Category Archives: Genesis

Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace, 1.26

14 Tuesday Jun 2022

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Chapter 26

This chapter raises two issues, first the serpent. Kuyper takes it that Eve was surprised to hear from the Serpent. This is a disordering of nature: humans speak to and about animals, but speech moves in only one way.  She should have or must have realized this was some alien power. In Genesis 2:15, God instructed Adam to “keep” the Garden.  That would infer that something dangerous was about.

The verb sh-m-r, to keep, does mean (in appropriate places) an action to protect or preserve.  For instance, in 1 Samuel 25:12, David speaks of “guarding” Nabal’s property. As Wenham explains, “Similarly, שׁמר “to guard, to keep” has the simple profane sense of “guard” (4:9; 30:31), but it is even more commonly used in legal texts of observing religious commands and duties (17:9; Lev 18:5) and particularly of the Levitical responsibility for guarding the tabernacle from intruders (Num 1:53; 3:7–8). Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, vol. 1, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1987), 67.

This leads to the question, “Guard against what?” It does seem odd, at first glance, to see a command to “protect” when all is very good Adam is in Paradise. Thus, Kuyper is correct to see the implied danger in the command “to keep.”  Kuyper thinks she must have known of

When a beast appears disrupting the natural order, he should have been recognized immediately as the danger previously warned against. Kuyper asserts Eve did know this was the alien power.

The second issue addressed in this chapter is the counter-factual: What if they had withstood the test? They would have known God better as their king and law giver. Their sin did open up a world of knowledge to them. It was an actual form of knowledge, because God sought to bar them from the Garden by armed Cheribum.

Adam and Eve were deluded in what they obtained: they did not actually raise to the preeminence of determining right and wrong in an absolute sense; merely in a rebellious manner refusing to accept God’s pronouncement.  This disruption of the proper relationship with God has left us poor humans with a bad conscience.  He refers to that status as a “holy sensation to feel shame.”

We are thus left with shame were there was once honor.  It perhaps useful to note at this place that we are promise “honor” at the return of Christ (1 Peter 1:7) and we destined for “glory”. (Rom. 8:30) Such honor and glory will then replace all shame which we now experience.

The first reference to “love” in the Bible

16 Wednesday Mar 2022

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(These are some initial observations on the various aspects of love which have their genesis in the story of the sacrifice of Isaac)

Genesis 22 contains one of the strangest stories in the Bible. God has called Abraham to the land of Canaan and has promised that the land will be left to Abraham’s “seed”. God makes plain that Abraham will have a son by Sarah and that this son will inherent. God then gives a perplexing commandment:

Genesis 22:1–6 (ESV)

22 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.

This passage is remarkable also for the fact that it is the first place in the Bible which mentions “love.” And the first love mentioned in the Bible is the love of a father for his son. This does not mean that there was not love between spouses or anything of the sort. But it is interesting in terms of the function of the Bible as a whole.

Caravaggio 1598

There is another strange thing: What is Abraham thinking: not merely the perplexity of killing one’s own son; but also the end of the promise of God which has controlled Abraham’s entire life. The book of Hebrews provides this insight into Abraham’s decision:

Hebrews 11:17–19 (ESV)

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Abraham does take his son up the mountain only to have him rescued by a substitute:

Genesis 22:7–14 (ESV)

7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Thus, Isaac’s life is spared by God providing a substitute for the death to which God has sentenced Isaac.

This first reference to love thus brings together many different strands of love which will be developed over the course of the Bible to culminated in Christ.

First, there is the love of a Father for a Son. As Jesus says:

John 10:17

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

The Father loves the Son – and also that love is in the context of the Son laying down his life.

Second, this love takes place in the context of a covenant, the covenant between God and Abraham. God is sworn to fulfill a promise to Abraham by means of this son. The concept of God’s love being expressed by covenant is a theme which will be developed at length in the rest of the Bible. For those who have heard some Hebrew, this is the matter of “hesed”, covenant or loyal love.

Third, there is the love of the substitute:

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

God shows love for us by providing the substitute to save us from death:

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Fourth, this love foreshadows the resurrection which will make even the death of the substitute “right.”

