Monday, October 30, 2017
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Biology Determines Reality
Our culture is such an odd egalitarian experiment, a failed one at that, where our Gnosticism runs so deep we ignore our biology. We're just spirits in shells, so gender is not who we truly are. We're ungendered souls trapped in our gendered bodies. True freedom, i.e., salvation/redemption, stems from escaping the strictures of our physical prisons by bending them to a genderless existence. We do that in our culture with technology. "More machine than man" (or woman), as Ben Kenobi said of Darth Vader. Technology hides our biology by circumventing the limitations or natural functions of that biology. Don't want to rely on your own biological strength to hunt or defend yourself? Here's a shotgun. Don't want to give birth to a child after having sex? Here's some birth control. Want to be able to feed a baby but you're a man? Here's some formula.
What this means, however, is that technology, not biology, defines our roles in the modern world. It's perfect for a Gnostic, who believes he or she is only a spirit needing to be freed from the restraints of the biologically gendered body. The problem is that we're tied to our bodies far more closely than our Gnostic cult wants to admit. Don't believe me? Go hit your head, suffer brain damage, and see how you become a different person. If you were only a spirit in a body, why is the personality of your "spirit" so different now?
And the problem with being a physical human being that has been ensouled is that when one attempts to disconnect his or her purpose from who he or she is biologically speaking, the person enters into a dichotomy of self, where who a person is in terms of his or her gender is at war with who he or she sees him or herself to be in their technologically-modified self.
Now, don't get me wrong. Technology can aid one to fulfill his or her biologically-gendered purpose all the more; but too many times, in our western, Gnostic cult, it is used to bypass gender and to seek a role that was meant to fulfill the purpose of the opposite gender.
In this regard, one must conclude that any kind of egalitarian/feminist thinking that seeks to ignore the role created by one's biology is simply delusional. In other words, egalitarian/feminist strands of thought that incorporate this type of thinking are a denial of reality, and those who seek to live in denial of reality, by definition, have a mental illness.
What I see when I see some sort of "intellectual" panel of people who assume this worldview, and all of the wonderful ethics that bolster the family unit as the foundation of human society as a whole (sarcasm intended), is a bunch of lunatics who have taken over the asylum.
The lunatics may think it's funny that they're upsetting the applecart of the stuffy, outdated patriarchy, but in reality, they're kamikazeing their own culture, and ironically, the very freedom to sit in an ivory tower and discuss ridiculous ideas as if they were reality. Asylums run by the delusional can only last so long. It may be fun to highjack the culture in the short run, but to reject one's true biological purpose leads to emptiness after the initial thrill of the joyride.
Feminists, and our culture of women who have been influenced by this thinking, are actually very depressed people. They try to blow this off by saying it has to do with their realization that women are underrepresented in history and cultural development, but this is hardly why the average woman who has been influenced by feminist/Gnostic thought is depressed. She has been convinced that if she is to truly do something in life, she must be saved from her biological role, only to find that she has damned her biology to a hellish futility, as even a robot can fulfill her role as a genderless worker drone that regurgitates the ideas and thoughts of its culture.
What it can't do is naturally give birth to a human life, nurture that life with its body, be a mother, be a wife, be the pillar of human society. The delusion may have tempting fruit, but it only brings chaos and death to its consumers and to those around them. If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, the hand that refuses to rock it loses the world in this Faustian bargain.
The fruit that brings life is the biblical view of a human that accepts the roles that naturally stem from our biology. This is to function as an image of God, and its purpose, to bring about covenant human life to the glory of God produces a fulfillment, a wholeness, to the human being, and begets life and order into the self, into the family, into the world. Biology determines reality because God determines reality through biology. To deny this is to deny God and one's very self to the very ruin of the world.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
The End of the Age? PART II
In doing lexicography, one must note that a particular word does not refer to the same thing in every context. That should seem obvious, but for some reason, the bad habit of forcing a word to refer to the same thing as it refers to in other contexts still pervades modern biblical interpretation.
As with other words, the word αἰών functions differently in different contexts.
THE PAST AGES
In the singular, Luke uses it to refer to the holy prophets "from an age," which is to refer to past time. If this referred to a specific age, one would think it would have the definite article. Even so, there is no mention of the old covenant here. Even if one wanted to link the prophets to the old covenant, the irony is that Luke is quoting their prophecy of Christ to come. He uses the same language in Acts 3:21.
