Vine Abiders Podcast

There is a line in Hebrews that Christians quote often, but I am not sure we have always stopped long enough to ask what it actually means.Hebrews says that Jesus became flesh and blood so that through death he might destroy the devil.Hebrews 2:14-15Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.That passage raises several questions.What is “the power of death”?In what sense did Satan have it?How did Jesus’ death destroy the one who had that power?And why would Satan participate in the crucifixion if the crucifixion was the very event that would undo him?That last question is especially important. The New Testament gives us reason to believe that the crucifixion was, in some sense, a mystery hidden from the rulers of this age.1 Corinthians 2:8Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.That verse may refer to earthly rulers, spiritual rulers, or both. Either way, the logic is striking. Had they understood what was happening, they would not have crucified Jesus.So what did they misunderstand?More specifically, what did Satan misunderstand?My proposal is that the answer has been hiding in the Day of Atonement ritual, especially in the part of that ritual Christians often neglect: the scapegoat.The Day of Atonement did not involve only one goat. It involved two. One goat was “for the LORD,” slain, and its blood was brought into the holy place. The other goat was sent away alive, bearing the sins of the people into the wilderness, to Azazel.If Christ fulfills the Day of Atonement, then we should expect Him to fulfill both goats, not merely one. The first goat helps explain Christ’s blood, priesthood, resurrection, and heavenly offering. The second goat, I believe, helps explain His descent into Hades and the defeat of Satan.The scapegoat is the Satan-defeating part of the Day of Atonement.That is the thesis.Blood, Life, and the Logic of AtonementBefore we can talk about the scapegoat, we need to begin with the first goat and the broader logic of atonement.Jacob Milgrom, the great Leviticus scholar, argued that blood functions in the sacrificial system as a kind of ritual detergent. That may sound strange at first, but the logic is biblical. Blood cleanses because blood contains life.Leviticus gives us one of the clearest explanations in Scripture for why blood makes atonement.Leviticus 17:11For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’.The blood is effectual because of the life that is in it.This matters because sin pollutes sacred space. Israel’s sins defile the camp, the tabernacle, and the place where God dwells among His people. If sin leads to death, then it makes sense that life cleanses what death has polluted.This also means that, in the Old Testament sacrificial system, the slaughter of the animal is not itself the whole act of atonement. The animal is slain so that the blood can be obtained. The blood is then applied to the holy place. That application is the atoning act.This is where David Moffitt’s work on Hebrews becomes important. Moffitt has argued that Hebrews does not treat the cross as the whole of Christ’s priestly offering. Christ dies, rises, ascends, and then enters the heavenly sanctuary as the true high priest.Hebrews says:Hebrews 9:11-12But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.And again:Hebrews 9:24For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:On this reading, the resurrection is not an afterthought. Christ must rise because a dead priest cannot enter the heavenly holy place. He must ascend because the true sanctuary is in heaven. He must present His blood because atonement involves priestly application, not merely slaughter.That explains one half of the Day of Atonement.But it does not yet explain Hebrews 2.Hebrews does not merely say that Christ makes atonement. It says that through death He destroys the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil.How does the Day of Atonement defeat the devil?A recent scholarly proposal by Katie Marcar turns to Passover and Exodus imagery. In that model, Satan is like Pharaoh, the realm of death is like Egypt, and Christ leads a new exodus out of bondage. I think that typology is valuable. But it still leaves a mechanism question unanswered.How, exactly, is Satan’s power broken?My contention is that the missing mechanism is the second goat.The Forgotten GoatLeviticus 16 describes two goats.Leviticus 16:8-10And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD’s lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.The first goat is killed. Its blood is taken into the holy place.The second goat is not killed. It is presented alive. The high priest lays both hands on its head, confesses Israel’s sins over it, and sends it away.Leviticus 16:20-22And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.That second goat is not a decorative appendage to the ritual. Leviticus says it is part of the atonement. It bears the people’s sins away.So if Christ fulfills the Day of Atonement, where does He fulfill this goat?The New Testament repeatedly describes Christ in sin-bearing language.Isaiah 53:6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.Isaiah 53:11-12He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.2 Corinthians 5:21For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.1 Peter 2:24Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.Hebrews 9:28So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.This is scapegoat language.Christ does not merely die. He bears sin.The crucial question is where He bears it.The first goat’s blood goes up into the holy place. The second goat goes out, away from the camp, into the wilderness, to Azazel.If Hebrews’ heavenly sanctuary is a real place, and Christ’s priestly ascent is a real movement, then we should at least consider whether the scapegoat movement also has a real fulfillment. Not merely metaphorical. Not merely poetic. Real.Christ bears sin outside the camp. Christ descends into the realm of the dead. Christ carries the sins of His people into the domain associated with Satan, death, and accusation.That is where the scapegoat becomes central.Christ’s Descent Was Victory, Not PunishmentThe descent of Christ into Hades is an ancient Christian doctrine. It is confessed in the Apostles’ Creed. It also appears in several biblical passages.Ephesians 4:8-10Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.1 Peter 3:18-22For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.Romans 10:6-7But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)Matthew 12:40For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.Matthew 27:51-53And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.What is striking about these passages is that Christ is not pictured as a victim being tormented in hell. He is victorious. He descends, leads captivity captive, proclaims victory, and emerges with authority.Revelation makes the outcome explicit.Revelation 1:18I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.Before Christ’s ordeal, Hebrews says the devil had the power of death. After Christ’s ordeal, Christ has the keys of hell and death.Something changed.Christus Victor theology has rightly emphasized the victory of Christ over Satan, death, and the powers. But Christus Victor often does not explain the mechanism. It tells us Christ conquered, but not always how.The scapegoat supplies that missing mechanism.Azazel and the Return of SinThe Hebrew text of Leviticus 16 is uncomfortable.Many English translations say the second goat is “for the scapegoat.” But the Hebrew word is Azazel. The lots are cast: one for Yahweh, one for Azazel.That parallel matters.If one goat is “for the LORD,” and the other is “for Azazel,” then Azazel looks less like a vague location and more like a personal being. This is why scholars such as Jacob Milgrom argued that Azazel is best understood as a demonic figure, not merely a cliff or a wasteland.The later idea that the goat was pushed off a cliff is not in Leviticus. Leviticus emphasizes that the goat is presented alive and sent away. It is not sacrificed to Azazel. It is not a gift to a demon. It is a living sin-bearer sent into the wilderness.Second Temple Jewish literature strengthens this connection. I am not treating 1 Enoch as Scripture. But it is an important witness to ancient Jewish thought, and Jude itself quotes from Enochic tradition. In 1 Enoch 10, Azazel is connected with the corruption of the earth.1 Enoch 10:8And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.That line is crucial: “to him ascribe all sin.”1 Enoch also depicts Azazel as bound in the desert.1 Enoch 10:4And again the Lord said to Raphael: Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein.Now Leviticus 16 begins to take on a sharper logic.Why send a goat laden with sin into the wilderness to Azazel?There are two possible explanations.The first is what I call the “trashcan view.” On this view, Israel’s sins are simply being removed from the camp. God’s presence dwells in the midst of Israel, sin pollutes the sacred space, so the sins must be taken outside and dumped far away. Azazel is incidental. The wilderness is the trash heap.The second is what I call the “return to sender view.” On this view, the goat is not merely removing sin from Israel. It is returning sin to its true source. If Azazel is the one to whom sin is ascribed, then the goat is sent to him because the sin belongs to him.This does not mean Israel is innocent in the sense that they never committed the sins. They did. But the ritual transfers the confessed sins away from Israel and sends them back to the one who introduced corruption, deception, and death into the world.In that sense, the scapegoat is not a sacrifice to Azazel. It is a return.“Here is the sin. It is yours.”This is where the scapegoat begins to explain the defeat of Satan.What Is Satan’s Power of Death?If Christ defeats Satan by bearing sin into Hades, we still have to ask why that would defeat him.To answer that, we need to understand the nature of Satan’s power.Hebrews says Satan had “the power of death.” But this does not mean Satan is omnipotent, independent, or equal to God. Scripture consistently portrays Satan as powerful but limited. He acts, but he acts by permission. He has authority, but that authority is bounded.Job gives us one of the clearest examples.Job 1:12And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.Satan may act against Job, but only within limits.Jesus says something similar to Peter.Luke 22:31-32And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.Satan desires Peter, but Christ intercedes.The New Testament also speaks of Satan’s ongoing dominion in the world.2 Corinthians 4:4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.John 12:31Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.Ephesians 6:12For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.1 John 5:19And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.In the temptation of Jesus, Satan even claims that the kingdoms of the world have been delivered to him.Luke 4:6And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.Jesus does not answer by saying, “That is not true.” He resists the temptation, but the claim itself appears to have some real basis.So Satan has authority. But what kind?The first piece is temptation.Satan is called “the tempter.”Matthew 4:1Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.Matthew 4:3And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.1 Thessalonians 3:5For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain.1 Corinthians 7:5Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.Satan tempts.But temptation is not the whole story. He tempts so that he can accuse. He accuses so that he can claim death.That is the chain:Temptation leads to sin.Sin leads to accusation.Accusation leads to death.This is why Satan’s power of death is sin-conditioned. He cannot simply kill at random. He must have a claim. He needs guilt. He needs a record.The biblical connection between sin and death is everywhere.Genesis 2:17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.Romans 6:23For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.Romans 5:12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:Ezekiel 18:4Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.Satan’s power is not raw power. It is juridical power. It is legal power. It is accusatory power.He has the power of death because sinners really are guilty, and death really is the sentence attached to sin.Testing, Temptation, and the Strange Permission of GodThis raises another difficult question.Why would God allow Satan to tempt anyone?Scripture repeatedly presents trials as tests. God does not tempt anyone with evil, but He does permit testing. He permits circumstances in which faithfulness is proven or exposed.Abraham is tested with Isaac.Genesis 22:12And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.Israel is tested in the wilderness.Deuteronomy 8:2And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.Peter says trials prove faith.1 Peter 1:6-7Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.Revelation even describes the devil casting believers into prison so that they may be tested.Revelation 2:10Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.James holds both truths together. Trials come, and they matter. But God is not the author of evil temptation.James 1:2-4My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.James 1:12-13Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.There is a tension here, but it is a biblical tension.God tests. Satan tempts. Sometimes the same event can be described from both angles.David’s census is the classic example.2 Samuel 24:1And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.1 Chronicles 21:1And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.The same event is attributed, in different senses, to God and to Satan. God permits the test. Satan performs the temptation.Even Jesus’ wilderness temptation follows this pattern.Matthew 4:1Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.The Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness. The devil tempts Him there.This is not because Satan is God’s faithful servant from the beginning. The temptation in Eden was rebellion, not obedience. Satan was cursed for it.Genesis 3:15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.But after Eden, Satan’s rebellion creates a terrible new arrangement. Humanity now possesses the knowledge of good and evil. Man’s eyes are opened. Man is accountable. Satan, the deceiver, now has access to weak humanity. He tempts. Humans sin. Sin brings death. Satan accuses.That is his power.The Handwriting Against UsNow we can return to the cross.If Satan’s power depends on sin, guilt, accusation, and death, then the cancellation of sin destroys his claim.This is exactly what Colossians 2 says.Colossians 2:13-15And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.The order matters.First, we are forgiven all trespasses.Second, the handwriting against us is blotted out.Third, the principalities and powers are disarmed.Why are they disarmed?Because the record is gone.The “handwriting” is the record of debt, the charge sheet, the accusatory document. Satan’s power rests on that record. If the debt is canceled, the accuser loses his weapon.This is where the scapegoat mechanism becomes so powerful.Christ bears our sins. Those sins are not His personally. He “knew no sin.” Yet He is made sin for us. He is numbered with the transgressors. He carries what belongs to us.Then He descends into Hades.But in doing so, He is not merely descending as a victim. He is descending as the true scapegoat. He carries the transferred sins into the realm of death, to the one whose power depends upon those sins, and returns them to their ultimate source.The sins are removed from us.The record is canceled.The accuser is disarmed.Satan’s deed claim collapses because the guilt on which it depended has been forgiven, removed, and returned.That, I believe, is the mechanism by which Christ destroys the one who had the power of death.Why Did Satan Take the Bait?But this creates another problem.If Christ’s descent into Hades completed the scapegoat movement and disarmed Satan, why would Satan do it?Why would Satan kill Jesus?Why would Satan take Him into the realm of the dead?Why would Satan participate in the very event that would destroy his own power?The answer must be that Satan was deceived.But deceived how?Some versions of Christus Victor suggest that Satan knew Jesus was sinless but killed Him anyway, not realizing that he had no right to hold a sinless man in Hades. There is truth in that. Satan could not hold the sinless Christ. Christ’s victory in Hades is real.But I think we can go one step further.If Satan’s power is sin-conditioned, then Satan would not knowingly kill a sinless man as though he were guilty. That would be an abuse of his own authority. It would be reckless, and Satan is not stupid.A more plausible explanation is that Satan believed he had finally succeeded in bringing Jesus under sin.He misread imputed sin as personal guilt.He saw sin on Christ and thought it was Christ’s own.That was the trap.Satan’s Campaign Against JesusFrom the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, Satan tries to tempt Him.Matthew 4:1Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.The temptation fails. But Luke adds an important detail.Luke 4:13And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.Satan does not give up. He leaves until a more opportune time.This makes sense. Satan knows the promise of Genesis 3:15. He knows that the seed of the woman will crush his head. When Jesus appears, Satan recognizes a threat. If he can get Jesus to sin, he can bring Him under the same death power as everyone else.That is Satan’s ordinary strategy.Tempt.Accuse.Kill.But Jesus does not sin.The Gospels repeatedly show people attempting to kill Jesus before His hour has come, and they cannot do it. Sometimes they try to stone Him. Sometimes they try to throw Him from a cliff. But He passes through their midst. His hour had not yet come.Those failed attempts may have taught Satan something. If Jesus says things that would be blasphemous if He were not who He claimed to be, and yet death cannot touch Him, then perhaps those things are not blasphemy. If Jesus acts on the Sabbath in ways that would be unlawful if He were not Lord of the Sabbath, and yet He remains untouchable, then perhaps He truly is Lord of the Sabbath.Satan’s direct campaign fails.So, I suggest, he turns to an indirect one.The Judas GambitThis part of the argument is more speculative. It is not necessary to accept this in order to accept the larger scapegoat thesis. The core claim is that Christ defeats Satan through the scapegoat mechanism: He bears sin, descends into Hades, returns sin to its source, cancels the record, and disarms the accuser.The Judas piece is an attempt to explain how Satan may have misunderstood what was happening.Here is the proposal.Having failed to make Jesus sin directly, Satan tries to implicate Him through Judas.Jesus chose the Twelve after a night of prayer.Luke 6:12-13And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles;If one of those chosen disciples becomes a traitor, Satan may think he has found an angle. Perhaps Jesus chose wrongly. Perhaps Jesus failed to hear the Father. Perhaps the betrayal of Judas can be charged back to Jesus’ account.But the Gospel of John repeatedly insists that Jesus knew about Judas from the beginning.John 6:64But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.John 6:70Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?John 13:11For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.John 13:18I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.John 17:12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.John seems very concerned to tell us that Judas was not a mistake.Jesus did not choose wrongly. He knew. The betrayal itself fulfilled Scripture.That matters because it answers the very charge Satan may have hoped to bring.Satan enters Judas personally.Luke 22:3-6Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them.And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money.And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude.John also says:John 13:27And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.Why does Satan enter Judas?It is not merely to locate Jesus. Jesus often went to Gethsemane. The authorities could have found Him. Judas had already agreed to betray Him before Satan entered him in this final way.The point was not merely location.The point was betrayal.The kiss mattered.In Satan’s mind, the betrayal may have been the mechanism by which he thought he had finally compromised Jesus.Gethsemane and Imputed SinThe timing is fascinating.Satan enters Judas at the Last Supper. Judas departs. Then comes Gethsemane. Then Judas returns with the soldiers.Gethsemane is bracketed by Judas.This suggests that something crucial happens in the garden.I am not saying the cross is unimportant. Of course not. Christ bears our sins on the tree. But I am suggesting that the imputation of sin may begin in Gethsemane.There, Jesus is overwhelmed.Matthew 26:38Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.John gives us a similar window into the anguish of that hour.John 12:27Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.And in the same context:John 12:31Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.The ruler of this world is being cast out.The question is how.If the scapegoat thesis is correct, then Gethsemane may be the moment when the sins of the world are placed upon Christ. Satan, returning in Judas, sees Christ under the weight of sin and misreads it. He thinks it is personal guilt. He thinks his Judas gambit has worked.There is at least biblical precedent for sin or iniquity being visible in a heavenly court setting.Zechariah 3:1-4And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.Iniquity appears as filthy garments in the presence of the accuser.So perhaps Satan sees the sin-bearing Christ and thinks, “He is guilty.”Or perhaps Satan does not see it directly, but infers it from the fact that, for the first time, the execution is allowed to proceed. Before this, His hour had not come. Now the hour has come. The arrest happens. The trial proceeds. The scourging happens. The crucifixion happens.Satan thinks he has won.But he has not won.He has carried the true scapegoat into the realm of death.He has brought into his own domain the sin that will be removed from us, returned to its source, and used to cancel the record by which he held mankind in bondage.The trap is sprung.The Illegal Death of the Sinless OneThis also means Satan killed Jesus unjustly.Christ had no personal sin.The sins on Him were imputed, not His own.Satan mistook transferred sin for actual guilt. He treated the sinless Christ as though He were a sinner. In doing so, he exceeded his authority.There may be a parallel here with Psalm 82, where rulers lose authority because they judge unjustly.Psalm 82:1-7God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.I do not think Satan’s abuse of authority is the whole mechanism of his defeat. The deeper mechanism is forgiveness. Colossians says the record is canceled, and the rulers and authorities are disarmed.Still, Satan’s unjust killing of Christ may be part of the public shame of the powers. They overreached. They judged unjustly. They condemned the Innocent One.And by doing so, they unknowingly completed the very movement that destroyed their claim.The Two Goats TogetherNow the pieces can be brought together.The first goat explains the cleansing movement.Christ dies, rises, ascends, and enters the true heavenly sanctuary as high priest. His blood, His life, is presented in the true holy place. The heavenly sanctuary is cleansed. Atonement is made.The second goat explains the removal and return movement.Christ bears sin. The sins of His people are placed upon Him. He is driven outside the camp. He descends into the realm of the dead. He carries the sins to the one whose power depends upon them, and those sins are removed from us.The first goat goes up.The second goat goes out and down.The first cleanses the sanctuary.The second removes the sins and returns them to their source.The first explains the priestly logic of Hebrews.The second explains the defeat of Satan in Hebrews 2.Together, they form one atoning work.This means the cross cannot be isolated from the resurrection, ascension, heavenly offering, descent into Hades, and harrowing of death. The atonement is not less than the cross, but it is more than the moment of death considered in isolation.The cross is the center, but the whole ordeal matters.Christ dies.Christ descends.Christ rises.Christ ascends.Christ presents His blood.Christ disarms the accuser.Christ takes the keys.Why This MattersThis proposal matters because it gives real content to biblical claims we often leave vague.When Hebrews says Christ destroyed the one who had the power of death, it means Satan’s death claim was broken.When Colossians says the handwriting against us was nailed to the cross, it means the accuser’s record was canceled.When Revelation says Christ has the keys of hell and death, it means the authority of death has changed hands.When Leviticus sends the scapegoat to Azazel, it is not an embarrassing primitive leftover. It is a shadow of Christ’s victory.Christ did not merely suffer under Satan.He deceived the deceiver.Satan thought he was dragging a guilty man into death. In reality, he was receiving the sin-bearing scapegoat. He thought the imputed sin on Christ was Christ’s own guilt. In reality, it was our sin being carried away. He thought the crucifixion was his triumph. In reality, it was the cancellation of the record by which he held mankind captive.This is why the descent into Hades is not a strange appendix to the gospel.It is victory.Christ enters the realm of death, not as one conquered by death, but as the one who conquers it from the inside. He enters bearing sin, but not His own. He enters under the accusation, but not under guilt. He enters the house of the strong man and plunders it.And He leaves with the keys.That is the good news.The accuser has been disarmed.The record has been canceled.The sins have been borne away.The scapegoat has gone to Azazel.And Jesus Christ is alive forevermore. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

