write to Timothy is a perfect example of the importance of recognizing similarities and differences.  It is, if you will, an adult version of the classic old Sesame Street song “One of These Is Not Like the Others.”

The pattern is as follows.  Paul issues four conditional propositional truth claims.  These are simple if…then patterns.  If something, then something else.  In each of the first three we will see a parallel between ourselves and the Lord Jesus.  But then, in the final stanza of this 1^st century hymn, Paul is going to diverge from his formula and present a striking contrast.  It is the one that is not like the others.  And, the import of it is earth shattering.

We begin in the latter half of verse 11: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him.  In order to understand Paul’s thought here we need to recognize that he is speaking metaphorically to illustrate the relationship between Christ and us.  Let us examine the two sides of this coin individually.

The half that refers to Christ is more readily apparent, so we will begin with that.  It is news to no one even passingly familiar with the Christian faith that one of its central tenets is the sacrificial execution of Jesus via crucifixion by the Romans.  Of equal important to His death, however, is His resurrection.  Christ’s death paid the penalty for the sins of all who will place their faith and trust in Him.  But, it is Christ’s resurrection that really sealed the deal.  By raising Jesus from the dead, God the Father stamped His clear and unequivocal mark of approval upon His Son.  The resurrection broadcast the deity of Jesus to the entire world in such a convincing manner that His enemies could only attempt to distract from its truth.  They would have loved to prove it to be false by presenting Jesus’s corpse.  This they could not do, because a dead body did not exist.  Thus, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus went one to become a rallying cry of hope and triumph for millennia of Christians since the first century.

Less clear is how this relates to us.  Paul is obviously indicating that in some way we also must die as Christ did if we wish to live as He lived.  What is the Apostle referring to here?  Paul’s masterwork of doctrine, the Epistle to the Romans, can help.  In Romans 6:8 we read: Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.  Three verses later Paul reveals the nature of this death: Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The nature of the death that Christians are expected to die is not physical, but rather spiritual.  We symbolically die to the sin that formerly enslaved us.  Another way to say this is to die to self.  In Matthew 16:24-25 Jesus said it this way: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”  One who takes up his own cross can be doing nothing other than heading to his own crucifixion.  Therefore, Jesus’s point was that we must be prepared to die to, or separate from, our own desires, interests, and goals.  Instead of exalting what we want, we are to lift up God’s agenda.

So, the spiritual death that we die to sin is a metaphorical image of Christ’s physical death.  And, by the same token, the spiritual life we are given through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is to be seen as a picture of Jesus’s physical resurrection.  Paul states it this way in the first chapter of his letter to Timothy that we are studying.  In referring to Jesus’s work, he writes: our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2^nd Tim. 1:10).

Does it sometimes seem hard to say no to temptation?  Does your own sin occasionally rise up and threaten to overwhelm you with its insidious clutches?  Do you often despair of ever conforming to the image of Christ?  Do you frequently wonder if your walk will ever look like His?  If so, and I think those rhetorical questions describe all of us to one degree or another, then be comforted by the example of Christ and our parallel with Him.  Although the death that we are commanded to die to sin does indeed sometimes seem like an insurmountable goal, it is far eclipsed by the life that we are promised in Christ.  The sweetness of being in Heaven for eternity with God will exceeding surpass any trials and tribulations we are asked to endure in this life.  Just as Jesus’s life overshadowed His death, so our resurrection into newness of life will cause our present physical circumstances to fade into insignificance.  Our lives as Christians are mirror images of Christ’s life as a human.  Our experience is a parallel of His, in a sense.

We can see another similarity in the next line, which constitutes the first half of verse 12: If we endure, we will also reign with Him.  God the Son submitted Himself to the Father’s will, in order to accomplish the divine plan of redemption, by allowing Himself to be clothed with human flesh.  When He was born into this world God’s divine nature was joined to a human nature in the singular person of Jesus, a 1^st century Jewish man.  Because He was and is fully human, Jesus became saddled with all the difficulties of human flesh.  He became susceptible to tiredness, hunger, weariness, and sickness.  He was exposed to temptation, although He never submitted to its allure as we do.  Ultimately, Jesus walked willingly to His own horrific death by crucifixion, accepting the physical torture, social ostracizing, and divine separation from His Father while the sins of all humanity were placed upon His shoulders.