Luke also refers to God in a title he gives to Him, "known from an age," meaning, known from ancient times or from of old.
In John 9:32, the healed blind man states that "from the age, it has not been heard that one opened the eyes of one born blind." This refers to the past. "From times of old," or "from the past" would be an appropriate translation.
In the plural, the word often refers to the whole of created time. It refers to this in 1 Cor 2:7:
ἀλλὰ λαλοῦμεν θεοῦ σοφίαν ἐν μυστηρίῳ τὴν ἀποκεκρυμμένην, ἣν προώρισεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων εἰς δόξαν ἡμῶν,
ἣν οὐδεὶς τῶν ἀρχόντων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἔγνωκεν· (1 Cor. 2:7-8)
"But we speak from God a puzzling wisdom, which was hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, [a wisdom] which none of the rulers of this age have come to know."
Notice that the all encompassing use of the plural, referring to all of the ages that came after God's predetermined wisdom expressed in Christ being crucified, and the one age, which refers to Paul's present age in which the rulers who crucified Christ missed that wisdom.
In Ephesians 3:9, Paul says that this plan has been hidden from "the ages," meaning that it was not revealed to the ages in the past. This means that there are numerous ages in the past, and in Eph 3, this is likely referring to the Jewish past, i.e., in the time of the Old Testament.
In 3:11, Paul states that the purpose of the ages was this plan of God, i.e., the gospel of Christ that restores the nations to Himself and reconciles all things in heaven and earth to Himself. Again, this refers to multiple ages in the past in contrast to the present age in Paul's day in which it has now been revealed.
Colossians 1:26 also makes this clear: τὸ μυστήριον τὸ ἀποκεκρυμμένον ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν γενεῶν- νῦν δὲ ἐφανερώθη τοῖς ἁγίοις αὐτοῦ,
"The mystery which was hidden from [past] ages and from generations, but now is revealed to his saints."
Jude refers to all time as πρὸ παντὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ νῦν καὶ εἰς πάντας τοὺς αἰῶνας,
"before every age and now and into all of the ages." There is no hint of him or any other New Testament author divyying up the present world into two ages: an old covenant age and a new covenant age.
THE FUTURE
Galatians 1:5 and other texts refer to eternity in the future as εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων "into the age of the ages." This particular expression likely refers to eternity as the final age. The age that comes forth out of all ages, and is distinguished from them. However, the eternal future is also expressed as
In Ephesians 3:21, Paul states:
αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων,
"To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus into all generations of the age of the ages."
In this regard, one can see that eternity, or the "age of the ages" has the church existing in multiple generations. This is one of the verses from which people get the idea of the new covenant age even though the terminology is not used here. The phrase "age of the ages" is not literally speaking of a particular age, but really of eternity to come. Forever starts now, but it does not mean that other ages do not exist in the future. It is simply a way of saying "for all ages to come, now and in the future."
This is better seen in a parallel expression found in Philippians 4:20, which gives an interesting variation of this by saying:
τῷ δὲ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ ἡμῶν ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων
"Now to our God and Father be glory into the ages of the ages."
Notice here that the terminology is all plural. It does not speak of one age among the ages, but ages among the ages. This means that Paul is not meaning to say that there is one new covenant age that comes after the old covenant age, or even previous ages, but that there are many ages that exist in the future and on into eternity. Again, there is no specific age of a new covenant versus a previous age of the old covenant. There are multiple ages in the past and multiple ages in the future. See also 2 Tim 4:18; Heb 13:1; 1 Pet 4:11; Rev 1:6, 18; 4:9-10; 5:13; 7:12; 10:16; "Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. There were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world now belongs to our Lord and to His Christ, and he will reign into the ages of the ages" (11:15); 14:11; 15:7; 19:3; 20:10; 22:5.
Even when some interpret the new heaven and earth as the new covenant (which, in context, it is not), there is still no terminology of a single age that describes it, but rather, in Revelation 22:5, it uses the terminology of "ages into the ages."
Again, this is an idiom which means "eternity" or "forever." My simple point is that there is no language concerning an age assigned to the new covenant in the New Testament. Hebrews 1:8 has both in the singular: "from the age of the age," and 2 Peter 3:18 uses the phrase "into a day of an age," showing that the terminology is varied and interchangeable.