Fifth, the love of the substitute for us, becomes the predicate of our love:

John 15:9

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

Sixth, that love which has for us, becomes the basis for another command:

John 15:17

These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Hence,

John 14:15

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Kuyper, Common Grace 1.17: The Two Trees

18 Friday Sep 2020

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In chapter 17, Kuyper considers the nature of the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

He considers at some length the question of the trees being a symbol and the extent to whether they were given to strengthen faith and the nature of faith.

But the point which occupies the majority of this chapter concerns the dichotomy of the two trees: one tree of life, one tree of wisdom. He parallels the two trees to the two aspects of human life, a physical life and an intellectual or spiritual life.

The tree of life – in Paradise – would have stood as a pointer to an eternal life, which we will obtain in the New Earth. But in Paradise, Adam still needed to eat and sustain life. But there is a promise of something more than the maintenance of life.

The tree of knowledge was to provide another sort of good.

He here makes some fascinating observations. The pair in the Garden were expected to desire to eat from the tree to sustain their physical life. But, when it came to knowledge, they were explicitly forbidden to seek such knowledge from natural means. They were to refrain from that tree.

The knowledge which God had for them came first from refraining to take and obeying the command. They were too seek that knowledge not from the tree but from God.

Then, having fallen by their reversal of God’s instruction for the trees, they were faced with the prospect of continual physical life – should they have taken from the Tree of Life. That would have been a catastrophe beyond measure.

Where then does this leave us. Alone in the world, remembering those trees:

Today the extravagant sinner still grasps for all that nature offers him to strengthen his body weakened by sin, so that he can all the more freely indulge his appetite for sin. The urge to do this springs up of its own accord. Sin gives a feeling of weakness, also in relation to the body. And the first thing the sinner does is to seek not the welfare of his wounded soul, but the renewal of strength for his weakened body. And what then was more natural than that fallen man, feeling God’s wrath upon him and threatened in his existence, was in the first place intent on taking from the tree of life and seeking in its fruit the strengthening of his life?

This quotation reminds of how Nietzsche spoke of the “last man,” pathetic and obsessed with health:

The earth is small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea-beetle; the last man lives longest….

One is clever and knows everything that has ever happened: so there is no end of derision. One still quarrels, but one is soon reconciled—else it might spoil the digestion.

One has one’s little pleasure for the day and one’s little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.

And so the irony of our state: in seeking to be gods, we became small and weak — even the smallest strand of virus, a necklace of amino acids so small as to be incomprehensible may fell us. And we spend are small lives obsessed with health.

William Carlos Williams, “The Farmer”

25 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by in Genesis, Literature, Uncategorized

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(Photo by Ian Livesey)

The farmer deep in thought

is pacing through the rain

among his black fields, with

hands in pockets,

in his head

the harvest already planted.

A cold wind ruffles the water

among the browned weeds.

On all sides

the world rolls coldly away:

black orchards

darkened by the March clouds-

leaving room for thought.

Down past the brushwood

bristling by

the rainsluiced wagonroad

looms the artist figure of

the farmer – composing

antagonist

 

 

There are so many things wonderful about this poem. In no systematic form are some observations:

The portrait: The portrait is remarkably well-drawn. Notice the farmer is shown in silhouette: we see his posture, but we have no description of his personal features. We don’t know the color of his clothes, his eyes, his hair, et cetera.

But the world has colors: browned weeds, black orchards, darkened.

We see the world around the farmer in fine details the wind ruffles the water, there are March clouds, the road is “rainsluiced”. But there are other aspects which are missing from the description.

The parties: The poem ends with the word “antagonist”. The farmer is plotting his attack upon this deranged world by putting it in order and planting his harvest. The farmer is also an artist, who has a vision of beauty which he is going to wrought in the world.

The world is cold, forbidding and filled with death: even the orchards are “black”. The world is one of chaos, and the farmer is going to overcome the chaos and make a thing of use and order.

There is an interesting aside, “the world rolls by … leaving room for thought”. To the farmer, the chaos is an opportunity for order. He sees his harvest and nothing has yet been planted.

The combination of artist and antagonist may be an echo of Genesis 1. The world having come into existence is still without order, “The world was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” But God overcome the disorder as both antagonist and artist. The farmer here does the same thing.

In fact, God plants a garden and places the first human beings in that garden. The farmer here is planning on planting a garden and obtaining a harvest himself.

I cannot say that Williams is explicitly thinking of Genesis here. There are no unambiguous allusions to the English text of Genesis. But the form is here.

