simul justus et peccatore

Exposition on Joel - 16- Verse 6

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:35:00 +0000

V. 6a,“⁶For a nation has come upagainst my land, powerful and beyond number” introduces the army, notingits strength and size. The bitter irony here is that, in Gen. 12:2, 15:5, and17:2-6, God had promised Abraham that He would make from His Seed a powerfulnation, great in number. But here in v. 6a we see that God nurtured anothernation, powerful and numerous so to exact His justice on the nation He called Hisown. Verses 6b and 7 provide us with a more direct description of this terriblefoe. Verse 6 answers the “why” question that we might ask at the end of verse5. In other words, “Awake, you drunkards,and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine,for it is cut off from your mouth.”, why is the wine cut off? Verse 6 tellsus that the invading nation is strong and innumerable, and its teeth are likelion’s teeth. Now we see the destruction that was first blamed on the swarm oflocusts is now being attributed to an army of men from a foreign nation. Joeldraws on a second animal description. The people would have feared lions, beingaware of the destruction they were capable of inflicting with their teeth. SoJoel paints a picture in their minds of Judah’s people being torn apart bythe jaws of a lion. Helpless as a lamb, they fall victim to the fierce armywhose weapons cut through the nation like a lion’s teeth cut through flesh.Consequently, verses 7-13 could appear to be a set of some sort because Joeldescribed the effects that the enemy had on the people and the Land, and calledfor them to lament those effects, and he does this in a “back and forth”manner—describing the situation then calling for lamentation, then describinganother situation and calling another group to lament.

Exposition on Joel - 15 - Verses 5-10

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

I want to begin the following section with a brief explanation of the meaning of verses 5-10 then I will expound on each verse in greater detail. Wake up you idolaters for you’ve lost your wine and oil and the very ground mourns!—Verse 9 is the direct result of v. 7.—The offerings are cut off, why? They are cut off because of the large and powerful nation which has splintered the fig tree, stripped its bark. So, you priests, you who minister to the Lord, mourn like a young woman who has lost the husband of her youth.

Verse 5, Joel appeals to the overindulgent to lament their circumstances, caused by their sin.—Verse 5 in particular addresses the drunkards and the drinkers of wine. Wake up, Joel says, because one of the effects of drunkenness is drowsiness. The idea here is that Joel is calling the people to attention by specifically addressing those abusers of substance. So we could, without doing damage to the text, we can make a useful application is especially in light of the availability of intoxicating substances today. But Joel mentions wine in particular because of the effect the invasion would have had on the landscape. Obviously, a swarm of locusts would have ruined the vines, but an army of men would have effected a similar devastation by stealing the already fermented juice, and also by trampling thevines of the countryside underfoot. They would have likely ruined any hope of grape production in the immediate future. I don’t believe there is any evidence that suggests that the two separate identifications of alcohol consumers here is an indication of two different types of people, but seems to be a parallel statement both describing the one who has embraced their drunkenness more than they have embraced God; people who had grown calloused to God’s nudging having it destroy their sensitivity to God’s Spirit. And it’s clear that the nation asa whole, drunk on wine or not, had become calloused in the same way. Joel’s plain intention in this verse is to capitalize on the distress of those whoenjoy wine. When there is none to enjoy the drunkard and the drinker of winewill mourn its absence. An absence brought on by their sin of abusing it.

Exposition on Joel - 14 - Outline of Verses 5-18

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

In Stuart’s outline of this section he labelsverses 2-3 a “call to reflection/reaction”. Verse 4 is a “description oftragedy”, verses 5-18 he labels a “call to mourning”, which breaks down intothese four sections: verses 5-7—the mourning of drunkards, verses 8-10—ageneral call to mourning, verses 11-12—a call for the farmers to mourn, verses13-18—a call for priests to mourn

What’s interesting about verses 5-18 is thatJoel calls the drunkard, the farmer, and the priests to mourn, but to mourn theloss of their earthly goods, or the temporal items that brought themsatisfaction. The drunkard got great satisfaction from the numbing provided byhis wine, the farmers reveled in the production of their crops, and the priestsbased their identity on offering material sacrifices to the God who is aSpirit. But God removed all of those blessings to punish the nation for itsdisobedience and even the righteous among them would suffer that loss.Ultimately though, we must say that Joel and all the other prophets for thatmatter call the people to lament their sin and the sin of the nation. Joelinitiates that mourning by calling the various groups to lament the loss of thethings they held dear. There is nothing that will cause a person to either cryout to God or cry out against Him like the removal of theidols that have captured his attention. God doesn’t visit His wrath upon themin Person or without mediation; He sends the instrument of a foreign army tocrush the people’s disobedience. Likewise, through His lawyer Joel, God callsthe people to mourn: first to mourn the loss of their things taken from them by the invading army, but later, He callsthem to mourn their sin, for that is why the army was sent in the first place,to curse their covenantal disobedience through the removal their creaturelycomforts. The powerful invading army is the means serving God’s end.

Exposition on Joel - 13 - Verses 4-6 Concluded

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

Now for a few evidences that lead me tobelieve that the foe in v. 4 and in v. 6 are the same, and that this is an armyof men that Joel equates with a plague of swarming locusts. The locust plagueof v. 4 serves as an image that promoted the comprehensive nature of theeffects described in the devastation inflicted by this invader. What more canwe make of this rhetorical question asked by Joel back in verse 2? If Joel isreferring to the invasion by a literal army of desert locusts then the peoplemight have been tempted to answer, “Yes! We have (or our fathers have) seensuch a thing in our day!” But the way the question is posed, the answer must beno. This debate is why the relationship of v. 5 to verses 4 and 6 is soimportant: If v. 5 is an ending for the curse of verses 2-5, then one couldeasily conclude that the locusts in v. 4 were literal. If v. 5 is the beginningof the description/explanation for all of chapter 1, then the figurativeinterpretation surfaces. The figurative interpretation would stand in line withthe historical fact of God’s sending of a great and terrible nation to punisheven Judahfor her covenantal disobedience. One’s interpretation relies heavily on whetherthey regard v. 5 as an ending to a five verse section or as the preamble of thepassage from verse 5-7.

The infrequency with which the locusts are mentionedwhen the entire book is considered is another indicator that they are notliteral. If the locusts in v. 4 are literal, assuming verses 1-5 are a separatecurse, then Joel gives very little information about the happenings surroundingthe 1^st curse and virtually no introduction to the army in 6-18. Theonly other mention Joel makes of locusts is in 2:25, which obviously refersback to v. 4. All in all, that is a negligible portion of the 1^st 2chapters which he uses to proclaim the destructive force of covenantaljudgment.

The language In the ESV lists four types orclassifications of locusts are described. But if you look at the ASV orCalvin’s commentaries, they translate these stages as a variety of bugs andinvertebrates: locusts, canker worms and caterpillars. One thing is for sure,Joel isn’t giving the people a lesson in entomology and the four designationsare therefore not to be used to describe four types of solders or armies as hasbeen tried by some over zealous speculators. If the locusts are figurative thenthis is simply a poetic declaration of the comprehensive nature of thiscalamity. Nothing will be left. Current scientific evidence shows that thedesert locust actually has 6 stages of development. I’m not saying that thisobservation alone is reason enough to abandon the literal interpretation of thelocusts in v. 4. Again, one’s orthodoxy isn’t won or lost there; scholarswithin the same theological camps tend to differ. Though it is the minorityopinion, I believe Joel uses the image of locusts to describe the way an armyof men would come and leave nothing but death in their path, taking the citiesand fields by force. Farmers wielding hoes and axes and pruning hooks asweapons were no match for a swordsman on horse or afoot; when this army inchapter one invaded, those brave enough to try and defend their families’ livesand freedom would simply be cut down where they stood. The people in Judah who werenot murdered would go into captivity as God had intended.

In conclusion, I believe it makes themost sense of the chapter 1, Joel’s first oracle, to see verses 6, 10-13 as aresult of these invaders which are first illustrated in v. 4 in the image of aswarm of desert locusts. But whether these locusts were in fact an armythemselves or whether they symbolized an army of men, Joel insures that thiswas going to be a plague of special magnificence. Just like the swarms that hadravaged the fields in the past, this army of invaders would ravage God’s Landand His people—this is the very point. In the wake of the temporaladministration of God’s wrath against the nation’s covenantal disobedience, therighteous along with the wicked were subject to the pain and suffering causedby the invasion, the desolation inflicted on the Land and the exile of itspeople. It is interesting to note here that, just like the Devil himself, thisarmy is God’s army. Look at 2:25 I willrestore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper,the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.To be sure, the invading army had their own evil motives and would likely bepunished for their actions in the future, but I believe the same could be saidof their attack and pilfering as was said of Joseph’s brothers. What they meantfor evil, God meant for good (Gen. 50:20). So the horror of an enemy’s army onthe horizon was described by Joel as an invasion of desert locusts, and thedestruction it would leave in its path was illustrated by the prolongeddestruction that would be wrought by an army of locusts.

Exposition on Joel - 12 - Verses 4-6 Continued

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

V. 4 is one of the places where one’sinterpretation of the passage may be influenced by one’s view of Joel’s placein history, or vice versa. If one accepts the interpretation that the locustsin v. 4 are figurative and the army in v. 6 is literal, then this prophesy ofJoel’s must have occurred at or just before one of the noted invasion in Judah. Asmentioned previously, in 701 BC, the Assyrians invaded but not to the point ofJudah’s destruction and exile. The Babylonians came in their first majorassault on Judahin 588 BC. In 586, they successfully sacked Jerusalemand overran Judahtaking the people into captivity. So it could be said that Joel gave theseoracles during one of those ominous events.