Why would anyone do such a thing?  Was it out of love?  That was certainly part of it.  Jesus’s Apostle, John, holds his master up as an example of sacrificial love in 1^st John 3:16, when he writes: We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us.  Jesus Himself said that this is the greatest form of practical love.  John records it for us in John 15:13: Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  Furthermore, Jesus loved His Father so much that He was willing to submit to death if it was part of the Father’s plan.  He said as much in John 14:31: but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.  So, it is a certainty that Jesus loved His Father and He loved us, and this was a prime motivating factor in His submitting to the cross.

Yet, this is not the whole story.  There was yet another ulterior motive in Christ’s heart and mind as He contemplated the road to Calvary.  The author of Hebrews reveals it to us in 12:2.  In referring to Jesus, he writes: who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Jesus was well aware of the fullness of the Father’s plan.  He knew, as He headed to death, what awaited Him on the other side.  Because Jesus sacrificed Himself, in accordance with the will of His Father, He has been exalted to the highest position in the universe.  He has inherited all that the Father possesses (Heb. 1:2) and has been given the name above all names (Phil. 2:9).  And, according to Hebrews, the knowledge of this future certainty was a motivating factor that helped Jesus to withstand the horror of crucifixion.

In a similar manner, God asks us to endure lives of trouble, strife, pain, and heartache.  He does not whisk us away to be with Him in Heaven at the moment of conversion.  Rather, He asks us to remain in these bodies of sin and death that are such a hindrance to the cause of Christ.  He expects us to trust Him and submit to a lifetime of inch by inch and moment by moment sanctification rather than an instantaneous transformation.  God demands effort on our part to work at becoming like Jesus even as He gives us a helper named the Holy Spirit, without whom we cannot hope to succeed.

It is a fact that this life is not easy.  Perseverance can be difficult at times.  Resisting Satan and his world system is often overwhelming.  Yet, consider the glory that awaits those who hold fast to Christ through both the darkness of night and the brightness of morning.  James, the brother of Jesus, writes: Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.  We can easily understand the image that James uses to convey his thought.  A crown is instantly recognizable as a symbol of royalty, of exaltation, of adoration.  We are to understand our future, in Christ, as one of high status.  Paul, in the verse just prior to the trustworthy statement we are studying, says it this way: For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.

In stark contrast to the pregnant glory of the first two lines of this hymn, we come to the terrifying awfulness of the third line.  If we deny Him, He also will deny us.  This an echo of the sentiment previously expressed by Jesus in Matthew 10:33.  He said: “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”

I was teaching this passage to some children recently.  I told them this line was terrible.  The response I received was this.  “It doesn’t seem scary to me.”  What these little ones failed to grasp was the horrific implication of Jesus denying us before the Father.

The Bible describes God in many ways.  Love, holy, unchanging, and kind are just a few descriptors that are applied to our Creator by the writers of Scripture.  Yet, as He relates to sin and evil there is only one motif that emerges – that of hatred.  Sin is described as raw wounds (Isa. 1:6), a heavy burden (Psa. 38:4), defiling filth (Tit. 1:15), a binding debt (Matt. 6:12-15), darkness (1^st Jn. 1:6), and a scarlet stain (Isa. 1:18).  The prophet Habakkuk wrote about God that: Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You can not look on wickedness with favor.  In an effort to communicate to Israel just how revolted by sin He is, God used some rather obscene and graphic images to describe it to them.  In Ezekiel 23, for example, He pictures Israel and Judah as prostitutes who had sexual relations with the nations around them.  The language is very strong and frankly, not suitable for small children. 

All of this is true, but it still does not do justice to the situation.  Because, God does not merely dislike or even only hate sin.  He will consume and destroy it.  In Deuteronomy 4:24 Moses writes: For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.  In Revelation 14:9b-10 we find a depiction of the fate of those who reject Christ and worship the Beast instead: he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.  And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night.

The incredible grace and kindness of God is matched by His destructive fury toward sin and sinners.  The author of Hebrews writes: It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31).