If you have ever sat through an Easter sermon and walked away faintly dissatisfied with the explanation of why the resurrection matters, you are not alone. Preachers rightly treat it as the hinge of the Christian faith. Paul says that if it did not happen, we are still in our sins, so it clearly has something to do with the atonement. And yet the reasons usually given for it always struck me as thin.I once thought I understood this doctrine well. After a season of reading (the books are listed at the end), I have come to think my old view was not so much wrong as badly incomplete. The reality is stranger and far more important than I had been taught. Let me start with the three answers you have probably heard, and then build toward what I think is actually going on.Three Familiar AnswersFirst, that the resurrection vindicates Jesus’s teaching. Tim Keller put it crisply: if Jesus rose, you have to accept everything he said; if he did not, none of it matters. I more or less agree, but I would hesitate to make rising from the dead the thing that certifies a teacher’s words. The Antichrist, by my reading, will appear to rise from the dead too. More to the point, I cannot find an explicit teaching in Scripture that says we should believe Jesus because he rose. It feels more like worldly wisdom than a biblical argument. I will give Keller the benefit of the doubt, but it does not get to the heart of things.Second, that the resurrection proves Christ’s death accomplished salvation. John Piper frames it as proof that the death of Jesus was an all-sufficient price, that without the resurrection his death was a failure. In this model the resurrection is essentially a receipt: God’s wrath has been satisfied, so he raises his Son to show the transaction cleared. It is intensely cross-centered, and that is exactly what I want to challenge. The atonement could not have been completed until Jesus rose and ascended. If that is true, then the resurrection cannot merely be proof that the work was already finished at the cross. It is part of the work itself.Third, that the resurrection gives us hope of our own. This is the one you hear on Easter most often and at funerals, and it is the one I fully agree with. Christ is the firstfruits; because he rose, we have solid hope that we will too. But there is far more to say, and the deeper reasons are what I want to walk through.What Is the Atonement, Exactly?Before we can say why the resurrection matters, we have to ask a question most Christians never think to ask. What is the atonement?Most people would answer that it is Jesus dying for our sins on the cross. That is not wrong, but it mistakes the opening act for the whole drama. In the logic of the Old Testament sacrificial system, the death of the victim was never the moment of atonement. It was the preparation for it.This is not a controversial claim among scholars of Israel’s sacrificial system. The slaughter of the animal, by itself, accomplished nothing. Its purpose was to obtain the blood, and the purpose of the blood was to be carried to a sacred place and applied. The application was the atoning act, whether that meant sprinkling blood on the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement or on the various implements of the tabernacle. Leviticus 17:11 is about the only place in the Bible that explains why this works:‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’The operative idea is that the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.. We meet this theme early in Scripture, in the severe prohibition against eating blood. Blood carries life, and that is precisely why it makes atonement. Atonement is fundamentally about cleansing, and life cleanses because what it cleanses is the opposite of life, which is death.Here is the picture, and it is worth holding onto. At the center of the tabernacle dwelt God’s own presence, the pillar of cloud and fire between the cherubim. I take this to be the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit who will one day dwell in the temple of our bodies. The connection is close to one-to-one, and you will not fully grasp what the New Testament says about the Spirit until you see that the Spirit was that pillar of fire.Sin, which leads to death, defiled the place where this presence dwelt. (Leviticus 16:16–19)Atonement was the cleansing that kept it habitable, so that the Spirit would remain in Israel’s midst. When the nation sank into sin and the cleansing lapsed, the presence departed.So in the old system, atonement was not finished until the blood reached the sacred object. On the Day of Atonement the high priest, having first purified himself so he would not die, carried the blood into the Holy of Holies for one purpose: to place it on the mercy seat and withdraw. Until the blood touched that lid, no atonement had been made. Hold that thought, because it is about to do a great deal of work.The Lid of the ArkIf atonement requires blood on the mercy seat, then atonement cannot have been completed at the cross, because there was no Ark of the Covenant at Golgotha. That is not a clever objection of mine. It is the very point the author of Hebrews builds his argument around, and it is why Jesus had to ascend to where the true mercy seat is.The Hebrew name for that lid is kapporeth, from the same root that gives us Yom Kippur. It means, roughly, to atone. The Day of Atonement is the day, and the kapporeth is the place, of atonement. The phrase is almost circular: atonement is made on the place of atonement. The lid is so central that its very name is atonement.The New Testament writers refer to that same object with the Greek word hilasterion. Translated as “mercy seat,” it renders the Hebrew faithfully. Translated as “atonement,” it is also fair, since that is what the word carried. But some translations render it “propitiation,” meaning the satisfaction of a god’s wrath, and that I think is a mistake. Many of the translators, including those behind the King James, were Calvinists for whom atonement simply was the satisfaction of wrath, so substituting one word for the other cost them nothing. It costs us a great deal, because it smuggles a whole theory of the atonement into a word that never meant it.Hebrews and the Heavenly TabernacleThe book of Hebrews was written, in part, to explain how atonement works, and the author is insistent on a point modern readers tend to spiritualize away: there is a real tabernacle in heaven. The one Moses built was a copy and shadow of it. When I have tried to describe this to people, they reach for “in a spiritual sense,” but the writer of Hebrews means something more concrete. The cleansing capable of pouring God’s Spirit out on all flesh, as happened at Pentecost, could only be accomplished by a sacrifice offered not in an earthly sanctuary but in the heavenly original. He grounds this in Moses himself:Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.And he presses it further: Christ entered not the holy places made with hands, the mere figures of the true, but heaven itself, to appear before God for us. Whatever reality you grant the earthly Ark, Hebrews ranks it below the heavenly one, which is the real thing.Around this the author builds a careful case. First he must show that Jesus can be a high priest at all, since he came from Judah, not Levi. His answer is that Jesus belongs to a different and older order, the priesthood of Melchizedek. Then he establishes the real sanctuary above. Then he explains why a new covenant was needed in the first place: the old one was limited at every point, by the mortality of its priests, the earthliness of its tabernacle, the blood of animals, all of which capped how far its cleansing could reach. A greater atonement required a greater priest and a greater place. He brings the threads together in chapter nine:But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us... How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?The whole new covenant hinges on a logical fact: that Jesus is a real high priest, and that there is a real place in heaven for him to do his work. This, I suspect, is what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 15:17, that if Christ is not raised, our faith is vain and we are still in our sins. Read against Piper, the difference is sharp. For Piper the verse means the resurrection confirms a finished transaction. For Paul it means something stronger: you are not forgiven unless Jesus is raised. That can only be true if the dying was not the whole of the atonement. A Christ who died but never rose and ascended is a sacrifice slaughtered but never presented, blood that never reached the mercy seat, an atonement left unfinished.There is one more strand here I want to flag without overreaching. A high priest also maintains the covenant through ongoing intercession, which Hebrews ties to Christ’s endless life: he is able to save completely because he ever lives to intercede. I do not yet understand this aspect as well as I would like, so I will only note the obvious point. A dead savior cannot intercede. The resurrection is the condition of his ongoing priestly work as much as of his finished sacrifice.How Jesus Becomes LordThe second reason runs through the whole New Testament and is easy to miss: the enthronement, the way Jesus comes into his lordship.This is delicate, because in one sense Jesus was already Lord before his ordeal on earth. Yet the New Testament returns again and again, not in a stray verse here or there but as a steady theme, to the claim that through his resurrection he is given something. He is appointed heir. He is declared Son of God with power. The passages are worth reading rather than summarizing, so let me set several of them down.Romans 1:4:And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.The verse ties the declaration to the resurrection. Was Jesus the Son of God before that? Yes, and we will come to it. But notice the qualifier: Son of God with power. Another important passage is as follows:And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. Philippians 2:8-10The hinge is “wherefore.” Paul does not say Jesus was exalted alongside his humbling but because of it. The exaltation is the Father’s response to the obedience of the cross, and a reward genuinely earned cannot be something he already possessed in full. So this is not a return to a position temporarily set aside. It is an exaltation earned through suffering and issuing in a rule acknowledged everywhere, exactly the pattern the argument has been tracing. The one caveat: this need not mean the eternal Son changed in nature. The change is one of office and exercise, which is why it fits Orr’s middle view rather than the stronger claim that Jesus was not Lord at all before Easter.Ephesians 1:20 through 22 makes the same move more fully, speaking of what God accomplished in Christ:Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church.Here the two themes arrive together, resurrection and enthronement at the right hand, and Paul tells us what the new authority amounts to. It is dominion. Nothing in Christ’s nature changed. What changed was the throne and the power that go with it.The picture I keep returning to is a king and his son. In the ordinary course of things the crown prince is royal by birth but does not rule until the old king dies and authority passes to him. They are of one substance; the son will be king; but the power transfers at a moment. The analogy breaks at the obvious place, since God never dies, so instead the Father voluntarily hands the Son all authority, in effect saying, “You take care of it.” And this happens only after a particular sequence: resurrection, ascension, enthronement.Hebrews 5:8 through 9 carries the same logic, that something was gained through the ordeal itself:Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.Whatever else is happening there, the Son who needed nothing nevertheless learned obedience through suffering and then became the author of eternal salvation. The nature held constant; an office was entered. Jesus says it of himself in Revelation 3:21, speaking to the churches:To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.He had to overcome in order to sit down with his Father on the throne. A change comes through the cross.Revelation 4 and 5 dramatize the whole thing. In chapter four the Father sits enthroned, worshiped without ceasing by angels crying “Holy, holy, holy,” surrounded by twenty-four elders, holding in his right hand a scroll sealed with seven seals. Then the scene turns on a crisis:And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.There is weeping in heaven, because no one is worthy. Then comes the resolution, announced by one of the elders: the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed. What John actually sees, though, is not a lion but a Lamb:And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.Before this the living creatures and elders had sung “Holy, holy, holy” to the Father. Now they fall down before the Lamb and sing a new song:Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.The slain Lamb becomes worthy to take the scroll because it was slain, and recieve the dominion of all things. Scholars handle the obvious tension here in different ways, and Peter Orr has usefully mapped them. At one end, Christ is fully Lord throughout and merely lays his lordship aside at the cross, so that the resurrection discloses what was always true without adding anything new. At the other end, the pre-Easter references to his lordship are anticipatory, so that when Jesus accepts the title “Lord” he is claiming what he will only truly hold once he receives the throne; the enthronement is what actually makes him Lord. In between, and this is where Orr himself lands, Jesus is truly Lord beforehand but enters his lordship in a fuller and more real way afterward. The one born Christ and Lord, whose lordship was silenced at the crucifixion, is made Lord and Christ through his literal enthronement at God’s right hand, like a prince who is royal by birth yet not king until the day of his crowning. Nothing changes in his nature, only his coronation.Because he humbled himself to the point of death, God highly exalted him. The resurrection and exaltation let him enter the full reality of his Davidic role.The Spirit Withheld Until the King Was CrownedThe third reason is the most surprising of all. The outpouring of the Spirit was deliberately held back until the King was enthroned.It is not simply that Pentecost had to wait for the cross. Jesus says something stranger than that. He tells the disciples plainly that it is to their advantage that he go away, because only if he departs will the Spirit come to them. Read that slowly. His leaving is not an unfortunate cost that the Spirit’s arrival makes up for. His leaving is the precondition. The implicit claim is bold: the universal outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh depended on Jesus being glorified, ascended, and seated on the throne. The whole case turns on Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, his explanation to a stunned crowd of exactly what they are seeing and hearing.One detail first, because it knits this section back to the first. The flames that rest over the disciples’ heads are not a random sign. The pillar of fire that led Israel through the wilderness and dwelt above the Ark was God’s own Spirit, and that is why fire attends the Spirit here as it did there. What had once filled a single sanctuary now rests on people, and it can do so because the atonement accomplished in the heavenly sanctuary has made them clean enough to hold it. The fire on their heads is the visible sign that the cleansing worked.Peter opens by reaching for Joel: God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh, on sons and daughters, young and old, menservants and maidservants alike. The point is that an ancient and almost impossible hope has finally landed. Under the old order the Spirit came upon a prophet here, a king there, and rested on him for a task. Moses had wished aloud that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that God would put his Spirit on every one of them. The prophets had gone further and promised it: a new covenant, with the law written on the heart and a Spirit set within, so that obedience would finally come from the inside out. The crowd at Pentecost would have known those promises well. Peter’s announcement is that the wish has come true in front of them, and then he tells them precisely how it happened:Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear... Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.The sequence is exact, and every step matters. Jesus is exalted to the right hand. There, in that enthroned state, he receives the promised Spirit from the Father. From there he pours it out, and the pouring is the very thing the crowd can see and hear. And because they can see it, Peter says, they may know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ. The outpouring is not merely a blessing that happens to follow the enthronement. It is the public evidence of it. This is the same Jesus who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, overcame, became worthy to take the scroll, and sat down on the throne. The Spirit falling on the disciples is the proof, visible to anyone standing in Jerusalem that morning, that he is seated.If that inference feels like a stretch built out of one sermon, John states the principle flatly and removes all doubt. Commenting on an earlier promise of Jesus that rivers of living water would flow from the believer, John adds an editorial note:(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)This is as plain a confirmation as the argument could ask for. Why had the Spirit not yet been given? Not because the disciples were unready, not because the time was not ripe in some vague sense, but for one specific reason: because Jesus was not yet glorified. The giving of the Spirit is made directly contingent on Christ’s glorification. And we already know from Peter when that glorification occurred. It was his sitting down at the right hand of God, the moment of enthronement, which could only follow the ascension, which could only follow the resurrection. So John 7:39 supplies the missing link in the chain. Peter shows us the enthroned Christ pouring out the Spirit; John tells us that the Spirit could not come at all until that glorification had happened. The two passages lock together. Pentecost, and I would argue the whole purpose of the new covenant, waited on the throne.Max Turner names the mechanism behind all of this as well as anyone:You cannot pour out the Spirit as the executive power of your reign until you are reigning. The throne must be occupied before the Spirit can flow from it. The outpouring is not a separate event that happens to come after the enthronement. It is the active expression of enthronement itself.There is one last implication, and it is the sharpest. Every one of those prophecies said that God would pour out his Spirit. It was always God’s promise, God’s act, God’s prerogative. So when Peter stands up and says that Jesus has poured this out, he is saying far more than that Jesus is enthroned. He is identifying Jesus as the one doing what only God said he would do. If Jesus is the agent of an outpouring that was always God’s to give, then Jesus stands in the place of God, at his right hand, fulfilling a divine promise as only the Son could. The Spirit at Pentecost is proof of the throne, and the throne, in turn, is a quiet but unmistakable claim to his divinity.Pulling It TogetherThree things, then, that the usual Easter sermon leaves out.The atonement was completed in heaven. In the logic of Leviticus, it was never made at the moment of slaughter but when the high priest carried the life-bearing blood into the holy place and set it on the mercy seat. The cross is the slaughter. Hebrews insists the heavenly sanctuary is a real place, and into it the risen Christ carried himself as the offering. This is why Paul can say that without the resurrection we are still in our sins. A sacrifice slaughtered but never presented atones for nothing.Something happened to Jesus’s status at the ascension. He is made Lord, declared Son with power, given the name above every name, seated with all authority in heaven and earth. The eternal Son did not become something he was not. The King who laid his lordship aside at the cross entered its full and active exercise, a crown prince crowned at last.The Spirit was always meant to be universal. Moses wished for it, Joel promised it, Jeremiah and Ezekiel made it the heart of the new covenant. But a Spirit poured out on all flesh required a universal cleansing, which only the completed atonement could provide, and it required a throne, since the Spirit is how an enthroned Lord rules and stays present to his people.So the cross opens the door, but the risen Christ carries the offering through it. The ascended Christ takes the throne, and from that throne the reigning Lord pours out his Spirit and draws his people into union with himself. Easter is not where the story ends. It is where the risen Christ steps through the doorway into the true sanctuary, and from there reaches back to bring us with him.Further ReadingThe ideas in this post lean heavily on the work of several scholars. If you want to go deeper, these are the books that shaped my thinking, roughly in order of how central they are to what I argued here.David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The technical work at the heart of everything I said about atonement being completed in heaven. Moffitt argues that in Hebrews, Jesus’s death does not by itself accomplish atonement. It is the presentation of his resurrected life and blood in the heavenly sanctuary that does. This is the dense, academic version, but it is the foundation.David M. Moffitt, Rethinking the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. A more accessible collection that gathers and extends his argument, reaching beyond Hebrews into Matthew, Acts, and 1 Corinthians 15, with a foreword by N. T. Wright. If you only read one Moffitt book, this is the one to start with.Patrick Schreiner, The Ascension of Christ: Recovering a Neglected Doctrine. A short, readable book on why the ascension belongs in the gospel itself, not as an afterthought. Schreiner works through Christ’s ongoing ministry as prophet, priest, and king. A great on-ramp to this whole subject if the others feel too heavy.Peter C. Orr, Exalted Above the Heavens: The Risen and Ascended Christ. The source for my discussion of how Jesus “becomes” Lord, and the survey of scholarly views on what changed at the enthronement. Orr looks at the exalted Christ through his identity, his location, and his present activity.Max Turner, Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts. The basis for the third movement of the post, that the Spirit could not be poured out until the King was enthroned. Turner’s line about the Spirit as the executive power of Christ’s reign is drawn from this work.Related ReadingMatthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism. Not cited directly above, but closely connected to the post’s underlying logic that atonement is about life cleansing death. Thiessen shows how the Gospels depict Jesus destroying the forces of death and impurity rather than abolishing the Jewish law. Worth reading alongside the others. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

In this personal podcast, I talk about the death of my wife, Connie, after her battle with a rare and aggressive form of ovarian cancer. I share memories of Connie’s extraordinary life, our marriage, her faith, and the many lessons I learned through suffering, caregiving, cancer, prayer, and grief. I also discuss the realities of the cancer industry, the spiritual nature of trials, and the peace that can come through enduring hardship faithfully.C.E. White Books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/C.E.-White/author/B077V7FVPT This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

This was a impromptu podcast in response to a question I received. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

There are two words that sit right at the center of everything Christians talk about. Two words you’ve heard a thousand times.Gospel. And faith.Every pastor assumes that everybody knows what these words mean.But what I want to suggest to you today is that most of us don’t really know what either of them means.And I don’t mean we’re fuzzy on the details. I mean we’ve gotten the definitions of these words completely wrong.I want to be clear. This is not some fringe idea. The scholars behind this reassessment, people like Drs. Matthew Bates, Scot McKnight, Nijay K. Gupta, N.T. Wright, are not radicals. They are working from the original Greek texts, from the historical context of the first century, and from church history. And they keep arriving at the same conclusions.This presentation will be in two parts. Part One: what the gospel actually is.And Part Two: what faith, that is the Greek word pistis, actually means in context.PART ONE: THE GOSPELFirst, let’s talk about what the Gospel Is NotIf you ask most Christians today to define the gospel, you’re likely going to get one of two answers.The first answer sounds something like this: we are all sinners. We’ve broken God’s law. And because God is holy and just, that sin has to be dealt with. The good news, the gospel, is that Jesus dealt with it for us. He died in our place.And now, if you believe that, if you put your faith in what he did, you are forgiven, you are right with God, and you have eternal life.Those are real things that Scripture more or less teaches.But the argument we’re going to make is that that’s not the gospel. Or at least, it’s not a complete definition of the gospel. And treating it as the whole thing produces real problems.The second common answer to what the gospel is is similar: that the gospel is specifically what happened at the cross, that Jesus died for our sins.Different traditions offer various theories about how his death paid for our sins, but they would say that understanding and believing that our sins were dealt with at the cross is the gospel.The fact that Jesus died for our sins is absolutely part of the gospel.We’re going to see that Paul explicitly includes it in his gospel presentations. But saying the gospel is essentially the story of how the cross dealt with our sin problem, taking that one piece and calling it the whole thing, that’s where we start to go wrong.Both reductions, justification by faith as the gospel, and atonement theory as the gospel, share the same underlying flaw: they make the rest of the ministry of Jesus theologically unnecessary.If justification by faith is the gospel, the four books we literally call the Gospels don’t contain the gospel.Everything Jesus said and did becomes background material. You could construct the entire gospel without ever opening Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.So if those things aren’t the gospel, what is?Start with the word itself. Euangelion, the Greek word we translate as gospel, means good news. Specifically though, it’s the kind of news that gets publicly proclaimed.And in the ancient Greco-Roman world, it had an even more specific meaning. It was the kind of announcement you made when a king won a battle.When a royal heir took the throne. When the political order of the realm fundamentally changed.It was a public proclamation so that the people of that realm would know that everything is different now, that they had a new king.However, in the Christian context I like to think of the gospel this way: you’re trying to convince someone that Jesus is their rightful king, and to do that, you often need to explain the story of Jesus’s royal career, his pre-existence with God in heaven, how he became a man, his fulfillment of these ancient prophecies about the coming king, his death for sins, his resurrection, his enthronement, and his coming return. The four books called the Gospels tell this story because the whole story matters when trying to convince someone that they have a king and that king is worthy of their devotion.For a first-century Jew, part of that case was genealogical. They already knew a king was coming. So you had to show them that Jesus came from the line of David, that he fulfilled what the prophets said, that he was the king that they had been waiting for.If you had to pick a single part of the gospel that best captured this idea, it might be the resurrection and enthronement, because that is when Jesus took his seat at God’s right hand on the throne prepared for him.This is why Hebrews can say Jesus endured the cross “for the joy set before him.” There was something waiting on the other side of his mission on earth. The throne was the prize. The suffering was the path to it.The resurrection and enthronement in heaven was the moment of transfer.Jesus moved from Son of God to Son-of-God-in-Power. And this idea is given prominent place in Romans 1:2-4, which is one of the most clear definitions of the gospel according to Paul:“This gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son who was a descendant of David with reference to the flesh, who was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power according to the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 1:2-4)Then there’s the passage in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul spends at least 25 verses explaining the Gospel. He says that Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures (v. 3), that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day. Paul then goes on to describe at length how Jesus appeared to specific witnesses.After that, he explains why the resurrection matters for his readers, showing how it is connected to their own eternal life. Finally, in verses 24-25, he connects the resurrection to Jesus’s reign in heaven, stating that Jesus must reign until all His enemies are put under His feet.And then there’s Paul’s gospel presentation in Philippians 2:5-11 which says:Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)Paul’s highlights here include the pre-existence of Christ in divine form, his voluntary self-emptying and incarnation as a human being, his life of servanthood, his obedient death on the cross, his subsequent exaltation by God, and his universal lordship over all creation, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.Notice where the story ends in all three of those gospel messages. With Jesus as a ruling, authoritative king in heaven. That’s the climax. Not the cross. The throne.Different people will need to enter this story from a different angle. The guilt-ridden need to hear about the death that cleanses. The enslaved need to hear about the king who broke the powers. The skeptic needs the historical witnesses. The person drowning in meaninglessness needs to know history has a king and a destination.The entry point varies. But the destination is always the same: Jesus is the rightful king of the universe, not one option among many, but the actual Lord to whom every life is accountable.PART TWO: WHAT IS FAITH?But now that we know what the gospel actually is, we need to know how do we respond to it? And that brings us to Part Two of this presentation: what is the meaning of faith?We know that the correct response to hearing the gospel is faith. We have heard it all of our lives.The problem is, we have forgotten what that word means too, and it is causing significant problems.The Greek word pistis, which is often translated as “faith,” has been so stripped of its original meaning that what most Christians mean when they say “have faith” has very little to do with what Paul meant when he wrote the word pistis.Here’s how Matthew Bates, author of Salvation by Allegiance Alone and Gospel Allegiance, puts it: pistis, generally rendered as faith or belief, as it pertains to Christian salvation, quite simply has little correlation with faith and belief as these words are generally understood and used in contemporary Christian culture, and much to do with what we think of as “allegiance.”Now, an important clarification before we go any further. Nobody is arguing that pistis means allegiance in every single place it appears in the New Testament. The word has a genuine range of meaning, and most of those meanings are perfectly captured by our English words.When a leper comes to Jesus and says I believe you can heal me, that’s trust, that’s confidence, and “faith” is exactly the right translation. When Jesus says “your faith has made you well,” nobody needs to redefine anything.The argument is narrower than that. It’s specifically about the salvation passages, the texts where Paul and the other New Testament writers describe what it means to respond to the gospel, what puts you in right standing before God. In those passages, pistis means something far richer than what most modern Christians picture when they hear the word “believe.”As we saw, Matthew Bates, and many scholars agree with him, proposes that the best English translation of pistis in this context is allegiance.Here’s why that word fits. In political and royal contexts, and this is well established in the Greek literature of the New Testament era, pistis consistently carries the meaning of loyalty, fidelity, allegiance to a king or sovereign. The same word your New Testament translates as “faith” was the word Greek speakers naturally reached for when describing a subject’s sworn loyalty to his king.And here’s the thing about Paul: he is always talking about a king.Every single time Paul writes “Jesus Christ,” Christ is not a last name. It is a title. It means the Messiah, the Anointed One, the King.Paul is constantly speaking about the enthroned king when he uses pistis language. The gospel he proclaims climaxes with a coronation. Given that context, what is the most natural meaning of the required response? Not a private internal feeling of trust. Allegiance.Sworn loyalty to the one who has been installed on the throne.In Romans 1:5, Paul describes his entire mission as bringing about “the obedience of pistis” among the nations. Not obedience that follows pistis. Not obedience alongside pistis. The obedience of pistis.That construction only makes sense if pistis already contains loyal commitment within it. You would never say “the obedience of belief.”But “the obedience of allegiance” is completely natural, because allegiance by definition is the kind of thing that produces obedience.So the way to read some of the famous justification passages would be something like this:But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through the allegiance of Jesus the Christ for all who give allegiance.Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through the allegiance of Jesus the Christ, so we also have given allegiance to Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by the allegiance of the Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Gal. 2:16)Now, brothers and sisters, I bring to your attention the gospel that I gospeled to you, which you received, on which you stand, and through which also you are being saved, that is, if you hold fast to the word that I gospeled to you, unless you have given allegiance in vain. (1 Cor. 15:1-2)So what does this resolve?Quite a lot, as it turns out.One of the things that has fractured Christianity into so many competing traditions is that the New Testament seems to require different things for salvation depending on which passage you’re reading. And different traditions have built entire systems on one or two of those passages while quietly setting the others aside.John 3:16 emphasizes belief, while Acts 2:38 calls for repentance and baptism. In Luke 13:3, Jesus warns that unless you repent, you will all likewise perish, and in Romans 10:9, Paul teaches that one must confess with the mouth and believe in the heart. Furthermore, Matthew 24:13 speaks of enduring to the end in order to be saved, whereas James 2:24 states that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.Pistis as allegiance holds all of it together. Because what does genuine allegiance to a king actually include?It obviously includes believing he is who he claims to be. But it also includes turning from your former life, that’s repentance. It includes public declaration of whose side you’re on, that’s confession. It includes following his specific instructions, one of which is baptism. It includes doing what he says, not just nodding along, that’s the works passages. And it includes staying loyal over time, that’s endurance.None of these are separate requirements bolted onto faith. They are all aspects of allegiance to a king.And this also makes sense of something that has puzzled interpreters for centuries. If works are the enemy of faith, why does James say flatly in James 2:24, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”?Now, Paul does contrast faith and works in many places, and he is right to do so. You cannot earn your way into the kingdom. You cannot bring circumcision, or moral achievement to that first moment and use it to purchase access to God.When Paul says we are saved by pistis and not by works, he means the door is open to anyone who will simply bend the knee to the new king. You don’t have to qualify first. You don’t have to clean yourself up first. Allegiance is the only entry requirement.But allegiance is not nothing. It is not a private feeling you have once and then move on. A subject who swears loyalty to his king and then ignores everything the king says hasn’t given allegiance. This is exactly what James is saying when he says:But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? (James 2:18-20)James isn’t contradicting Paul. He is describing what real allegiance looks like from the outside: it produces works, it endures, it obeys. Pistis without works isn’t a weak allegiance. It isn’t allegiance at all.So the tension that has puzzled interpreters for centuries dissolves. Works cannot get you in, only allegiance can do that. But once you are in, allegiance requires works. The same word covers both realities, because that is what loyalty to a king has always meant.So what does this actually look like in practice?If you genuinely have pistis, if you have truly bent the knee to Jesus as your king, then the natural, obvious next move is to go find out what he wants.And here’s where the four Gospels come back in, because this is exactly what they’re for. The Sermon on the Mount isn’t a list of impossible demands designed to show you how badly you need grace.It’s the law of the king. It’s what life in his kingdom looks like. This is what all the earliest Christians believed.When Jesus says love your enemies, turn the other cheek, don’t lust, forgive, he means it. He’s not winking at you. He’s telling you what he wants from his subjects. And if he’s your king, you go and do it. Not by white-knuckling it in your own strength, but through the Holy Spirit he gives you when you come to him.As Jesus himself said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things that I say? The word Lord means master. If he’s your master, you do what he says.Now none of this means sinless perfection. Sanctification is a process. The picture is not that you bend the knee and immediately get everything right. The picture is that the king points to the next thing, and you work on it, and there is grace on the road while you do.Salvation is not a single moment but a journey. God is continuously at work in the believer, progressively transforming them from the inside out. The new birth is the beginning, not the destination. What follows is a life of growth, of the Holy Spirit working in you, of being conformed increasingly to the image of the king you’ve submitted to. That is the normal Christian life as the New Testament describes it.And here’s the good news that gets missed when people hear this framework for the first time: you have an advocate. First John 2 says:“if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”An advocate. Someone pleading your case before the Father. Not because you’ve earned it, but because you belong to him.But repentance comes before the refreshing, not after. Acts 3:19, repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.You must repent. People wait to feel ready. They want the desire to go away before they commit to stopping. But that’s backwards. You draw the line first. You give your allegiance, which includes the relinquishing of the sin that has you in bondage. And then the power to walk in the new direction is given. You can’t ask the king to take away the desire for something you haven’t surrendered to him yet.So here is the gospel, and here is the proper response to it.Jesus is the King of the Universe. He was promised, he came, he lived, he died for your sins, he was raised, and he was installed on the throne. He is reigning right now. And every knee will soon bow to him. The only question is whether yours bows now, willingly, or later, at the judgment.The proper response to that message is allegiance to this king.What that looks like, practically and concretely, is that you go read the Gospels. You find out what he says. You do it. Not by your own power, but through the Holy Spirit he gives you the moment he cleanses you with his blood and forgives every previous sin, every failure, everything, completely forgotten.And if you once knew this and walked away from it, if you’re in the pigsty right now, pointing to some moment in the past as your assurance while your life tells a different story, he’s got his hand out to you too. As long as you have breath in your lungs, that hand is there, but you don’t get unlimited chances. Come back now. Not to a prayer, not to a decision. Come back to the king. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