Based on the verb tenses in our Englishtranslations, it appears as though the invasion has already begun. The prophetcalls the event to Judah’sattention in v. 2 and asks them in v. 3 to memorialize this horrible day whenGod’s judgment came upon a stiff-necked people. It seems to me that Joel iscalling the people to repent becauseof their suffering, indicating that the crisis of verses 4-18 is current, whichlends credence to the speculation that he prophesied during one of theinvasions and not entirely before, not between, and not after those historicand calamitous events. There ishowever, the possibility that this verb tense is “prophetic perfect” like inthe oracles of other prophets. So, even though this event hasn’t happened yet,its occurrence is so certain that the prophet speaks of it as though it hasalready happened. This also could be the case in Joel’s oracle here. So if youconsider the idea in verse 15, that the day is near, and destruction yet comes,one might be inclined to believe this prophecy happened at least before theBabylonian invasion. If Joel gave this prophecy before that time, then it seemsclear that the purpose was to call the people to lament their present hardships(whatever they may have been) and repent so to avoid the judgment of Godthrough the Babylonian invasion. In that case, this 1^st oracle wouldserve as both a “call to communal lamentation” and as a warning, such as theone near the end of Deut. 28.

Exposition on Joel -11 - Verse 4-6

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

In v. 4-18 Joel describes the enemy and itseffects and calls the people to lament. In v. 4 in particular, Joel imagines anunrivaled swarm of locusts. As Yahweh God, their Father was drawing them out ofEgypt, Pharaoh hardened his heart against the descendants of Abraham and Godsent a series of plagues to convince Pharaoh to let His people go but alsodisplaying the power that the One True Creator God had over the very images ofcreated things the Egyptians had worship. They idolized the beetle and the frogand other living things. So God sent them those gods in abundance. So the Jewin Joel’s day would be reminded of the locust plague God sent through Moses andalso of the past “invasions” of locusts that had left their fields desolate,and left their harvest bare for a season or more. Considering again, v. 2, itis as if Joel was saying, this tragic event will surpass all those other thingsin your minds. It is very likely that, if not the people themselves, theirparents or their grandparents would have endured a swarm of locusts that ruineda season or even several years of crops. Thinking of verses 2-4 together is abit like me reflecting on the economic pressures we face today and asking myparents how it compares to the recession in the ‘70s. Or, if there were stillliving, it would be like me asking my grandparents if this present difficulty issimilar to the Great Depression. Of course both of those former tragedies haveso far, proven to be more terrible than the one we now face, but the point isthe perception of similar types of tragedies through time. So the sound of theonslaught of locust’s wings made the people shudder with fear, but so would thesound of a company of horsed men and men on foot. Is this swarm of locusts literalor figurative? To introduce this topic, a little information about desertlocusts: As they swarmed and foraged they were aptly described as a plague byMediterranean peoples even 4000 years ago. A single locust that lays her eggsin June will, by September, have nearly 8 million descendants. That is averitable army of locusts. As a matter of fact, no human army has ever amassedsuch substantial numbers. But the theological ramifications of Joel’s imageryshould be recognized here as he uses “Pentateuchal Curse” language—this is acurse for disobedience. You’ll remember the passage in Deut. 28 (specificallyv. 25-59) where, in the context of the punishment of invasion and exile, Godwarned the people of an army of men which would be used to destroy them andremove them from the Land. In Deut.28:38 and 42, in addition to the invasion of a foreign army, God promised thatlocusts would also be used to punish the people by destroying the Land. You’llalso notice there in Deut. 28 that the locusts and the army are mentioned inthe context of the same curse, which has given Stuart and others the liberty tointerpret the locusts of Joel 1:4 and the powerful nation of 1:6 as a singleconsequence of

Judah

’sdisobedience. Regarding the debate over the literalness of these locusts,several options present themselves. Bear in mind that this could be considereda comparison/contrast of verses 4 and 6: 1) the locusts in v. 4 are figurative,and the nation in v. 6 is literal. 2) The locusts in v. 4 are literal and thenation in v. 6 is also literal. 3) The locusts in v. 4 are literal and thenation in v. 6 is figurative. If the nation described in v. 6 is literal, thenverses 4 & 5 are one curse being fulfilled, and verses 6-18 represent asecond curse being fulfilled. If the locusts in verse 4 are literal and thenation in v. 6 is figurative, then it could actually be considered a metaphorfor the locust swam in v. 4. A view for which 2:18-25 could be used forsupport. Perhaps 2:25alone may lead the interpreter to think of the description of the invaders in2:1-11 as an illustration of the literal swarm of locusts described in an extendedmetaphor of an army of men. In any case, Joel is careful to call the people’sattention to the uniqueness of this invading army.

Exposition on Joel - 10 - Verses 1-3

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

In verses 1-3 we find Joel’s introduction andcall on the people to hear the Word of the Lord. This entire chapter and the 1^stpart of chapter 2 have to do mainly with the destruction coming on

Judah

and the call for the people to lament its effects. Verses 2-3 give Joel’shearers and us as well, a call to remember the destructive force of locustsfrom the plague that occurred in the Exodus. Joel is setting the people up tocompare their present suffering through invasion to the desolations of thepast. They are what can be referred to as a “call to communal lamentation”. Itcan be difficult to distinguish this type of lamentation from that of a funeralsong or some sort of elegy, but the two verses contain several key elements aspointed out by Stuart (239). Joel commands the people to recall their recenthistory and to memorialize this event.

In v. 2 Joel calls the elders and infact all of the people to see the uniqueness of this event. The reason being isthat people become complacent and unhurried when events occur on a regularbasis, regardless of their intensity. Asmuch difficulty as the periodic swarm of locusts would have caused, even thatthey had gotten used to—most likely and most appropriately marking theirinvasions up to the nature of things. But when an unusually strong calamity issent their way, the people’s sensibilities tremble, such as it is with thisinvading army in verse 6. It seems to be the opposite in our day. We try to shrug off the big stuff and we tendto get hung up on the small things. Many of us actually spend a lot of timetrying either to avoid or cover up the discomforts that intrude into our lives.Symptoms of it can be seen in the way we entertain ourselves. Many of us loseourselves in movies and television almost like a drug, one that helps us forgetabout life’s larger troubles, even if only momentarily. We also try to shrugoff the big stuff in less benign ways, consider the way we try to ignore deathas a reality. The way we talk about it andeven some of the burial customs we embrace are actually symptoms of our desireto disengage from reality when it bites. Our technological advances have givenus such control over our circumstances that even the smallest discomfort ordisruption will frequently send us into a spiral of anxiety. Just to be sure,I’m not suggesting that these intrusions on our comfort like death or chronicpain or relational angst are necessarilyjudgments God has sent to call us to repentance like the invasion in Joel wasintended, but I mention them just to highlight the fact that the Judeans hadtaken the common things for granted. Joel makes it a point to remind them thatthis particular invasion and its effects are anything but common. It’s a bitlike the Californians who have gotten used to the occasional tremor. Joel istelling the people that this is not tremor; it is as though he asks them, “hasan earth quake of this magnitude happened in your recent history?” The answerto this rhetorical question posed in verse 2 is obviously, no.

In v. 3 Joel also calls on the people to telltheir children about this day of trouble. This verse could be a Hebraismwhereby the audience is being asked to remember and being asked to tell theirentire household to remember these events, whether they are present or future. Itreminds me of Joshua 4 when God brought the people across the

Jordan

and commanded that 12 stonesbe piled up as a memorial. God wanted His people and their children to rememberit so every time they saw that “monument” they could point to it and say to theirchildren, “see there, these stones were put there to cause us to remember theday when God did…” In a similar way, Joel calls the people to stack stones asit were, to remember this day when the Lord your God, in His terrible justice,sent an army to punish the nation. Little did the hearers of Joel’s oracle knowthey would likely be reminding their children and their grand children, whowould be born in a land other than their own. Perhaps if they were lucky, theirgreat, great grand children would be born in

Judah

(70 years later) after thereturn of the remnant. They could finally hear of this invading army while thepeople sat once again in Abraham’s Land.