So the question: is it proper to make a connection or consider the comparison where the author has not necessarily forced the connection between the two?  Yes.

Here are some reasons: First, a comparison between any two things has the potential for providing information about both. A comparison may lead one to realize a connection which was not previously apparent. Whenever come to some-thing or some-one, we are making comparisons with other similar things or ones we already know. We understand the thing we are looking at by comparing it to our previous knowledge.

Thus, making a purposeful comparison may help us to see something which was already there but not previously noticed.

Second, there are certain forms of thought which seem to be inherent in human beings. The Golden Bough is an mountain of cultural comparisons of forms from many cultures and times. There are certain ideas which just seem to make sense to us people.

That store of common forms is even greater within a culture. The ideas of Genesis would likely be familiar to Williams merely by living in his world at that time. Biblical references would be commonplace. For example, in Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain makes a memorable joke based upon Tom’s lack of Biblical knowledge, but Twain’s counting on the reader knowing the facts immediately and without explanation.

There are myriad of details about the poem which deserves consider, such as three prepositional phrases built around “in” at the beginning of the poem: the farmer is in thought, his hands are in his pocket, his harvest is in his head.

Compare that to his pacing in his black fields – where he is thinking and the black orchards leave room for thought.

The structure of the poem is a marvel.

A final observation: Williams is an artist who is composing a portrait of the farmer. The farmer is an artist who is composing a portrait of a harvest.  Williams takes all of the unorganized, but very present details of the scene (there is a man walking on a blustery March day) and turns this into ordered art.

Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace 1.8

04 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in Genesis, Uncategorized

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This chapter concerns Genesis 9:6

Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image

The first issue he considers is whether statement is the institution of capital punishment by a government, or merely an observation that private vendetta will occur. He considers the objection of Professor Mr. J. Domela Nieuwenhuis who argued tha statement was a concession to ancient cultural norms, which has no continuing significance for us living after Jesus.

Kuyer first rests upon the general principle in the Reformed Tradition that the moral content of the law remains intact, even if the culture for the moral principle works out has changed: “That form has now passed away, but that principle has remained, and we continue to be bound only to those principles, since they have been established by God.”

Addressing the argument from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus argues, You have heard, but I say: Kuyper explains that Jesus does not disagree with the Mosaic Law, but rather the traditional gloss which had been placed upon the Law. Kuyper also notes that the Old Testament provides evidence that one is to love one’s enemy. See, e.g., Prov. 25:21, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.”

Kuyper then returns to the interpretation of the 9:6, is this a command or a concession? To answer that question, he returns to the context:

Genesis 9:5–6 (ESV)

5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

6    “Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

       for God made man in his own image.

Verse five states that God will require a reckoning for murder “I will require a reckoning for the life of a man”. Verse six then specifies the manner by which this reckoning will be made, “by man shall his blood be shed”.

But that alone does not settle the issue: does the verse meant that this will be the normal course of events or is this a command to institute capital punishment?

Kuyper sees the critical element here being the basis for the command: “For God made man in his own image.” If this was merely an observation, then the basis for the proposition does not follow.

Consider:

Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

Why?

Because people normally take revenge. Because people are sinful and not forgiving. Because that is just what will happen.

Instead, the basis for the statement is God’s action in creating human beings in the image of God. God will require a reckoning, because human beings are in God’s image. The movement of the argument controls the understanding of “by man shall his blood be shed.” In context, this is what must happen, because of God’s honor. The obligation to perform the act is independent of human motivation: it both requires and limits conduct.

Kuyper on Common Grace 1.6

04 Wednesday Sep 2019

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The previous post in this series may be found here. 

Genesis 9:3–5 (ESV)

3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

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Goya, Three Salmon Steaks

In chapter six, Kuyper considers the provisions of the Noahic covenant which pertain to the relationship between animals and human beings. He will conclude that the primary basis for this command is to erect a clear demarcation between human beings and animals.

First, human beings may animals as well as plants.

Second, human beings must be distinguished from animals, in that we will not eat living animals. In distinction from animals and in reverence to God, the animal must first be dead before it may be eaten.

Third, animals are not given the equivalent right to eat human beings.

Some further observations.

Three points of elaboration.