There’s a kind of honesty that sounds cruel at first but turns out to be exactly what people need to hear.In 1914, Ernest Shackleton reportedly placed an advertisement in a London newspaper for his Antarctic expedition. The ad read something like this: Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. Whether the ad is apocryphal or not, the story endures because it captures something true about human nature — the brutal honesty of it didn’t drive people away. It drew them in. Something in us responds to a call that tells the truth about the cost, because when the stakes are real, the reward is real too.I want to make a similar case here. What I’m about to say might sound harsh — but I think it’s exactly what people need to hear. Life contains real tests. Your choices have real, eternal consequences. The suffering you’re going through right now is the very place where that test is being administered. And the outcome of that test is not just about whether you become a better person or whether God uses your pain for some greater good down the road. The outcome could be about heaven or hell.I genuinely believe that hard truth is actually more encouraging and steadying for the person lying in a hospital bed than anything they’ll typically hear from a Christian trying to explain their suffering. Not because it’s easy — it isn’t. But because it’s real. And people who are suffering don’t need comfortable half-answers. They need to know that what they’re going through actually matters, that there is a real enemy trying to use their pain against them, and that there is a real and eternal reward waiting for those who endure faithfully even unto death.But we need to build the case carefully. So let’s start at the beginning.Everything Downstream of One ConvictionBefore we get to suffering, we have to talk about the theological premise that makes all of this necessary.If once saved, always saved (OSAS) is true, then nothing in this post matters much. Whatever you do, however you behave in your suffering, the end is secured. But if OSAS isn’t true — if free will really matters and your choices genuinely have eternal consequences — then everything changes. Free will, when you actually believe in it, is a serious thing. It’s much more comfortable to believe it’s all going to work out no matter what you do. But if your choices really matter, then the question of what your suffering means stops being merely pastoral or philosophical. It becomes urgent. It becomes a matter of life and death.What the Bible Actually Says About TestingThere are not one or two isolated verses about testing in the Bible. There is a consistent, pervasive, Old Testament-to-New Testament pattern of God explicitly testing people to see what they will do.The Old Testament PatternGenesis 22:11–12 — When Abraham raised the knife over his son and the angel of the Lord stopped him, God’s own explanation for what had just happened was this:“Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”Deuteronomy 8:2 — Moses, looking back on forty years in the wilderness, gives us the interpretive key for that entire season of Israel’s history:“You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”The wilderness, in its totality, was a test. The explicit goal was to find out what was in their hearts — whether they would obey or not. And it’s worth pausing here to remember that many people failed that test catastrophically. The earth swallowed some of them. Others were destroyed. This was not a test with automatic grace for failure. The consequences were real.Deuteronomy 13:3 — On false prophets who might arise and perform signs:“You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”Judges 3:4 — On the pagan nations left in Canaan after the conquest:“They were for testing Israel, to find out if they would obey the commandments of the LORD, which He had commanded their fathers through Moses.”God left nations there — nations that would tempt Israel toward idolatry, toward compromise, toward sin — on purpose, as a test, to see what Israel would do. The surrounding culture is not an obstacle to the test. The surrounding culture is the test.Exodus 16:4 — Even the manna in the wilderness was a test:“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.’”2 Chronicles 32:31 — Of King Hezekiah:“Even in the matter of the envoys of the rulers of Babylon, who sent to him to inquire of the wonder that had happened in the land, God left him alone only to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.”Jeremiah 17:10 — A summary statement from God Himself:“I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”The Book of Job: The Test Laid BareJob is the Old Testament’s most transparent window into why testing happens and what is actually at stake. We get to see the backstage conversation that usually remains hidden.Here is Job: blameless, upright, fearing God, turning away from evil. And Satan comes before the Lord with a charge. The charge is not that Job is a sinner. The charge is that Job’s righteousness is bought — that he serves God only because God blesses him. Take away the blessing, Satan says, and Job will curse God to his face.What is at stake in the book of Job? Exactly one thing: whether Job will sin. That’s it. Everything — the loss of his children, his wealth, his health, the horrific suffering of his body — is all organized around that single question. Will he sin? Will he curse God?And the answer, at the end, is: “In all this, Job did not sin.”Job passes. And I believe one of the reasons he passes — is that what God initially says about him is true, he has a genuine fear of God. He knows, in some form, that sin has real consequences in the afterlife. mThe New Testament Raises the StakesThe New Testament picks up this testing theme and sharpens it.line.James 1:12:“Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”This is an if-then statement with eternity on both sides. Once he has been approved — that approval is not guaranteed. The blessing is conditional on perseverance. The crown of life is what’s at stake.Luke 8:13 — Jesus himself, explaining the Parable of the Sower:“Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.”Jesus is not describing unbelievers who never responded to the gospel. He is describing people who heard, who received the word with joy, who believed. These are people who had a genuine response to the message of the kingdom — and then, in time of temptation, fell away.1 Thessalonians 3:4–5 — Paul writing to the Thessalonians about why he sent Timothy to check on them:“For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction… For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be in vain.”This passage is a remarkable window into how Paul actually thought about suffering and temptation. Notice what he was afraid of. Not that the Thessalonians had become discouraged. Not that they had lost hope or grown weary. He was afraid that the tempter had gotten to them — that Satan had used their suffering as an opportunity, and that their faith had not survived it. And notice what that would have meant: Paul’s labor would have been in vain. Not diminished. Not partially wasted. Vain. Revelation 2:10:“Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”These are Christians. They are going to suffer. They are going to be tested. And the instruction is: be faithful until death. The implication of that instruction is clear — faithfulness is required, and its absence has consequences. The crown of life is not promised to those who simply endure passively. It is promised to those who are faithful in the endurance.The Two Typical Explanations Of Suffering — And What They MissWhen Christians suffer, there are typically two explanations offered, both of them biblical, both of them true, and both of them incomplete.The first is Romans 8:28 — God is going to work this together for good. Something redemptive will come out of this. You don’t know what He’s doing, but He’s doing something. He’s going to use your cancer, your loss, your crisis, to accomplish something good in this world. The second is the refining explanation — suffering is the fire that purifies gold. It is producing something in you. Romans 5:3–4:“We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope.”Both of these are real. Both are biblical. I’m not dismissing either of them.But here is the problem: both of them are almost entirely this-life-focused. God is going to use this for good — for someone, somewhere, in this world. Or: this is going to make you a better, more complete person in this life. The application is horizontal. But we need the third explanation — not to replace the other two, but to complete them. And it is this: this suffering is often a test of whether you will sin in the midst of that suffering or not, and the outcome of that test has eternal consequences.What Is Actually Being TestedHere is something that almost nobody in modern Christianity is talking about: when you are suffering, you are often being tempted to sin. Satan’s weapon of choice is suffering, because suffering is where we are most vulnerable — when everything is taken away, when the body is in pain, when the losses mount and the isolation deepens, that is when the temptations hit hardest.The first and most obvious temptation is bitterness toward God. It usually doesn't start with outright cursing — it starts with a question. Why is He doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this? Where is God in all of this? That spiral, if you follow it long enough, ends in the same place Job's wife ended up: cursing the God who allowed the suffering. Satan will push on this one with everything he has, because it's his easiest win. But when that doesn’t work, he changes tactics. He goes after unforgiveness. In any prolonged suffering event — a long illness, a financial collapse, a broken relationship — there are going to be micro-betrayals. Doctors who make mistakes. Friends who don’t show up. Family members who say the wrong thing. People who were supposed to help and didn’t. And Satan is going to use every single one of those as a wedge.Unforgiveness is not a minor matter in the New Testament. Jesus says it plainly, more than once, if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you. Satan will also come after you with sensuality, with anger, with the temptation to numb the pain in ways that lead to death. He is prowling around looking for whom he may devour, and suffering is his hunting ground.The Hard Truth Is the Encouraging TruthNow I want to come back to where we started. Because everything I’ve said so far might sound grim. Life is a test. Suffering is a temptation mechanism. Your choices matter. Hell is on the line.That sounds like bad news. But I want to argue that it is, in a profound and perhaps surprising way, the most encouraging thing a person in the midst of suffering can hear.The person who is dying of cancer, who has been told by everyone around them that God is going to work this together for good, who has been reassured that God loves them and has a plan — that person is still in pain. And the reassurance, as well-intentioned as it is, doesn’t reach them in the place where they most need to be reached. Because the suffering is not mostly about God’s plan for the world. The suffering is happening to them, now, in their body, in their life, today.But now tell that person the other thing. Tell them: what you do in this suffering matters. Your soul is on the line. Satan is coming for you right now, and he wants you to curse God, to hold on to unforgiveness, to give up. And if you fight him — if you endure faithfully — you will receive the crown of life. And not just the crown of life in some abstract doctrinal sense, but the real thing: an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, something no eye has seen and no ear has heard.Paul says it plainly in 2 Corinthians 4:17:“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”The Narrow Road and the Shape of This AgeLet me say something about the bigger picture, because the testing framework isn’t just about individual suffering events. It’s about what this age — this whole period of human history — actually is.The earth, as originally intended, was not a test, or at least not in the way it is now.Something was disrupted when the enemy entered the picture and death entered the world through sin. What we are living in now — this broken, painful, morally charged existence — is not Plan A. It is the working out of a cosmic disruption, and God is, as He always does, working even that together for good.And the good He is working toward is this: He is choosing people. He is identifying, out of the whole of humanity, those who will pass through the narrow gate. Very few find it. Jesus is explicit about this:“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13–14)This is a choosing ground. That’s what this age is. The ones who pass through — who endure faithfully, who keep their allegiance to King Jesus — they are not just kingdom citizens. They are heirs. Paul says it: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. That is a designation beyond what any of us can fully comprehend.What comes next — what these heirs are being prepared for — is something about which the Bible says: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)Think about what eternity actually means. In eight hundred million years — in ten trillion years — the people who passed through this narrow road, who endured faithfully in this brief and brutal training ground, will still be alive, still be who they are, still be the ones who endured. This age — this whole age — will be looked back on as the early days. The mythical time when a cosmic rebellion happened and God, rather than simply undoing it, used it to call out a people for Himself. And not just any people — heirs. Sons and daughters. Those who passed through something the angels never faced: a free will gauntlet, a world filled with suffering and temptation and real consequences.There is reason to think that what comes out of this age is something greater than what existed before it — beings who are not merely created righteous, but proven righteous. Who chose God when they didn't have to. That may be precisely why Paul says we will judge angels.What Faithfully Enduring Through Suffering Actually Looks LikeI want to be specific about what it means to endure faithfully, because it is not passive. It is not gritting your teeth and surviving. It is active warfare.When Satan comes at you and tells you to hate the person who wronged you: you love them instead. You forgive them. Not because it feels good — it won’t — but because you know what is at stake. When Satan comes at you and tells you to start drinking again, to give in to whatever the flesh is drawn toward in the darkness: you resist him. James 4:7: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” That promise is real, and it is for people who are fighting, not coasting.The Gospel of the King and the Only Response That Makes SenseAll of this leads back to the gospel — the actual gospel, not the reduced version.The gospel is not primarily “Jesus died so your sins are forgiven.” That is part of it. But the full announcement is: Jesus Christ is the King of the universe. He has been raised from the dead and enthroned. He reigns. And the appropriate response to that announcement is allegiance — bending the knee, pledging your loyalty to him as King.And if he is your King, then the next thing you do is ask what he wants. You open Matthew. You read the Sermon on the Mount. You hear what the King says about how to live, and you do it, because he is your King and that is what allegiance means.The end of the Sermon on the Mount says it plainly:“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell — and great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24–27)The floods are coming. The winds are coming. Suffering is coming. And the only question is whether you’ve built on the rock of obedience to the King or the sand of believing that it doesn’t really matter what you do.It matters. It matters enormously. And the good news — the genuinely good news — is that you are not alone in the fight. The King knows you are being tested. He has passed through his own test and emerged victorious. He has sent his Spirit as a deposit and a help. He does not want you to perish. He is testing you because he loves you and because he is choosing you, and his deepest desire is that you pass.A Word on Failing Tests — and God’s PatienceI want to make sure I’m not being misunderstood here, because this is important.When I say that these tests are pass-fail and that hell is on the line, I am not saying that if you fail a test, that’s it — you’re done, you’re going to hell. That is not how this usually works. God does not want anyone to perish. That isn’t a platitude — it’s a theological conviction that shapes everything about how He deals with us. He is patient. He is long-suffering. And because of that, He keeps sending tests. He keeps giving opportunities. He is, in a very real sense, rooting for you to pass.Think about Israel in the wilderness. They failed constantly. They failed spectacularly. And God kept working with them, kept pursuing them, kept offering another chance. The tests didn’t stop after the first failure, or the fifth, or the fiftieth.But here’s the other side of that: there are only so many years in your life. There are only so many opportunities. A life is a finite thing, and eventually the tests stop This is why the urgency matters. Not because one failure condemns you, but because patterns form, and habits harden, and the person who keeps failing the same test — who keeps choosing sin when the pressure comes — is moving in a direction. And that direction has a destination. The good news is that you can change direction at any point. The door is open. But it will not be open forever.So if you have been failing your tests — if suffering has made you bitter, if you have been holding onto unforgiveness, if you have been running toward sin instead of away from it — this is not a eulogy. This is a warning with an invitation attached. God is still testing you because He still wants you to pass. The fact that you are still here, still reading this, is itself evidence of His patience.Don’t waste it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

A deep dive into the gospel, allegiance, and why understanding one Greek word resolves some of the New Testament’s most perplexing tensions.Most of us think we know what faith is. You believe something. Maybe you trust it. It happens in your head, it’s invisible, and according to a lot of modern Christianity, that’s basically the whole thing — have the right belief in the right moment, and you’re in. But what if the word we translate as “faith” in the New Testament carries a far richer, more demanding, and ultimately more liberating meaning than that?This post is inspired by two scholars who have done substantial work on this question: Matthew Bates, author of Salvation by Allegiance Alone and Gospel Allegiance, and Scot McKnight, author of The King Jesus Gospel. Their thesis — and I think it’s compelling — is that we’ve fundamentally misunderstood both what the gospel is and what faith means. And getting both of those things wrong has enormous consequences for how we live as Christians.First Things First: What Is the Gospel?Before we can talk about faith as a response to the gospel, we have to be clear on what the gospel actually is. Because there’s a good chance your picture of it is incomplete.Both Bates and McKnight argue — and I think the early church would agree — that the gospel is the objective facts concerning the entire career of Jesus as Messiah. That includes:* His pre-existence (he was with God in the beginning)* His incarnation* His death for sins* His burial* His resurrection* His post-resurrection appearances* His enthronement at the right hand of the Father* The sending of the Holy Spirit* His future returnThis is why the four books are called Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — the whole story matters. Paul lays this out explicitly in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8:“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”And in Romans 1:1-4:“Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.”The gospel, in this framing, is the story of how Jesus became the Christ — the Anointed One, the Messiah, the King. If you think about it from the perspective of a first-century Jew, the whole point was convincing them that this man, Jesus, is the promised King. That’s why Matthew’s Gospel opens with a genealogy tracing Jesus back to David. It’s legal evidence for the throne. You’re not just announcing a theology — you’re announcing a coronation.Yes, “he died for our sins” is in there. But notice what Paul does and doesn’t say in 1 Corinthians 15. He says Jesus died for our sins. He does not explain the mechanism of how that death accomplishes forgiveness — no atonement theory is named. What he does do is spend considerable time establishing the resurrection, the appearances, and the reality of the risen Christ. The death is one part of a larger royal story. You could say it’s roughly one-tenth of the total picture.The gospel, then, is everything that convinces you that Jesus is the rightful King of the Universe — the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to whom all power and authority in heaven and earth have been given.So What Does It Mean to Have “Faith” in That King?Here’s where things get really interesting — and where a single Greek word becomes a kind of Rosetta Stone for the entire New Testament.The Greek word translated as “faith” or “believe” throughout the New Testament is πίστις (pistis). Its verbal form is πιστεύω (pisteuo). In modern English, we typically render these as “believe” or “trust” — mental states, things that happen inside your head. You assent to a proposition. You trust that something is true. That’s it.But Matthew Bates argues — with considerable historical and linguistic evidence — that in its first-century context, especially when used in relation to kings and kingdoms, pistis carried a much richer meaning: faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, allegiance. Not a one-time mental event, but an active, ongoing state of being a faithful subject.Bates puts it this way: pistis is better understood not as “faith” in the passive, intellectual sense, but as allegiance — the kind of sworn loyalty a subject owes to a king.The Evidence: Josephus and the Language of KingsOne of the most illuminating pieces of evidence Bates presents comes from the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in Greek roughly contemporaneously with the New Testament authors. In his autobiography, Josephus recounts a moment where he commands a rebel leader to “repent and believe in me” — using the very same Greek root (pistis).The context makes clear that Josephus is not asking for a religious conversion or a change of mental propositions. He is commanding the rebel to turn away from his current course of action and become a loyal, obedient subject of Josephus as his military commander. The “belief” in question was a public declaration of loyalty expressed through obedience. That is what pistis meant in the real-world context of rulers and subjects.When a king announced his reign, the required pistis from his subjects wasn’t merely believing that he was king. It was pledging allegiance to him and demonstrating that allegiance through obedience.Bates also points to passages like Romans 1:5 and Romans 16:26, which use the phrase “the obedience of faith” (hypakoē pisteōs). This isn’t faith plus obedience as two separate things. It’s the obedience that flows from allegiance — the obedience that is inherent to what faithfulness means.How This Resolves the New Testament’s “Contradictions”This is the part I find most exciting, because it resolves what looks like a hopeless tangle of competing salvation requirements in the New Testament. Let me walk through it.The “free grace” camp points to John 3:16:“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”And they say: all you have to do is believe. One mental act. Done.But then the Church of Christ tradition points to Acts 2:38:“Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”And they say: you must be baptized. It’s right there.And then there’s Luke 13:3, where Jesus says:“I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”So now we need repentance.And Romans 10:9:“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”So now we need public confession too.And Matthew 24:13:“But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.”Endurance to the end.And James 2:24:“You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”Works. Explicitly not faith alone.And Romans 2:13:“for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.”Doers, not hearers.So which is it? Believe? Repent? Be baptized? Confess publicly? Endure to the end? Do works?The answer is: all of them, and they’re all the same thing.When you understand pistis as allegiance, all of these passages snap into a unified picture. Bending the knee to Jesus as King — genuinely, not just intellectually — necessarily implies:* Repentance (metanoia — literally “a change of mind/direction”): You turn 180 degrees away from your previous lord (yourself, sin, the world) and toward Jesus as your Lord. Repentance toward God simply means you’ve decided that He is now your King.* Baptism: If you’ve just declared Jesus your Lord and he says “get baptized,” you get baptized. That’s what allegiance means. You do what the king says.* Public confession: Pledging allegiance to a king was always a public act. You don’t whisper it privately. You declare it.* Endurance: Allegiance is not a one-time event. A knight who pledged fealty to a king and then switched sides two years later wasn’t a faithful subject — he was a traitor. Enduring to the end is what faithfulness looks like over a lifetime.* Works: If you call someone your Lord but never do anything he says, you don’t actually think he’s your Lord. Jesus makes this point with devastating clarity in Luke 6:46:“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”James is making the exact same point: works aren’t an addition to faith; they’re the evidence of it. Faith without works is dead because faithfulness without action isn’t faithfulness at all.The Luther ProblemAt this point, you might be wondering: why haven’t we always understood it this way? The answer involves one towering historical figure: Martin Luther.Luther’s great contribution to Western Christianity — the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide) — was forged in polemical reaction to a corrupt Catholic system of indulgences and purchased merit. And in many ways, he was right to push back on that system. But in doing so, he overcorrected in a way that has shaped Protestant Christianity to this day.Luther essentially taught that when Jesus gave his commands — love your enemies, sell what you have, keep my commandments — he was using them to show us how impossible obedience is, so that we’d give up on works altogether and rest in grace alone. It’s as if Jesus was winking at us when he said “do this” — what he really meant was “you can’t do this, so stop trying.”Luther went so far as to say that even teaching that Jesus’s commandments need to be obeyed is itself a sin. His theology systematically disarmed the church from taking Jesus’s own words seriously as instructions for living.This is not a small thing. If the King issues commands, and you tell people the King was winking when he gave them, you’ve fundamentally undermined the entire concept of allegiance. You’ve made the kingdom a fiction.The deeper issue is free will. Luther followed Augustine (as an Augustinian monk), and Augustine taught that human beings don’t have genuine free will — a position that led directly to the doctrines of total depravity and unconditional election as systematized later by Calvin. If you don’t have free will, you can’t bend the knee on your own. God has to save you first, and then you can have faith. Salvation precedes faith, rather than faith being the moment of allegiance that initiates salvation.This is why Calvinist and Reformed traditions tend to react so strongly against the allegiance framework: it requires free will. It requires that you can actually hear the gospel, decide that Jesus is Lord, and give your allegiance to him. The Reformed tradition says that’s structurally impossible without prior regeneration.It’s also why “once saved, always saved” (or perseverance of the saints in its more technical form) feels necessary in that framework. If your salvation was entirely God’s unilateral act, it can’t be undone. But if salvation is covenantal allegiance — if it’s a real relationship involving real loyalty — then the possibility of breaking that covenant, of ceasing to be faithful, is built in.And the New Testament is absolutely full of that possibility. You can be cut off (Romans 11:22). You can be spit out (Revelation 3:16). You can begin to grow and then wither (the parable of the soils in Matthew 13). You can be a branch that fails to abide and is gathered and burned (John 15:6). Jesus says in John 15:1-6:“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit... If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”A Personal Note: Scales Falling from EyesThis framework didn’t come to me through intellectual argument. It came through a crisis.I had what I genuinely believe was a real salvation experience years ago. Then I learned about “once saved, always saved,” and — I won’t sugarcoat this — I went back to my sins for about ten years. I believed I was safe because I believed I had been saved, and I believed that couldn’t be undone. I had a theological permission slip for continuing in the very thing I needed to be freed from.What broke the cycle wasn’t a Bible study or a debate about OSAS. It was an overwhelming conviction — I believe from the Holy Spirit — that I needed to stop drinking alcohol or I was going to hell. Not “it might not be ideal.” Not “consider whether this aligns with your values.” I was going to hell. And I couldn’t shake it. So I quit. For good.And the morning after I did, I had the same experience I remembered from my original conversion — that same freedom, that same supernatural change of heart. It was like waking up.My wife Connie had the same experience. We’ve talked about it. It was as if we both had scales over our eyes — we knew all the passages about losing salvation, we’d read them dozens of times, but somehow couldn’t see them. And then, suddenly, we could. Not because someone showed them to us for the first time. They were already there. The scales just fell.I believe that’s what spiritual blindness looks like. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:4:“in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”I think one of the ways we keep ourselves blind is by refusing to repent, because we know — somewhere deep down — that genuine allegiance to Jesus would require giving up the thing we love more than him. And so we find a theology that makes that unnecessary.What Repentance Actually DoesThis connects to one of the most practically important things I want to say: repentance comes before the refreshing.Acts 3:19 puts it plainly:“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”The sequence matters. The freedom from sinful desire — the supernatural change of appetite that people call sanctification — does not come and then enable repentance. It comes after repentance. You turn first, and then the power to walk in the new direction is given.This is crucial because a lot of people are waiting to feel ready to repent before they repent. They want the desire to sin to lessen before they commit to stopping. But it works the other way around. You commit to stopping — you draw the line — and then the burden lifts.Start with the biggest one. Not the minor sins, not the gray areas. Start with the sin that has its hooks in you so deeply that you’d almost be willing to go to hell for it. That’s the one the allegiance decision actually costs you. And that’s the one that, when you give it up, opens the door.Jesus says in Luke 9:62:“No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”Don’t start unless you’re willing to go all the way on that one. But when you do — when you make that decision with your whole will — you will find, as I did, that it’s not the burden people think it is.Assurance Without OSASOne thing I want to address directly: if this framework is true, does it mean you can never have assurance of salvation? Are you always white-knuckling it, terrified you might fall?No. And this is important.Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:5:“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you — unless indeed you fail the test?”Assurance comes not from a one-time event in the past — “I said a prayer in 1997” — but from being able to look at your present life and honestly say: yes, I am in the faith. The Holy Spirit is here. I am on the narrow road. I am His subject. I am doing what He says. There is grace for my failures, there is ongoing work to be done, but I am genuinely His.That kind of assurance is actually more secure, not less. It doesn’t depend on correctly remembering a prayer. It depends on a living relationship with a living King.David Bercot tells a story that I find helpful. When he was in college, he got a question right on a test but was marked wrong. He went to the professor, who admitted the answer key was wrong — but said he wasn’t going to change the grade because it would require changing everyone else’s too. Bercot protested. The professor looked at him and said: “Don’t sweat it, Bercot. You’re going to pass the class.”That’s kind of how sanctification works. I’m not going to get every answer right. There are sins I’m still working on, areas where I’m not yet where I need to be. But I can examine myself and know: I’m in the faith. I’m on the road. And there is plenty of grace on this road for those who are genuinely walking it.The King doesn’t present 50 failing grades all at once. He tends to point to the next big thing when you’re ready for it. That’s what sanctification looks like — not perfection, but progress under a patient King who is actually invested in your growth.The Bottom LineThe gospel is the announcement that Jesus is the King of the Universe — the Messiah, the risen Lord, to whom all power and authority in heaven and earth have been given, and who is coming to judge the world.Faith — pistis — is the appropriate response to that announcement: allegiance. Bending the knee. Agreeing that he is your King and that what he says goes. Not just once, not just in your head, but as an ongoing state of faithful obedience.Repentance is what that looks like at the moment of entry — a 180-degree reorientation of your life toward a new Lord.Baptism, confession, endurance, and works are all simply what genuine allegiance looks like from different angles.And the gospel, understood this way, is not a burden. It’s the most liberating announcement in the history of the world: the King of Kings is standing with his arm outstretched, asking if you’ll follow him. Not just acknowledge him. Follow him. And he promises — through his blood, through the gift of his Spirit — to actually change you from the inside out so that you can.As long as you have breath, that offer is open. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