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 9

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

In this introduction to the prophesy of Joel we have seen the difficultiesscholars have had placing Joel’s ministry on a timeline: we’ve made a briefsurvey of the history of the Old Kingdom andthe possible kings who reigned during the ministry of Joel. We’ve alsoconsidered God’s other prophets who might have ministered His Word at aroundthe same time. And in addition to those topics we also considered severalthemes of the book, the major ones being: First, we see in Joel, as with nearlyall the other prophets, that the threat of God’s imminent judgment demands therepentance of all peoples, a sort of contrition that in Joel’s day typicallymanifested itself in the rending of a nation’s heart and her true cry for mercythrough prayer and fasting.—Secondly, the future Day of the Lord with itspromises both of the deliverance of believers and the destruction of thewicked. And we discussed how Joel uses that Day to describe the day when God’swrath will come upon Judahin invasion, desolation and finally, exile. But, just as the trusting Jew didsome 2 ½ thousand years ago, we too can take heart in the comfort of beingassured that all of God’s promises are being fulfilled and that they are yesand amen in Christ Jesus our Lord. So as you consider Joel’s prophesy, think ofhow the visible church relates to the nation of Israel. Do this so you don’t losesight of the importance of his prophecy to us, and not just the future aspectof the DotL but the warnings of present temporal consequences for disobedience.The threat of judgment on and the call of repentance to Israel in thatday might have very similar meaning for the visible church today. But don’tstop there; don’t meditate on the imperatives of the Law too long withoutpreaching the indicatives of the gospel to yourself. Believers must finallyreflect on the promise of deliverance that awaits us at the DotL, and rememberthat, as a believer you never suffer the damning face of God’s wrath. Perhapsat times you will feel the pressure of His Fatherly displeasure but He who isfaithful will never forsake us because He forsook His Son on the cross. He whoadopted us will never disown us because on the cross, He disowned Christ in ourplace. He who married us as a bride will never divorce us because Christ ourhusband suffered the divorce in our stead, on the cross. Yet His work wasratified in His resurrection, so that we too may look forward to that Great Daywhen our resurrected spirits will be united forever with the bodies that Godwill raise. So when you hear the threats of judgment and the call torepentance, do take them very seriously; hear the Law through the criticismsthat Joel and the other prophets level at the nation Israel and also at thesurrounding wicked nations and reflect on your own sin and the sin of thechurch, but know that you can’t use the application of the Law that condemnsyou in order to do what it asks. Trying to use the Law to do what it commandsis a bit like trying to use a road sign as a map. If you are traveling to Chicago, the sign that says, “CHICAGO 1500 MILES” only lets you know howfar off you are, it doesn’t give you the power or knowledge of how to getthere. No, the power to obey is no where but in the gospel itself—the truththat Christ has obeyed perfectly and suffered the punishment for all our sinspast, present and future, therein lies the power to be set free from sin. Andeven so, that only in part until we are completely rid of our personalwickedness and the very desire to sin at the time of our changing when we arefinally and forever glorified.

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 8

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

Well, if at this point you’re still askingyourselves, “What does this really have to do with Joel?” Recall that Imentioned the confusion that may have occurred in the typical Jewish mind; ascircumcised members of visible

Israel

,they largely didn’t expect God’s wrath to ever befall them, and they especiallydidn’t expect the judgment contained in the prophesy of the DotL to be directedtoward them because it was a day where they all expected salvation. And that’sjust like people today not resting their faith in what Christ has done, butrather in their baptism or their parent’s faith. I think I can rightly claimthat confusion based on the topics that the New Testament writers had toaddress, and the manifest difficulties seen in that transition. So thediscussion of this view of covenant signs and linage has to do with the Jewishexpectation at the DotL. Joel had been sent, in part, to disabuse the people oftheir misinterpretation of that coming Day, a Day that Joel spends a great dealof time talking about. And I believe we’ve sufficiently covered that theme inJoel. Even though we will have given more time to the theme of the DotL, now wemust consider what is like to be regarded as the main theme in Joel. Repentanceappears to be the overarching theme, as it is in many of the prophets. Manytimes the prophets were instructed to call the nation to repentance and when iteventually occurred it would generally manifest in one primary outward aspect: Thecorporate expression of grief over the nation’s sins. And in the Old Covenantparadigm this grief was supposed to result in: individuals pleading for God’scovenant mercy through prayer and fasting.

Regarding this outward display of repentance,in addition to Joel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel all mention fasting, and partof Isaiah’s ministry was to criticize the nation’s misuse of the regulation offasting and Joel was careful to call the people not just to an outwardexpression of repentance; not to rend their clothes alone, but moreimportantly, to rend their hearts—it’s a bit like when Jeremiah spoke of theLaw being written not only on tablets of stone but upon our very hearts.

In the midst of all this talk of destructionwhich resulted from their lack of repentance, the one thing we can’t afford toforget is that, Joel gives us a glimmer of hope. In the context of promisesmade directly to the divided Jewish nation, Joel gave the people, and he givesall who are counted among God’s people a pledge that one day our suffering willbe vindicated and that God will bring us peaceably through whatever wrath Hemay pour out upon the heads of the wicked. But in the end, and somehow to God’sglory, both justice and mercy will be done; justice for all those who havespurned God’s general call to believe, and mercy for all who do believe. We seethis glimmer of hope beginning in chapter 2:18 &19 where the Lord is saidto have pity on the people because of the jealousy He has for His Land, whichis actually an allusion to the former promise God made to Abraham. Verses 19and 20 God’s acts of mercy are described. In the passage from verse 21-27, Goddeclares His plan to vindicate and restore that which is His, and He goes on todescribe the way in which He will do it. And finally in verses 28 and 29,somewhat book-ended by the terrorizing aspect of the Day of the Lord, Godpromises the blessing of His Spirit, a blessing that we have seen come to passat the Day of Pentecost..

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 7

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

The confusion of covenant signage and familiallineage being equated with God’s favor, in part, was how the Jews had falleninto all sorts of race, class and gender based discrimination: non-Jews werenecessarily thought of as godless. Of course, they generally were but were notall necessarily forsaken. Women were dependent on the covenant sign having beenplaced on the patriarch with whom they were associated. And the poor wereoppressed as generally having reaped the slothfulness they had sown. Theinfirm, such as the leper, they were banished (and for good physical reason ina day of limited methods of quarantine) never being associated with God’speople, having been forsaken. But Jesus came and supped with prostitutes andtax collectors—the shunned. He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, and Hehealed the leper, all as expressions of the expansion of the scope of theKingdom. Not that Jesus came to say that the road was no longer narrow, butthat the variety of people called to travel that road is greater than anyoneexpected especially God’s Old Covenant people. So what was meant as anillustration, the peculiar people of God in an Old Kingdombound by Old covenant rights and rituals, those people thought the illustrationwas the fulfillment; they thought it was the way things would always be. Insteadof realizing that they were a picture or shadow or prefiguring of the Kingdomto come, they considered themselves with their customs and religiousobservances, to be the Kingdom of God fulfilled. So whenthey heard about the coming Day of Yahweh, the coming DotL. So they thought ofthat coming Day only as a day of salvation and deliverance for them, and a Dayonly of damnation and destruction for the gentile nations—the other kingdoms, the kingdoms of thisworld. So instead of allowing the people to continue in that delusion, Joeluses the image of the descending army to wreak as much havoc on the hearts ofGod’s own people as it would on God’s own Land. And he uses this imagery ofwhat would be a relatively immediate fulfilled DotL as a foreshadowing of thatdistant future Day when not only will the unbelieving nations be judged, butthe unbelieving Jewish nation would be judged as well. It was a warning not tomisunderstand the coming Day of Yahweh where His judgment will transcendnations, even that nation He called His own. This was likely a hard pill forthem to swallow, as were most of the words of God’s prophets.

The significance of the possiblemisinterpretation that the rank and file among the Jewish nation would have hadabout the covenant sign of circumcision is that they likely would have basedtheir assurance on it. Not unlike the parallel misconstruing of the sign ofbaptism today. Maybe you haven’t, but I have met people who have been raised in“Christian” homes, who were baptized either as infants or early in life, butthat is their only real tie to the historic faith. They have no genuine faithof their own, but they generally rest more on their baptism than on the cross,and they will usually say something like, “I know I should be in church but Godunderstands, He’s forgiving, He knows none of us are perfect.” So many timesthat same person practically becomes a deist. He’s certainly no atheist, butwhen it comes right down to it, he’s no Christian either. He’s adopted the world’sphilosophy of works religion. So that’s the interest we have in the possiblemisinterpretation on the application of the covenant sign—it can happen eventoday. That’s why I’ve chosen to belabor this point.

As for the right view of the application ofthe sign, in the New Covenant today, we baptize our babies into the membershipof the visible church, with the full expectation that God will translate themone day into the membership of the invisible Church through regeneration, thosein the Old Covenant were commanded to circumcise all their households into themembership of visible Israel. Just like we make the distinction between thevisible and invisible Church today, the same distinction could have been madebefore the cross—visible Israeland invisible Israel.All the children of Abraham and their children and their servants werecircumcised into visible covenant community membership, but the faith of thecircumcised individual (be he an infant or an adult) is expected but notguaranteed. Just like the baptized baby who has been made a member of thevisible church doesn’t have a guarantee of eventual faith. This is sort of asad illustration but one I believe serves the purpose of accurately describingthe scenario. A woman can have a child conceived in her womb and she rightlyexpects the eventual birth of the child, so it is anticipated but it’s notguaranteed. There is always the chance of miscarriage. We can only hope that,even in this fallen world, the miscarriage is the exception to the rule. We praythat the eventual full-term birth of that baby is ordinary. So it is with theone who is baptized in the New Covenant and the one who was circumcised in theOld, they are like that conceived child, and ordinarily they are reborn intotrue and genuine faith. But there is always that chance that they willeventually reject the gospel and fall away from the faith, and that is amiscarriage of the process.