PRESENT WORLD VERSUS WORLD TO COME
The word often refers, not to an old covenant age, but to the present world. In other words, all of the ages of the world are summed up in one age versus all of the future ages of the new world to come in the eschaton are summed up into one age. This is actually "the age to come," not a new covenant age that some attempt to define it as.
In Matthew 13:22, Jesus speaks of the gospel being choked in a person so that it does not bear fruit due to the concerns of "the age." It is clear that the "concerns of the age" refer to things like riches, not the old covenant. Mark also includes "the desire for other things" (4:19) as that which chokes the fruitfulness of the gospel in a person.
In Matthew 13:39, Jesus uses the term "age" to describe the consummation when the angels gather up His visible church, the wheat and the weeds that were sown by Him and the devil. Matthew throughout his work is addressing the church. This scene describes the visible church that has both real disciples of Christ who were planted by Him and false believers planted by the devil. The age cannot refer to the old covenant age, as Christ makes clear that the good seed he plants in the field, which is the world, are the children "of the kingdom" (v. 38), and the angels are collecting the false believers, who are the children of the devil, "out of the kingdom." The kingdom, in this world, is the church in Matthew's Gospel. The local church is the microcosmic deposit of the kingdom to come. The pool of water from the larger ocean. So the "end/consummation of the age" does not refer to something that happens in A.D. 70.
In v. 49, Christ gives a parable of the kingdom, which is represented by a net that catches both good and bad fish. At the "end of the age" the good and bad fish, which are disciples of Christ versus false believers, will be separated, and the wicked will be thrown into the fiery furnace.
In Matthew 28:20, Jesus sends out His disciples into the world to make disciples of all nations. In their doing so, He states that He will be with them even until the end of the age. If the end of the age is only a few years from when Matthew writes his work, or even 43 or 44 years from the time Jesus says it, the age doesn't last very long, nor can Christians be confident that Christ will be with them to accomplish this task of discipling the world beyond that point, as He doesn't say "forever," but "until the end of the age."
Paul refers to the debater of "this age" in 1 Corinthians 1:20. Although Paul speaks of Jews and Greeks here, not only does he not mention anything about the old covenant, when speaking about wisdom and debating, he seems to be talking about the Greeks/Gentiles. "This age," then, is not referring to the old covenant, but the present time, the time of fallen human men, etc.
In 2:6, he contrasts the wisdom that is found, not in this age, nor the rulers of this age who are still passing away, but a wisdom that stems from God who predetermined these things from before the ages (2:7).
In Galatians 1:4, Paul states that Christ came to rescue us "from this present evil age." Even though one might want to say that Galatians is about contrasting the old covenant versus the new, he might want to take precaution in interpreting this verse in that light, since Paul would be referring to the old covenant as both the covenant that is present and evil. Paul does not consider the old covenant evil. In fact, the old covenant is never referred to in that way. It is something that is good and needs to be read correctly. It itself is never referred to as evil. Instead, Paul likely uses this present age to refer to the fallen and cursed world from which Christ rescues us.
Hebrews 6:5 states that believers who have fallen away had "tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come."
THE CONTRAST BETWEEN PEOPLE
In Luke 16:8, Jesus distinguishes between the "sons of this age" and "the sons of light." "Age" seems to be used here, not to refer to the old covenant, but to people who do not belong to God. "Age," then, seems to mean "world" or "wicked world" in contrast to the sons of the light/righteousness.
Luke 20:34-35 indicate that the two ages are the present system of things in this world versus the eschatological world to come.
καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου γαμοῦσιν καὶ γαμίσκονται, οἱ δὲ καταξιωθέντες τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου τυχεῖν καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν οὔτε γαμοῦσιν οὔτε γαμίζονται· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀποθανεῖν ἔτι δύνανται, ἰσάγγελοι γάρ εἰσιν καὶ υἱοί εἰσιν θεοῦ τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες.
"And Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they no longer die, since they are like angels and they are sons of God, being sons of resurrection."