In Part 3 of the Lord’s Prayer series, we focus on the line:“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”This portion of the prayer is often misunderstood, but it turns out to be one of the most practical and powerful parts of Jesus’ teaching on prayer—especially when understood as a daily prayer for strength, protection, and faithfulness.Strength for Today, Not TomorrowOne of the central takeaways from this teaching is the idea that the Lord’s Prayer trains believers to pray for today’s needs, not tomorrow’s anxieties. Just as we pray for daily bread, we are also meant to pray for daily strength. Scripture repeatedly warns against carrying tomorrow’s burdens today, reminding us that each day has enough trouble of its own.When prayer is focused on the present day, it changes how we walk through life. Even small challenges—meetings, difficult conversations, emotional strain, distractions, impatience—become worthy of prayer. This creates a posture of constant dependence on God, not just during crises but throughout ordinary life. Over time, this daily focus builds faith, as we begin to see God’s help in specific, concrete ways.Trials vs. Temptation: An Important DistinctionA key issue addressed in this teaching is the apparent tension in Scripture:* Jesus teaches us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.”* James tells us that God does not tempt anyone.The resolution lies in understanding the Greek word peirasmos, which can mean either trial or temptation, depending on context. Trials are often allowed—and even appointed—by God for growth and maturity. Temptation, however, comes from the evil one, who seeks to use those trials as opportunities for sin.God may allow trials, but He does not tempt. Instead, Satan works within trials, attempting to draw believers into bitterness, rebellion, unbelief, or outright sin. This is why the prayer does not ask to avoid all hardship, but instead asks for protection and deliverance within hardship.A Prayer of Daily Spiritual WarfareThis portion of the Lord’s Prayer is best understood as a daily spiritual warfare prayer. Spiritual warfare is not limited to dramatic encounters or deliverance ministries—it is primarily about resisting temptation. Scripture consistently frames the Christian life as a call to stand firm against the devil by faith, obedience, and reliance on God.When we pray, “Deliver us from the evil one,” we are asking God to:* Protect us from Satan’s schemes* Strengthen us where we are weakest* Guard our hearts and minds in moments of pressure* Provide a way of escape when temptation arisesThis prayer acknowledges that the enemy is real, active, and intentional—and that we need God’s help daily to remain faithful.Job as the Model: Faithfulness Without SinThe Book of Job provides one of the clearest biblical pictures of what is truly at stake in trials. Job’s suffering was extreme, but the central question of the book is not why bad things happen, but why Job does not sin.Despite grief, loss, physical pain, and pressure from those around him, Job refuses to curse God or abandon his integrity. Scripture repeatedly emphasizes this point: “In all this, Job did not sin.” His victory was not emotional strength or composure—it was faithfulness.This challenges the common assumption that spiritual success in trials means feeling peaceful or positive. Instead, the real victory is resisting bitterness, resentment, and rebellion, even when circumstances are unbearable.The “Evil Day” and Spiritual GrowthScripture speaks of seasons called “the evil day”—periods of intense testing that offer the potential for maximum spiritual growth. These moments are not automatically beneficial. Growth only occurs if believers stand firm in holiness rather than giving in to sin.Trials can either refine faith or harden hearts. The difference lies in how we respond. The Lord’s Prayer equips believers for both ordinary days and extraordinary trials by teaching us to seek God’s strength before temptation overwhelms us.Why Resisting Sin MattersThe teaching also explores why Satan is so invested in tempting believers to sin. Biblically, sin leads to death, and death is described as the domain over which Satan exercises power. The mission of Christ was not merely to forgive sins, but to destroy the works of the devil and free humanity from bondage to sin and death.Resisting temptation is not a minor issue—it is central to spiritual freedom. Scripture presents salvation as a transfer from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. Each act of obedience reinforces that freedom; each surrender to sin strengthens bondage.The Heart of the PrayerWhen understood fully, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” can be paraphrased like this:Father, I accept the trials you have appointed for me today, knowing they are meant for my good. But protect me from the evil one who seeks to use them to lead me into sin. Give me the strength I need today to remain faithful.This is not a prayer for an easy life—it is a prayer for victory, faithfulness, and perseverance.Final EncouragementThe Lord’s Prayer is not meant to be rushed or recited thoughtlessly. It is a framework for daily dependence on God, training believers to seek His provision, forgiveness, protection, and strength one day at a time. When prayed with intention, it becomes a powerful weapon in daily spiritual warfare.To stay connected, subscribe to the Vine Abiders Substack:👉 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

In Part Two of our study of the Lord’s Prayer, we turn our attention to one of Jesus’ most challenging and weighty petitions:“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)These words force us to wrestle with forgiveness—not only God’s forgiveness toward us, but our responsibility to forgive others. This teaching explores what Jesus truly meant, how the early Church understood this prayer, and why forgiveness remains central to abiding in Christ today.---What Does “Debts” Really Mean?One of the first questions this passage raises is why Matthew uses the word *debts*, while Luke records Jesus saying *sins*, and many Christians are familiar with the word *trespasses*. When examined closely, these terms all describe the same spiritual reality: wrongdoing before God.A “debt” is something owed. In a spiritual sense, sin places us in a position of obligation before God—an obligation we cannot repay on our own. Jesus’ language emphasizes our complete dependence on God’s mercy rather than our own merit.---Why Do Believers Keep Asking for Forgiveness?A common modern assumption is that forgiveness is a one-time event that permanently covers all future sins. However, Jesus teaches His disciples—already followers—to pray regularly for forgiveness. This implies that forgiveness is not merely a past transaction but an ongoing relational reality.Scripture repeatedly affirms this pattern. First John calls believers to confess their sins. James urges Christians to repent. Jesus Himself instructs His disciples to pray daily for forgiveness. These passages show that repentance and forgiveness are part of a living, abiding relationship with God, not a formality reserved for conversion alone.--- Forgiveness Is Relational, Not Merely LegalThroughout the New Testament, forgiveness is presented as relational rather than purely judicial. God’s forgiveness restores fellowship, cleanses the conscience, and renews intimacy with Him. When sin is ignored or unconfessed, that relationship is damaged—not because God stops loving us, but because sin disrupts communion.Early Church writers consistently affirmed this understanding. Figures such as Clement of Rome, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Jerusalem taught that repentance and forgiveness were ongoing necessities in the Christian life. For them, Jesus’ prayer was meant to be lived, not merely recited.--- “As We Forgive Our Debtors”Perhaps the most sobering part of this prayer is that Jesus directly links God’s forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. This is not an isolated teaching. Jesus reiterates it immediately after the Lord’s Prayer, and it appears repeatedly throughout the Gospels.Unforgiveness, Scripture warns, hardens the heart, breeds bitterness, and places the believer in spiritual danger. Forgiving others is not optional or secondary—it is essential to faithful discipleship. To refuse forgiveness is to contradict the mercy we ourselves depend on.--- The Spiritual Danger of UnforgivenessThe teaching emphasizes that unforgiveness does real spiritual harm. It distorts our view of God, damages relationships, and can lead to drifting away from Christ. Jesus’ warnings about forgiveness are not threats meant to produce fear, but loving cautions meant to keep believers rooted in humility and grace.Forgiveness does not excuse wrongdoing or ignore justice. Instead, it releases our claim to vengeance and entrusts judgment to God.--- Abiding Through Repentance and MercyAt its core, this petition of the Lord’s Prayer calls believers to a life of ongoing repentance, humility, and mercy. To abide in Christ is to remain responsive to conviction, quick to confess sin, and eager to forgive others just as we have been forgiven.Jesus teaches us to pray this way because He desires a living, relational faith—one marked by dependence on God’s grace and love for others. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

In this episode of Vine Abiders, we return to a verse-by-verse study of the Sermon on the Mount, focusing on Matthew 6:9–13 and the first half of the Lord’s Prayer. While Jesus gives many examples of prayer throughout the Gospels, this is the only place where He explicitly commands His disciples, “Pray in this way.” That alone signals that the Lord’s Prayer holds a unique and formative place in the life of the Church.The Context: Prayer That Is Neither Performative nor MechanicalThe Lord’s Prayer comes immediately after Jesus’ critique of two defective forms of prayer:* prayer offered to be seen by others, and* prayer reduced to meaningless repetition.Jesus reminds His listeners that the Father already knows what they need before they ask. Prayer, then, is not about informing God, manipulating outcomes, or earning favor. Instead, it is meant to shape the heart of the one who prays. The Lord’s Prayer functions as a corrective—a way of re-forming piety around trust, dependence, and proper orientation toward God.Is the Lord’s Prayer a Template or a Liturgy?Christians often treat the Lord’s Prayer as a loose template for other prayers. While it certainly contains themes that appear elsewhere in Scripture, the command “Pray in this way” seems to mean more than “pray like this.” The early church clearly understood Jesus to be instructing His followers to actually pray these words.The Didache, one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament, explicitly instructs believers to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. This practice likely grew out of Jewish prayer rhythms, which themselves appear to be reflected in Daniel’s habit of praying three times daily during the exile (Daniel 6:10). The Lord’s Prayer, then, was understood as a fixed, formative prayer—something meant to be repeated, but never mindlessly.“Our Father”: Prayer as a Corporate ActThe prayer begins not with “My Father,” but “Our Father.” Even when prayed in private, the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we approach God as members of a family. Christian prayer is never purely individualistic. The plural language places us within the larger body of Christ and serves as a quiet check against spiritual isolation.Addressing God as Father was itself radical. While the concept appears occasionally in the Old Testament, it was not common in Jewish prayer. Jesus’ consistent use of Father language—and His invitation for His disciples to do the same—signals an unprecedented intimacy grounded in relationship rather than distance or fear.“Who Is in Heaven”: Intimacy Without SentimentalityThe phrase “who is in heaven” balances the closeness implied by Father. God is near enough to hear us, yet exalted enough to answer us. This pairing preserves reverence while avoiding sentimentality. It mirrors the tension found in Jewish prayers like the Kaddish, which hold together God’s nearness and His holiness.“Hallowed Be Your Name”: A Petition, Not a StatementAlthough it sounds like a declaration, “Hallowed be Your name” is best understood grammatically as a request: May Your name be treated as holy. It is a plea for God’s reputation to be set apart, honored, and glorified in the world.This kind of prayer is deeply biblical. Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people regularly ask Him to act in such a way that His name would be glorified among the nations (e.g., Ezekiel 36:23). The priority here is crucial: before asking for anything for ourselves, we begin by aligning our hearts with God’s glory.This petition also invites participation. When we pray for God’s name to be hallowed, we implicitly ask that our own lives would reflect His character rather than obscure it.“Your Kingdom Come”: A Subversive HopeThe request for God’s kingdom to come lies at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. The kingdom was inaugurated in Jesus’ ministry and continues to grow through the expansion of its citizens, even as it awaits its final, visible consummation.Praying “Your kingdom come” is not redundant. It orients our priorities away from personal kingdoms and toward God’s purposes. It also carries an unmistakably subversive edge. In the Roman world, Christians were often viewed with suspicion precisely because they prayed for another kingdom—one that relativized every earthly power.This petition closely parallels language found in the Jewish Kaddish, which similarly asks God to establish His kingdom speedily. Jesus’ prayer, however, places that hope squarely within His own kingdom mission.“Your Will Be Done on Earth as It Is in Heaven”This line expresses daily surrender. It is a conscious rejection of the impulse to bend God’s will toward our own desires. Instead, it trains us to desire what God desires.The phrase also carries eschatological and spiritual-warfare dimensions. Heaven already reflects perfect obedience to God’s will; earth does not. Praying for God’s will to be done on earth is a request for the defeat of rival wills and the advance of God’s purposes. Scripture affirms that prayer matters—“The prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much” (James 5:16). It is not unreasonable to believe that this prayer actively participates in God’s work against the powers opposed to Him.“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”The phrase “daily bread” translates a rare Greek word (epiousios) that appears nowhere else in ancient literature. Its meaning likely points to essential bread—the sustenance necessary for existence.This request echoes Israel’s experience with manna in the wilderness, where dependence on God was daily and hoarding was forbidden. Jesus’ teaching consistently points in this direction: do not worry about tomorrow; trust God for today.Practically, this invites a discipline of bringing concrete, daily needs to God—rather than anxieties about distant futures. Even secular psychology recognizes the relief that comes from “offloading” worries; prayer does this in the presence of a God who actually hears and acts.The plural language again matters. “Give us” invites awareness of others’ needs and calls the believer toward generosity. When we have enough, this prayer can become a request that God would use us to supply what others lack.Finally, Scripture also allows for a spiritual dimension here. Jesus calls Himself the Bread of Life (John 6), and reminds us that man does not live by bread alone. The prayer, then, can rightly be understood as asking for both physical provision and spiritual sustenance—Christ Himself sustaining us day by day.Looking AheadThis episode covers only the first half of the Lord’s Prayer. The remaining petitions—concerning forgiveness, temptation, and deliverance—will be addressed in the next teaching. Together, they reveal a prayer that not only asks God for help, but slowly reshapes the one who prays it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

My new book The Deformation is out: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G5HXNS82 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