All of this doom can be avoided only one way.  That is, to have Jesus stand before the Father, absorb His wrath, and argue for our innocence.  John describes Jesus as our advocate, or literally our attorney who pleads our case before the judge (1^st Jn. 2:2).  Moving back to Hebrews, we find in 7:25 that: He always lives to make intercession for them.

The point is this.  When we place our faith and trust in Christ and accept Him as our Savior, we are spared from the Father’s wrath as well as Christ’s own fury toward sin that He will display when He comes in judgment upon this world, as depicted in Revelation.  We no longer have to fear falling into God’s hands.  Instead of a place of torment, destruction, and hardness His hands become a place of peace, safety, and softness.  But, for those who have denied Christ and consequently have no defense before the Father, there will be no escape from their awful fate.

Clearly, the Apostle Paul thought it was important even for believers to remember this, because he places it in the context of the trustworthy statement of 2^nd Timothy 2:11-13.  It is a part of this 1^st century Christian hymn, to be recited or sung repeatedly.  Our response should be one of quaking terror if we do not know Christ.  Alternatively, for those who are in Christ, what a tremendous relief to know that we are spared from such a future.  What is more, our assurance of this is rooted in nothing less than the inviolable nature of God Himself.

That is the import of the fourth line of our stanza: If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.  To this point, there has been a symmetry between our experience and that of Christ’s.  As He died physically and rose physically, so we die spiritually and metaphorically to sin and live both spiritually and physically to Christ.  As Jesus endured the trouble of His earthly life, ultimately earning for Himself a place at the Father’s right hand, so we are called on to persevere in this fallen world, being assured that our eventual end is one of glory beside our Savior Jesus.  Even as we deny the deity and authority of Christ, so He will deny our place in heaven and our defense from facing the wrath of God for our sin.

But now, in this last line, suddenly there is a sharp divergence from these parallels.  As the simple old Sesame Street song attempted to teach children, we now come to something that is entirely unlike what has come before.  Namely, the alien nature of Christ.

By alien, I do not mean little green men from outer space.  I mean that Christ’s nature is different from our own.  He is foreign to us.  Although we are made in God’s image and bear His mark upon us, He is beyond us and dissimilar to us in fundamental ways.  Here is one of them.  He is perfectly faithful while we are unendingly faithless.

There are two schools of thought as to what Paul means here by the word faithless.  In Greek, he uses a form of the basic term for belief paired with a negative particle, to produce a meaning of “the opposite of belief.”  This is apparent.  What is less obvious is what type of faithlessness is meant.  Is Paul describing an unbeliever who rejects Christ, thus facing the wrath of God as described in the previous line.  Or, is he talking about the struggling faith of a Christian, who at times is weak and doubts the promises of God?

Those who hold to the first interpretation would do so for two primary reasons.  The first is that such a view fits well with the third line of the hymn, in verse 12.  This would make the first two lines directed positively toward believers, and the third and fourth lines directed negatively, toward unbelievers.  Such a construct would be a very Hebrew method of writing prose, as it would be an example of parallelism.  Specifically, for those who are knowledgeable in Hebrew poetry, it would be two antithetic groups of synonomous parallelism.

Secondly, the Bible is a book wherein God reveals His character to mankind.  It is unapologetically God centered in its aim and purposes.  God has an all-consuming interest in His own glory.  Therefore, the argument would follow, that for us to interpet verse 13 as referring to God’s faithfulness toward us would be to distort God’s primary motive in writing the Bible in the first place.  It would follow then that Paul is speaking of God’s faithfulness toward His own guarantee of dire retribution for anyone who rejects Him.

I see the merits of these arguments, but I lean toward the latter interpretation, that Paul is talking about struggling Christians to whom God is faithful, for five reasons.  First is the grammatical context of the verse itself.  If we take the first meaning, of a lack of saving faith, then I think the rest of the verse becomes unwieldy to interpret.  Essentially, we have to say that, for those who remain in unbelief, God remains faithful to His promise to punish them severely for their rebellion.  The reason is that He cannot change and ignore justice.  While this is a true statement, it seems like a cumbersome way to make that statement for Paul.