Here, the Sadduccess are questioning Christ about the resurrection. They pose the problem that if everyone is returned to his or her own body in which they were made one flesh with another person, it would lead to an immoral incestuous situation where the woman was one flesh with all seven brothers she married. Jesus counters this by saying that there is no marriage in the age to come, and parallels the age to come with the physical resurrection of the body from the dead. Jesus speaks of the transformed nature of the body that Paul later speaks of as the mortal body taking upon itself immortality. He describes it here as being like angels in terms of not being able to die or marry. This obviously does not refer to the new covenant age or something that starts in A.D. 70, as this would mean that Christians today cannot die and do not marry. It also refers to the age as something that one must obtain through worthiness, which is language of entering the eschaton. There is nothing here that speaks of the new covenant as "that age" in contrast to "this age." Notice also, it is the sons of "this age" who marry, but the sons of "that age" do not marry nor are given in marriage. If "this age" refers to the old covenant age, and "that age" refers to the new covenant age, then no one who claims to be a Christian should be getting married. Otherwise, he is a son of "this age," i.e., the old covenant age, and is apparently rejecting the new covenant. Of course, this is nonsense, and the word here has to do with the present time of this world's system versus the eschatological world to come.
THE ONLY VERSE WHERE AGE CAN BE MADE TO REFER TO THE OLD COVENANT PROBABLY DOESN'T
In 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. Because Paul discusses the old and new covenant in Chapter 3, many people make the argument that "this age" refers to the old covenant age. There are numerous problems with this.
1. Paul elsewhere has used the word to refer to this present age of the world in contrast to the eschatological age. "This age," then, refers to the time in which the world has not been judged, the wicked still rule, and Satan still causes people to not believe the gospel. The question would be whether Paul is using it differently here from both his writings and from anyone else in the NT.
2. To say that one can connect the age to the old covenant because they both appear in the same passage is to commit an associative fallacy. One could make the same argument that the age is associated with the new covenant since that is in the passage too. The question is whether the context limits the age to the time of the old covenant, and this necessary link is nowhere made by Paul in the passage.
3. Paul actually isn't discussing the old and new covenant as his main subject. That is just something he brings up as an example of the false apostles plaguing the Corinthian church. His main concern is to defend his apostleship and his message against the "super-apostles" and their message (Chapter 11). They are of the devil and so is their message. Satan, then, in this world, is in league with the false teachers.
Whereas one can still interpret this as all referring directly to Judaizers in the first century, as that seems to be the reference, one would be hard-pressed to exegete the idea that "the god of this age" refers exclusively to the old covenant age, rather than Paul applying ideas to the Jewish teachers that can be applied to any false teachers who are not necessarily pushing the old covenant. In other words, the situation for saying this does not limit it to those who push the old covenant. The context does not exclude other false beliefs in other time periods. Hence, "the god of this age" is not necessarily tied to an old covenant age. I realize that many Preterists think that Satan is tied to that age because of their reading of other texts, but this too is problematic and not something I can address briefly in this post.
What this means is that when one sees the word "age," it does not refer to either the old or new covenant age. In fact, it isn't linked to either the old or new covenant at all. It is mostly linked to time in the past, present, or future in contrast to one another. When Paul, therefore, tells the Corinthians that it is upon them that the "end of the ages" has come, one must note that "ages" is plural. It does not refer to one age in the past that is somehow assigned to the old covenant. Instead, the idea that the goal, fulfillment, endpoint, pinnacle of (not "end" as "the termination of") the ages has come so that they are to live in the lessons of the people of God in the past and do the good they failed to do, i.e., be faithfully obedient to God.
The two age idea is simply not supported by the New Testament.
As with other words, the word αἰών functions differently in different contexts.
THE PAST AGES
In the singular, Luke uses it to refer to the holy prophets "from an age," which is to refer to past time. If this referred to a specific age, one would think it would have the definite article. Even so, there is no mention of the old covenant here. Even if one wanted to link the prophets to the old covenant, the irony is that Luke is quoting their prophecy of Christ to come. He uses the same language in Acts 3:21.
Luke also refers to God in a title he gives to Him, "known from an age," meaning, known from ancient times or from of old.
In John 9:32, the healed blind man states that "from the age, it has not been heard that one opened the eyes of one born blind." This refers to the past. "From times of old," or "from the past" would be an appropriate translation.
In the plural, the word often refers to the whole of created time. It refers to this in 1 Cor 2:7:
ἀλλὰ λαλοῦμεν θεοῦ σοφίαν ἐν μυστηρίῳ τὴν ἀποκεκρυμμένην, ἣν προώρισεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων εἰς δόξαν ἡμῶν,
ἣν οὐδεὶς τῶν ἀρχόντων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἔγνωκεν· (1 Cor. 2:7-8)
"But we speak from God a puzzling wisdom, which was hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, [a wisdom] which none of the rulers of this age have come to know."