This chapter ended up being much longer than normal. It also made sense as a standalone book. So I published it as a Kindle and Paperback book on Amazon called Reading Romans 9 from a Non-Calvinist Perspective by Chris WhiteRomans chapter 9 stands at the center of a significant theological debate—the question of divine sovereignty and human freedom. For many within the Reformed or Calvinist tradition, this chapter is seen as the clearest biblical evidence for their views.The Calvinist Interpretation of Romans 9The importance of Romans 9 for Calvinism cannot be overstated. It is viewed as the foundational text for the doctrine of unconditional election—the belief that God, according to His sovereign will and purpose, chooses to save some and not others, entirely apart from anything foreseen in them, whether faith or works.As The Gospel Coalition summarizes, in Romans 9:“Paul teaches the (Calvinist) doctrine of unconditional election—the teaching that God chooses to save some and not others, not based on anything in them (whether faith or fruit, present or foreseen), but based solely on his sovereign will and purpose.”This chapter is also the main passage that Reformed believers turn to in support of predestination—the belief that God, before the foundation of the world, predetermined the course of all things, from the smallest detail to the greatest events. Human history in every detail unfolds exactly as God has decreed it, and that nothing is a result of independent or autonomous human decisions. As Martin Luther famously wrote in The Bondage of the Will, the idea of free will is a “mere lie.”The Early Church ViewWhile many today associate Romans 9 with the doctrine of predestination, this was not how the earliest Christians understood the passage. In fact, a deterministic reading of Romans 9—one that sees God as arbitrarily choosing some people for salvation and others for damnation—first appeared among certain Gnostic sects in the second century. These groups taught that human destinies were fixed by divine decree, that some were created as “spiritual” and destined for salvation while others were “material” and destined for destruction.Early Christian leaders such as Irenaeus, Origen, and Chrysostom strongly rejected these ideas. They saw the Gnostic-style interpretation of Romans 9—that some were born good and others born evil or damned—as a distortion of both Scripture and God’s character. For the first four centuries of the church, the freedom of the human will was taken for granted. The early fathers—interpreting Romans 9 within the broader scriptural witness—consistently rejected any notion of unconditional predestination that nullifies human responsibility.This was the standard reading in the Greek and Latin churches: divine mercy and human freedom work in concert, and the text was never taken to teach a unilateral, unconditional predestination of individuals to salvation or damnation. It was not until the fifth century that a more deterministic view of Romans 9 gained traction in Christian theology—introduced by Augustine of Hippo, a former Gnostic himself. Augustine’s later writings on grace and predestination drew heavily from Romans 9 and became the foundation for what would later evolve into Calvinist theology.I will be arguing against the Reformed interpretation of Romans 9 by first outlining the major problems I see with that view, and then walking through the chapter verse by verse to address each of the most difficult passages in detail. Before examining Romans 9 though, it’s important to understand what Calvinists believe and why this chapter is central to their system.The Core of CalvinismAt the core of Calvinism is unconditional election—the belief that God, before creation, chose certain individuals for eternal life and passed over others, not because of anything He foresaw in them—no faith, no merit, no decision—but solely according to His own sovereign will.Calvinists insist this choice is not “arbitrary,” meaning random or unjust, but rather unconditioned—based on nothing outside of God Himself. Yet from the human perspective, it is precisely arbitrary in that human actions, faith, or response to God make no difference in the outcome.This unconventional idea is made necessary because of another Calvinist doctrine called Total Depravity, the teaching that humanity is so completely corrupted by sin that no one can even desire God or believe in Him without first being regenerated. According to this view, people are not merely fallen or weak but spiritually dead—incapable of responding to God in any meaningful way.But this was also the key idea of the early Gnostics, who, though using different terminology, taught that humanity was divided between those capable of receiving divine light and those who were not. The early Christians rejected this fatalistic anthropology as heresy because it denied the freedom and moral responsibility of human beings.Calvinists believe that because humanity is so corrupted by total depravity, no one can have faith in God by an act of their own free will. Faith, in their system, is not something a person initially chooses, but something that results from being elected—a choice God made apart from anything the individual has done or ever will do.In short they believe:* If humans are totally unable, election must be totally unconditional.* Calvinists claim to teach “salvation by faith alone” but in reality they teach salvation by election alone, since faith itself is possible only for those whom God has already arbitrarily chosen.Human belief, repentance, or response plays no real role in determining one’s destiny; election is the only thing that matters, and election is something that in their view no one has control over.Sovereignty, Foreknowledge and PredestinationBefore continuing I want to be transparent about the perspective from which I approach this study. I believe that God’s sovereignty and human freedom are not mutually exclusive. The Reformed view often treats God’s sovereignty as if it cancels human will, but Scripture and the early Church fathers consistently present a more dynamic relationship. God reigns absolutely—but He reigns over free creatures, not puppets.Defining SovereigntyEven the word “sovereignty” itself has taken on a new meaning within Calvinism. In Reformed theology, sovereignty is often defined as God’s absolute control over every event—that nothing happens that He has not predetermined. But that is not what the word means.According to Merriam-Webster, sovereignty means “supreme power or authority.” A king, for example, can be sovereign over his country—his rule and authority are unquestioned—yet things can still occur within his realm that he did not personally will or decree. If a thief steals a loaf of bread in his kingdom, it does not mean the king is any less sovereign.Likewise, God’s sovereignty means that He has ultimate authority over creation, not that He predetermines every act that takes place within it. This is not because He lacks control, it’s because it is seemingly His will to rule over creatures with a free will to choose or not to choose Him. To put it another way, God’s sovereign will was to create creatures with free will.Predetermination vs. PredestinationOne of the most important distinctions to make here is between predestination and predetermination.* Predetermination means that events and choice are fixed and caused directly by God.* Predestination, on the other hand, refers to God’s plan or intention—a destiny prepared for those who love Him (Romans 8:28–30).I like to think of it as a father preparing a destiny for his son. Imagine a father who buys his son land, farming tools, and seeds for planting—everything he needs for a good life as a farmer. That future is prepared, even predestined for the son. But the son still has the freedom to embrace it or reject that predestined future. He may work the field as his father intended, or he can squander his inheritance and waste his life in drugs and alcohol. The father’s plan was good, but the son’s choices still mattered.Here are a couple quick verses showing that God’s creatures can reject His will for them:But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John. (Luke 7:30)… How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. (Matthew 23:37b)God’s Foreknowledge and Human FreedomAnother important thing to discuss before we get started is the idea of God’s foreknowledge. Throughout Scripture, God’s “choosing” does not seem to be arbitrary or detached from His wisdom. His decisions seem to flow from foreknowledge—from knowing the hearts of people and how they will respond to His grace:* “Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Peter 1:2).* “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5).* “Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined” (Romans 8:29).God’s sovereignty seems to operate in harmony with His knowledge of the human heart. His plans are never random or unjust; His foreknowledge takes into account who will respond to Him in faith and who will not.The Early Church on Foreknowledge and FreedomThe earliest Christians taught this as well. John of Damascus wrote:“We know that God foreknows all things, but He does not predetermine all things. For He foreknows the things that depend on us, but He does not predetermine them.”God’s foreknowledge, he explained, is timeless awareness, not coercion. He foreknows freely chosen acts as free acts; He doesn’t turn them into necessities by knowing them.John Chrysostom, commenting on Romans 8:29, emphasized that God’s choosing is based on His foreknowledge of human faith.“For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate... He did not merely say, ‘He foreknew,’ but, ‘whom he foreknew,’ i.e., whose willingness He knew before...”Origen likewise wrote:“For it is not because God knows that an event will happen that it happens; but because it will happen, it is known by God before it happens.”Across the early Church, the consensus was consistent: God’s foreknowledge includes human freedom; it does not erase it. This understanding also makes sense of the many passages showing God interacting with humanity in real time:* God tests people and how they respond to these tests actually matter. (Genesis 22:1; Exodus 16:4; Deuteronomy 8:2; 2 Chronicles 32:31; John 6:6; 1 Peter 1:7)* God relents or changes His course in response to prayer or repentance (Exodus 32:14; Jeremiah 18:8; Jeremiah 26:19; Amos 7:3; Jonah 3:10; Revelation 2:5)* God invites all to choose: “I have set before you life and death… therefore choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19; see also Joshua 24:15; Ezekiel 18:30–32; Revelation 3:20).These scenes and many more in Scripture would be meaningless if every human action were predetermined. The God of Scripture is not an indifferent observer of a fixed story—He is an engaged Father, working with His creation, rejoicing over faith, grieving over rebellion, and responding to prayer.Chapter 2The ContextLet’s begin talking about the chapter we will be examining in context. Romans 9 is one of the most complex and misunderstood chapters in the New Testament. It’s challenging for two reasons:Paul builds his entire argument on the Old Testament, and he assumes his readers know it backward and forward. Every time he mentions a line from Scripture he expects his audience to immediately recall the full story and its meaning in context. To follow his reasoning, you have to understand not just the verse he quotes, but what that passage represents in Israel’s history. Without that background, much of what Paul is saying can be misunderstood or oversimplified.Paul writes in a distinctive, question-and-answer style. He often raises an objection, responds to it, and then anticipates the next one. This was a common rabbinic teaching method, and it makes Romans 9–11 read like a lively dialogue between Paul and an imagined objector—sometimes representing a Jewish perspective, other times a Gentile one. At points, Paul clearly states the question he’s addressing, while at other times he assumes the reader has already asked it. If you don’t follow that flow, it can simply be confusing, because the conversation shifts quickly from one question to another without always signaling the transition.The Questions Paul Is AnsweringPaul’s argument unfolds through a series of questions—each reflecting the real concerns of his audience:1. If Jesus is truly the Messiah, why have so many Israelites rejected Him? Wasn’t the Messiah supposed to save Israel and bring light to the Gentiles? How can Israel’s widespread unbelief fit into God’s plan—has His redemptive purpose gone off course? (Romans 9:1–6)2. Has God’s word failed? If the promises were given to Abraham’s descendants, yet most of them do not believe, does that mean God’s word has come to nothing? (Romans 9:6)3. Who, then, is Israel? If physical descent doesn’t guarantee inclusion in the covenant, how do we define the true “Israel” who inherits the promises? (Romans 9:6–9)4. Isn’t it unfair for God to choose some (Gentiles) and reject others (Jews)? Why does it seem He has embraced the Gentile church now instead of restoring national Israel? (Romans 9:10–13)5. Does God’s selective choice make Him unjust? If He shows mercy to some but not to others, is that unfair of Him? (Romans 9:14–16)6. If God hardens Israel’s heart to the truth of the Messiah in order to bring good from it, namely salvation to the gentiles, how can He hold Israel responsible? (Romans 9:17–21)7. Did Israel miss out because they never heard or understood the message? If many Israelites remain unbelieving, is it due to them never hearing the gospel or failing to grasp it? (Romans 10:16–21)8. Has God rejected His people Israel forever? In other words, is Israel’s hardening permanent, or is there still hope for their restoration? (Romans 11:1–12)The Historical ContextAnother aspect that is important to understand before going through this chapter is the historical context. In the first century, this teaching was shocking. Many Jews viewed Gentiles as unclean outsiders—idolaters and moral degenerates. The idea that God would extend His covenant blessings to them without demanding adherence to the Law of Moses was deeply offensive.To put it in modern terms, imagine discovering that God decided to work primarily through a group you completely disagreed with—say, the Democrats—people you believe are wrong about nearly everything. You might say, “But God, they don’t deserve this!” And God might reply, “You’re right—they don’t. But neither did you. I’m doing this because I have a purpose and a plan. Just because you can’t see it right now doesn’t mean it isn’t guided by My foreknowledge and rooted in My mercy.”From the Gentile perspective on the other hand, the situation Paul addresses in Romans would have seemed bewildering. Israel—the people through whom the Messiah came, the custodians of Scripture, the “chosen nation”—had, in large part, rejected Jesus. Worse still, many Jewish leaders were now the chief persecutors of those who confessed Him. To a Gentile believer, this reversal would have looked like a theological crisis: How is it that the very people who awaited the Messiah for centuries have failed to recognize Him? How can God’s chosen people be opposing God’s own Son and His followers? Has the long story of Israel simply collapsed? Has God’s word failed?Reading Romans 9–11 as a Unified WholeBefore proceeding to a verse-by-verse study, it is vital to establish the scope of Paul’s argument. A major error in interpreting Romans 9 is reading it in isolation, cutting it off from the resolution found in chapters 10 and 11. When separated from its context, Romans 9 can appear to be a treatise on fatalism. However, when read as a cohesive unit, the message shifts from fate to faith.The key to unlocking this section is found in Paul’s own summary at the end of chapter 9. He does not leave us guessing as to why Israel stumbled:What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, (Romans 9:30–32)This is the lens through which we must read everything that follows. Israel was not excluded by a secret, pre-temporal decree of reprobation, but by a present refusal to submit to God’s method of salvation: faith in Christ.The Problem of “Hardening”The danger of isolating Romans 9 is most visible in how one interprets the concept of “hardening.” Calvinist interpreters often view the “vessels of wrath” or those whom God “hardens” as individuals selected for irrevocable damnation. In this view, hardening is a permanent, uncaused status.However, this interpretation collapses when we follow the argument into chapter 11. If the “hardened” were truly the non-elect—unable to believe and destined for hell—Paul’s subsequent arguments would make no sense. Paul explicitly describes the hardening of Israel not as a final destiny, but as a temporary, reversible condition used by God to facilitate Gentile inclusion. Paul asks directly:I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. (Romans 11:11)If hardening were permanent reprobation, the answer would have been “Yes.” Instead, Paul argues that this stumbling is a temporary means to an end, and he labors to provoke these “hardened” Jews to jealousy so that he might “save some of them” (Romans 11:14). You cannot save the irrevocably reprobate.But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:13–15)The “If” of OpportunityThe final blow to the fatalistic reading is the conditionality Paul attaches to their status. In Romans 11:23, he writes concerning the hardened branches:And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. (Romans 11:23)This verse proves that hardening is not a fixed identity. It is a condition caused by unbelief, and it is removed by faith. The door remains open.Follow the PronounsScholars such as Günther Juncker and Matt O’Reilly suggest a simple method for testing the coherence of Paul’s argument: “follow the pronouns.” Throughout chapters 9, 10, and 11, Paul consistently uses “they” and “them” to refer to the same group: unbelieving national Israel.[1]If the “hardened” of chapter 9 were a different group than the “beloved” of chapter 11, the grammar would disintegrate. Because the pronouns remain consistent, we know that the very people currently under judgment are the same people invited to return.Chapter 3Romans 9:1-5We will now begin examining the chapter verse by verse starting with the introduction to Paul’s argument in the first 5 verses.I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 9:1–5)The Logic of GriefPaul opens this section not with a cold theological treatise, but with a cry of the heart. He calls upon Christ and the Holy Spirit as witnesses to his “great sorrow and unceasing grief.” This emotional intensity poses an immediate challenge to the strict Calvinist interpretation of the chapter. If, as some argue, Romans 9 is a command to stoically accept God’s sovereign decision to reprobate men for His glory, Paul’s reaction is inexplicable.If God has irrevocably determined the damnation of these Jews for His good pleasure, why is Paul filled with “unceasing grief” over it? As we have already noted, Paul’s grief here fuels his mission in Chapter 11 to “save some of them” (11:14). One does not grieve over, pray for, or attempt to save those whom he believes God has eternally barred from salvation.He would effectively be praying for God’s eternal decree to fail. It is incoherent to argue that Paul views them as “vessels fitted for destruction” by a sovereign decree in one breath, and then weeps and prays for that decree to be reversed in the next.Establishing the Subject: National IsraelThis contradiction creates a logical crisis for the Calvinist interpreter. To resolve it, they are forced to argue that the “vessels of wrath” in the latter half of the chapter are not the same group as the “kinsmen” Paul weeps for in the beginning.In verses 3–5, Paul clearly defines who he is talking about: “my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites.” He then lists their corporate privileges: the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the Law, the temple service, and the promises.This is the crucial anchor for the entire chapter. Paul is explicitly addressing National Israel—the ethnic, corporate people of God.However, because the Calvinist view demands that “vessels of wrath” refers to individuals who are irrevocably reprobated for hell, they cannot allow the subject to remain “National Israel.” As noted, if the subject remains the nation, then Paul is praying for the salvation of “vessels of wrath,” which implies their condition is not irrevocable. Therefore, to save their theology, they must insist that Paul abruptly switches topics mid-stream—abandoning his lament for the corporate nation of Israel to instead deliver a argument on why God picks specific individuals for heaven or hell.This will be discussed in more detail later on.Chapter 4Romans 9:6-10But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “through Isaac your descendants will be named.” That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; (Romans 9:6–10)“But it is not as though the word of God has failed.” (v. 6)Here Paul states the objection he is answering. Many of his Jewish contemporaries believed that if Gentiles were now inheriting Israel’s promised blessings through Christ, then God must have abandoned His covenant with Israel. After all, everything Paul listed in Romans 9:4–5—the adoption, the covenants, the promises, the patriarchs, even the Messiah Himself—belonged to Israel.So how could it possibly be that the majority of Israel was rejecting the gospel, while Gentiles were streaming into the kingdom? Had God changed His plan? Had His word failed?From their perspective, the situation seemed outrageous. Israel had been told for centuries that the kingdom was theirs. The prophets spoke of Gentiles coming to Israel’s light, not Israel being displaced by Gentiles. And the cultural context only intensified the perceived scandal: first-century Jews typically regarded Gentiles as unclean idolaters, “fuel for the fires of hell.” They avoided eating with them, entering their homes, or sharing intimate fellowship.In that world, Paul’s message—that Gentiles were becoming full heirs of God’s promises through faith in Christ—was not merely unexpected; it was offensive. Paul’s point is that God’s plan has not failed. Rather, the assumption behind the objection was wrong: it was never the case that every physical Israelite was automatically a participant in the covenant blessings.“For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” (v. 6b)Here Paul begins to redefine “Israel” in covenantal—not ethnic—terms. If the promises were made to Israel, and yet many Israelites are rejecting Christ, then the question must be asked: Who, then, is Israel?Paul’s answer is both surprising and deeply rooted in the Old Testament: there has always been an Israel within Israel. To prove this, Paul turns first to Abraham’s own household. Ishmael was a physical descendant every bit as much as Isaac. Yet God declared, “Through Isaac your descendants will be named” (v. 7).In other words, the covenant line did not flow through every child Abraham fathered, but only through the one God chose by His promise. Paul then clarifies: “It is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise” (v. 8).This distinction between fleshly descent and promise-based sonship has always been present. The true heirs are those aligned with God’s promise, not merely those possessing Abraham’s DNA. Paul is therefore not undermining God’s promises to Israel. He is clarifying who Israel truly is—and has always been.At the same time, he is grieving that so many of his Jewish kinsmen, though physically descended from Abraham, are not embracing the Messiah and thus are standing outside the very covenant they assumed was theirs by birthright.“And not only this, but there was Rebekah also…” (v. 10)Having shown that Ishmael’s exclusion proves God’s freedom in defining the covenant line, Paul anticipates a possible rebuttal: “Yes, but Ishmael’s birth was irregular—he was born of a slave woman. That’s why he wasn’t chosen.”So Paul brings in a second example—Rebekah. Here the situation is airtight: There is nothing irregular, nothing that could explain the difference between Jacob and Esau on natural grounds. They share the same parents, same lineage, same womb, even the same miraculous promise of conception.And if one wanted to argue that birth order should determine covenant privilege, the example becomes even stronger: God chose against the normal custom by selecting the younger, Jacob. Paul’s point is unmistakable. He strips away every imaginable ground for claiming covenant status by natural privilege—ethnicity, parentage, or birth order. None of these ever guaranteed inclusion in the true Israel.And if that is true, then the situation Paul is describing in his day—where Gentiles enter the covenant through faith while many Israelites reject it—is not a failure of God’s word at all. It is the continuation of the very pattern seen in Abraham’s own family: a distinction within Israel between the children of the flesh and the children of the promise.Chapter 5Romans 9:11-13for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Romans 9:11–13)Paul has already addressed the first objector—the one claiming that being in covenant with God is based on physical lineage. He now pivots to address a second anticipated objection. The objector might think: “Okay, maybe being a true descendant of Abraham isn’t based on physical descent, but surely it must be based on good works. Surely God chooses the righteous over the unrighteous.”In verses 10 through 13, Paul refutes this. His point is that when the twins (Jacob and Esau) were still in the womb, the prophecy was given to their mother that “the older will serve the younger.” This was done so that God’s purpose—specifically His covenantal line—would stand.The Calvinist Stronghold: Verse 11It is at verse 11 that most Calvinists plant their flag. The following 12 verses are the heart of their theology regarding Unconditional Election. To be fair, a reading of this section in isolation can reasonably be interpreted that way. However, I argue that when we follow the flow of Paul’s arguments and look at the context of the Old Testament passages he is quoting, it becomes impossible to believe the Calvinist interpretation.Paul is not teaching that individuals are elected to heaven and hell without consideration of anything they have done (including having faith). As we are about to see, that cannot be the point, because Paul’s main argument throughout the book of Romans is that the reason Abraham and his true descendants are chosen is because of their faith. That is how one becomes part of “True Israel.” And All are called to this high purpose.Faith vs. Works: The Consistent Theme“for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad...” (Romans 9:11)Paul’s main point in mentioning that the prophecy was given before the twins were born is to answer the objection that the choosing of Jacob over Esau was about works. How could it be about works if the prophecy was made before they did any works?I argue that Paul is making essentially the same argument here that he makes throughout the entire book of Romans: Israel missed the call of the Messiah because they were focused on achieving righteousness by works rather than by faith. Paul explicitly summarizes this conclusion later in the same chapter:What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, (Romans 9:30–32)If Paul were teaching Unconditional Election as the sole reason for Israel’s state, he would have summarized by saying Israel failed because they were not chosen. Instead, he explicitly says they failed because of their pursuit by works.The Calvinist DilemmaWhy do Calvinist theologians (like John Piper and R.C. Sproul) insist that Paul is not making his usual “faith versus works” argument in Romans 9:11? They do this to protect the doctrine of Unconditional Election.The Calvinist Stance: Calvinists believe that God chooses who to save based entirely on His own will. He does not look for anything good in the person beforehand—not even their future faith.The Conflict: This is why they cannot accept that Paul is contrasting “works” with “faith” in verse 11. If Paul means that God chose Jacob because He foresaw Jacob’s faith, then God’s choice would depend on something Jacob did (believing). That would destroy the Calvinist doctrine of Unconditional Election.As John Piper argues:“[Paul] did not contrast works with faith, but with ‘Him who calls’ — not even faith is in view here as a condition.”There is a profound inconsistency here. In any other chapter of Romans, a Calvinist would be the first to point out that Paul contrasts ‘works’ with ‘faith.’ But in Romans 9, their theological system overrides the text. Because their doctrine of Unconditional Election cannot tolerate any condition—not even faith—they are forced to deny the presence of Paul’s most famous argument. They must claim that in this one instance, Paul is not contrasting works with faith, but works with an, arbitrary decree.Corroborating Evidence: Romans 4As further proof that Romans 9 is consistent with Paul’s broader “Faith vs. Works” theology, we can look back to Romans 4:11-13. Paul notes that Abraham received the sign of circumcision because of the faith he had while uncircumcised. The purpose was for him to be the father of all who come to righteousness by faith, not through works of the Law.and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised. For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. (Romans 4:11–13)The Crucial Question: Foreknowledge or Arbitrary Will?You might say to yourself: “Okay, I understand that Paul is making the Faith vs. Works argument. I understand the Calvinists reject this because it contradicts Total Depravity and Unconditional Election. But we still have to answer the text itself.”When Paul says God chose Jacob over Esau “not of works but of Him who calls,” what is the mechanism of that choice?* Foreseen Faith: Is Paul saying God chose Jacob because He foreknew that Jacob would have faith and Esau would not?* Arbitrary Decree: Or, as the Calvinists insist, does this passage teach that God chose Jacob for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with Jacob, Esau, or their foreseen actions—an arbitrary decision made before the foundation of the universe?I will try to answer that question while addressing the next passage.“Just as it is written, ‘JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.’” (Romans 9:13) We have now arrived at the epicenter of the Calvinist argument. This is where they insist that Paul is teaching that God loves and hates individual people for no reason other than His own will. For their theology to work, it is crucial that God’s hatred of Esau was not based on anything He saw Esau would do in the future.Because Calvinists believe in “Unconditional Election”—and believe that no one can do anything good (like have faith) without God causing them to have or not have it—they argue that God’s hatred of Esau must therefore be just as unconditioned as His love for Jacob.Context: Israel not IndividualA good place to start refuting this is by considering the broader context and by reminding ourselves that Paul’s main argument here is about a corporate group of people—the Israelites—and not merely individuals.As we saw earlier, Calvinists must reject the idea that Paul is broadly talking about nations because they need this passage to support the doctrine of Unconditional Election of individuals to heaven and hell.If Paul is talking about nations here, their argument collapses. Because later in Romans 11, Paul explicitly hopes that some of those who have been “hardened” (part of the non-elect nation) will be saved. If the “rejection” or “hatred” mentioned in chapter 9 meant an irrevocable decree of individual damnation, Paul could not hope for their salvation in chapter 11.We can demonstrate that nations are in view here by looking at the old testament passage Paul is quoting in Romans 9:12.Romans 9:12 “...it was said to her, ‘The older will serve the younger.’”This is the prophecy given to Rebekah in Genesis 25. When Rebekah asked God why there was turmoil in her pregnancy, God did not tell her “two individuals are in your womb.”The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:23)The struggling in the womb was indicative of the future of two nations: Israel (Jacob) and Edom (Esau). Paul’s readers almost certainly would not have missed the significance of his partial quotation of that passage which has immeasurable significance to the nation of Israel.The Malachi ConnectionThe second proof that Paul is talking about nations, rather than individuals, is found in the specific verse he quotes next: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”This phrase comes from the book of Malachi. This is crucial context because Malachi was written more than 1,000 years after Jacob and Esau had died.Any student of the Old Testament in Paul’s day would have known this. Malachi was not discussing the eternal destiny of two babies in a womb; he was explaining God’s judgment on the nation of Edom (Esau’s descendants) after centuries of hostility. Specifically, Malachi was writing in the wake of Edom’s ultimate betrayal. When Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, Edom did not help their “brother” Israel. Instead, they stood by and cheered, even capturing fleeing refugees to hand them over to the enemy.God’s indictment in Malachi reflects this national history:“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” Though Edom says, “We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins”; thus says the Lord of hosts, “They may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever.” (Malachi 1:2–4)Why does Paul quote this?Paul quotes this verse to vindicate God’s original choice. He uses the end of the story (Malachi) to explain the beginning of the story (Genesis).Paul’s argument seems to be that God possessed foreknowledge of these events. Before the twins were born, God foresaw that the nation descending from Esau would eventually betray the nation descending from Jacob. God’s “hatred” (covenant rejection) of Esau was not a random roll of the dice; it was tied to His foresight of that future treachery.This is why the text says the choice was made so that “God’s purpose... would stand.” God’s purpose was to build a nation that would preserve His word and ultimately bring forth the Messiah. That purpose depended on choosing Jacob (who would become Israel) rather than Esau (who would become Edom). God chose the protector of the promise over the enemy of the promise.Foreknowledge and CharacterEven though Paul’s main point is about nations, we can still apply this to individuals.If you read the Bible’s description of these two twin brothers, one man had faith and was considered blameless and the other did not and was considered a profane man.JacobDespite his faults, Genesis describes him as a “blameless” man (Genesis 25:27). This is a rare word (tam) used to describe uniquely righteous people which was also used of Job when God was commending Job’s righteous behavior. But Jacob’s faith goes beyond just a single word description. We see it clearly in the events of his life:* Valuing the Covenant: While Esau despised his birthright for a temporary meal, Jacob coveted the spiritual blessing. He understood the value of the promise God made to Abraham.* The Vision at Bethel: When God appeared to him in a dream (Jacob’s Ladder), Jacob didn’t respond with indifference. He responded with awe and worship, setting up a pillar and making a vow to the Lord, saying, “The Lord will be my God” (Genesis 28:20-21).* Wrestling with God: Perhaps the defining moment of his life was at Peniel, where he wrestled with God all night. His refusal to let go—”I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26)—demonstrated a desperate, tenacious faith that valued God’s favor above his own physical safety.* The Hall of Faith: Finally, the New Testament explicitly lists him in the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11, noting that by faith, even while dying, he worshipped God (Hebrews 11:21).EsauIn contrast to Jacob, the Bible paints a dark picture of Esau. The New Testament explicitly calls him sexually immoral, and a “godless person”(or a profane man) in Hebrews 12:16. This word describes someone who has no regard for spiritual things and lives only for the moment. We see this lack of faith play out clearly in his life:* Trading the Birthright: Esau famously sold his spiritual inheritance—the right to carry the covenant line—for a single bowl of stew. This wasn’t just a hungry man making a mistake; it was a declaration of his values. He despised the promise of God because he preferred immediate physical satisfaction.* Grieving His Parents: Long before the dispute over the blessing, Esau showed his disregard for the covenant family. Genesis 26 tells us that he married two Hittite women—foreigners who worshipped other gods. The Bible notes specifically that these marriages were “a source of grief” and bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah. He had no interest in maintaining the spiritual purity of the line.* The “Godless” Man: Finally, the New Testament removes any ambiguity about Esau’s spiritual state. The author of Hebrews explicitly warns believers not to be “sexually immoral or godless like Esau“ (Hebrews 12:16). The Greek word used here (bebēlos) means “profane”—someone who tramples on the sacred.While Jacob was flawed but valued the holy things of God, Esau was a man who treated the sacred with utter contempt. He is the biblical archetype of the secular man who lives entirely for the flesh and has no capacity for spiritual reality.It is entirely biblical to say that God foreknew what kind of men these two would be. The Calvinist argues that because the choice was made “before they were born,” God couldn’t have looked at their future faith or lack thereof. But the timing of the choice doesn’t stop God from seeing the future.In fact, when Paul circles back to clarify the status of Israel in Romans 11, he uses this specific word to explain God’s loyalty to His covenant. He doesn’t attribute it to a blind, random decree, but rather links it directly to God’s prior knowledge.God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew…(Romans 11:2a)If foreknowledge is the basis for God not rejecting His people in chapter 11, it is perfectly consistent to see it as the basis for His choice in chapter 9.Conclusion on the ChoiceTherefore, when we look at Jacob, we must conclude that he was not chosen because of his works. He did not earn his position through moral superiority. He was chosen because of his foreseen faith.When Paul says the choice was made before birth “not of works,” he is proving that God didn’t pick Jacob based on a checklist of good deeds or law-keeping. But that doesn’t mean God was blind to the future. God foreknew that Jacob would be a man of faith—a man who would value the promises—through whom the Messiah could come. He also foreknew that Esau would be a man of the flesh who despised those promises.Chapter 6Romans 9:14-15What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (Romans 9:14–15)Paul now transitions to the next objection. In the previous verses he demonstrated that God’s covenantal blessings cannot be claimed on the basis of physical lineage or works. But even if that objection is settled, something deeper presses in upon the mind of the reader—something emotional, ethical, even existential: If God has temporarily set aside Israel while opening the floodgates of mercy to the Gentiles, isn’t that unfair? Doesn’t that make God unjust?This is not a trivial question. Paul has just explained that Israel as a nation, though chosen to bear the Messiah, is largely in a state of unbelief, and that Gentiles—so long considered outsiders—are now becoming the people of God in great numbers. The Jewish objector would naturally respond, “But this looks like God has revoked His earlier commitments. How can this be righteous? How can this be just?”Paul voices that objection himself: “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?” His answer is emphatic, as emphatic as possible in Greek: “May it never be!”But notice how Paul defends God. He reaches back to one of the most important moments in Israel’s history—Moses’ request to see God’s glory—in order to explain not only that God is just, but how God is just.Paul quotes Exodus 33:19: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”Calvinists often read this text as if it meant, “I will have mercy on who I have mercy and I will smite who I will smite,” but that is not what the passage says. Both actions in this verse are positive: mercy and compassion. When God declares His sovereign freedom, what He highlights is not His freedom to condemn but His freedom to be merciful.To appreciate how Paul intends for this citation to function, we need to recall the original setting. Israel had made the golden calf. They were guilty of idolatry immediately after receiving the covenant. God had every reason to abandon them. Moses pleads for the people, and in response God declares:And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” (Exodus 33:19)Before anything else, God speaks of His goodness and His intention to proclaim His Name. This already shifts the meaning of the passage. God is not merely asserting His right to do whatever He wants. He is revealing who He is—His inner character, His Name. And when the next chapter reveals that Name, the emphasis becomes unmistakable.The Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (Exodus 34:5–7)This is the Name of God. It is a list of divine attributes, a revelation of His inner being. And while justice is certainly part of it—He “will by no means leave the guilty unpunished”—the primary thrust is compassion, grace, patience, steadfast love, forgiveness. That is what God wants Moses to understand. And that is the context Paul deliberately pulls into Romans 9.Thus when Paul quotes Exodus 33:19 (I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion) he is not making the point that God arbitrarily chooses some individuals for heaven and others for hell. Rather, he is grounding his argument in the fact that God’s very Name is bound up with mercy, compassion, patience, lovingkindness, and forgiveness. The reason Paul cites this passage is to declare that God’s dealings with both Jews and Gentiles are rooted in that character.God is not unjust—He is merciful.And this is profoundly important for understanding Paul’s larger argument in Romans 9–11. Everything God is doing—whether hardening, showing patience, grafting in Gentiles, provoking Israel to jealousy—is part of a majestic plan driven by mercy. Mercy for the Gentiles, yes. But also mercy for Israel. Paul will later say explicitly:For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. (Romans 11:32)This is the crescendo of the three-chapter argument. But Paul begins laying the foundation here in 9:15 by reminding us that God’s identity—His Name—is mercy. When we keep all of this in mind, it becomes much easier to understand where Paul is going next.The real theme of Romans 9–11 is not God choosing some and rejecting others—it is God’s desire to show mercy. The word mercy appears 8 times in these chapters and only one other time in the book of Romans, and that is not an accident. Paul’s point is that God is not being unfair, because everything He is doing with both Jews and Gentiles comes from His merciful character and his desire to save as many from both groups as possible.And this sets up the next examples Paul uses. When he brings up Pharaoh, and later the potter and the clay, Paul is not changing subjects. He is showing how God can take even human stubbornness and rejection and turn it toward a merciful purpose. God used Pharaoh’s hardness to make His name known and bring freedom to Israel. In the same way, God is using Israel’s current unbelief to bring salvation to the Gentiles, and He will later use the Gentiles’ salvation to bring mercy back to Israel.Chapter 7Romans 9:16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. (Romans 9:16)Paul begins this verse with “So then…”, which signals a conclusion from everything he has argued so far. And what has Paul already demonstrated? That covenant membership is not based on physical descent and not based on works of the law. Instead, the true children of Abraham are those who come to God by faith.Calvinists tend to read this verse as if Paul were saying that salvation has nothing to do with anything in a person—not even their faith—and that God simply selects some individuals for salvation while bypassing others. But as we have seen this interpretation cannot be correct because Paul himself directly tells us the real reason Israel missed salvation, just a few verses later:What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, (Romans 9:30–32)* The Gentiles attained righteousness by faith.* Israel failed because they pursued righteousness as though it were by works.Paul could not be any clearer. The issue was faith vs. works, not “chosen vs. not chosen.” If Romans 9:16 were really teaching that salvation has nothing at all to do with faith, Paul would be contradicting himself in the same chapter.Why Calvinists Cannot See ThisOnce again, Calvinists are boxed out of this interpretation because they believe in total depravity, which teaches that a person cannot have faith unless they are already regenerated. Therefore, they must interpret Romans 9 in a way that removes faith from the discussion entirely. They simply cannot accept that Paul is continuing his normal “faith over works” argument here because it would overthrow the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election.“The man who wills” and “the man who runs”In the flow of Romans 9–10, “willing” and “running” refer specifically to Israel’s reliance on works of the law. No people on earth “willed” or “ran” harder than Israel did. They poured themselves into Torah observance. They sought righteousness through zeal, rigor, sincerity, and effort.And yet Paul says their effort failed because: “…they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.”Israel’s problem was not a lack of activity—it was a lack of faith. They trusted their effort instead of God’s promise. So when Paul says salvation “does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs,” he is saying: Salvation does not come from human effort, religious achievement, Torah observance, or anything a person can do—but from God who shows mercy to those who believe.“But on God who has mercy” — Mercy Connected to FaithThis is important. “Mercy” in this passage does not mean arbitrary acceptance or rejection. Mercy is God’s gracious acceptance of faith as righteousness. It is mercy—not works—that allows God to look upon a believing sinner and receive them as righteous.He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy… (Titus 3:5a)Mercy in Romans 9-11 seems to be related to the concept of salvation by grace through faith. It is not God’s mercy in the sense of random selection; it is mercy as in His willingness to save those who have faith in Him. God’s plan advances because of His mercy, not because of human effort or religious achievement.Chapter 8Romans 9:17-18For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. (Romans 9:17–18)Romans 9:17–18 cannot be understood in isolation. This section is in response to Romans 9:14 which says:“What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?” (v. 14)Paul raises the question of injustice precisely because he has just mentioned God choosing Jacob over Esau (vv. 10–13), which stand as examples of his real point about the Jews and Gentiles. From Esau’s (or Israel’s) perspective, that choice looks like unfairness. But Paul’s point, beginning in v. 14, is to show that God is not unjust, because His purposes—even His acts of choosing and hardening—ultimately serve His merciful plan.This is why Paul answers the charge of divine injustice by quoting Exodus 33:19:“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy…” (v. 15)Paul is grounding his argument not in arbitrary sovereignty, but in God’s mercy. Verses 15–16 are about mercy, not about arbitrary reprobation.So when Paul brings up Pharaoh in vv. 17–18, he is not introducing a new point about unconditional predestination. He is illustrating the very thing he just stated: that God is supremely merciful, even when His actions initially appear severe.Paul’s message is: What looks like harshness (Pharaoh hardened, or Israel being rejected) is actually part of a plan designed to show mercy on both Jews and Gentiles.To see this, we need to track Paul’s logic all the way to his own summary in Romans 11:30–32. Most commentators miss the flow of Romans 9–11 because they do not read the whole 3 chapter argument. But Paul tells us at the end of the argument exactly why God hardened Pharaoh—and why He hardened Israel.For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. (Romans 11:30–32)This is the key to everything:* Pharaoh’s disobedience becomes mercy for Israel* Israel’s disobedience becomes mercy for Gentiles* Gentile mercy leads to Israel provoked to return* Result: God uses the disobedience of each group to bless the otherThis is why the chapter ends with Paul marveling:Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? (Romans 11:33–34)Not the depth of God’s arbitrary decrees, but the depth of His wise ability to weave all things together for mercy, even human rebellion.Paul’s Use of Pharaoh: Not Arbitrary Predestination, but Redemptive Strategy“For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”Two crucial observations come from the original context of Exodus 9:(1)”Raised Up” Does Not Mean “Created.”First, it is vital to notice what the text does not say. God does not tell Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I created you.” The language of “raising up” refers to God allowing Pharaoh to ascend to the stage of history. God permitted this specific man, whom He knew to be proud and stubborn, to obtain the throne of Egypt at this precise moment. God did not force Pharaoh to be wicked; rather, in His sovereignty, He utilized a man He knew would be obstinate to accomplish a global demonstration of His power.(2) The Order of Hardening.Second, the narrative timeline of Exodus reveals that Pharaoh was not a passive victim. Before God ever steps in to judicially harden Pharaoh, the text explicitly states multiple times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exodus 7:22; 8:15, 19, 32).But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not listen to them, as the Lord had said. (Exodus 8:15)Only after Pharaoh had repeatedly steeled himself against God’s command do we read that God hardened him. Thus, the hardening in Romans 9 is not an arbitrary decree from eternity, but a judicial act—a judgment upon a man who had already chosen persistent rebellion.This aligns perfectly with how Paul explains Israel’s hardening later in the letter. Just as Pharaoh was hardened after rejecting God’s word, Paul clarifies that Israel was hardened because they refused to pursue righteousness by faith (Romans 9:32; 11:7–8). In both cases, God’s hardening is a response to human unbelief, not the cause of it.What Paul Is Demonstrating: God Brings Mercy Out of Human RebellionWhy does Paul bring up Pharaoh right after discussing Jacob and Esau? Because he is giving a scriptural example of the very thing he is arguing: that even when God seems to be showing severity (e.g., choosing Jacob, rejecting Esau; hardening Pharaoh), His actions are actually ordered toward mercy.This becomes obvious in Romans 9:22–23, which is Paul’s immediate summary of the Pharaoh illustration:“…What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath…in order to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy…?” (vv. 22–23)Here Paul is explicit: the reason God endured Pharaoh’s rebellion was to display mercy on others. Pharaoh’s stubbornness ended in the deliverance of Israel, the Passover, the Red Sea crossing, and a world-wide proclamation of God’s name. These events became the foundation of Israel’s identity and hope and the announcement of God’s saving power to the nations.Thus Paul’s point is: God’s hardening of Pharaoh was part of His strategy to show mercy on Israel and ultimately on the nations.So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. (Romans 9:18)As we just saw God’s hardening was Judicial based on the actions of Pharaoh, not an arbitrary decree. Before God ever hardens Pharaoh, the text repeatedly states that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exod 8:15; 8:32; 9:34). God’s hardening does not come until after Pharaoh has already entrenched himself in persistent rebellion.This fits exactly with Paul’s own teaching earlier in Romans. In Romans 1:24, 26, and 28, he describes God’s judgment in precisely these terms:* “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts…” (Rom 1:24)* “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions…” (Rom 1:26)* “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind…” (Rom 1:28)And Scripture reinforces this understanding by repeatedly warning people not to harden themselves. The author of Hebrews writes:* “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” (Hebrews 3:7–8).* “…lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13)These warnings make no sense if hardening is an irresistible decree imposed on certain individuals before they ever live. They assume that humans have the real capacity to respond to God’s voice—and that the hardening of a heart is something one can resist or, tragically, choose.Even more, such hardening is not always final. Moving just two chapters forward, Paul explicitly says that Israel’s current hardening is temporary and has a redemptive purpose:For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.” (Romans 11:25–26)The Severity of the Sovereign PrerogativeWhile we have established that hardening often serves a redemptive purpose we must be careful not to downplay the terrifying reality of this judicial act.While judicial hardening is not necessarily permanent (as seen in the potential restoration of Israel in Romans 11), there is an aspect of hardening that can become a fixed, permanent condition—a point of reprobation reached after prolonged resistance to the Spirit of Grace.The author of Hebrews warns of this terrifying possibility in chapters 6 and 10, describing those who have trampled the Son of God underfoot to the point where renewal becomes impossible.This reinforces that the hardening described in Romans 9 is strictly non-arbitrary; it is a direct, judicial response to a lifetime of prioritizing the profane over the holy.The Variable Outcome: Wax vs. ClayThe effect of God’s hardening judgment probably depends on the nature of the “surface” it strikes. As one early church father noted, the same sun that melts wax will harden mud. The difference lies not in the sun, but in the material.A heart that retains a capacity for humility, the pressure of God’s hand (judicial hardening) can indeed lead to brokenness and repentance (melting). But for the obstinate heart, that same pressure calcifies into brittle reprobation.Trusting the Weaver of HistoryTherefore, when Paul asserts, “He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires,” we must read this through the lens of God’s omniscience. Paul is reminding us that God knows the future; He knows the composition of every human heart. He is weaving thousands of threads—rebellion, judgment, and mercy—into a tapestry that displays His glory.The point of verse 18 is that we are not in a position to question His methodology. He knows how to use the temporary hardening of a Pharaoh or a nation to bring about ultimate mercy.Chapter 9Romans 9:19You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” (Romans 9:19)To understand this verse, we must reject the impulse to view it as a detached philosophical question about fatalism. Instead, we must anchor it firmly in Paul’s ongoing argument about the history of Israel, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and the conditions of the Old Covenant versus the New.The Context: Mercy, Hardening, and the Divine PrerogativePaul has just established in verse 18 that God “has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” This is not an arbitrary selection of individuals for heaven or hell, but a description of God’s historical method of dealing with rebellion.* Mercy: Extended to those who pursue Him by faith (the Gentiles and the believing Jewish remnant).* Hardening: Applied to those who stubbornly pursue righteousness by works (the majority of ethnic Israel).God is not bound by Israel’s ethnic heritage; He is free to harden a rebellious people to accomplish a greater purpose, just as He hardened Pharaoh.Identifying the ObjectorThe question, “Why does He still find fault?”, is not coming from a generic philosopher or a hypothetical pagan. It is the anticipated objection of unbelieving ethnic Israel and is based on Paul’s conclusions up to this point.Their objection essentially says: “Paul, if God is using our rejection of the Messiah to bring salvation to the world—if our ‘hardening’ is part of His plan—then we are actually helping Him achieve his goals as you say! How can He blame us for doing something that ultimately serves His purpose?”This mirrors the logic Paul previously dismantled in Romans 3:5–8. There, the objector asks:But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:5–8)In both Romans 3 and Romans 9, the objection is a deflection used by those who refuse to submit to God, claiming that because God is powerful enough to bring good out of their evil, the evil itself should not be judged.“For Who Resists His Will?” — Plan vs. Pre-determinationThe phrase “For who resists His will?” is often misinterpreted as a claim that humans cannot resist God’s commands or saving influence. However, this interpretation collapses under the weight of Scripture, which is replete with examples of humans successfully resisting God’s desires.* “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” (Acts 7:51)* “I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts,” (Isaiah 65:2)* “Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;” (Proverbs 1:24)* “But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing. “They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.” (Zechariah 7:11–12)* “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)Romans 9:19 cannot therefore refer to an irresistible force that controls every human decision. Rather, it refers to God’s overarching redemptive plan (boulēma).Paul’s point is that while individuals like the Pharisees can and do resist God’s moral will (to their own peril), they cannot thwart God’s ultimate objective to save a people for Himself from both Jews and Gentiles.Paul’s point is that God’s plan to bless the world through Abraham’s seed will succeed regardless of human cooperation. However, the fact that God uses human rebellion for His glory does not absolve the rebel of responsibility for that rebellion.Chapter 10Romans 9:20-21On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Romans 9:20–21)In the previous verse, the objector—representing unbelieving Israel—asked a pointed question: “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”Their argument was that if God is going to use Israel’s rejection of the Messiah to bring salvation to the Gentiles (thereby fulfilling His plan), then God shouldn’t blame Israel for that rejection since good came from it. Paul’s response is to appeal to the ultimate metaphor of God making the best of a bad situation: The Potter and the Clay.Unlike the Calvinistic interpretation, which views this as a lesson in unilateral determinism, Paul is alluding to a specific Old Testament story that teaches the exact opposite: The Potter changes his initial plan based on the free will of the clay.The Source Code: Jeremiah 18 and the Spoiled ClayWhen Paul asks, “Does not the potter have a right over the clay?” he is not inventing a new illustration. Any Jewish reader would immediately recognize the reference to Jeremiah 18, the only place in the Old Testament where this specific imagery is developed.To understand Paul’s point, we must look at what happens in Jeremiah’s pottery house. In Jeremiah 18:4, we read:But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. (Jeremiah 18:4)Crucially, the text does not say the Potter intended to spoil the vessel. The Potter began with a plan for a “vessel of honor.” Yet, the clay resisted; it was marred or “spoiled” in his hands.Consequently, the Potter shifted to “Plan B.” He exercised his sovereign right not to throw the clay away, but to press it into a different shape—a vessel of dishonor or common use.God explains the theology of this metaphor explicitly in the subsequent verses, proving that the outcome depends on the “clay’s” response:“At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. “Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it. (Jeremiah 18:7–10)God has the right to change His plan. If the clay spoils (through the pursuit of works and rejection of Christ), God has the right to re-mold them into vessels of dishonor to serve a different purpose (salvation of the Gentiles).Paul’s Own Commentary: The Condition for HonorWe do not have to speculate on whether Paul viewed the “Honor vs. Dishonor” distinction as a matter of free will or fatalism. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul uses the exact same metaphor and explicitly states how one becomes a vessel of honor.Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. (2 Timothy 2:20–21)Paul states that the difference between a vessel of honor (gold/silver) and a vessel of dishonor (wood/clay) is not a secret decree made before the foundation of the world, but whether the individual “cleanses himself” from iniquity, an act of free will.When Paul asks, “Does not the potter have a right over the clay?” he is defending God’s justice in responding to human agency.* In Jeremiah, the vessel is reshaped only after it spoils in the potter’s hand.* In 2 Timothy, the vessel becomes honorable only if it cleanses itself.Therefore, in Romans 9, the “vessels of dishonor” are those stubborn Israelites who, having resisted God’s righteousness by faith, were judicially hardened by the Potter. God found fault (v. 19) because the spoiling was their own doing; He is justified (v. 21) because He has the right to use that spoiled clay to bring about the redemption of the world.Chapter 11Romans 9:22-24What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. (Romans 9:22–24)Having established in the previous verses that the Potter has the right to re-mold stubborn clay into a “vessel of dishonor,” Paul now addresses the historical reality of his day. Why has God allowed unbelieving Israel—who has rejected the Messiah—to continue? Why hasn’t He wiped them out?Paul’s answer is not that God created them for the purpose of hell, but that God is exercising a strategic postponement of judgment to facilitate a greater mercy.The Identity of the Vessels (The Contextual Argument)To avoid abstract speculation, we must identify who these vessels are. Paul does not leave us guessing. In verse 24, he explicitly identifies the “vessels of mercy” as “us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles” (the Church).Logically, the “vessels of wrath” are the counterpart to this group: Unbelieving National Israel.This passage is not explaining the eternal destiny of every human being in history; it is explaining the First Century crisis. The “vessels of wrath” are the Jews who were currently resisting the Gospel. Paul is explaining why God is waiting to judge this “dishonorable vessel” (Israel)—because their continued existence, and the patience God shows them, is the very mechanism allowing the Gospel to spread to the Gentiles (Rom 11:11).Fitted for Destruction: A Self-Made TragedyA careful look at the grammar in these verses dismantles the Calvinist view of “Double Predestination”—the idea that God creates some people for heaven and others for hell with equal enthusiasm. Paul intentionally changes his grammar between verse 22 and 23 to prove that the two groups are not treated symmetrically.Vessels of Mercy (God takes the Credit)In verse 23, Paul uses the active voice. He explicitly says that God “prepared beforehand” these vessels for glory. God is the subject of the sentence; He is the active doer. The grammar leaves no doubt: God is the Architect of salvation, and He takes full credit for preparing believers for heaven.Vessels of Wrath (Man takes the Blame)However, in verse 22, Paul makes a sudden and significant switch. When describing the vessels of wrath, he does not use the active voice. He does not say “God prepared them for destruction.”Instead, the text uses a passive phrasing that describes their state of being: they “were fitted” or “were ready” for destruction. Many scholars note that this reflects the Greek “middle voice,” which implies a reflexive action—meaning they did it to themselves. It could rightly be translated: “Vessels of wrath who fitted themselves for destruction.”This mirrors Paul’s warning in Romans 2:5, where he tells the self-righteous judge, “You are storing up wrath for yourself.” God did not manufacture them for the purpose of hell; they fitted themselves for judgment through their own persistent rejection of the truth.Ripe for JudgmentFurthermore, the Greek word used here (katartizo) carries the meaning of being “fully developed” or “ripe.” It echoes God’s patience in Genesis 15:16, where He waited to judge the Amorites until their “iniquity was full.”Therefore, these “vessels of wrath” are not people born for the purpose of hell. They are people who have resisted God for so long that they are now fully ripe for judgment. God did not create them that way; they became that way through a lifetime of resistance.The Logical Necessity of PatiencePaul states that God “endured with much patience” these vessels. This simple phrase refutes the idea that they were designed for destruction.* The Contradiction: If a Potter designs a pot specifically to be destroyed to show his wrath, he does not need “patience” to endure it. He simply breaks it. Patience implies that the object is acting contrary to the subject’s desire.* The Purpose of Patience: As Paul established in Romans 2:4, God’s patience is intended to lead to repentance.God “endured” Israel’s rebellion for centuries—and specifically during the apostolic age—when He had every right to wipe them out immediately. He held back His wrath in hopes of their return, not because He decreed their fall.“Children of Wrath” is a Reversible StatusIf someone is currently a “vessel of wrath,” are they doomed forever? Paul’s own theology says no. In Ephesians 2:3, Paul describes the past life of believers:“Among them we too all formerly lived... and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”Paul himself was once a “child of wrath” and a persecutor of the Church. This proves that being a “child/vessel of wrath” describes a real exposure to God’s judgment due to sin, but it is not an irreversible caste. It is a state one can be saved from. Therefore, Romans 9 describes the current condition of unbelieving Israel, not their unchangeable fate.Chapter 12Romans 9:25-33As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’ ” “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.” Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” And just as Isaiah foretold, “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.” What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” (Romans 9:25–33)The “Forgotten” Verses of Romans 9It is a common observation that many strict Calvinist expositions of Romans 9 tend to run out of steam—or stop entirely—before reaching these final verses. (For example, John Piper’s The Justification of God, a seminal Calvinist work on Romans 9, focuses almost exclusively on verses 1–23 and hardly addresses the end of the chapter).The reason for this silence is clear: Verses 25–33 provide the inspired interpretation of everything Paul just said.If Romans 9 were about individual, unconditional election to heaven and hell, this conclusion would be incoherent. However, because Romans 9 is about God’s sovereign right to include Gentiles by faith and judge Jews by their works, this conclusion fits perfectly.The Prophetic Witness: Jews and Gentiles (vv. 25–29)Paul first summons two witnesses from the Old Testament to prove that his teaching—that God is saving Gentiles and judging the majority of Israel—was the plan all along.* Hosea (The Call of the Gentiles): Paul quotes Hosea to show that the “Vessels of Mercy” (v. 23) include those who were previously “not My people” (Gentiles). God’s sovereign plan was always to expand His covenant family beyond ethnic lines.* Isaiah (The Judgment of Israel): Paul quotes Isaiah to confirm that the “Vessels of Wrath” (v. 22) correspond to national Israel. Isaiah predicted that despite their massive numbers (”sand of the sea”), only a remnant would be saved.This definitively settles the context. Paul is not discussing the election of random individuals from the mass of humanity; he is discussing the historical destiny of two specific groups: the Gentiles (who are being brought in) and national Israel (who is being judged, save for a remnant).The Grand Conclusion: Faith vs. Works (vv. 30–32)In verse 30, Paul asks, “What shall we say then?” This is his summary statement. He boils the entire chapter down to one shocking historical reality:* The Gentiles: They were not running the race (did not pursue righteousness), yet they won the prize.* Israel: They ran the race with all their might (pursued a law of righteousness), yet they lost.The Crucial Question: In verse 32, Paul asks the most important question in the entire chapter: “Why?”If the Calvinist interpretation were correct, Paul would have to answer: “Because God did not choose them,” or “Because they were not of the elect,” or “Because the Potter secretly decreed their failure.”But Paul does not say that. He gives the explicit reason for Israel’s failure:“Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.”This verse is the “smoking gun” that refutes the deterministic reading of Romans 9. The cause of Israel’s hardening, their becoming “vessels of wrath,” and their exclusion from the covenant was not a divine decree of reprobation, but their own refusal to submit to God’s method of salvation (Faith) in favor of their own method (Works).The Stumbling Stone (v. 33)Finally, Paul explains that Israel “stumbled over the stumbling stone.” This imagery is vital for understanding human responsibility.A stone is an inanimate object placed in a path. To “stumble” implies that the obstacle was there, and the runner failed to navigate it. The Stone is Christ. God placed Christ in Zion as the only way of salvation. Israel fell not because God pushed them, but because they were so focused on their “works” that they tripped over the simplicity of “faith” in Jesus.The conclusion of Romans 9 vindicates the non-Calvinist reading of the chapter. Paul explicitly defines the “purpose of God according to election” not as a lottery of souls, but as God’s sovereign decision to save those who have faith (Gentiles and the Remnant) and to reject those who rely on works (Unbelieving Israel).The “fault” (v. 19) lies with Israel, because the stumbling was the result of their own self-righteous pursuit.Chapter 13ConclusionWe began this journey by acknowledging that Romans 9 is often viewed as the impenetrable fortress of Calvinism—a chapter that seemingly depicts God as a sovereign Puppet Master who arbitrarily selects some for heaven and creates others for hell. However, after examining the text in its historical context, weighing the grammar, and consulting the Old Testament sources Paul quotes, a very different picture has emerged.We have found that Romans 9 is not a detour into fatalism; it is the climax of Paul’s gospel of grace. It is a defense of God’s right to save the world by faith rather than by works.The Great ContrastTo summarize our study, it is helpful to place the two interpretations side by side. When we read Romans 9, we are forced to choose between two fundamentally different views of God’s character and His plan.1. The Basis of Election: Mystery vs. Methodology* The Calvinist View: Teaches Unconditional Election. It argues that God’s choice is based on a secret, pre-temporal decree that has nothing to do with the individual’s faith, character, or choices. In this view, God’s sovereignty is defined by His freedom to ignore human agency.* The Biblical View: Teaches election based on Foreknowledge and the method of Faith. As we saw, Paul argues that the true children of Abraham are those of the promise (faith), not the flesh (lineage/works). God’s choice of Jacob over Esau was not random; it was consistent with His foreknowledge of their character—one who valued the covenant and would end up in the “hall of faith” in Hebrews 11, and one who was “godless”.God is sovereign, but He has sovereignly chosen to save those who believe.2. The Nature of Hardening: Irresistible vs. Judicial* The Calvinist View: Views hardening as a unilateral action where God actively creates unbelief in a person’s heart to demonstrate His wrath.* The Biblical View: Views hardening as a judicial response to persistent rebellion. Just as Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God hardened him , Israel was hardened because they first rejected the righteousness of God in favor of their own works. We saw that the “vessels of wrath” were not created for destruction by God, but “fitted themselves” for judgment through their own obstinacy.3. The Scope of the Plan: Fatalism vs. Hope* The Calvinist View: Often isolates Romans 9, leading to the conclusion that the “vessels of wrath” are the non-elect who are eternally barred from salvation.* The Biblical View: Reads Romans 9–11 as a unified whole. We discovered that the very people currently “hardened” are the same people Paul is praying to save and God is inciting to jealousy. Their hardening is partial, temporary, and strategic—designed to facilitate the salvation of the Gentiles so that mercy might eventually return to Israel.“Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.”The tragedy of Romans 9 is not that God arbitrarily excluded people who wanted to be saved. The tragedy is that Israel refused to submit to God’s method of salvation. They wanted to earn it. They wanted to claim it by birthright. They wanted to be the “vessel of honor” by their own effort. And because they refused to submit to the righteousness of faith, they stumbled over the Stumbling Stone, Jesus Christ.A God of MercyFar from portraying a God of arbitrary doom, Romans 9 reveals a God of mercy. He is a Father who endures with much patience vessels that are ripe for judgment, keeping the door open for repentance.As we close this book, we return to the consensus of the Early Church: Divine sovereignty and human freedom are not enemies. God is sovereign over the plan—the plan to save the world through Christ. But in His sovereignty, He has issued a genuine invitation to all people.The promise of Romans 9 is not that God has predetermined your fate, but that if you stop pursuing righteousness by works and trust in Christ, you will never be put to shame.“Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” (Romans 9:33) This is a public episode. 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We’ve been going through the Sermon on the Mount, and in this post, we’re looking at Matthew 5:43–48: **“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good,and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?Do not even the tax collectors do the same?If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?Do not even the Gentiles do the same?Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(Matthew 5:43–48 NASB)This passage is about how we are to love our enemies — and Jesus tells us that in doing this, we are to emulate God Himself. God causes the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust. He is merciful to those who love Him and also to those who hate Him. While we were still sinners, God loved us — and Jesus tells us that we are to be like that.Our love should be teleios — complete, whole, mature. It should encircle everybody — not just the good people, but the bad people too.Understanding “Love Your Neighbor”Jesus follows a familiar pattern here. He quotes something from the Old Testament Law, then clarifies or corrects a misunderstanding about it.In this case, He begins with “You shall love your neighbor.” That’s a direct quote from Leviticus 19:17–18, which says:“You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart;you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him.You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people,but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.”(Leviticus 19:17–18 NASB)So “neighbor” in this context refers primarily to “the sons of your people” — likely fellow Israelites and Gentile proselytes who had joined the covenant community. In other words, “neighbor” meant people inside the camp.But notice something interesting in Leviticus: “You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart.” That’s a heart-level commandment.Sometimes people think Jesus raised the moral bar when He said that hatred is like murder or lust is like adultery, but the truth is that heart-level commandments have always been in the Law. Even in Leviticus, hatred of another person was sin.And it goes further: “You may surely reprove your neighbor, but you shall not incur sin because of him.” That means correction or rebuke must be done without hate or bitterness. It must be done with love — or not at all.That’s a strong rebuke to those who justify anger as “righteous indignation.” If you hold grudges, harbor resentment, or relish outrage, Scripture says that’s sin. Even if it feels justified, if it’s born out of anger and not love, it’s sin.“You Have Heard It Said... Hate Your Enemy”So what about the second part — “and hate your enemy”?That phrase, “hate your enemy,” isn’t actually found in the Old Testament Law. So what was Jesus referring to?There are two main ways interpreters understand it:Some believe Jesus was referring to the Old Testament’s commands to destroy Israel’s enemies.For example, in God’s instructions concerning Amalek:Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” Moses built an altar and named it The Lord is My Banner; and he said, “The Lord has sworn; the Lord will have war against Amalek from generation to generation.”(Exodus 17:14–16 NASB)And in Deuteronomy 7:1–6, God tells Israel to destroy the Canaanite nations and to “show them no mercy.” Those who interpret Jesus’ words this way believe these kinds of passages were essentially commands to “hate your enemies.”There’s also Psalm 139:21–22, where David says:Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord?And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?I hate them with the utmost hatred;They have become my enemies.(Psalm 139:21–22 NASB)But even here, David concludes by saying:Search me, O God, and know my heart;Try me and know my anxious thoughts;And see if there be any hurtful way in me,And lead me in the everlasting way.(Psalm 139:23–24 NASB)So even David reflects on whether this hatred was righteous. It’s not a blanket endorsement of hatred—it’s a moment of inner wrestling before God.The other major view — and the one I lean toward — is that Jesus was correcting a rabbinic or cultural tradition rather than quoting the Old Testament itself.By the time of Jesus, certain Jewish sects and teachers — especially the Essenes at Qumran — had developed what might be called a theology of “sanctified hatred.” This was the idea that love and hate could both be sacred if directed at the right targets: love toward God and His people, and hatred toward sinners and outsiders.This concept is clearly reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly the Community Rule (1QS), which describes the Essene initiation oath:“To love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in the counsel of God,and to hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in the vengeance of God.”(1QS 1:9–11)Another Essene text known as the War Scroll (The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, 1QM) uses the same dualistic imagery to describe an ongoing holy war between two opposing spiritual camps:“The Sons of Light shall battle against the army of the Sons of Darkness… the men of the pit shall not prevail against them.”(1QM 1:1–3)Meanwhile, rabbinic literature from later centuries also reflects similar sentiments about maintaining enmity under certain conditions. For example, Maimonides (12th century) wrote in Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot 6:6 that a scholar may harbor resentment “until his offender asks pardon.” While written long after Jesus’ time, this reflects an enduring tradition in which hostility could be viewed as justified or even virtuous if directed toward the unrepentant.So by the first century, the idea that hatred could be holy — that one should “love the sons of light and hate the sons of darkness” — was part of the religious culture.That is the mindset Jesus could be confronting when He said:“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”In other words, Jesus was overturning not Moses’ Law, but a living cultural tradition that had justified hatred as an expression of holiness.Love Your Enemies and Pray for Those Who Persecute YouJesus’ command isn’t just theoretical — it’s deeply practical.For years I treated commands like this as idealistic advice. But once I started taking Jesus’ words literally — believing that His commands were meant to be done, not just admired — things began to change.When I began to see “love your enemies” as a command to obey, not just an unreachable ideal, it became one of the clearest evidences that I was truly in the faith. The ability to love people I used to resent — even those who have wronged me — is a sign of transformation.Jesus gives both the command and the method:“Love your enemies” — and how? “Pray for those who persecute you.”It’s hard to hate someone you’re praying for.Why Praying for Your Enemies MattersPraying for your enemies does several things:* It softens bitterness and ends the cycle of rumination.* It re-humanizes those who’ve hurt you.* It slowly transforms hatred into compassion.If you find yourself replaying wrongs, take that thought captive and pray for that person instead.Paul echoes this in Romans 12:14 —“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”Jesus Himself prayed for those crucifying Him:“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”(Luke 23:34)And Stephen did the same as he was being stoned:“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”(Acts 7:60)When you pray for your enemies, don’t just pray that God would “fix” them or “open their eyes.” That’s good, but go deeper.Pray for their good — for their families, their health, their joy, their provision. That kind of prayer transforms your heart even more than it changes theirs.And if you really want to accelerate forgiveness, keep them high on your prayer list.Seeing Your Enemies Through CompassionIt helps to remember that everyone — even your worst enemy — was once a little child. Many have been deeply wounded or deceived by Satan.When you understand the tragedy of sin, and the horror of eternal separation from God, compassion naturally follows.Scripture says:“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles,or the Lord will see it and be displeased,and turn His anger away from him.”(Proverbs 24:17–18 NASB)We’re told not to delight in the downfall of our enemies, because God Himself takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked:“As I live,” declares the Lord God,“I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked,but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.”(Ezekiel 33:11 NASB)Why Love Your Enemies?Jesus tells us plainly why:“So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”(Matthew 5:45)In other words, when we love our enemies, we’re acting like our Father. That’s what God is like — merciful, patient, compassionate.“The Lord is compassionate and gracious,Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.”(Psalm 103:8)“Do you not know that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”(Romans 2:4)“The Lord is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”(2 Peter 3:9)And because this is who God is, this is who His children must become.“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”(Ephesians 4:32)“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”(Luke 6:36)Be Perfect as Your Father Is PerfectJesus concludes with this line:“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(Matthew 5:48)For years, I was told this verse meant we could never live up to God’s standard — that Jesus was simply showing us our need for grace. But nowhere in the Sermon on the Mount does Jesus say that. There’s no wink or nod implying, “I didn’t really mean all that.”The Greek word for “perfect” here is teleios, which means complete or mature. It’s not about moral flawlessness but wholeness.Paul uses the same word in 1 Corinthians 14:20:“Brethren, do not be children in your thinking;yet in evil be infants,but in your thinking be mature (teleios).”And in Ephesians 4:13:“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith,and of the knowledge of the Son of God,to a mature (teleios) man,to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”So when Jesus says to be teleios as your Father is teleios, He’s calling us to a complete, mature love — a love that includes even our enemies.A love with no gaps.A love that mirrors God’s own.Freedom on the Other Side of ObedienceWhen you begin to take Jesus seriously in this — to pray for your enemies, to stop ruminating on bitterness, to release hatred — you’ll find freedom.This commandment is not just a rule; it’s a path to healing. On the other side of loving your enemies is release from bondage — freedom from the endless cycle of resentment and pain.Final ThoughtsJesus’ call to love your enemies is not optional advice; it’s the essence of discipleship. It’s how we know we’re maturing, how we reflect our Father, and how we’re set free.Take these words seriously. Begin to pray for those who’ve wronged you. Take your thoughts captive. And remember:“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”(Romans 5:8)That is the kind of love He’s calling us to.Support the MissionIf you’d like to support the ongoing work of Vine Abiders and help us continue spreading the gospel, please visit JoyfulHeartsHome.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