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 6

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

The judgment that God was going to bring downon the people He called out of Egyptwas neither unfounded nor arbitrary; it was rooted in the covenant. Themeta-narrative of God’s story of redeeming the world, the big picture if youwill, revolves around this covenantal language. We hear it first in Ex. 6:7,then in Lev. 26:12, and finally in Rev. 21:3. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them,and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”Then if you look at Deut. 28 you see so clearly the covenantal blessings forobedience and curses upon disobedience. It’s in this environment that theprophets were chosen and sent by God—as both a mercy and a judgment. Theprophets came to Israel and Judah in orderto condemn the wicked among the nation; to condemn the wickedness of thenation. In our prophet’s specific ministry, Joel used the paradoxical image ofthe coming and future DotL as a catalyst for proclaiming both the immediatedestruction of the people for their disobedience and the deliverance of thebelieving people because of God’s great covenantal faithfulness. Theirdeliverance had been foretold through the Seed of Abraham, David’s greater Son,and The Shoot who would rise up out of the stump of the tree (mentioned in Is.11) that had been sheered off at its base in the captivity. The imagery of afuture Day when Yahweh God would come and judge the wicked and deliver Hispeople, was ingrained in the minds of most Jews in Joel’s day but what theyhadn’t understood was that in the DotL, and all it’s foreshadowing lesser daysof trouble, provision was made for the judgment of the nation’s own covenantunfaithfulness. So we see in Joel where the substantial Day, the eschatologicalDay, the Platonic ideal image of the DotL is predicted and foreshadowed in theform of warnings, the warnings of invasion, desolation and finally exile. Wealso see the shadow of this Day in Joel’s prediction of exile as a call for thenation to repent and the warnings of destruction and exile if they aren’theeded. But Joel isn’t the only one of God’s messengers to tell of the comingdeliverance and destruction in God’s Day of Judgment, His finally Day. Therecapitulation or recurrent presentation of images such as the DotL occursthroughout the bible: and eventually brought them into the Promised Land, Hemade them peculiar and they were pilgrims for a time in the wilderness. Thatrelationship was meant to depict an eternal one which God was making with thepeople of His choosing. A people who would be redeemed from out of the fallenworld of sin, who would walk for a time as pilgrims, then who would be broughtinto the ultimate Promised Land which was foreshadowed in the Old CovenantPeople. But if you look at the Exodus as a foreshadowing of the future Day ofJudgment, we see that the same event meant deliverance for the Jews, while itmeant destruction for the hardened Egyptians. And the dispersion that resultedwas predicted by John in Revelation as a shadow form of the final DotL. Throughthe darkness of the dispersion of the Jews after the destruction of the temple,the message of deliverance began to spread to the ends of the Earth. So, afterdarkness comes light; post tenebras lux,as recited by the Reformers. These examples might be seen as paradoxes(combining destruction for some and deliverance for others) just like the eventJoel and others described as the DotL or the Day of Yahweh or the Day ofJudgment. They occur in time as smaller events that point to the big event.

We have the great privilege and distinctpleasure of looking back at all the fulfillment of bible prophesies, except ofcourse for the fulfillment of the great commission and Christ’s return inglory, and we must sympathize with the misunderstandings that occurred. Thereare several pretty good reasons why confusion plagued those who, in God’sprovidence, had to look forward, through the shadows, to substances which theyforetold. Many of the Jews had mistakenly believed that their pedigree throughthe familial line of Abraham alone was their ticket to being the beneficiariesof God, regardless of their actions; they thought no one could take that fromthem. They believed, and thus rightly held in very high regard, that the ritualcircumcision of an 8 day old child ensured that none of God’s wrath wouldfinally be poured out on that individual (exopere operato). But Paul in Romans 2:25-29 would later inform us that notall Israel are of Israel—it is our faith, which is the gracious gift of Godthat separates God’s children from the children of the Devil, not the applicationof a covenant sign alone. Likewise with the continuation of covenant signage,now by the covenant baptism of our infants into visible church membership, weas parents and other onlookers who partake in the grace mediated by thatsacrament, fully expect God to later regenerate that baptized baby—He has setHis mark on that little helpless and virtually unresponsive child who willordinarily inherit genuine belief. But those who have tasted of the benefits ofGod through this nurturing, yet finally apostatize and fall away are theexception to the rule, thus are much more liable to God’s severe wrath becausethey tasted His grace first hand; consider 2 Pet. 2:1-3 where Peter tells offalse teachers who tasted the very grace of God through what we call the covenantcommunity, yet they forsook Christ and their trouble will be greater because oftheir exposure to the gospel and their failure to believe it.

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 5

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

We now have two major ideas in mind withregards to the “zeitgeist” of the temporal Jewish kingdom: One, that theprophets delivered their messages in the context of the covenant (with itsblessings and curses) and two, that the Jewish people had largely misunderstoodhow God’s plan to create a people for Himself would be fulfilled in what wecall the ecclesia or Church. They hadit in their minds that in essence, to be loved by God and to live as Hisbeneficiary was to be nationallyJewish. So in light of this misunderstanding three topics should be taken intoconsideration: the reason behind God’s judgment—the covenantal disobedience ofthe people, the means of the warnings Joel gives—the DotL. And third—the rightway to view God’s faithfulness to His people and the right way to look at theapplication of the signs of the covenants: both circumcision in the Old andbaptism in the New.

In Joel’s day the nation didn’t reallybelieve that God’s wrath could come down upon them, not His chosen nation. Theyhad forgotten the curses for disobedience in the Mosaic covenant and rememberedonly the blessings of the covenant made to Abraham their father. Kind of likethe haughtiness of Harry Potter in the “Half Blood Prince”. Many of the peoplehad in mind that, in order to become part of the elect people of God one had tobecome part of the physical nation of Israel; over the years, they hadequated the two. They failed to see themselves as an illustration of somethinggreater. But because of a lack of information, we must give them a pass. It isnot likely that we would have understood it any better. Theirs was an age ofshadows and types and things that only pointed forward to the fulfillment—JesusChrist. Their misgivings were in large measure the result of some of the functionsof the covenant: the exclusivity in the rituals and celebrations; thepeculiarity of the dietary laws, the warnings against marrying foreigners.Their misinterpretation of those things contributed to a fallen understandingof those outside of the covenant, especially in their time but even afterChrist came. The transition and understanding didn’t come easily. Christ had tobe interpreted. And Paul in Eph. 2:11-22 helped reform the world’sunderstanding of the mystery that ALL nations would be brought into thecommonwealth of Israel by their adoption through the blood of Christ. Beforethat, this idea of being loved and cared for and benefiting from the grace ofGod without first becoming a Jew (which in the Jew’s minds at the time meantbeing circumcised and keeping the other Mosaic Laws) was unthinkable. Paulinforms us, just as Hosea prophesied, that the “uncircumcision” who were “not apeople” have been made a people by being brought near to the commonwealth of Israel.Consider the Galatian heresy Paul had to deal with, it only happened because ofthis misunderstanding. Some influential people were teaching “another” gospel,one where of course the heretics admitted that one needed Christ’s sacrificebut that the person would also need to be physically circumcised andparticipate in a distinctly Old Covenant Jewish format of worship. Those falseteachers in Galatiahad fooled many to think that a proselyte still basically had to become anational Jew before becoming a disciple of the risen Christ. So in thismisunderstanding of fulfilled Jewishness, the Galatians of Paul’s day werestill in disbelief regarding the expansive nature of God’s mercy, that itincluded all tribes, tongues and peoples. The Jews in Joel’s day were likewiseconfused about the punishment of their people at the DotL. Part of Joel’smessage was to remind them that faithless Jews too, along with the godlessGentile nations, would receive the brunt of God’s damning wrath.

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 4

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

But Jesus came and spoke But by the inspiration of God’s Spirit, Joelturns the Jewish expectation of the Day of the Lord upside-down—because oftheir heritage they thought of that coming Day only as a day of salvation anddeliverance for them, and a Day only of damnation and destruction for thegentile nations. So instead of allowing the people to continue in thatmisconception, Joel uses the image of the descending army, a result of theircovenant disobedience, to wreak as much havoc on their hearts as it would onthe Land. And he uses this imagery as a foreshadowing of that future Day whennot only will the unbelieving nations be judged, but the unbelieving Jewishnation as well. It was a warning not to misunderstand the coming Day of Yahwehwhere His judgment will transcend nations, even that nation He called His own.This was likely a hard pill for them to swallow, as were most of the words ofGod’s prophets, else why would they need to be sent, if there was no misconceptionabout the nature of God and the nature of man?

The NT gives us many example of the diversity ofthe DotL. From Romans 2:16 we hear that on that Day the secrets of men will bejudged by Christ. But on that Day, the Day of the revealing of our Lord JesusChrist, will also be a Day of final salvation for believers, even theCorinthian believers whose egregious sin Paul addressed (1 Cor. 1:4-9). Andthose who Paul suggested their bodies be delivered over to Satan, even that wasso their souls would be delivered at The Day of the Lord (1 Cor. 5:5).According to Paul’s words later in his second letter to the church in Corinth,the Day of Yahweh will be a day where we will boast in one another’s good works(2 Cor. 1:14). And in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians he describes theDay of the Lord as a day the coming of which, no one can foretell, a coming daythat will likely surprise more people than it will catch waiting for it. EvenJesus mentions its mysteriousness as recorded for us in Mark 13:31. But thatDay is not designed to distribute God’s wrath or displeasure to His elect, butonly to those vessels for which that destruction has been measured out (1Thess. 5). And in his instructions to Timothy, Paul speaks of a future Daywhereby we will receive God’s mercy and crowns will be doled out (2 Tim. 1:18and 4:8). Not only Paul, but Peter as well was inspired to describe this comingDay. In his second correspondence he reminds us of the justice that will beexacted on that Day. He also describes the scoffers and mockers that willcharacterize the end of this present age, but in the same breath he admonishesbelievers to wait patiently for this Day, for what will sadly be the Day ofJudgment for many, is the Day of our salvation (2 Pet. 3). Lest we forgetJesus’ own comments on that Day: He warned, as recorded by Matthew in 7:22,that even some who called Him Lord would be forsaken in judgment on that finalDay. And Christ instructed His disciples and us as well to keep the NewCovenant Passover meal, that feast we call communion, until the Day of Hisreturn when He will supp once again in person with the extended group of OT andNT disciples which He calls His Church and His Bride (Mark 14:25). Christ alsodevised a couple parables describing both the immense pleasure and horrificterror that will be displayed on the DotL when He spoke of the 10 virgins andthe 10 talents and how the unprepared virgins He never knew and the wicked andslothful servant would be cast into outer darkness (Matt. 25).