Notice that the all encompassing use of the plural, referring to all of the ages that came after God's predetermined wisdom expressed in Christ being crucified, and the one age, which refers to Paul's present age in which the rulers who crucified Christ missed that wisdom.
In Ephesians 3:9, Paul says that this plan has been hidden from "the ages," meaning that it was not revealed to the ages in the past. This means that there are numerous ages in the past, and in Eph 3, this is likely referring to the Jewish past, i.e., in the time of the Old Testament.
In 3:11, Paul states that the purpose of the ages was this plan of God, i.e., the gospel of Christ that restores the nations to Himself and reconciles all things in heaven and earth to Himself. Again, this refers to multiple ages in the past in contrast to the present age in Paul's day in which it has now been revealed.
Colossians 1:26 also makes this clear: τὸ μυστήριον τὸ ἀποκεκρυμμένον ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν γενεῶν- νῦν δὲ ἐφανερώθη τοῖς ἁγίοις αὐτοῦ,
"The mystery which was hidden from [past] ages and from generations, but now is revealed to his saints."
Jude refers to all time as πρὸ παντὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ νῦν καὶ εἰς πάντας τοὺς αἰῶνας,
"before every age and now and into all of the ages." There is no hint of him or any other New Testament author divyying up the present world into two ages: an old covenant age and a new covenant age.
THE FUTURE
Galatians 1:5 and other texts refer to eternity in the future as εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων "into the age of the ages." This particular expression likely refers to eternity as the final age. The age that comes forth out of all ages, and is distinguished from them. However, the eternal future is also expressed as
In Ephesians 3:21, Paul states:
αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων,
"To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus into all generations of the age of the ages."
In this regard, one can see that eternity, or the "age of the ages" has the church existing in multiple generations. This is one of the verses from which people get the idea of the new covenant age even though the terminology is not used here. The phrase "age of the ages" is not literally speaking of a particular age, but really of eternity to come. Forever starts now, but it does not mean that other ages do not exist in the future. It is simply a way of saying "for all ages to come, now and in the future."
This is better seen in a parallel expression found in Philippians 4:20, which gives an interesting variation of this by saying:
τῷ δὲ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ ἡμῶν ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων
"Now to our God and Father be glory into the ages of the ages."
Notice here that the terminology is all plural. It does not speak of one age among the ages, but ages among the ages. This means that Paul is not meaning to say that there is one new covenant age that comes after the old covenant age, or even previous ages, but that there are many ages that exist in the future and on into eternity. Again, there is no specific age of a new covenant versus a previous age of the old covenant. There are multiple ages in the past and multiple ages in the future. See also 2 Tim 4:18; Heb 13:1; 1 Pet 4:11; Rev 1:6, 18; 4:9-10; 5:13; 7:12; 10:16; "Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. There were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world now belongs to our Lord and to His Christ, and he will reign into the ages of the ages" (11:15); 14:11; 15:7; 19:3; 20:10; 22:5.
Even when some interpret the new heaven and earth as the new covenant (which, in context, it is not), there is still no terminology of a single age that describes it, but rather, in Revelation 22:5, it uses the terminology of "ages into the ages."
Again, this is an idiom which means "eternity" or "forever." My simple point is that there is no language concerning an age assigned to the new covenant in the New Testament. Hebrews 1:8 has both in the singular: "from the age of the age," and 2 Peter 3:18 uses the phrase "into a day of an age," showing that the terminology is varied and interchangeable.
PRESENT WORLD VERSUS WORLD TO COME
The word often refers, not to an old covenant age, but to the present world. In other words, all of the ages of the world are summed up in one age versus all of the future ages of the new world to come in the eschaton are summed up into one age. This is actually "the age to come," not a new covenant age that some attempt to define it as.
In Matthew 13:22, Jesus speaks of the gospel being choked in a person so that it does not bear fruit due to the concerns of "the age." It is clear that the "concerns of the age" refer to things like riches, not the old covenant. Mark also includes "the desire for other things" (4:19) as that which chokes the fruitfulness of the gospel in a person.