Kuyper notes the Noahic covenant has no foreshadowing of the New Covenant in the way the Mosaic Covenant points forward to the coming Messiah. He refers to the Mosaic Covenant as being a covenant of shadows – and that the foreshadowing did not start until the giving of circumcision and the coming of Israel.

As to killing animals, he contends rightly that this is a provision of the Noahic covenant – it is not based upon the creation order.  Kuyper notes how we naturally revolt against killing animals – it takes some to overcome that hesitancy.

Kuyper also infers a high degree of barbarism in the pre-flood world, such that limitations on tearing animals in the manner of beasts and restrictions on cannibalism were necessary as a common grace restraint.

He notes that by requiring the life to depart to God who gave it, we are giving deference to God in the taking of the animal. Calvin, who informs a great deal of Kuyper’s thought on this subject writes in his commentary:

This ought justly to be deemed by us of greater importance, that to eat the flesh of animals is granted to us by the kindness of God; that we do not seize upon what our appetite desires, as robbers do, nor yet tyrannically shed the innocent blood of cattle; but that we only take what is offered to us by the hand of the Lord. We have heard what Paul says, that we are at liberty to eat what we please, only we do it with the assurance of conscience, but that he who imagines anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean, (Romans 14:14.) And whence has this happened to man, that he should eat whatever food he pleased before God, with a tranquil mind, and not with unbridled license, except from his knowing, that it has been divinely delivered into his hand by the right of donation? Wherefore, (the same Paul being witness,) the word of God sanctifies the creatures, that we may purely and lawfully feed on them, (1 Timothy 4:5.) Let the adage be utterly rejected which says,‘that no one can feed and refresh his body with a morsel of bread, without, at the same time, defiling his soul.’Therefore it is not to be doubted, that the Lord designed to confirm our faith, when he expressly declares by Moses, that he gave to man the free use of flesh, so that we might not eat it with a doubtful and trembling conscience. At the same time, however, he invites us to thanksgiving. On this account also, Paul adds “prayer” to the “word”, in defining the method of sanctification in the passage recently cited.

John Calvin, Genesis, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries, 1998, Ge 9:3.

 

Some notes on the Son of Man and Jesus’ Kingdom

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Christology, Genesis, Hebrews, Romans, Uncategorized

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(These are some notes to work out a study or sermon)

Genesis 1:26–27 (NASB95)

26        Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27        God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

 

Humanity was granted a universal kingdom. That was our original state.

 

 

Genesis 3: Adam sins is driven from the Garden.

 

Adam forfeits that kingdom – even though exercising that Kingdom was the purpose of man (Son of Man).

 

Romans 5:12 (NASB95)

12        Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

 

The only Kingdom which mankind possesses of itself is being a subject to the kingdom of death.

 

 

 

 

Psalm 8 (NASB95)

PSALM 8

For the choir director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.

1            OLord, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth,

Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

2            From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength

Because of Your adversaries,

To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

3            When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

4            What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?

5            Yet You have made him a little lower than God,

And You crown him with glory and majesty!

6            You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

7            All sheep and oxen,

And also the beasts of the field,

8            The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,

Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

9            OLord, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth!

 

 

Here the issue is raised: We are insignificant – and yet we were created to exercise a kingdom. It says here – after Adam’s fall – that man exercises a kingdom. This is a paradox: it is not true for us. Thus, it is true as a prophecy.

 

 

Daniel 7:13–14 (NASB95)

The Son of Man Presented

13        “I kept looking in the night visions,

And behold, with the clouds of heaven

One like a Son of Man was coming,

And He came up to the Ancient of Days

And was presented before Him.

14        “And to Him was given dominion,

Glory and a kingdom,

That all the peoples, nations and men of everylanguage

Might serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

Which will not pass away;

And His kingdom is one

Which will not be destroyed.

 

The Son of Man is a king and receives a kingdom which is (1) universal; (2) eternal; and (3) indestructible.

 

(Adam and Jesus are perfect parallels in a number of ways. Both are also called the Son of God, because they came directly from God. Everyone else comes from another human being.)

 

Jesus calls himself the Son of Man.

 

John 3:14–15 (NASB95)

14        “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;

15        so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

 

Here is another level of irony. The Son of Man will be “lifted up”: this was both a straight ahead statement: to be exalted. It was also a euphemism for crucifixion: lifted up on a cross.