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 3

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Several themes surface throughout theprogress of Joel’s prophesy: the Day of the Lord and repentance. Then again,one could say that Joel’s style is really just characterized by variations onone theme—repentance. In chapter one he uses the drunkard, the priest, theinvading army and later, the final Day of Judgment, all as means of calling thenation to corporate repentance. And in chapters 2 and 3 we see the promises ofjudgment and salvation finally meted out in the Day of the Lord: aneschatological final day which is depicted throughout redemptive history inlesser, but still terrible, days of destruction and deliverance. We observe oneof the more prominent features of the promises and fulfillment to God’sbeneficiaries in His Spirit: promised in Joel chapter 3 and fulfilled in Actschapter 2. We can also observe the importance of the themes of the mourning andthe lamenting of the sin of Judah;and of course a call to their repentance, which necessarily becomes a call toconsecrate fasting and assembly in order to corporately lament the sins of thenation. In addition the mention of the mourning of the very land itself—thebeasts of the field, the pastures, vineyards, the languishing olive groves andthe gladness of the people having dried up along with the impoverishment oftheir physical resources.

Specifically regarding the Day of the Lord,Joel uses the term to describe 2 events: the recent torment on the land, anarmy described as locusts in chapter one, and the future and terrible Daywherein the evil nations will be judged in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, describedin chapter 2. Unlike most of the other prophets, simply warning the people bypredicting the actual futuristic nature of the coming Day of Yahweh or the Dayof the Lord, in Joel it is more so the gasoline fueling the fire of Hisoracles. So significant is the concept of the DotL to Joel’s prophesy that itis strategically placed in every one of the four major subsections of the book,thus making it undeniable crucial to the idea God had for Joel to preach. Theconcept of that Day in the book of Joel follows a pattern similar to the OTprophecies of Christ coming: as we know today, Christ’s coming was to betwo-fold: first in humiliation and second and finally in His coming in glory.The OT saint likely had confused the two due to their frequent compression, asthey were often spoken of as though they were one future “coming”, and in likemanner, the OT saint had likely confused the final deliverance that could beexpected by believers at the DotL with the destruction that was to be expectedat the DotL. So they were shocked to learn of their exile as a form of thepunishment provided for in the context of the DotL. The notion of the Day ofthe Lord is more fully expressed in the New Testament where we get a morecomplete picture than that provided by any pre-Messianic prophesy. And such isthe nature of prophesy in general, it normally follows this pattern: prophesy,then fulfillment, and then understanding. However, it can be demonstrated byour present concern in Joel that understanding is truly partial when we look athow the Jews in the OT thought of the Day of the Lord. After Joel’s prophesyand prior to the NT exposition of the concept, most Jews regarded the Day asbeing exclusively a day when the wrongs perpetrated against the people of Israel would berighted. But in Joel and in some NT passages we discover that unbelieving Jews(an unbelief manifest in gross and perpetual disobedience) will be judged inthat Day along with the evildoers of other nations.

You see, in Joel’s day and even in Christ’sday, especially before Paul in Eph. 2:11-22 helped reform the world’sunderstanding of the mystery that ALL nations would be brought into thecommonwealth of Israel via their adoption through the blood of the Ultimate andfinal Passover Lamb, Jesus of Nazareth, and all those (Israeli and gentile)unbelievers would receive God’s wrath on that final Day. The Jews believed thattheir pedigree through the familial line of Abraham alone was their ticket tobeing the beneficiaries of God, regardless of their actions; no one, theythought, could take that from them. They believed, and thus rightly held invery high regard, that the ritual circumcision of an 8 day old babe ensuredthat none of God’s wrath would finally be poured out on that individual. ButPaul in Romans 2 would later inform us that not all Israelare of Israel—itis our faith, which is the very gift of God, proved by our good works thatseparates God’s children from the children of the Devil, not the application ofa covenant sign alone. Likewise with the continuation of covenant signage, nowby the covenant baptism of our infants into visible church membership, we asparents and other onlookers who partake in the grace mediated by thatsacrament, fully expect God to later regenerate that baptized baby—He has setHis mark on that little helpless and virtually unresponsive one who willordinarily inherit genuine belief. But those who have tasted of the benefits ofGod through this nurturing, yet finally apostatize and fall away are theexception to the rule, thus are much more liable to God’s severe wrath becausethey tasted His grace first hand; consider 2 Pet. 2:1-3.

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 2

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Perhaps Joel’s ministry as God’s covenant lawyer (as the prophets were often considered) began sometime between the 6^th and 9^th dynasties of the Northern Kingdom. We do know for certain that it didn’t begin prior to 873, the beginning of the reign of Judah’s 4^th king named Jehoshaphat, due mainly to Joel’s mention of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, but probably sometime before the exile in 586, if you take the pre-exilic position. Even though that period between 873BC and 586 BC appears to be quite ambiguous enough not to draw any criticism, it still remains the minority report among those considering it. It is ones placement of Joel’s ministry on the “wrong” side of the exile which is the debated issue.

As a point of interest, if Joel’s ministry occurred very early on in the Kingdom timeline, then it probably overlapped the ministries of other prophets such as Elijah and Elisha. I’d like to point out here that when one goes looking, you can find some discrepancy in the years of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah, but much more variance in the ministries of the prophets, so take these associations loosely, just as a means of placing their lives in time, hopefully making them less abstract. So if Joel’s ministry occurred very early on, he could have ministered to monarchs like: Athaliah, queen of the South, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah and Jotham. Whereas if one favors the later pre-exilic dating, then Joel would have enjoyed a time with contemporaries such as Zephaniah, Nahum, and perhaps even Isaiah and Jeremiah. And this later dating places Joel under the reign of kings like: Ahaz, Hezikiah, Manasseh, Amon and Josiah. But if the post-exilic dating proved true, then Joel would have shared his time of ministry with the likes of Daniel, Ezekiel (in the North), Habakkuk, and Malachi, who ministered to no kings because at that time the Jews had been exiled.

All of that information just to say that Joel mentions no king under which he prophesied, unlike Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Amos, who provided relatively great detail concerning their place in the kingdom and the kings to which the Lord gave His word through those prophets. ¹The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: Joel also gave no information about his vocation. It is however a general speculation that he may have been a temple priest due to the emphasis he places on the responsibilities of that office and how they suffered the lack and grain and drink offerings and how the priests mourned. Secondly, most agree that his ministry was concerned primarily with Judah, based partly on his mention of God’s holy mount Zion.

Joel, among other OT prophets, is considered an apocalypticist. In other words, among his writings are words of forth-telling that include a final end to the age of the world or cosmos as we know it. This is understood as God’s just and merciful act of judgment and of the final rewarding of His people. Another stylistic element to consider is that Joel’s prophecy in 2:1-11 bears a striking resemblance to that Isaiah’s in chapter 13. They share some vocabulary, themes, and the aspect of an invading foe. This comparison seems to support an early date for Joel rather than a later, because both portions of literature appear to be Pentateuchal in origin (Lev. and Deut.). Being established in Deut., Joel employs the justice of the covenantal curses for disobedience as the reasoning for the judgment of God on the nation that He called His own. He took well known historical events like the locust plague of Exodus and provided a new perspective in order to illustrate his prophesy. Note also that the presence of invasion, drought and desolation (three of the types of God’s judgment directed against the rebellious nation) are major punishments for infidelity to the Mosaic Covenant, and they were all precursors leading ultimately to physical exile from the Promised Land.

Like the majority of prophetic books, with the exception of much of the structure of Isaiah and Hosea, Joel follows the standard “woe-then-weal” format. It’s fairly easy to classify the first portion of the prophecy as distress, causing woe, and the second part as deliverance. Whereas the prophesies of Isaiah and Hosea, which of course are quite a bit larger, follow a format characterized by woe-weal-woe-weal, etc.

Though the final chapter of the book almost appears to be a completely separate prophecy, it seems more reasonable to conclude that the book is one cohesive prophecy possibly delivered at one time, but likely delivered in the span of a week or a month at most, due in part to the relative compression of the book: within 3 chapters there are tightly woven themes and ideas that cohere by similar word usage sprinkled over the course of the prophesy. Though the book has been traditionally broken into 3 chapters, there is reason to believe that it is structured in four different oracles medium in length, and if not given to the people at one time, perhaps in four separate revealings over a period of time, like I said, probably not spanning more than a month.

Exposition on Joel - Introduction - 1

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:35:00 +0000

I would like to begin our study of the book of Joel with a bit of background information and at least cover the first verse of chapter one, which includes the prophet’s introduction of himself. Debated Jewish tradition dates Joel between Hosea and Amos, which is apparent from the canonical order. The tendency in ancient writings such as these was to group them chronologically, but there were occasions when the subject matter, style and vocabulary were the determining factors. As you all likely know, the grouping of books traditionally referred to as minor prophets gets its name from the Latin word meaning shorter, so their importance and eternal weight is neither attested to nor denied in that nomenclature. It is interesting to note that in the 3^rd century BC Septuagint, the Minor Prophets were divided into two groups, six and six, and the ordering being highly favorable of the chronology that was considered correct at the time. As far as the dating of Joel goes, this position seems to promote either a very late pre-exilic or post-exilic date of Joel’s prophecy, sometime between 600BC – 570BC. Following that line of thinking, there are several reasons for modern scholars to share the post-exilic (2^nd temple) opinion: It is claimed that Joel’s apocalyptic style is more like that of Daniel, Zechariah and parts of Isaiah. Most other pre-exilic prophets mention a reigning king, Joel does not. Joel’s perspective on foreign occupation (2:20; 3:3) and Diaspora (2:26; 3:6) seem consistent with the thoughts of other post-exilic prophets. But these reasons are not absolutely compelling. Apocalyptic literature has its origins at least as early as the 7^th century BC (Is. 13). Because of the close comparison of Joel 2:1-11 with that passage, it stands to reason that his apocalyptic preceded Zech. 1-8, thus placing him earlier than many think. Prior to “The” Exilic period, in the time between 722BC-586BC deportation and exile was a present reality due to the war-time policy of Assyria and other Near East nations, being one of the expected punishments of war. So Joel 3:7 doesn’t have to refer to the specific Israelite Exile we think of when we consider the times of the prophets.