In Matthew 13:39, Jesus uses the term "age" to describe the consummation when the angels gather up His visible church, the wheat and the weeds that were sown by Him and the devil. Matthew throughout his work is addressing the church. This scene describes the visible church that has both real disciples of Christ who were planted by Him and false believers planted by the devil. The age cannot refer to the old covenant age, as Christ makes clear that the good seed he plants in the field, which is the world, are the children "of the kingdom" (v. 38), and the angels are collecting the false believers, who are the children of the devil, "out of the kingdom." The kingdom, in this world, is the church in Matthew's Gospel. The local church is the microcosmic deposit of the kingdom to come. The pool of water from the larger ocean. So the "end/consummation of the age" does not refer to something that happens in A.D. 70.
In v. 49, Christ gives a parable of the kingdom, which is represented by a net that catches both good and bad fish. At the "end of the age" the good and bad fish, which are disciples of Christ versus false believers, will be separated, and the wicked will be thrown into the fiery furnace.
In Matthew 28:20, Jesus sends out His disciples into the world to make disciples of all nations. In their doing so, He states that He will be with them even until the end of the age. If the end of the age is only a few years from when Matthew writes his work, or even 43 or 44 years from the time Jesus says it, the age doesn't last very long, nor can Christians be confident that Christ will be with them to accomplish this task of discipling the world beyond that point, as He doesn't say "forever," but "until the end of the age."
Paul refers to the debater of "this age" in 1 Corinthians 1:20. Although Paul speaks of Jews and Greeks here, not only does he not mention anything about the old covenant, when speaking about wisdom and debating, he seems to be talking about the Greeks/Gentiles. "This age," then, is not referring to the old covenant, but the present time, the time of fallen human men, etc.
In 2:6, he contrasts the wisdom that is found, not in this age, nor the rulers of this age who are still passing away, but a wisdom that stems from God who predetermined these things from before the ages (2:7).
In Galatians 1:4, Paul states that Christ came to rescue us "from this present evil age." Even though one might want to say that Galatians is about contrasting the old covenant versus the new, he might want to take precaution in interpreting this verse in that light, since Paul would be referring to the old covenant as both the covenant that is present and evil. Paul does not consider the old covenant evil. In fact, the old covenant is never referred to in that way. It is something that is good and needs to be read correctly. It itself is never referred to as evil. Instead, Paul likely uses this present age to refer to the fallen and cursed world from which Christ rescues us.
Hebrews 6:5 states that believers who have fallen away had "tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come."
THE CONTRAST BETWEEN PEOPLE
In Luke 16:8, Jesus distinguishes between the "sons of this age" and "the sons of light." "Age" seems to be used here, not to refer to the old covenant, but to people who do not belong to God. "Age," then, seems to mean "world" or "wicked world" in contrast to the sons of the light/righteousness.
Luke 20:34-35 indicate that the two ages are the present system of things in this world versus the eschatological world to come.
καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου γαμοῦσιν καὶ γαμίσκονται, οἱ δὲ καταξιωθέντες τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου τυχεῖν καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν οὔτε γαμοῦσιν οὔτε γαμίζονται· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀποθανεῖν ἔτι δύνανται, ἰσάγγελοι γάρ εἰσιν καὶ υἱοί εἰσιν θεοῦ τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες.
"And Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they no longer die, since they are like angels and they are sons of God, being sons of resurrection."
Here, the Sadduccess are questioning Christ about the resurrection. They pose the problem that if everyone is returned to his or her own body in which they were made one flesh with another person, it would lead to an immoral incestuous situation where the woman was one flesh with all seven brothers she married. Jesus counters this by saying that there is no marriage in the age to come, and parallels the age to come with the physical resurrection of the body from the dead. Jesus speaks of the transformed nature of the body that Paul later speaks of as the mortal body taking upon itself immortality. He describes it here as being like angels in terms of not being able to die or marry. This obviously does not refer to the new covenant age or something that starts in A.D. 70, as this would mean that Christians today cannot die and do not marry. It also refers to the age as something that one must obtain through worthiness, which is language of entering the eschaton. There is nothing here that speaks of the new covenant as "that age" in contrast to "this age." Notice also, it is the sons of "this age" who marry, but the sons of "that age" do not marry nor are given in marriage. If "this age" refers to the old covenant age, and "that age" refers to the new covenant age, then no one who claims to be a Christian should be getting married. Otherwise, he is a son of "this age," i.e., the old covenant age, and is apparently rejecting the new covenant. Of course, this is nonsense, and the word here has to do with the present time of this world's system versus the eschatological world to come.