 

So, the Son of Man – the one who was to obtain a universal kingdom – will give eternal life (rather than leaving human beings to being subjected to a kingdom of death), by dying.

 

Hebrews 2 explains that Jesus restores and fulfills what Adam lost (kingdom, life) by means of his death:

 

Hebrews 2:5–15 (NASB95)

5          For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking.

6          But one has testified somewhere, saying,

“What is man, that You remember him?

Or the son of man, that You are concerned about him?

7          “You have made him for a little while lower than the angels;

You have crowned him with glory and honor,

And have appointed him over the works of Your hands;

8          You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”

For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.

9          But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

10        For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

11        For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father;for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,

12        saying,

“I will proclaim Your name to My brethren,

In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”

13        And again,

“I will put My trust in Him.”

And again,

“Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me.”

14        Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,

15        and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

 

Thus, God in Jesus Christ, fulfills what was originally intended for Adam. Jesus is born into the world under Adam’s curse. He through death conquers death and thus restores to humanity what was lost in Adam. He is subjected and overcomes – and therefore, he receives an everlasting kingdom. See also, Psalm 2.

John Calvin: The World as a Theater

23 Thursday Mar 2017

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Therefore, because God has put us in this world as in a theatre, to contemplate his glory, let us acknowledge him to be such as he declares himself to us, and because he gives us the second instruction which is even more familiar in his word, let us be more confident and stirred with a burning zeal to aspire unto him until we reach that goal, and let us be aware that this world was created for that purpose and that our Lord has placed us here and has favored us with living here and enjoying all the things he has created.

Now, the sun was not made for itself and is even a creature without feeling. The trees, the each, which produces food for us — all of that works for man. The animals, although they move and have some feeling, do not do for all that have this high capacity to understand what belongs to God, for they do not discriminate between good and evil. We also see that their life and death are for men’s use and service.

Jean Calvin, “The Triune God at Work (Gen. 1:1-2)” in Sermons On Genesis, Chapters 1:1-11:4: Forty-Nine Sermons Delivered in Geneva between 4 September 1559 and 23 January 1560, trans. Rob Roy McGregor (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, ©2009), 6.

However, we need note here that we are more than cursed and abominable if we, being masters and possessors of all the good things God has bestowed upon us, do not at least show gratitude as we worship him and confess that everything comes from.

Id., at p. 10. This is the great indictment of humanity:

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:21–25 (ESV)

 

Stephen’s Speech as Legal Argument/Story Part I

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Acts, Genesis, Uncategorized, Worship

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First, the structure of Steven’s Speech in Acts 7

THE CHARGE:

Acts 6:8–15 (ESV)

8 And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. 10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, 13 and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, 14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” 15 And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

DETAILS:

CONCLUSORY CHARGE:
This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law,

EVIDENCE:
14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us

LOGIC STRUCTURE:

IF
Stephen said Jesus will (a) destroy the temple and (b) change Moses customs

THEN
Stephen is blaspheming.

Therefore, Ste

STEPHENS DEFENSE

Stephen anchors his defense in the promise of God to Abraham:

A. God’s appearance to Abraham

1. Acts 7:2–3 (ESV)
2 And Stephen said:
“Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’
2. God promises Abraham a homeland
It is probably safe to say that Stephen also implies the totality of the promises made to Abraham.

3. This scene is roughly paralleled by the God of glory’s appearance to Stephen at the end of the story:

Acts 7:54–60 (ESV)

54 Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. 55 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57 But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. 58 Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

B. Abraham’s Obedience (v. 4)
Acts 7:4 (ESV)
4 Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.

 

C. God explains the delay in the promise being fulfilled/Covenant of Circumcision

1. Acts 7:5–6 (ESV)
5 Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. 6 And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.

2. Acts 7:8 (ESV)
8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

2. Genesis

Stephen’s order matches Genesis:

Genesis 17:1–14 (ESV)

17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

THE SAVOIRS/REJECTIONS

At this point, Stephen a series of three saviors who are rejected: Joseph, Moses & and then Jesus. The odd movement here is between the Temple to Jesus

George Whitefield Sermons, Walking With God.1

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Genesis, George Whitefield, Hebrews, Preaching

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This will be an analysis of the structure and content of Whitefield’s sermon “Walking With God” based upon Genesis 5:24, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him.”