Ultimately, any responsible scholar must side with Calvin when he says that it would be foolish to dogmatize about the dating of Joel’s prophecy. Regardless of date, the book’s message can be appreciated even though a period of ministry cannot be determined with any high degree of certainty. Nevertheless, many speculate out of necessity so as to help form a solid interpretation of the book’s prophecy. But whether one takes the post- or the late pre-exilic dating, the integrity of the book still stands. There is also a third opinion which states that the prophecy is early still, somewhere between 850-750. In any case, the book is God’s revealed Word, profitable as Paul puts it, for teaching, reproof, correction and training. Through the years it has been with a great deal of difficulty that commentators and bible enthusiasts alike have tried to date Joel’s prophesy and still today there is disagreement even within the specifically Reformed community. So as I mentioned briefly before, there are two primary positions on the dating of Joel’s prophecy: Some say that his prophesy was pre-exilic (a position which can be divided into early and late pre-exilic dating). The terms pre and post exilic, when applied to the ministries of the prophets refers to whether they prophesied before or after the Jews were exiled: the Jews of Israel to Assyria in 722 and the Jews of Judah to Babylon in 586.Yet another school of thought claims that Joel’s prophecy occurred after the fall of the Northern and Southern kingdoms.

Just some quick background concerning the Jewish kingdom and its division: Saul, David and Solomon were the only Jewish Kings to rule the temporal Kingdom of God united (1050 BC – 930 BC). America has already enjoyed a span of life nearly twice that of the united Jewish Kingdom, not that our nation is united in the quality that would have been demanded by the Jewish nation under monarchal rule. Nonetheless, the unity expected under the supposed godly rule of one man quickly dematerialized in a nation of sinners, and thus the Jewish nation (a pre-figuring of the Kingdom of God’s elect nation) was divided around 930 into two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom called Israel and the Southern called Judah. In the 200 years following the division, due to their separation from the Davidic line, Israel experienced nine different dynastic reigns until it fell in 722 to the Assyrian empire. On the other hand, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin continued in the line of David with Rehoboam (son of Solomon) as their first king in the divided kingdom, but they too fell to the Babylonians in 586.

Exposition on Joel

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:35:00 +0000

I've recently been charged with the task, and great pleasure, of leading the young adult fellowship at our church. The major portion of my responsibilities is to teach a bible study on Wednesday nights. I chose to go through the prophesy of Joel. so begins a blog series of the same material.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 20

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Our choices and their immediate causes

This brings us to the discussion of how we make choices and why. I have made the assertion that, regarding the choices we make, we necessarily could not have chosen otherwise but I would like to bring the words of other men to bear on the topic. This is what John Hendrix has to say regarding our choosing Christ.

“So if there is not of necessity any moral reason or motive that ultimately compels one to believe or not then how could God blame someone for rejecting Him? To believe the gospel is a moral choice, from the heart. If not then God could not call the rejection of the gospel a sin. If our affections do not cause us to believe then belief and unbelief is ultimately non-affectional, not from the heart and rejection could not be considered a sin. But if it is a moral choice then how did one person get a more moral disposition than the other? One remained proud and the other humble? Was this by nature or by grace? If by grace then why don’t all men have it? If by nature then some people are more virtuous than others apart from grace. This dilemma is really fatal to libertarian free will and none of them have been able to answer these basic questions. The answer ‘just because’ is not enough. [i]”

Hendrix’s words assert that our choices are made because of our affections, not in spite of them. Clearly not all non-Calvinist/non-Reformed persons espouse an anthropology of libertarian free-will nor do they all claim to adhere to philosophical systems that promote a variation on the theory of middle knowledge. Though I must that I don’t know where else thinking individuals would likely rest on the issue of God’s foreknowledge, providence and His ability to carry out His plans in time as He wishes except that they claim either of the three main views: Open Theism (Process Theology), Molinism (Middle Knowledge) or Compatibilism.

When a worldview claims libertarian free will as one of its foundational tenets, one of two things result: either it makes a belief in original sin (at least the historic, biblical understanding of the term) a contradiction within their system, or it must be denied all together. Listen to what they say about their own system.

“Libertarians take very seriously the widespread judgment that we are morally responsible for our actions and that moral responsibility requires freedom” That is, a person cannot be held morally responsible for an act unless he or she was free to perform that act and free to refrain from it. This is basic moral intuition.[ii]”

If responsibility, as such a one would claim, is grounded in one’s ability to have chosen “X” or non-X without any compelling influences, then we don’t inherit guilt and condemnation from Adam (as the historical, biblical understanding promotes) but instead we inherit only the capacity to sin, thus denying the doctrine of original sin. The other result is that such a one may accept the doctrine of original sin in some superficial sense but also claim that Christ died to make all men savable in order to give everyone the capacity for choosing God, thus leading to the contradiction in their system where men both, inherit Adam’s sin and maintain the ability to choose not to sin while still “counted in Adam”. I personally like what John Owen has to say regarding this man-made philosophy, and find it difficult to state it any better.

“To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.[iii]”

He goes on to assess the libertarian view of creaturely freedom and his responsibility in a way with which I must agree.

“The essence of this view is that a free action is one that does not have a sufficient condition or cause prior to its occurrence…the common experience of deliberation assumes that our choices are undetermined. [iv]”

I have heard it stated very often that men only go to Hell because of their personal unbelief. If this unbelief is a sin that finds its origin in the fallen affections of the human heart, a heart whose condition was inherited from Adam, then it is biblical to say that ultimately we are guilty and go to Hell because we are inherently sinners; unbelief being one of those sins for which the unregenerate man will be punished in Hell. As a result it would be more accurate, yes even more biblical, to say that one goes to Hell because they are a sinner unredeemed, and that their unbelief is one sin among many for which they will continue to render payment in Hell as they abide God’s wrath for an eternity. So if it is not simply my unbelief that causes my damnation, then on what foundation is human responsibility based? This forces us to answer a more telling question, why do we make the choices we do? According to the Libertarian, if our choices are to be considered free (and they must be in order for God to hold us responsible for them, according to the Libertarian) then they can have no determining factor, no sufficient condition or cause at all—not even our affections or desires are allowed to cause our choices, not even they are the antecedent cause for what we choose. But Libertarianism and Dynamic Pre-Temporalism do not establish culpability for our choices instead they absolve us of being responsible for the things we do. Rationality leads us to believe that the contrary is true, that only if our choices are born out of our desires can we be held responsible for those choices. As Hendrix stated before, if our choices are not born out of our desires and affections then it would be unfair for God to judge us by them. Here is Hendrix again on this topic.

“The Belief in Libertarian Free Will Destroys Moral Responsibility – Walls and Dongell make a strong case that our judicial system is based on the commonsense view of libertarian freedom since the lawyers often defend the degree of guilt of clients based on whether they were coerced, their upbringing, emotional state and the like. These kind of conditions indeed often make people less culpable if their inability made them so they could not have done otherwise. If criminals could have made different choices than they did, i.e. if they were coerced into making a bad choice, then we all agree they would not be as legally responsible for their crime. While it is true that coercion often plays a role in the legal degree of punishment, but this only scratches the surface of the matter. Consider the opposite that if criminals just chose to commit a crime but had no intent or motives for it at all then the lawyer would be forced to plead insanity for his client before the court. If the choice to commit a crime were not based and caused ultimately on a reason, desire or motive then he would have to be absolved from guilt because he would not be responsible for it. If one chose to murder someone simply because he chose to it would be a sign of sickness not responsibility. Libertarian free will, therefore, destroys responsibility. Moral responsibility exists, not in spite of, but because our choices have reasons, motives, intent. Only the determinist, therefore, upholds moral responsibility. Can we be held responsible for doing something we do not want to do? [v]”

So we conclude that if our choices are not rooted in our natural affections, then God cannot hold us responsible for them because those choices would be arbitrary, thus making God’s judgment of them capricious. The only other option is that the choices we make are in fact rooted in our desires just as the proverb suggests (4:23).

[i] Hendryx, J. W. 'Just Because': Eleven (11) Reasons to Reject Libertarian Free Will. Same source as endnote number 3.

[ii] Walls, Jerry L, and Dongell, Joseph R. Why I am not a Calvinist. (InterVarsity Press, 2004)

[iii] Owen, John III: 433

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Hendryx, J. W. 'Just Because': Eleven (11) Reasons to Reject Libertarian Free Will. Same source as endnote number 3.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 19

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Preexistent potential realities?