IntroductionWelcome back to Vine Abiders, where we study the words of Jesus verse by verse and learn what it really means to live as His disciples. In this study, we’ve come to one of the most misunderstood teachings in all of Scripture — “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”For many of us, that phrase immediately brings to mind vengeance or retribution — the idea of getting even. But as we’ll see, that’s not what the law originally meant at all. Jesus wasn’t overturning the Old Testament here; He was deepening it, revealing the heart behind it.This section of the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5:38–42, teaches something radical: the way of non-resistance — not retaliating when wronged, not clinging to our rights, and trusting God to be our defender.The Pattern of the Sermon on the MountThroughout this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus follows a clear pattern.He quotes a command from the Old Testament — “You have heard that it was said…” — and then amplifies it to reveal the deeper heart behind the law:* “You shall not murder” → Don’t even be angry.* “You shall not commit adultery” → Don’t even lust.* “Love your neighbor” → Love even your enemies.In each case, Jesus affirms the law’s moral foundation, but then intensifies it. He takes it from the realm of outward compliance to inward transformation.So when He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’” He isn’t contradicting Moses. He’s revealing the spiritual principle beneath it — and pushing it further.What “An Eye for an Eye” Really MeantThe law of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” comes from Leviticus 24:17–20 and similar passages in Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 19.“If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”This wasn’t a call to revenge. It was a sentencing guideline — a judicial principle of proportional justice. Its purpose was to limit punishment, not to encourage it. It was designed to ensure that justice was measured, fair, and equal — preventing the endless cycles of blood feuds that plagued ancient societies.In fact, this law was rarely practiced literally in Israel’s history. Over time, it was replaced by monetary compensation. By Jesus’ day, Israel was under Roman occupation and had no authority to carry out capital punishment — that’s why the Jews had to bring Jesus before Pilate.Why These Laws ExistedGod gave these laws to Israel as a way to restrain sin and preserve holiness in a fallen world. They acted as guardrails, protecting His people from moral chaos.In a small, tightly knit community where disobedience carried severe consequences, sin was taken seriously. Even if we call that “legalism,” it worked. It kept evil in check.But Israel drifted from this system. By the time of the Judges, Scripture says, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” The guardrails were gone — and corruption flourished.A Law Meant to Limit VengeanceFor years, I misunderstood this verse. I thought Jesus was overturning the Old Testament, saying, “The law told you to take revenge, but I tell you not to.”But that’s not what’s happening.Jesus wasn’t rejecting the Mosaic law — He was affirming its intent and intensifying its application.The original law — “eye for an eye” — limited vengeance. Jesus takes it a step further:“You’ve heard it said: Don’t take more than what’s owed.But I say: Don’t take vengeance at all. Don’t even resist an evil person.”That’s the pattern we’ve seen all along. It’s not reversal, it’s revelation.A Biblical Example: Escalating VengeanceIn Genesis 34, when Dinah was raped, her brothers responded by killing every man in the city. That’s vengeance without restraint — a tragic example of how quickly justice can spiral into bloodshed.The law of “eye for an eye” was meant to stop that cycle — to prevent violence from escalating endlessly.Where vengeance multiplies destruction, God’s justice limits it.Justice vs. VengeanceThere’s a crucial difference between justice and vengeance.When justice is carried out lawfully, within God’s order, it’s obedience. But when someone takes matters into their own hands — acting outside of that system — it becomes vengeance.That’s true both in ancient Israel and today. Even in modern courts, when a judge issues a sentence according to the law, it’s not personal revenge. It’s the lawful administration of justice.In the same way, when God commanded Israel to carry out sentences, it wasn’t about emotional retaliation — it was about obedience to His law.The Call to Non-ResistanceThen Jesus takes it deeper.“Do not resist an evil person.If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”This is one of the hardest teachings in Scripture. It’s the call to non-retaliation — to live in a way that mirrors Christ’s meekness, even when wronged.The early church took this seriously. In the first few centuries of Christianity, non-resistance was one of the defining marks of a true disciple.They believed Jesus meant what He said. And because they lived that way, they stood out in a world of violence and pride.The Apostles Reaffirm the Same TeachingPaul, Peter, and the early church all reaffirm this same principle.Romans 12:17–21 says:“Never pay back evil for evil to anyone... Never take your own revenge...Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”1 Thessalonians 5:15:“See that no one repays another with evil for evil.”1 Peter 3:9:“Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but give a blessing instead.”The apostles didn’t soften Jesus’ command. They doubled down on it.Why Vengeance Feels So Good — and Why It’s So DangerousThere’s a reason we love revenge stories. They light up something in our brains — that little dopamine hit when the bad guy “gets what’s coming.”But Jesus calls us to walk away from that emotional payoff. That’s not the Kingdom’s way.Ignatius, one of the early church fathers, said:“When you are wronged, be patient.When slandered, bless.When persecuted, endure.When hated, return love.When cursed, pray.”That’s what it means to follow Christ.Martin Luther’s ReversalInterestingly, Martin Luther rejected this teaching outright. He called it “foolishness” to turn the other cheek. To Luther, the Sermon on the Mount wasn’t meant to be lived — it was meant to show us that we can’t live it.He believed Jesus’ impossible standard was meant only to drive us to grace.But that interpretation — though influential — departs from how the early church read these words. They saw the Sermon on the Mount not as an unattainable ideal, but as a blueprint for discipleship.And they lived it — even when it cost them their lives.When You’re WrongedJesus also says,“If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.”That’s not natural. It’s faith in action.Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 6:7:“Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?”That’s radical obedience. It’s trusting God when you’re being mistreated.Why? Because obedience isn’t about results — it’s about trust. God says, “Vengeance is Mine.” Do we trust Him enough to let Him handle it?The Second Mile“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two.”Roman soldiers had the right to force civilians to carry their packs for one mile. Jesus tells His followers to go two.That’s not weakness — that’s witness.That’s showing the world what grace looks like in action.Giving Without Resistance“Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.”This isn’t just about generosity — it’s about non-resistance in giving. When someone asks, we don’t withhold.It’s a call to open-handedness — to live with the same self-giving spirit that Jesus displayed.Why Live This Way?Why would anyone live like this — refusing to retaliate, giving up their rights, letting others take advantage?Because Jesus promised there’s a reward for those who do.“Love your enemies, do good, lend expecting nothing in return,and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.”— Luke 6:35–36“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”— Matthew 5:10“If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed,because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”— 1 Peter 4:14When we refuse vengeance, God takes up our cause.He shapes our character, strengthens our hope, and uses our lives as a witness to the world.Conclusion: The Way of TrustGod’s eye is on the one who refuses vengeance.He fights for them, provides for them, shapes them, and uses their obedience to change others.That’s faith — trusting that if we live His way, He’ll take care of the rest.The early church believed that, lived that, and the world was never the same. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