THE ONLY VERSE WHERE AGE CAN BE MADE TO REFER TO THE OLD COVENANT PROBABLY DOESN'T
In 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. Because Paul discusses the old and new covenant in Chapter 3, many people make the argument that "this age" refers to the old covenant age. There are numerous problems with this.
1. Paul elsewhere has used the word to refer to this present age of the world in contrast to the eschatological age. "This age," then, refers to the time in which the world has not been judged, the wicked still rule, and Satan still causes people to not believe the gospel. The question would be whether Paul is using it differently here from both his writings and from anyone else in the NT.
2. To say that one can connect the age to the old covenant because they both appear in the same passage is to commit an associative fallacy. One could make the same argument that the age is associated with the new covenant since that is in the passage too. The question is whether the context limits the age to the time of the old covenant, and this necessary link is nowhere made by Paul in the passage.
3. Paul actually isn't discussing the old and new covenant as his main subject. That is just something he brings up as an example of the false apostles plaguing the Corinthian church. His main concern is to defend his apostleship and his message against the "super-apostles" and their message (Chapter 11). They are of the devil and so is their message. Satan, then, in this world, is in league with the false teachers.
Whereas one can still interpret this as all referring directly to Judaizers in the first century, as that seems to be the reference, one would be hard-pressed to exegete the idea that "the god of this age" refers exclusively to the old covenant age, rather than Paul applying ideas to the Jewish teachers that can be applied to any false teachers who are not necessarily pushing the old covenant. In other words, the situation for saying this does not limit it to those who push the old covenant. The context does not exclude other false beliefs in other time periods. Hence, "the god of this age" is not necessarily tied to an old covenant age. I realize that many Preterists think that Satan is tied to that age because of their reading of other texts, but this too is problematic and not something I can address briefly in this post.
What this means is that when one sees the word "age," it does not refer to either the old or new covenant age. In fact, it isn't linked to either the old or new covenant at all. It is mostly linked to time in the past, present, or future in contrast to one another. When Paul, therefore, tells the Corinthians that it is upon them that the "end of the ages" has come, one must note that "ages" is plural. It does not refer to one age in the past that is somehow assigned to the old covenant. Instead, the idea that the goal, fulfillment, endpoint, pinnacle of (not "end" as "the termination of") the ages has come so that they are to live in the lessons of the people of God in the past and do the good they failed to do, i.e., be faithfully obedient to God.
The two age idea is simply not supported by the New Testament.
The End of the Age? PART I
A common interpretation of the ages in Preterist thought is that there are two ages described by the New Testament: the old covenant age and the new covenant age. However, this isn't quite the case. It is also not accurate to talk about the "telos of the ages" as the idea that necessarily expresses that an age is over.
Let me briefly address the latter idea first, since I will deal with it at length in Part II. The New Testament knows nothing of an end of the ages in terms of their being over. It actually speaks of many ages, both in the past and future (the phrase translated as "forever" is literally "into the ages," implying that multiple ages exist in the future). We may speak of an age of the old covenant and the age of the new, but this is theological language, not that of the NT's use of the terms. The NT also uses the terminology to describe the current state of the world versus the eschaton (where two ages actually are used), so we'll look at those texts too.
WHAT IS THE OLD COVENANT?
The old covenant is not the moral law or the idea that God wants His people to do the good of the law; nor did God work one way in one age and now works differently in another in terms of how he saves people or what He requires of His people in terms of their character. I believe Christ is the fulfillment of the law, and as its fullest expression, it continues on through Him and in all of those who are in Him. Sacrifices are not done away with in the absolute sense. The individual sacrifices that foreshadowed and pictured Christ's sacrifice have been done away because they have seen their fulfillment in Christ's sacrifice. The Passover is not done away with. It has seen its fulfillment in Christ's sacrifice and the communion, etc. So these things have not been abolished, but fulfilled, and we fulfill them by being in Christ. So the idea of the external rituals of the law being done away with are talking about our need to perform them or have these visual aids in order for us to learn about the holiness required by God, how we are made clean, etc. These existed to bring us to Christ as their fulfillment. They are external pictures, the shadows cast by the substance, that are no longer necessary since the substance has now come.