In summary, I have divided into four categories the most likely views regarding the pre-temporal knowledge of and existence of future events and choices:

1. A being greater than God created multiple, potential sets of realties from which Yahweh God must choose, yet Yahweh God knows all the events that would have taken place had He chosen otherwise.

a. Explanation: This view is manifestly non-Christian. However it does make great science fiction. Logically though, if there existed a being greater (this other being has created potential realities from which Yahweh God must choose, thus making him greater) than the God of the Christian Scriptures, then that being would by definition, be God and the being to whom he submitted sets of potential realities from which to choose is a lesser being and, also by definition, could not be God—at least not the Creator God described in the Bible. The lesser being may not have been created by the being that generated the potential realities, but then again, the being that did may have created both of them, who knows? In other words, the being that created the possible realities is necessarily greater than the one who chooses from them, and the being who chooses becomes a non-God because he is subject to some force outside Himself that influences his choices.

2. God conceived of multiple, potential sets of realities and then He chose from them. These sets exist only as thoughts until chosen, and in process, realized. They only exist in the first place because God has thought of them as potential realities. In effect God says I might do this, yet I might do this other thing—God considered what I would do and made His choice based on what He knew I would choose.

a. Explanation: This view possibility challenges the perfection and wisdom of God. The implication of this is, if God thought of two possible futures and chose to implement one into reality and not the other, and then the one discarded is inferior by virtue of its being discarded. That, in my opinion, is an untenable thought regarding anything God does. If one possible future was chosen above another then it must have been for the reason that it is better future in some way and to some degree, however insignificant the difference may be. If the choice is not made based on the intrinsic superior value of one potentiality above the other, then it must be based on exclusively on God’s knowledge of his creature’s future choices or else His choice must be considered arbitrary—that would be an attack on the purposefulness of God. If the former is true then God is ultimately subject to the power of the future choices that He knows His creatures will make. If the latter is true then God’s goodness would have to be called into question. God must act or choose with purpose in order to maintain His righteous character. To choose without purpose is in essence to choose without knowledge—and choosing without knowledge is something that is not possible with God, unless of course you are an Open Theist. God is by definition, all-knowing. If God knows everything past, present and future then His choices must be in accordance with that knowledge or else He would be making a decision against what He knows to be best. Even for creatures, a choice made with knowledge has at least that much purpose. Thus God’s choices made in perfect knowledge are perfect also in their purpose.

3. Multiple sets of potential realities exist as a result of the mere possibility of their future realization through the choices made by possible creatures within each set. God must chose from those sets and the one He chooses becomes real as time goes on.

a. Explanation: If these alternate thoughts from which God must choose were not from His own mind, then from whose mind did they come? In the case of the possible strands of realities (futurabilia as Molina called them), it must be concluded that the generative source or sources of these strands were the thoughts, choices, and determinations of the subjects within the strands themselves. And if this is so then the subjects had no objective primary cause—rendering them causes which in effect, cause themselves! In due course, one must draw the same conclusion here as with the previous view.

4. God’s singular set of decrees lead to His creation, which includes the ends and the means to these ends (all creatures and their thoughts, choices, and actions are obviously included).

a. Explanation: If this view is true, then there can be no other possible outcomes. This view, referred to as Compatibilism, Reformed, or Static Pre-Temporalism as I have dubbed some of its specific aspects, I believe is the biblical model.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 18

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Many believers would oppose Open Theism when presented with its heresies by affirming that God does has perfect knowledge of the future, but it is only the Compatibilist who rightly says that God’s knowledge of and decree of future events and choices are inseparably related. Therefore the future, which God sees perfectly, finds its source in all of that which God desires to take place; not withstanding that God may desire one thing above another and may exhibit varying degrees of affection toward different things. And as I said before, I do not think that the Molinistic scheme actually accomplishes that which it is attempting to accomplish, namely that God is protected from being the ultimate cause of evil simply because real counterfactuals exist. If God knows perfectly the future choice that a man will make, if God knows that I will turn right at the light, then do I legitimately have the power of contrary choice, could I actually choose to turn left? The answer is no, of course not. Even if the potential reality that represented my choice to turn left did exist, God knew that I wouldn’t.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 17

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Let us remember that a system of dynamic pre-temporal items must assume that counterfactuals are independent of God’s knowledge, determined and finalized in time by the future choices and creatures they reflect. This is the logical assumption if we take into account the goals of this system. One deduction to be made in light of all this is that God’s choice between these contingent realities is not genuine if they do not exist objectively to Him. In the Dynamic Pre-Temporal system it seems that God chose the best path among many, the way in which He would be most glorified, therefore we must conclude that God could not have chosen to do otherwise because no potential future could exist (in time or otherwise) which God had decided not to choose. If He had generated or observed an alternate choice then it too must have existed as an alternate and simultaneous potential reality. Ultimately, because the Bible gives us no reason to believe that there are actual, alternate, potential realities, we finally must say that God would never have had or observed a potential reality or counterfactual which He would not finally choose.

Like Compatibilism and Static Pre-Temporalism, Middle Knowledge and Dynamic Pre-Temporalism assert that God does know the future with certainty but Dynamic Temporalism claims that He also knows all the counterfactuals of all the choices that would potentially be made therein, even though He also knows that they most certainly will never happen. In one aspect of this scheme, counterfactuals only existed after God’s decree of the events to which they are counter. In other words, God decreed x, x+1, x+2, x+3 and so on, but then suddenly non x and non x+1 existed as their counterparts or counterfactuals. If this is true then I see two possible conclusions:

1. Those counterfactuals are imagined in the mind of God along with the events He has decreed to actually take place, but in His imagining of the counterfactual, their non-existence is necessarily decreed. So at the same time (if we can speak of it temporally) God decreed the factual which claims that Judas would betray Christ should certainly come to pas because He knew Judas’ intentions, and God decreed that the counterfactual which claims that Judas would not betray Christ would never come to pass. So the factual and counterfactual exist simultaneously as the thing decreed to happen and the thing decreed not to happen.

2. Those counterfactuals must have been generated by the future deliberation an individual would have between possible choices, thus making that individual the primary cause of the counterfactuals and the individual’s deliberation the secondary cause of the counterfactuals those deliberating desires preconceive. In other words, God decreed that Judas would betray Jesus. Immediately, the potential future wherein Judas wouldn’t betray Jesus was generated but just as immediately, it was discarded by God because He know for certain that Judas would in fact betray Christ.

Consider the intent of the Molinistic point of view which in part, is supposed to shield God from the possible charge of being the author of evil and to establish the idea of libertarian freewill— which from their point of view allegedly establishes the creature’s liability to his Creator’s laws. I contend that if God chose to know the certain-future and the counter-future, assuming the counter-future will most certainly not occur, and the certain-future is a thought in the mind of God which would be chosen over the other, thus causing the counter-future to be discarded, then the counter-future has no real potential from God’s point of view, rendering it inert, unviable, and absolutely unnecessary. This appears to suggest that God has discarded one of His thoughts and kept another. If so, then the thought discarded must have been inferior in some way. Or it was simply discarded because it didn’t agree with the actual future choices men were going to make. In which case, the perfection of God’s knowledge of the future, free choices of men is challenged. And in the former case, it is an attack on the perfection and immutability of God.

If God had allowed or ordained the existence of a real counter-future or counterfactuals along with His ordinance of the certain-future, then the argument for libertarian free will is also lost and the proponent of such a theory would have to face the` same criticisms he makes of the compatibilist: why is God not the author of evil if He even allows a future wherein men are capable of choosing to do evil things and if God exists then why is there evil? Also if the counterfactuals are known in the mind of God, then creatures still do not actually posses the power of contrary choice; they cannot do otherwise because God perfectly knows even the choice they didn’t or wouldn’t make. If God knew of our choices ahead of time, no matter what the number of possible alternative counter-futures, then He still has to answer to the same objection normally posed to the Compatibilist—Is man free if he could not have chosen otherwise? If God created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil knowing that Adam certainly would sin and take the fruit and yet He created it anyway. The Molinist is then subject to the same criticism that is leveled here. I suppose that is one of the reasons Pinnock (who was formerly a professor at Westminster) has become an open theist. He is honest enough to admit the futility of the middle knowledge model. If the counterfactuals are conceived of in the mind of God, then He is not protected for being the author of evil, as the Molinist would count that protection. So in order to maintain consistency within the Molinist’s own system, God cannot be the creator or the source of these alternate outcomes; therefore they must find their source elsewhere, and the only other place is in the creature that chooses. But this demands that the knowledge of the future choices of creatures that did not yet subsist, exist before the creatures that are necessary for the decree as ordinances of the future choices. This situation is as impossible as a shadow without a substance; a reflection without an object to be reflected. Listen to one modern day Molinist as he identifies this necessity.