TL;DRThe Reformers taught that God legally credits Christ’s perfect obedience to believers—an unchangeable courtroom verdict called imputed righteousness.But Scripture’s emphasis is not on a legal transfer; it’s on union with Christ—a living participation in His life. Our righteousness isn’t Christ’s moral record applied to us, but God’s righteousness shared with us through being in Him.In this view, salvation is relational and dynamic, not static or abstract. Remaining or abiding in Christ is essential; righteousness endures only as long as that union does. The call to holiness is therefore not optional but vital, because our standing before God depends on abiding in the Righteous One, not merely on a past declaration.On Imputed Righteousness and Union with ChristIf there was one doctrine that was a signature of the Reformation, held in especially high regard by Calvinists and Lutherans, it was the doctrine of Imputed Righteousness.Imputed righteousness, as taught in Reformed circles, is the teaching that Christ’s sinless life and perfect obedience to God’s law are credited to the believer’s account, as if they themselves had obeyed perfectly.The doctrine is usually expressed in judicial terms, meaning that when Christ’s righteousness is imputed or accounted to the believer, it is like a not-guilty verdict in a courtroom—a once-and-for-all change in the believer’s ledger.In this view, God in a sense no longer “sees” the sinner but His Son instead. In other words, righteousness is treated as a kind of legal fiction—God regarding us as if we had lived a perfect life, even though we have not.There are aspects of the way imputed righteousness is taught that have been held since the earliest days of the church, while other parts originate with Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers.First, let me be clear: I am not denying that righteousness is, in some sense, credited to believers through faith—Scripture plainly teaches this. As Paul writes:“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4:3)What I am questioning is how that righteousness is given. The Reformers taught that Christ’s perfect obedience is literally and permanently transferred to the believer’s account. I disagree with that mechanism.The righteousness we receive is not Christ’s moral performance credited to our name but is shared with us through union with Christ. And as we’ll see, that difference is not a small one—it has extremely serious implications.Union With ChristI would argue that in order to understand imputed righteousness, we need to first understand the doctrine known as Union with Christ.If you have read the New Testament, you have likely noticed the repeated phrases “in Christ” or “in Him.” The idea is that, in a mysterious yet very real way, Christians are joined to Christ; we are said to be a part of His body.It is one of the most common themes in the New Testament. For example, Christians are said to be crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ, seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, hidden with Christ in God, alive in Christ, a new creation in Christ, blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, redeemed in Christ, forgiven in Christ, justified in Christ, sanctified in Christ, triumphing in Christ, and more.I would argue that the idea of us being “in Christ” is not poetic language but a real thing that happens to a Christian upon salvation. We are literally in Him in the same way that the Holy Spirit is in us. And why not? This is, after all, exactly what Jesus prayed to the Father would happen in the new covenant:John 17:21–23“That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”So the idea is that Jesus was in God in the same way we are in Christ.It is not a perfect analogy, but it is something like three Russian dolls: the largest one being God, the middle one Jesus, and the smallest one us.How Union Shares Every BlessingThe consistent New Testament idea is that all the blessings that we can claim as Christians are ours only because Jesus has been given those blessings by God, and we share in them if we are in Him—if we abide in Him.For example, the Bible says that we are co-heirs with Christ. Christ has been given the Kingdom by God, and if we are in Him, we also share in that inheritance:Ephesians 1:11“In Him we have obtained an inheritance…”(Notice it says “in Him.”)His rewards are our rewards. Jesus says it this way, speaking to the Father:John 17:22“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.”Another important example: Jesus has attained eternal life, and Scripture says that if we are in Him, we share in His eternal life.1 John 5:11–12“And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.”John 6:56–57“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.”John 14:19–20“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”Abiding and Remaining in ChristThe union-with-Christ idea cuts both ways, though. The New Testament is full of passages showing that one who abides in Him can fall away, be cut off, or be spit out.“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2a)Paul makes it clear that we can be cut off from the olive tree:“…if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.” (Romans 11:22)Abiding or remaining in Christ is spoken of as conditional over and over in the New Testament.“For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.” (Hebrews 3:14)“Yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed you continue in the faith…” (Colossians 1:22–23a)I would even argue that when Jesus spits out the lukewarm believers in Revelation, that shows that those believers were at one time abiding in Him—in order to be spit out of Him, they had to be in Him.So let’s bring all this back to Imputed Righteousness.In the end, both the early church and the Reformers sought to explain how believers come to share in Christ’s blessings—chief among them, His right standing before the Father. The difference, as I said earlier, lies in the mechanism by which that sharing is understood to occur.The Reformers believed Christ’s righteous record was credited to the believer’s account as a legal declaration of innocence. In this model, the believer’s status before God changes instantly and irrevocably, as if Christ’s perfect obedience were transferred to their ledger.The early church, by contrast, understood salvation less as a legal transaction and more as a transformational participation in the life of Jesus.The exchange between Christ and the believer is not a legal swap of status but a sharing of blessings and rewards that Jesus is the rightful owner of—including eternal life. The believer’s transformation in status is not a fiction maintained by divine bookkeeping.In addition, for the Reformers, righteousness was a completed judicial act in which God declares the believer righteous once and for all. Within this legal framework, justification was understood as irreversible—just as a person acquitted in court cannot be tried for the same offense twice.The early church, however, understood righteousness not as something handed down but as something entered into—a participation in the very life of Christ. It was not a status that could exist apart from Him, but a reality that continued only through ongoing union with Him. In that view, righteousness could not be treated as permanently secured in the abstract, because its endurance depended on remaining in Christ, the source of it.Proof Texts for Imputed RighteousnessWith all that in mind, let’s consider the main proof texts for the Reformed view of imputed righteousness. Here I would point out that the doctrine of Union with Christ is arguably the main point of these passages. If you have never noticed it before, you probably will now.Philippians 3:9“…and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”There are key truths here that Christians of every tradition can affirm: this righteousness is wholly from God and truly found in Christ. Again, the real difference lies not in its source but in its means—whether righteousness is something legally transferred to the believer, or something personally shared through a living union with Christ.When Paul says he wants to be “found in Him,” this is not a decorative phrase. It is the controlling idea of the whole passage. The righteousness Paul describes is not stored somewhere outside of Christ and then credited to him; it exists only within that living union.The next phrase says—“not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law.” Both sides would agree that the believer’s righteousness is not self-generated. The question is whether Paul means God declares the believer righteous because Christ’s record is applied forensically, or whether he means the believer shares in God’s righteousness through union with Christ.The latter view is more coherent in my opinion, and the context of Philippians 3 supports this: after renouncing his own credentials, Paul longs to “gain Christ and be found in Him,” linking righteousness to knowing Him and sharing in His life (3:8–10). This is not a legal verdict applied once for all, but an ongoing, relational participation in the life of Christ.Then Paul concludes with “the righteousness which comes from God.” Notice again: it is the righteousness from God or of God, not “of Christ,” as the Calvinist tends to read it. In the Old Testament this phrase “righteousness of God” spoke of God’s covenant faithfulness—His saving power that sets things right (more on that later).So when Paul says he wants to be “found in Him… having the righteousness from God,” he means that his life has been relocated inside Christ, the place where God’s saving power operates.Romans 3:21“But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”This verse marks a turning point in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Everything before it (1:18–3:20) has been about human unrighteousness: both Gentiles and Jews stand guilty before God, unable to justify themselves by obedience to the Law. Then comes Paul’s great “But now”—a shift from human failure to divine initiative. Now, something new has been revealed which is “the righteousness of God.”For the Reformed tradition, they understand “the righteousness of God” as Christ’s righteous status that comes from God and is imputed to the believer through faith. Yet, it does not say “the righteousness of Christ,” but “righteousness of God.” In fact, you can’t find the phrase “righteousness of Christ” in the Bible at all.In the Old Testament background that Paul is drawing on, “the righteousness of God” typically refers to God’s own covenant faithfulness—His saving power to set things right, to act consistently with His promises.The righteousness of God was when God showed up or revealed Himself in history in order to rescue His people or judge their enemies in accordance with His covenant promises to them. This is a well-established point, and many theological papers have been written on this subject. Basically, “righteousness of God” is His breaking into history to save His people.Paul is picking up that tradition when he says, “The righteousness of God has been manifested”—that is, it has appeared openly in history in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the promised Messiah to the Jews and salvation to the Gentiles. God has shown Himself faithful to His promises to Israel and merciful to the nations in Jesus.So when Paul says, “Apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifested,” he does not mean that a new kind of righteousness has been imported from outside or credited to our files. He means that what the Law and the Prophets long anticipated—God’s own act of putting the world to rights—has finally broken into history. God’s righteousness is not a moral grade handed down from heaven; it is His saving faithfulness unveiled in Christ, into which believers are now invited to step by faith.2 Corinthians 5:21“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”Paul’s compact—and famously difficult—summary in 2 Corinthians 5:21 deserves careful attention. Like Philippians 3:9, this text locates everything in Christ—union is again the mechanism. But this passage is more complex than the others we have looked at because Paul’s overarching purpose in this section is not just to preach the gospel but also to defend his apostolic ministry, and that dual purpose makes 2 Corinthians 5:21 multilayered.So let’s take this one step at a time, starting with the first phrase:“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.”He says Christ was made sin in some way. My view is that this phrase recalls the Old Testament imagery of the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement, where the sins of the people were symbolically transferred to the scapegoat when the high priest would lay his hands on it and confess the sins of the people. The scapegoat was then set free, and it bore or carried those sins outside the camp into the wilderness. In a parallel way, Christ identifies with our sins and carries them away, and we are forgiven by God.“So that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”At first glance, Reformed interpreters often see here a clear statement of imputed righteousness—that our sins were laid on Christ, and His righteousness was legally credited to us. But the wording itself resists that interpretation.Once again, Paul does not say “the righteousness of Christ.” He says “the righteousness of God.”Then comes the verb: we become. Paul does not say we receive righteousness or that we are declared righteous, but that we become it.This “becoming” idea connects beautifully with 1 Corinthians 1:30:“By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”Notice the parallel—Christ became righteousness for us, and we become righteousness in Him. The verbs mirror each other, expressing shared life, not exchanged records.The Righteousness of GodNow we have to ask the harder question: what does Paul mean by “the righteousness of God” in this case?In the Hebrew Scriptures, as I have already alluded to, the phrase “the righteousness of God” often refers to God’s covenant faithfulness, particularly regarding saving His people or judging their enemies:“My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, And My arms will judge the peoples; The coastlands will wait for Me, And for My arm they will wait expectantly.” (Isaiah 51:5)“In Your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; Incline Your ear to me and save me.” (Psalm 71:2)So when Paul says we “become the righteousness of God in Him,” he means that God’s saving power is now being made visible through those who are preaching the gospel.That is not to say that God’s righteousness cannot be understood as justification here—it can, because that is what the righteousness of God was doing in this case, saving people. It’s just that Paul is doing several things in this passage, and so it gets a bit complex.The Ministry LayerWhat I mean is that Paul’s immediate aim in this section is to describe and defend his ministry—what it means to be an ambassador of Christ. Throughout 2 Corinthians, Paul defends his ministry against misunderstanding, showing that his suffering, weakness, and endurance are not failures but evidence of God’s power working through him.2 Corinthians 5:18–20“All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us.”That phrase—“God making His appeal through us”—is the key to verse 21. Paul sees his and the other coworkers in the gospel ministry as the continuation of God’s reconciling work. God’s righteousness—His covenant faithfulness and restoring power—is enacted through human agents like Paul who are preaching the gospel.In this sense, “becoming the righteousness of God” means that Paul and his coworkers are instruments of God’s saving power—His righteousness. Their ministry extends God’s action into the world. As they preach, God’s righteousness is revealed through them.That being said, we should not restrict the “we” in these passages only to the apostles and other evangelists. Indeed, Paul’s logic here clearly extends to the wider church: what is true of his ministry is true of every believer. The church as a whole shares in that same ministry of reconciliation, to a certain extent at least.After all, there is a dual purpose to Paul’s statement here, which is what makes the verse so rich. “We” refers both to Paul and other evangelists as God’s agents of reconciliation—which is a continuation of his main point about the defense of his apostolic ministry—but it’s also a picture of justification through union with Christ, just like the other passages we have looked at.Imputed Righteousness and Eternal SecurityIf there’s a single place where the Reformed reading and what I have argued in this chapter truly diverge, it’s here: eternal security.In the Reformed system, imputed righteousness becomes the lynchpin for “once saved, always saved.” The logic runs like this: if God has legally credited Christ’s perfect obedience to my account, then my standing before Him can never change—just as a courtroom verdict cannot be changed.But if, as we’ve seen, the New Testament speaks of righteousness as a result of being in Christ—as a life shared by union, not a status possessed apart from Him—then the conclusion about irrevocability doesn’t follow.The permanence of our standing depends not on an abstract legal deposit but on remaining in the One who is our righteousness (John 15:1–6; Colossians 1:21–23).Here lies the practical divide. In a strict imputation-as-legal-transfer model, present sin cannot affect one’s standing before God—only one’s fellowship or “rewards.”But in the union model, sin threatens communion with Christ. We can grieve the Holy Spirit—even quench or extinguish the Holy Spirit—through our sin. The call to holiness, then, is not decorative or motivational; it is existential.“Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”— 1 John 3:7–8So the point of this chapter is not to deny that God “reckons” righteousness to believers. Scripture uses that language clearly. It is to insist that such reckoning never floats free from union. Once union is central, the supposed pipeline from imputed righteousness to eternal security breaks.Rejecting “once saved, always saved” does not mean believers cannot have assurance. Scripture teaches that we can know we are in Christ if we are presently abiding in Him.“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”— 2 Corinthians 13:5“We know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.”— 1 John 4:13“By this we know that we are in Him: whoever keeps His word.”— 1 John 2:5True assurance is not presumption; it’s the present witness of the Spirit and the evidence of a life that continues to abide in Christ (Romans 8:16; John 15:10).ConclusionIn sum, the question is not whether righteousness is God’s gift, but how God gives it.To be found in Him is to have His standing, His life, His Spirit, and His rewards—including eternal life.Thus, the church’s task is not to claim and rely on a past verdict of righteousness, but to abide in the Righteous One. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