The Introduction:

Whitefield begins the sermon by posing an issue, which the sermon will resolve:

Various are the pleas and arguments which men of corrupt minds frequently urge against yielding obedience to the just and holy commands of God.

He then restates and narrows the issue:

But, perhaps, one of the most common objections that they make is this, that our Lord’s commands are not practicable, because contrary to flesh and blood;

He then narrows the point further by turning it into an accusation in the mouth of those who refuse obedience:

and consequently, that he is ‘an hard master, reaping where he has not sown, and gathering where he has not strewed’. These we find were the sentiments entertained by that wicked and slothful servant mentioned in the 25th of St. Matthew; and are undoubtedly the same with many which are maintained in the present wicked and adulterous generation.

Notice that at the end of this section he puts the complaint into the mouth of some who are hearing him. Whitfield knows the objection presented and he allows the one who would reject the message Whitfield brings. Whitefield effectively says to such a one, I’m talking to you.

Whitefield does not something which would not perhaps be the first move of a preacher. Rather than try to argue with them on the basis of some shared value, Whitefield states God knows and has answered this objection in the Scripture:

The Holy Ghost foreseeing this, hath taken care to inspire holy men of old, to record the examples of many holy men and women; who, even under the Old Testament dispensation, were enabled cheerfully to take Christ’s yoke upon them, and counted his service perfect freedom.

Whitefield then begins to lay out the persons who prove his point:
The large catalogue of saints, confessors, and martyrs, drawn up in the 11th chapter to the Hebrews, abundantly evidences the truth of this observation. What a great cloud of witnesses have we there presented to our view? All eminent for their faith, but some shining with a greater degree of luster than do others. The proto-martyr Abel leads the van.

At this point, Whitefield slows to consider Enoch. First, he notes the extraordinary thing about Enoch.

And next to him we find Enoch mentioned, not only because he was next in order of time, but also on account of his exalted piety; he is spoken of in the words of the text in a very extraordinary manner. We have here a short but very full and glorious account, both of his behavior in this world, and the triumphant manner of his entry into the next. The former is contained in these words, ‘And Enoch walked with God’. The latter in these, ‘and he was not: for God took him’. He was not; that is, he was not found, he was not taken away in the common manner, he did not see death; for God had translated him. (Heb. 11:5.)

Next, Whitefield considers what little can be surmised about Enoch.

Who this Enoch was, does not appear so plainly. To me, he seems to have been a person of public character; I suppose, like Noah, a preacher of righteousness. And, if we may credit the apostle Jude, he was a flaming preacher. For he quotes one of his prophecies, wherein he saith, ‘Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him’.

However, Whitfield does not allow his imagination to stray, and contents himself with God’s commendation of the man:

But whether a public or private person, he has a noble testimony given him in the lively oracles. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews saith, that before his translation he had this testimony, ‘that he pleased God’; and his being translated, was a proof of it beyond all doubt. And I would observe, that it was wonderful wisdom in God to translate Enoch and Elijah under the Old Testament dispensation, that hereafter, when it should be asserted that the Lord Jesus was carried into heaven, it might not seem a thing altogether incredible to the Jews; since they themselves confessed that two of their own prophets had been translated several hundred hears before.

Rather than running to some anecdote from 5,000 sermon illustrations, Whitfield has spent the opening section raising an issue directly and then looking to the Scripture for an example which illustrates and answers the issue raised in the first sentence. Too often, the introduction to the sermon is merely a time for bad story telling or jokes.

Having introduced his subject Whitfield then closes the introduction and sets out what he will develop at length:

But it is not my design to detain you any longer, by enlarging, or making observations, on Enoch’s short but comprehensive character: the thing I have in view being to give a discourse, as the Lord shall enable, upon a weighty and a very important subject; I mean, walking with God. ‘And Enoch walked with God.’ If so much as this can be truly said of you and me after our decease, we shall not have any reason to complain that we have lived in vain.

Whitefield has done a great deal in this introduction. First, he has raised a topic which the sermon will answer. Second, he has provided some general Bible knowledge, by using the Scripture as the basis for his illustration and discussion. Third, he has shown that walking with God is a laborious or painful thing. Fourth, he has set out the hope of the Gospel as illustrated by Enoch’s example. In the remainder of the sermon, Whitefield will set out how both a believer and one who is not yet a believer may walk with God.