Also, in response to the second argument given above, I do not believe God’s interest in His own glory and His promises to the elect can be separated from each other.  The promise of salvation toward those whom He has chosen is an application of God’s interest in His exaltation.  The reason is because Christ is the perfect visible image of God’s glorious character.  And, Christians are intended to be a living breathing image of the visible Christ.  As such, by God fulfilling His promise to exalt believers, He is in effect ensuring and sealing the evidence of His majesty for all creation to witness.  This is why Paul, in describing the church in Ephesians says that our redemption is to the praise of God’s glory (Eph. 1:14) and that His wisdom would be displayed through the church to angelic beings in the heavenly realms (Eph. 3:10).

Additionally, nowhere else in the New Testament is God described negatively (meaning judgmental and wrathful) by the word faithful.  The word faithful, pisteuo in Greek, is used to refer to God 14 times in the New Testament, outside of its occurrence here in 2^nd Timothy.  In 13 of those uses, the text is clearly applying faithfulness as a positive quality of God that is being applied to believers.  God is faithful to those who were called into fellowship with Him (1^st Cor. 1:9), He is faithful to protect believers from succumbing to temptation (1^st Cor. 10:13), He is faithful to His promise of “yes” in Christ (2^nd Cor. 1:18), He is faithful to the calling of the elect (1^st Thess. 5:24), He is faithful to protect Christians from Satan (2^nd Thess. 3:3), Christ is faithful to His duties as high priest (Heb. 2:17), He is faithful to His Father (Heb. 3:2), God is faithful to His promises (Heb. 10:23 and 11:11), He is faithful to those who suffer for Him (1^st Pet. 4:19), He is faithful to forgive the sins of the repentant (1^st Jn. 1:9), and Christ is a faithful and true witness (Rev. 1:5 and 3:14).

Of all the uses of pisteuo that appear in the NT and are being applied to God, the only possible occurrence that might be speaking of His constancy to punish the wicked is in Revelation 19:11.  That verse indicates that Christ is faithful and true, and that in righteousness He will judge and wage war.  I think the link between Christ’s faithfulness and His judgment is tenuous at best in that verse.  And, that is the closest instance of pisteuo being used to describe God’s judgment.

In addition to those points, it appears that all of the major English translations of the Bible agree with the interpretation that 2^nd Timothy 2:13 is referring to believers and God’s relationship to them.  The word Paul uses here is often translated as unbelief or disbelieve.  Yet, in this instance it is translated as faithless or unfaithful.  In fact, this is the only occurrence of the word that is translated this way.  Now, to be fair, this is simply a translation decision by the teams who worked on the various English Bibles.  Yet, it is an additional piece of evidence that favors the view that Paul is referring to believers who struggle with their faith.

Furthermore, as stated previously, Paul has been stressing the glory of the gospel since he started writing.  He is addressing a committed follower of Jesus, in Timothy, as well as those whom Timothy will go on to instruct.  Timothy has been exhorted to hold fast to the gospel, to defend it, and to suffer for it if necessary.  In this context, it would seem odd for Paul to conclude his trustworthy statement with a depressing promise of retribution rather than a resounding crescendo of triumph.

Thus, in my opinion, the overwhelming evidence points to Paul using faithful in 2^nd Timothy 2:13, in relation to God, as applying to His great faithfulness toward His promise of salvation in Christ to those who believe, and faithless in relation to believers who are weak or struggling with their faith.  Paul is certainly not communicating that God will excuse the sin of unbelievers.  This is not some kind of Pauline “get out of hell free” card.  Rather, I think the Apostle is communicating that no matter how badly we botch things, once we have been united with Christ, no force in the universe can sever us from Him.

Said another way, all of us will struggle or stumble in our walk with Christ.  Even Paul himself was not immune to this tendency, as outlined in Romans 7.  Yet, we can be comforted in the midst of our temporary failure, because even though we are unreliable servants, we serve a rock solid and dependable master.  Christ will always be faithful to those of us who have trusted Him for our salvation.  We never have to fear incurring our heavenly Father’s anger to such an extent that we will be cut off from the promises of God and the hope that we have in Christ.