“According to Molinists, God uses his knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which are contingent and prevolitional in deciding which persons to create in which situations. But if such counterfactuals are contingent, they might not have been true. Who then, makes them true? Or to phrase the question more carefully: Who or what actually causes the ones that are true to be true, and the ones that are false to be false? In whose actual activity are we to find adequate metaphysical grounds for such truths...Could God be the one who by himself causes their truth? Clearly not. The truths in question are supposed to be true prior to, and hence independent of God’s will. To suggest that God can decide which such counterfactuals are to be true is to abandon the libertarian standpoint essential to Molinism. ”

If counterfactuals exist outside of God, or they are not thoughts generated in the mind of God then He is ultimately subject to them (even if their number is infinite). He must observe them from a point completely disconnected from them and their creation. The only other option is to conclude that these counterfactuals or the counter-future exists in eternity past because of the deliberation of potential individuals in the yet written future. They exist simply because they might possibly happen in the future. Imagine that the degree to which there are differing numbers of possible choices a person could make regarding a certain decision, there are that many (however slight) different strands of potential realities resulting from the possibility of each choice being made in time. Imagine eternity past before the foundations of the world: Father, Son, Holy Spirit…and the extemporal, ethereal sets of potential realities—sounds absurd but is that not what is being offered as an alternative to the biblical understanding of the providence of God and the problem of evil? A scenario wherein God knows all the potential realities does not make Him more sovereign, but in fact it denies His sovereignty altogether because that being is made subject to the future and His choices—yes even election—are conditioned upon the preexistence of potential outcomes that He must observe, not determine.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 16

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

While there are a great many interesting views to consider as one ponders eternity, the time-space continuum and the like, in the end a Star Trek epistemology makes for a very poor filter through which to sift one’s theology. On the whole we Americans anyway are so inclined to reject the science for the fiction, the substance for the shadow, ignore the archetype for the type, and praise the ad rather than the product. Just look at the way most television commercials are presented. The reason we come away saying, “That was a great ad but I don’t remember what they were advertising” is because we associate more with the vehicle than its occupants. In an environment where short attention spans are expected, we can see why no one wants to invest the time it takes to really appreciate the product when they can simply enjoy the 30-second advertisement, which often has nothing to do with it. Think of the modernistic movement in painting and other fine arts where the whole philosophy backing it was to display the media at the expense of the composition and content; it was an exercise in communicating nothing through something; even though it did actually communicate something by the absence of content. One example would be Lichtenstein’s “brush stroke”. The idea that was regarded as important was not the thoughts communicated but the tools that were used in communication. Maybe this is one reason why churchgoers are happy to sacrifice good theological lyrics just for a musical style they enjoy better, a variation on the idea of form over content. It happens with preaching as well, often the thing regarded as more important is the homiletically palatable approach rather than the theology communicated in the process. It was architect Mies Van der Rohe who popularized the phrase: form follows function. The function of an object is what must ultimately determine its form. In applying this format to preaching the Word of God we can see that the homiletics of the presentation should be determined by the theology that needs to be communicated from the Word. If there is a dispute between the two then the function of The Word must win out over the form of homiletic style. I admit that I am guilty of all these errors as well. Even in the senior thesis I did for my bachelor’s degree in furniture design I emphasized the process more than the product rendered. Look also at the “Emergent Church” movement wherein the journey is what is emphasized, not the place you might end up. If you set a goal…you may not reach it, and who wants to be considered a failure for not having reached their goals? You may object by saying that this is strictly utilitarian, but I’m not suggesting that we forego aesthetics for use, or emotional pleading for accurate reading, or journey for destination—no, we must have both. Yes, we must have the object but we must also have the reflection, we must have the end but we must also employ means to get there. We must have both content and form. They must work in concert, but the thing depicting must not jealously usurp the authority if the thing which it depicts.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 15

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Continuing on, option three above asserts that God knows the future events that will most certainly happen, but He also knows all the counterfactuals of all those events, even though He also knows that they will certainly never happen. This option also claims that those counterfactuals had existence prior to God’s decree of the events to which they are counter. If this is true, then I see two possible conclusions:

1. Those counterfactuals or “potential” realities must find their source in some being or some force greater than or equal to God Himself. Perhaps those beings or forces are the ones having to choose between those counterfactuals.

2. They are self-existent.

If we assume that these realities are not generated in the mind of God, there are several problems with this idea we can see immediately. It is impossible that they would exist as an idea if the reality they shadow only exists potentially. In order for the substance of a future (that is, its cause and effect events and the beings within said future who will be making choices) to exist prior to its occurrence in time, and in order for it to be known or perceived pre-temporally, it must necessarily be a certain and not just potential future event or choice. Its pre-temporal existence is the knowledge of its future certainty as an event; in fact it is God’s knowledge of it that establishes the “gist” of its existence. And its existence as a knowable item causes it to occur at some future, temporal point. Thus there were or are now no “realities” that merely had the potential for future occurrence, only realities that possessed the certitude of future occurrence can exist as knowable futures—and even then, they are really only knowable to God unless He reveals them to His creatures in a glimpse at it were. The supposed “potential reality” can’t exist if its pre-temporal representation does not necessarily cause its existence in the future. In order for a future event to be foreseen it cannot simply be a possibility. The thing foreseen pre-temporally is not so disjointed from its future occurrence in time. They do not exist as completely dislocated thought and reality, but the thought must be causal in relation to the reality it preconceives. It is like an object and its reflection, if you remove the object the reflection can not exist. So in that way the event foreseen is like the reflection and the event that occurs in time is the object being reflected—take away the event in time and you must also remove its reflection to be foreseen. So the reflections do not exist theoretically from which to be chosen, they reflect a real future object, thus the reflections exist because they necessarily will occur, as they are reflecting real future objects. If they can be foreseen then they will certainly occur. Similar to the way we view the past, events that have already occurred are static just as are event that will happen in the future, and this I believe to be the orthodox Christian view. This view could therefore be referred to as “Static Pre-Temporalism”, a view that is contrasted with the Middle Knowledge or Molinistic view of real counterfactuals, which could be referred to as “Dynamic Pre-Temporalism”.

I know that Static Pre-Temporalism perhaps does not make for as good a background for entertaining science fiction as Dynamic Pre-Temporalism does, but it is the truth. I wonder if those who would reject Static Pre-Temporalism are those most influenced by a post-modern Western culture which, over the past 50 or 60 years, has been subjected to an influx of false Eastern mystical thoughts regarding time and space and reality. A ground fertilized with naturalism and primed for receiving the seeds of relativism was all too eager for the views of time, space and reality that would be popularized through shows like “Star Trek” in the 1960’s. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy science fiction but it is just that…fiction tainted, some might say, by the occasional fact. It is true what they say, that truth is stranger than fiction, however, fiction is much easier to conform to our individualistic and relativistic ideals regarding reality: history and the future. We have seen this much more recently with Dan Browne’s treatment of history—most people want a history they can conform to their own ideas about how things should have been. Maybe many theologians today have contracted what I call the “Rodenberry Syndrome” (inspired by the name of the creator of “Star Trek”—Gene Rodenberry), an obsession with novelty; and the insatiable desire to “go where no man has gone before”. This is a highly dangerous activity in the realm of theology, but we can observe it in the Molinistic concept of real counterfactuals; that the future is relative to each individual’s choices.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 14

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Continuing from the last post wherein I discussed the first couple options, in this post I plan to take up the discussion of the Molinistic option.
There are two variations on the Molinistic theme. Below is the definition taken from Wikipedia of what a counterfactual is or may be:

“A counterfactual conditional, or subjunctive conditional, is a conditional (or “if-then”) statement indicating what would be the case if its antecedent were true. This is to be contrasted with an indicative conditional, which indicates what is (in fact) the case if its antecedent is (in fact) true.”

A counterfactual then is a statement that represents what might happen given that certain circumstances come to pass. The indicative condition is what has happened. Here are some concrete examples:

1. If Adam had not sinned, then Christ would not have had to die on the cross. Indicative Conditional: Adam sinned and Christ had to die.

2. If Joseph had accused Mary, then she would have been stoned. Indicative Conditional: Joseph believed the angel.

3. If Pilate had believed, then Barabbas would have been crucified in place of Jesus. Indicative Conditional: Pilate rejected Christ and gave in to the mob’s wishes.

4. If Judas had not betrayed Christ, then Christ would not have been arrested. Indicative Conditional: Judas betrayed Christ, and Christ was arrested.

The Molinist concludes that, because we can conceive of such counterfactuals as these, then they must have been alternate possibilities to what has actually occurred in history. In other words, they were real possibilities representing a fork in the road of time where upon if individuals had made other choices then history would have been written differently to the degree that those other choices would have changed the outcome. Such a conclusion is only necessary in a scheme where it is presumed that creatures have the libertarian freewill to choose otherwise, meaning that persons are bound neither by any external decree or knowledge nor even by their own affections and desires as formal causal agents. We all could easily agree that the human perspective alone can look back in hindsight and claim that a different choice could have been made, but this is only true because we would be looking as finite creatures at the past. Concerning our own view of the past, which is temporally bound, it is right to affirm the existence of counterfactuals. Concerning our Creator’s view of the future, which is not temporally bound, it is right to deny the existence of counterfactuals. So we can look back at the four events mentioned above and say yes, this, that or the other thing could have happened, but as God looks at the future He would not say yes—those events are possible—unless He could not see the future perfectly. We can look back at the past and see events as they happen, but we could also imagine the contrary. So the counterfactuals we see as we look back at history are imaginary counterfactuals and can never be real or true counterfactuals. I assert that counterfactuals by nature of creation cannot be true because they do not have a ground in the decree of God. The Libertarian likely claims God decreed counterfactuals to establish freewill. But to state the Compatibilist objection positively, only those events decreed by God are actually possible ergo if God has not decreed it then it is not possible.

In the next post I will continue this discussion.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 13

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Payton) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Continuing now with the discussion of the options I listed at the end of the last post.

Option one is the testimony of Open Theism. Sometimes referred to as “Process Theology”, the proponents of this position attest that God cannot know the future choices of his creatures or else those choices are not free. If He did know the future choices of His creatures then they necessarily would not be free because they could not then have chosen otherwise.

Option two is the Reformed opinion. This understanding of how God knows and interacts with time and the future, as stated before, is sometimes referred to as “Compatibilism”. The Compatibilist says that God’s creatures are free to make choices according to their desires—and in fact must do so in order for those choices to really be free. We also maintain that God’s decree of an event to bring ultimate good and man’s plan to sin in the very same event are compatible, so that the resulting consequences may accomplish both of those ends: man’s sinful ones and God’s holy ones. Consider Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery in the book of Genesis.

Option three is far more involved, thus requiring a far greater amount of discussion.thus I will begin that discussion next post.