Matthew 5:33–37 NASB“Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.” YouVersion | The Bible App | Bible.comJesus here is not merely refining how we swear; He is forbidding oath-making entirely.And later, James 5:12 NASB reinforces the same teaching:“But above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.” YouVersion | The Bible App | Bible.comWith those texts in view, let us walk through what the Bible teaches about oaths and vows, why this is serious, and how it applies today.Oaths vs. Vows — Clarifying the TermsTo understand what Jesus forbids, we should distinguish between oaths and vows (or solemn promises).* Oath: a public guarantee of one’s speech or promise, often invoking God or something sacred to validate one’s truthfulness (e.g. “I swear before God that this is true”). It is directed toward assuring others of your sincerity or faithfulness.* Vow: a solemn promise or dedication made before God, binding oneself to some act, abstention, service, or offering (e.g. a personal vow to fast, a Nazirite vow, or in some forms a marriage vow).The difference is subtle but important: oaths are about proving the truth of one’s statement, often by invoking God’s name, whereas vows are about committing oneself before God. The Bible treats both seriously—but in different categories.Biblical Foundations: Why Oaths Are Prohibited, Vows Are RegulatedOld Testament ContextThe Old Testament contains many passages about oaths and vows. A few examples:* Numbers 30:2 (NASB):“If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”* Deuteronomy 23:21–23 (NASB) says in part:“When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly require it of you; and if you refrain from vowing, it would not be a sin in you. But you shall be careful to fulfill what has passed your lips, for you vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth.”* Ecclesiastes 5:4–5 (NASB) warns:“When you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.”From these, we see that:* Vows are not abol­ished—but once made, they are serious and must be honored.* God expects integrity: if you set your word before Him, you should fulfill it.* The failure to vow is not, in itself, sin; but making a vow lightly is dangerous.Also, the Third Commandment—“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exodus 20:7)—is widely understood to forbid not only profanity but also misuse of God’s name, including perjury (using God’s name to back up false statements). In Leviticus 19:12 we read:“You shall not swear falsely by My name, so I will not hold guiltless the one who takes My name in vain. I am the LORD.”Violating an oath made in God’s name is, thus, a serious defilement—dragging His name into a lie.Historical examples underscore God’s seriousness:* Saul and the Gibeonites (2 Samuel 21): Because Saul broke a long-standing oath to the Gibeonites, Israel faced famine and reaped dire consequences.* Zedekiah’s oath to Babylon (2 Chronicles 36; Ezekiel 17): Though his oath was to a pagan king, God judged him for violating it—showing that oaths sworn even to unbelievers carry weight before the Lord.These examples demonstrate that God regards oaths as binding—even toward those who are not God’s people.Jesus’ Teaching: A Radical ProhibitionIn the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus radicalizes the old commands. Rather than permitting oaths under certain conditions, He says:“make no oath at all … But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.”He is sweeping away the loopholes and excusing formulas the Pharisees employed (e.g. “I swear by the temple, but not by the gold of the temple”). In doing so, He insists on a posture of sincerity and utter simplicity. His followers are to live in such honesty that no oath is needed.James echoes this command nearly in the same words:“Do not swear … but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.”Jesus’ and James’ warnings: invoking God’s name to reinforce our word is unnecessary if our life is built on truthfulness. Reliance on outward guarantees points to a deeper lack of integrity.Why Oaths Matter to God* Borrowing God’s reputationWhen we swear by God, we are effectively putting His name on the line for our truthfulness. If we break our oath, we not only break trust with the person but we bring dishonor onto God, dragging His reputation into falsehood.* Character disclosureJesus’ command implies that Christians ought to exhibit such consistent truthfulness that no additional assurance is needed. Integrity should characterize every word we speak—so “Yes” is trusted, “No” is trusted, without needing external guarantees.* Accountability and judgmentThe text warns that those who misuse oaths may fall under God’s judgment. It signals that God doesn’t take lightly what His name is enlisted into.Modern Applications: Where Oaths Appear TodayLet’s look at some modern contexts in which oaths arise, and how a Christian committed to Jesus’ teaching might handle them.Legal & Civil Oaths* Court oaths / affidavits* Jury oaths* Public office oaths* Citizenship oathsIn many legal systems (especially in the U.S.), one can legally affirm rather than swear an oath. Christians historically (e.g. Quakers, Mennonites, Amish) have used affirmations to avoid swearing by God’s name while still giving a binding pledge. If forced to choose, one should request an affirmation and avoid religious language like “so help me God” or raising ones hand etc.Military Service & Allegiance OathsThis is one area where things start to overlap with other serious questions for Christians—like violence, allegiance, and obedience to Christ. The early church took Jesus’ words about oaths very seriously, but they also took other words of His just as literally—particularly the command to love your enemies.For them, loving your enemies meant not killing them. That conviction, combined with Jesus’ clear prohibition against taking oaths, was one of the main reasons early Christians refused to join the military. They couldn’t reconcile swearing allegiance to Caesar or pledging to obey military commands with following the One who said, “Do not resist an evil person.”If this is something you’re wrestling with, I’d really encourage watching a short documentary called What If Jesus Meant Every Word That He Said? It’s a thought-provoking look at how some people in the military have wrestled with taking Jesus’ teachings seriously—especially on non-violence and allegiance.As for me, I’m still working through all of this too. I don’t claim to have it all figured out. But I do know that if you’re in the military or thinking about joining, the oath issue alone should at least give you pause. The same goes for anyone taking any kind of formal pledge of allegiance.If you’re convicted by Jesus’ teaching about oaths, there may be alternatives available. Most branches of service or government institutions have provisions for people who object to oath-taking on religious grounds—usually an “affirmation” clause that removes the religious invocation. But even so, I’d say there are bigger issues at play in the military context than just the oath itself.Marriage VowsMarriage is a covenant. The Bible does not prescribe a fixed ceremonial vow formula, but many modern wedding vows function similarly to oaths (“I vow to … before God …”). While these are not explicitly prohibited, we should treat them as solemn promises, with caution regarding invoking God’s name lightly. Simplifying them to clear affirmations of covenant might better reflect the spirit of Jesus’ teaching.What to Do When Past Oaths or Vows Are BrokenIf you have taken oaths or made vows and have not kept them:* Confess before God, seeking His mercy.* Where possible, fulfill the vow or oath in a righteous way (if it is not sinful).* In some cases—if the vow was rash, frivolous, or sinful—prayerful repentance and seeking God’s guidance is appropriate rather than attempting fulfillment at all cost.* From now on, commit to speaking truthfully without reliance on oaths.The key is not to despair but to become more faithful in speech from here forward.Living Without Oaths — A Witness of IntegrityMost of us have made statements like “I swear to God,” or promised “I’ll never do X” in strong terms. But now that we see the weight of those words, we are called to a higher path: let our “Yes” be “Yes,” and our “No” be “No”—with no need for oath-making.A Christian who lives this way will manifest consistent integrity, and the world may see in that reliability a quiet but powerful testimony to the God we serve. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

Divorce, Remarriage, and the Teaching of JesusWelcome back to Vine Abiders. In our study through the Sermon on the Mount, we’ve come to Matthew 5:31–32—the words of Jesus on divorce and remarriage. It’s not an easy passage. In fact, this subject has followed me in a unique way.Last year I wrote a book on it—Remarriage After Divorce: A Biblical Defense of the Traditional Christian View. I didn’t publish it under my full name but under C.A. White, because I was hesitant to make it public. It’s a hard teaching. In America, almost everyone knows someone who has been divorced and remarried. Writing about it feels like a direct challenge to people we love.But the Sermon on the Mount won’t let us skip difficult words. Jesus’ next subject is divorce and remarriage, so today I’m going to walk through the main arguments of that book and summarize what Scripture and church history actually say.Three Views Within Evangelical ChristianityThere are three main positions in the church today:* The Permissive ViewDivorce is allowed in cases such as fornication or abandonment, and remarriage is permitted in those cases. This is common in modern evangelicalism.* The No-Divorce ViewDivorce is never allowed for any reason, and remarriage is only possible after the death of a spouse. This is relatively new and niche, though it has modern proponents.* The Traditional ViewDivorce may be permitted in limited cases, but remarriage while the former spouse lives is always adultery. This was the view of the early church and is the position I defend.The Witness of the Early ChurchFor most of church history, the consensus was clear: divorce might be tolerated in some situations, but remarriage was forbidden as long as the spouse was alive.William Heth and Gordon Wenham’s Jesus and Divorce puts it bluntly:“To list those who hold that remarriage after divorce is contrary to the gospel teaching is to call a roll of the best-known early Christian theologians… in all, 25 individual writers and two early councils forbid remarriage after divorce.”This wasn’t fringe. It was universal. The change came with the Reformation.How the Reformation Changed EverythingErasmus, an early reformer, was among the first to suggest that remarriage might be a “social good.” His reasoning wasn’t biblical but pragmatic—remarriage, he thought, could relieve social pressures and emotional pain.Luther went further. He argued that adultery was a capital offense in Old Testament law. Since adulterers “deserved death,” they could be considered dead in God’s eyes, and the innocent spouse was therefore free to remarry.Ironically, the same Luther who often dismissed the Old Testament as binding on Christians leaned on Old Testament stoning laws to justify remarriage. From there, Protestant teaching began to diverge from the early church.What Jesus Actually SaidWhen we read all of Jesus’ statements together, three related sins emerge:* Divorcing a spouse and marrying another is adultery. (Mark 10:11–12; Luke 16:18; Matthew 19:9)* Marrying someone who has been divorced is adultery. (Luke 16:18; Matthew 5:32)* Improperly divorcing someone makes them guilty of adultery. (Matthew 5:32)This isn’t just about divorce. The real issue is remarriage.Take Luke 16:18:“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”Notice the universality: “everyone.” There is no exception clause for remarriage.Or Mark 10:11–12:“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”This passage makes clear that the sin applies to both sexes. Whether husband or wife initiates, remarriage is adultery.Matthew 5 and Matthew 19Matthew 5:31–32 is, in my view, the Rosetta Stone for understanding Matthew 19:9.In Matthew 5, Jesus says that improper divorce causes the innocent spouse to commit adultery when they inevitably remarry. The exception clause (“except for immorality”) protects the innocent party from being guilty of causing that sin. But it says nothing about remarriage being allowed.When we get to Matthew 19, the grammar is more difficult:“Whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery.”Does the exception apply to divorce only, or also to remarriage? The early church, whose native language was Greek, interpreted it to apply only to divorce. They never read it as permission to remarry.The disciples’ shocked reaction confirms this. They said, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” Their extreme response only makes sense if Jesus was teaching that remarriage after divorce is never permitted.Paul’s SummaryPaul echoes this perfectly in 1 Corinthians 7:10–11:“But to the married I give instructions (not I, but the Lord), that the wife should not leave her husband—but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband.”Divorce? Possible.Remarriage? Not permitted.Reconciliation? Encouraged.That’s the consistent pattern of Scripture.Deuteronomy 24 and the Logic PuzzleMuch of the modern debate about divorce and remarriage really comes back to Deuteronomy 24:1–4. This passage is the starting point for the Pharisees’ question to Jesus in Matthew 19, and it’s also where we see how easy it is to miss the original point. At first glance, the text seems to assume that divorce will happen — it takes for granted that a husband might write his wife a certificate of divorce if he finds “some indecency” in her. But the real emphasis is on what happens next: if she marries another man and that marriage ends (either by divorce or by death), she may not return to her first husband, “since she has been defiled.”The crucial detail is that the woman’s defilement comes not from the divorce itself, but from the remarriage. That is what renders her “defiled.” Some modern pastors try to argue that the defilement is tied to the first divorce or to the idea of returning to a former spouse, but that doesn’t make sense of the structure. The law is written like a logic puzzle: no matter how you trace the “if” statements, you end up at the same conclusion — it is the remarriage that introduces defilement.And notice how airtight this is. Even if the second husband dies (which would normally make remarriage permissible), the text still says she is defiled. The inspired conclusion is unavoidable: yes, divorce happens, but remarriage while the original spouse lives is prohibited.Did Divorce Always Imply Remarriage?This brings us to a critical modern question: does the right to divorce inherently include the right to remarry? Many scholars sympathetic to remarriage argue that it does. They suggest that in Jewish practice, a writ of divorce automatically carried with it permission to remarry — otherwise, what would be the point?But when we examine the actual evidence, that case falls apart. The scholar David Instone-Brewer is often cited as proving that ancient divorce certificates included the right to remarry. But in fact, only about one-third of the surviving documents say anything about remarriage. What do they all mention? The return of the dowry. That was the central legal function of the writ: ensuring that a woman’s inheritance was not stolen from her when she was sent away.So why do some certificates add a remarriage clause? Likely because, by Jesus’ day, remarriage had become the cultural assumption — even though it contradicted the law’s deeper logic. Writing “you are free to marry another” into a minority divorce documents was not proof that God had sanctioned it. It was a human addition, reflecting the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ permissive mindset.And this is where the Essenes provide an important counterpoint. This Jewish sect — likely the one John the Baptist was associated with — taught that while divorce could occur, remarriage was not lawful. Their conclusion matched the plain logic of Deuteronomy 24. So, contrary to the “universal consensus” that Instone-Brewer claims, at least some Jewish voices in the Second Temple period stood firmly against remarriage after divorce.The Disciples’ Shock and the Eunuch TeachingAll of this context helps explain the disciples’ stunned reaction in Matthew 19. Jesus is not merely weighing in on whether “indecency” meant adultery or something trivial like burnt food. He is cutting through the Pharisees’ favorite debate and returning to the real point of Deuteronomy 24: divorce may happen, but remarriage is adultery.That is why the disciples respond, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” They realized the stakes: once married, you are bound unless your spouse dies. Divorce does not open the door to a new marriage. And this is why Jesus immediately shifts into the teaching about eunuchs — a teaching that only makes sense if His point was that some people will have to remain single for the sake of the kingdom.The Hardest QuestionThis leads to the most difficult issue: what about those who are already remarried while their first spouse lives?John Piper, who holds the same traditional view, argues that such people should repent in heart but remain in the remarriage, honoring their current vows. Others make similar arguments.But I struggle with this. Would we give the same counsel to someone in a homosexual marriage? Or to someone who made vows in a cult? Why should adultery be treated differently?I don’t pretend to have all the answers. This is why I hesitated to even release the book. I fear both saying too much and saying too little. But we cannot simply presume upon God’s mercy when His Word is this clear.Why It MattersPaul warns in Galatians 5 that “adultery, fornication, and uncleanness” are works of the flesh—and that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. This isn’t academic. It’s eternal.The early church took Jesus’ words at face value. The Reformers shifted the standard. And now we live in a time when the permissive view is almost assumed. But Jesus hasn’t changed. His words still stand.Closing ThoughtsI don’t share this lightly. I know the pain it causes, the personal stories it touches, the lives it unsettles. But faithfulness requires us to look at what Jesus actually said and not twist His words to fit our desires.If you want to go deeper, my book Remarriage After Divorce is available on Amazon, but I’ve also made the PDF and audiobook available for free on YouTube. Not because I want to profit from it, but because I believe this conversation is too important to hide.As always, I invite you to wrestle with Scripture, pray deeply, and abide in the Vine—even when His words are hard.Show Notes:Remarriage After Divorce by C.A. White on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Remarriage-after-Divorce-Traditional-Christian/dp/B0DPNBMLDBFree PDF of Remarriage After Divorce by C.A. White:Free audiobook on Youtube Remarriage After Divorce by C.A. White This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

Lust, Adultery, and the Fear of the Lord: Taking Jesus at His WordWe’ve reached Matthew 5:27–30 in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus confronts lust head-on:“You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you, for it is better to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”The plain sense is hard to miss. As anger is to murder, so lust is to adultery; and the stakes are eternal. For years I resisted that plain sense, assuming it was impossible for men not to lust—so Christ must mean something else, a kind of reverse psychology to push us toward grace. But that reading collapses under two things: the testimony of the early church and the consistency of the rest of Scripture.What the earliest Christians taughtBefore Constantine the church spoke with striking unity about salvation, holiness, and judgment. They believed Jesus meant exactly what He said and that Christians must actually obey Him. Consider these early witnesses:Justin Martyr (A.D. 100–165): “For not only he who in act commits adultery is rejected by Him, but also he who desires to commit adultery: since not only our works, but also our thoughts, are open before God. And many will be found who have restrained themselves from the commission of adultery; but who have not abstained from adulterous desire. And such will be convicted by this very teaching of Christ, as being sinners, and as possessing adulterous lust.”c. A.D. 175: “We are so far from practicing promiscuous intercourse that it is not lawful among us to indulge even a lustful look. For He says, ‘He that looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already in his heart.’”They did not teach sinless perfection or salvation by works; they did teach that a believer can fall away and that “once saved, always saved” was a later innovation opposed by the fathers and associated with Gnostic errors. (For a longer treatment, see my documentary Once Saved, Always Saved on YouTube.)Lust and adultery: not a clever analogy, but a factPart of Jesus’ force here is descriptive: if you indulge lust, your “I’ve never committed adultery” badge is meaningless. If circumstances aligned—privacy, proposition, timing—you know where a lusting heart wants to go. Everyone recognizes the “dirty old man” who leers yet boasts he’s never cheated; no one calls that righteousness. Lust is adultery of the heart, full stop.Scripture’s wider witnessJesus’ warning isn’t isolated. The New Testament stacks passage upon passage with the same seriousness and the same outcome:* Mark 7:21–23: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries… All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”* 1 Corinthians 6:9–10: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators… nor adulterers… will inherit the Kingdom of God.”* Ephesians 5:3–6: “But sexual immorality and all impurity and covetousness must not even be named among you… For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure… has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”* Colossians 3:5–8: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire… On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.”* 1 Thessalonians 4:3–8: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality… that no one transgress… because the Lord is an avenger in all these things… Whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”* Revelation 21:8: “…the sexually immoral… their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”The pattern is consistent: this is not optional; the consequence is hell. “Let no one deceive you with empty words.”Don’t let anyone steal your treasureScripture exalts the fear of the Lord as a priceless gift and a protective fountain:* “He will be the stability of your times… and the fear of the LORD is his treasure.” (Isaiah 33:6)* “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, that one may avoid the snares of death.” (Proverbs 14:27)* “By the fear of the LORD one keeps away from evil.” (Proverbs 16:6)Today many say “fear” simply means reverence. But if you’re trapped in bondage—and lust is a dopamine-driven bondage—the fear of God is the rope that can pull you out. If “once saved, always saved” isn’t true and hell awaits those who persist in unrepentant sin, then the fear of the Lord becomes your lifeline. Don’t let anyone steal it.My testimony: “The first look is temptation; the second look is sin”I used to believe it was impossible not to lust. The breakthrough came with a simple distinction: you can’t control the first look; you can absolutely refuse the second. That second look is the choice to lust. Realizing that made obedience plausible—and then, by the Spirit, actual. Around the same time the Lord freed me from alcohol (my chief bondage), He freed me from pornography and from choosing lust. It’s been two and a half years. I’m careful not to boast; I still police “loopholes” like second-glancing a face. But genuine freedom is real.Freedom has come with a surprising feature: the suffering diminishes. Early on, resisting felt unbearable—like the day I rode past a line of women in bikinis and nearly reeled under the temptation. More recently, spending a day amid swimsuits at Nashville’s Opryland water park, I still didn’t look—and the inner battle, while real, was far lighter than two years prior. I don’t blame Babylon for being Babylon; I’m responsible for my eyes and my heart. And walking out that day, I felt the deep relief of no longer living in a bottomless pit of diminishing returns and growing slavery.Repentance that sticks: teetotaling, burned bridges, and the fear of GodWhite-knuckling and dabbling keep you enslaved. The bridge back to sin must be burned. That’s what the fear of the Lord does—turns “I’ll try to quit” into “I’m done for good.”A few hard-won lessons from that process:* Teetotaling is the only option. Keep “dipping a toe,” and you’ll be back under it. You can die out there in backsliding. Repeated returns quench the Holy Spirit and open doors to the enemy’s temptations. Six months later, you’re numb to conviction and shopping for doctrines that excuse the bondage.* Support groups aren’t the engine of freedom. Use them if they help, but recognize they often replace the fear of God with the fear of disappointing people. That may restrain you for a while; it won’t burn the bridge.* Expect the loopholes. “Just the face.” “Just audio.” “Just if she’s not married.” Satan will throw a menu of compromises. Refuse them all.And when you do slip, don’t presume on grace. Confess immediately and return like the prodigal for good—not for another month of cycles.“If your right eye makes you stumble…”I’ve heard “hyperbole” in nearly every sermon on Matthew 5:29–30. There is hyperbole in the first clause (“tear it out… cut it off”); gouging eyes and severing hands don’t cure the heart. A blind person can lust; a one-handed person can still sin. But the second clause is sober, literal truth:“For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”On masturbation: some insist it’s always sin. I’m cautious. It is usually sin and tangled with dopamine addiction, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lord convinced me it’s always sin. At minimum, treat it as a holiness issue before God, not a loophole.Hell is real—and intolerableJesus spoke more about hell than heaven, using graphic language shared across Scripture. If you’ve softened hell into something tolerable—or into nonexistence—reconsider. I keep a YouTube playlist of vetted “hell testimonies”; the first is Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes in Hell. What struck me was the consistency and the trauma: bodies that “regenerate” only to be tormented again; a world “more real” than this one; heat, stench, darkness, demonic cruelty—witnessed by people who seem deeply marked and unlikely to fabricate it. You don’t build a life on experiences, but let Scripture interpret them: nothing is worth your soul. Burn the bridge.Suffering as part of sanctificationResisting temptation is a form of suffering Scripture actually commends:1 Peter 4:1–6: “Since, then, Christ has suffered in the flesh, you must also arm yourselves with a determination to do the same, because he who has suffered in the flesh has done with sin, that, in future, you may spend the rest of your earthly lives governed not by human passions, but by the will of God; for you’ve given time enough in the past to the doing of things which the Gentiles delight in pursuing.”Over time, the suffering of saying “no” recedes; the freedom grows. That is the fruit of repentance and the Spirit’s power, not of loopholes or clever self-talk.The final wordJesus’ words are not optional. Lust is not harmless; it is adultery of the heart, and its end is hell. But there is real hope: repent, receive the Holy Spirit’s power, and treasure the fear of the Lord. Burn the bridge. Don’t let anyone steal that treasure from you. It is, as Proverbs says, a fountain of life.We’ll continue alternating livestreams and Deformation chapters on Substack. Subscribe there for email notifications and to follow along as we keep digging into the words of Jesus—and by His grace, doing them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com

The Consequences of Anger: A Study of Matthew 5:23–26Welcome back to the Vine Abiders study. We are continuing our walk through the Sermon on the Mount. Last week, we began looking at Jesus’ “new commandments” in Matthew 5:21–22, where He equates anger with murder. This week, we move into verses 23–26, which are still about anger, but focus more on its consequences.Recap: Jesus on Anger (Matthew 5:21–22)Jesus says: “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder,’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the Supreme Court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.”We asked the question: what are we going to do with Jesus’ teaching? He seems to be giving us new commandments to follow, which is very different from the way most evangelical churches present this passage. Luther and later Protestant tradition often taught that Jesus’ impossible commands were simply meant to show us we cannot obey. But the early church understood differently. Polycarp, a disciple of John the Apostle, said: “He who raised Him up from the dead will raise us up also, if we do His will and walk in His commandments, and love what He loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness, covetousness, love of money, evil speaking, false witness, not rendering evil for evil, railing for railing, blow for blow, or cursing for cursing.”The early church was consistent. They did not teach sinless perfection. They did not teach salvation by works. They taught that salvation is free and undeserved, but that abiding in Christ means continuing in Him—keeping His commandments by the power of the Spirit. When Jesus says anger is equivalent to murder, He is stating truth, not exaggeration. Indulging lust means the only thing keeping you from adultery is opportunity. Indulging anger means the only thing keeping you from murder is opportunity. Virtue is not found in the absence of opportunity; it is found in resisting the desire itself.Anger as AddictionAnger is addictive. Biochemically, it produces dopamine just like alcohol, pornography, or gambling. The strongest dopamine rush comes when anger feels justified—when someone cuts you off in traffic, when rage-bait floods your feed, or when you see someone “get what’s coming to them.”For years I believed anger and lust could not be resisted, that temptation always led to sin. But I came to realize something simple and life-changing: “The first look is temptation. The second look is sin.” I can’t avoid seeing the girl walking down the street. I can’t avoid the initial spark of anger when I’m wronged. But I can resist indulging it. That’s the difference, and that’s where victory lies. Like any addiction, it’s hard at first, but resisting gets easier with practice. Resist the devil, and he will flee.The Fear of the LordNo one overcomes a loved addiction without something monumental motivating them. Meth addicts know it destroys them but keep using. Anger is no different. What then is strong enough to break its hold? The Bible tells us: the fear of the Lord.Isaiah 33:6 calls it “His treasure.” Proverbs 14:27 says, “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may avoid the snares of death.” Proverbs 16:6 declares, “By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.”Do not let anyone steal this treasure from you. Many churches today downplay the fear of God, redefining it as mere reverence. But Scripture is clear: fear is fear. Jesus Himself warned about hell repeatedly, and the early church embraced holy fear as the path away from sin. Without it, the bondage of anger will never be broken.Anger and PrayerMatthew 5:23–24 says, “Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”Jesus says reconciliation is a higher priority than sacrifice, even higher than prayer. Before you pray, forgive. Mark 11:25–26 reinforces this: “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:7 that husbands must honor their wives “so that your prayers will not be hindered.” He goes on to say, “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”If you feel like your prayers are dead, consider whether unforgiveness is at the root. Scripture is blunt: God will not hear the prayers of those who will not forgive.Doors to the EnemyPaul warns in Ephesians 4:26–27: “Be angry, and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Anger gives Satan a foothold. Bitterness grieves the Holy Spirit. Cain’s story in Genesis 4 illustrates this. God told him, “Sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Cain refused, and his anger led to murder.Hebrews 12:14–15 warns that bitterness can cause many to be defiled, and that those who refuse to pursue peace and sanctification “will not see the Lord.” This is not a minor issue. Anger, left unchecked, can destroy faith itself.Settle QuicklyJesus continues in Matthew 5:25–26: “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly, I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid the last penny.”The immediate context is debtor’s prison in Roman society. But the principle is broader. Settle disputes quickly, before they escalate. Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 6, rebuking believers for suing one another. He says, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?”The cure for anger is dying to your rights. If you cling to fairness, you will never find peace. But if you lay down your rights—if you turn the other cheek, if you let go of your coat as well as your shirt, if you walk the extra mile—you will be free.Practical StepsFear God. Recognize that anger can damn the soul. Reconcile quickly. Do not take believers to court. Esteem others higher than yourself. Pray for your enemies, especially those who fuel your anger. Practice losing arguments and letting others have the last word. It is healing to die to self.ConclusionAnger may feel justified, but indulging it is deadly. It blocks your prayers, opens doors to Satan, defiles the soul, and endangers salvation. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, through holy fear, and through humble obedience to Jesus, anger can be overcome.Take Jesus at His word. Reconcile quickly. Forgive freely. Live at peace with all people. The path away from anger is not weakness—it is freedom.Vine Abiders ResourcesPodcast: Apple & Spotify (search Vine Abiders)Livestream: Wednesdays at 7 PM EST (YouTube & Facebook)Long-form series: The Deformation Series on Substack This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vineabiders.substack.com