In fact, we are protected from this kind of disownment by nothing less than the incomparable, undefeatable, omnipotent power of God Himself.  God is not a human like we are, who is temporal and unpredictable, prone to whim and whimsy.  He is an eternally immovable force of holiness and transcendence.  His own nature prevents Him from being untrustworthy.  Paul is so determined to make this clear in his letter to the Romans that he uses the strongest negative emphatic statement he has available to him.

In Romans 3 the Apostle is discussing the unbelief of the Jews.  They rejected their Messiah, Jesus, and thus were found unfaithful.  So, Paul asks a rhetorical question.  If some of the Jews did not believe, does their lack of faith do away with the faithfulness of God?  His answer, in verse 4, is best captured by the NASB English translation of the Bible: May it never be!  Other translations use “by no means”, “absolutely not”, or “God forbid.”  None of these do justice to the Greek text behind our English words.  What Paul actually wrote was “me genoito”.  He used a form of the Greek word (ginomai) that means to come into existence, to exist, or to happen.  Then he pairs it with the negative particle (me – pronounced “may”).

What Paul is communicating here is that he does not want such a thought to even come into existence.  He wants it obliterated from our consciousness.  The doctrine of God’s faithfulness is so important to Paul that, if any opposing propositional claim is made, he wants such a notion to be eradicated from reality.

That is how essential it is, to an understanding of Paul’s thought, to hold fast to the doctrine of God’s immutability, or His unchangeableness.  And, this tenet gives us the key to understand the magnitude of the truth contained in 1^st Timothy 2:13.  It is impossible for God to reject us, once we have come to a genuine saving faith in Christ.  Our level of obedience is not the issue here, even though obedience is a critical component of the Christian life.  How successful at evangelism we are is irrelevant in terms of this discussion, even though evangelism is explicitly commanded by Jesus in the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20.  Our activity level in our local church is not on trial at this point, even though to be a complete Christian the New Testament is clear that we must be connected to Christ’s bride even as we are connected to Him.

All of these various issues of Christian living are important.  However, they are irrelevant in the context of whether we can ever fall away from Christ.  Remember that Paul is writing this letter to a proven committed Christian worker, Timothy.  The question is not whether Timothy is genuinely saved.  Paul takes Timothy’s salvation for granted because he has previously seen the evidence in Timothy’s life of his relationship with Christ. 

That is the context in which Paul makes this bold, sweeping statement of assurance.  It is nothing less than the omnipotent power of the living God that holds us fast to Himself.  Because, for Him to allow us to fall away would be to deny His own nature that guarantees faithfulness to us even in the face of our repeated pathetic failures.

So, to recap, what do we see in this wonderful little hymn of so many centuries ago?  We see that if we die to sin we will live with Christ.  We see that if we persevere to the end we will rule beside Christ.  We see that anyone who does not put their faith in Christ will face the terrifying prospect of entering into the presence of God with no protection to cover their wickedness.  And, finally, we are assured that no matter how poorly we behave and how often we stumble, Christ will never allow us to quit the race.

How should these truths, particularly the last one, impact our lives?  In an effort to answer that, let me suggest this hypothetical question.  Which would be preferable in terms of producing obedience in you?  A father who demands obedience and threatens dire consequences for infractions?  Or a father who expects obedience and gives assurance of his love in spite of failure?

It seems to me that the answer is obvious.  Any of us would prefer the latter type of father.  Obedience might be produced in the children of either one.  But any compliance from the kids of the harsh father would probably be a slavish, begrudging, fearful attempt to avoid punishment.  On the other hand, a dad who encourages, strengthens, and comforts his children while he shows them the right way to live is much more likely to elicit willing conformity from his family.  It is desirable to obey the gentle father out of love for him and a genuine desire to please him.

That is exactly the situation we, as Christians, have with God.  Once He has adopted us into His family, He becomes our loving heavenly Father.  He assures us that no matter how imperfect and frail we are, He will always love us and will never allow us to fall so far that He cannot pick us back up and set us on our feet.

How can we who have been made one with Christ Jesus possibly, in good conscience, do anything less than serve Him with every fiber of our being?  How can anyone who does not know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior possibly, in good sense, do anything less than run to Him, cling to Him, and love Him with all their might?

In either case, for both groups, God is standing with His powerful yet tender arms wide open.  The only rational option is to throw ourselves into His embrace and give Him our lives.