So when the Scripture speaks of the old covenant which passes away, it is referring to our need to maintain the external pictures: the sacrifices, festivals, ritual purity laws concerning food and bodily fluids, the tabernacle/temple maintenance, etc. It is not saying that the law passes away. There is no Scripture that tells us the law passes away while this world stands. On the contrary, the law stands to this very day to judge all those who are outside of Christ. There is no fulfillment of the law for them except in their punishment for not having obeyed it and being directed to Christ by it. This constant confusion between the law and the old covenant has bred many a false doctrine.
What passes away is the old covenant in terms of the external display of the law that existed in using tablets of stone, a temple, altars, ritual washings, etc., since Christ has now come and fulfilled all of it. His human body is the temple, His people become the temple when joined to Him, His altar is the cross, the ritual washings are His blood, and our joining in His death is our baptism, etc. The new covenant is simply that Christ has fulfilled all of the law (all of the requirements of the law, including its penalty) so that the externals are not necessary, but rather God will place these things in His people through Christ by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. "Written on the minds" instead of on tablets is the idea in Jeremiah. What is written is the same law. There is no talk of a new moral law. There is only talk of a change in terms of how the law is taught to us and how it becomes a part of us. The old law failed because it was in externals, like the tablets, which to us was a dead letter due to our sin nature, but the new covenant, i.e., the means by which God makes His people holy in their obedience to the good of the law, will be effectual because it is by the regeneration of the Spirit as He applies the work of Christ to us that becomes transforming (i.e., letter versus spirit).
What trips people up is that they think that the law was a vehicle for old covenant believers to be justified before God. This is never true. No one in the old or new covenant was ever justified by the law because the law condemns every man. Everyone is justified by his or her allegiance to God that placed the sacrifice of Christ as the means of their restoration and unification with the Lord. Good works were always the outworking of this faith allegiance, never the basis for unification.
What trips people up is that they think that the law was a vehicle for old covenant believers to be justified before God. This is never true. No one in the old or new covenant was ever justified by the law because the law condemns every man. Everyone is justified by his or her allegiance to God that placed the sacrifice of Christ as the means of their restoration and unification with the Lord. Good works were always the outworking of this faith allegiance, never the basis for unification.
Hence, all that to say that the two "ages" are not radical departures from one another. One merely brings the other to its goal, it's ultimate expression, i.e., what everything was leading up to. His people are, therefore, expected to not only not physically murder someone, but to not even degrade their fellow brother or sister in Christ. They are not only to refrain from physical adultery, but to desire someone else besides their spouse. The point being that God requires His people to do the law all the more, not less. There is no doing away of the law. There is only the bringing about of the law to its fullest expression. Christ fulfills the law perfectly for us as our federal head, as He does for the believers in the time of the old covenant. The difference, therefore, between the two, as Jeremiah lays out, is that one is only external, i.e., outside the covenant member, and the other is from the inside-out.
WHEN DID THE OLD COVENANT PASS AWAY?
Many people think that the old covenant and new covenant have some sort of transition period between them, where both are still standing together. In a way, this is true, but not as many people think. The old covenant was actually passing away long before Christ came. It passed away at the cross. Once the cross takes place, as Jesus declared, "it is finished." The fulfillment of the law, the fulfillment of the old covenant, was all accomplished. It is done. There is nothing else to do but apply it to His people and the creation. The work of fulfilling it is accomplished right then and there at the cross. Hence, there is no more old covenant at that point. The new covenant has come in His blood.
What many people have done is to misread Hebrews 8:13 as saying that the old covenant is about to disappear in Auctor's time. What he is actually saying is that Jeremiah indicated the old covenant was passing away and ready to disappear in Jeremiah's time. This is because Jeremiah was speaking to the exiles who would not have a tabernacle/temple, and be able to perform the sacrifices, and many of the needed rituals concerning the priests, etc., so God tells His people that He will keep His law among His people by placing it within them. This happens during and after the exile, and it foreshadows what Christ will ultimately do in His work. So the old covenant begins to pass away at the time of the exile. From that point on, it is close to disappearing, as the exile will be extended to the time of Christ, and the Messiah alone will be able to bring the covenant of externals to its fulfillment, so that His people, those who are in the One who has fulfilled it, are no longer obliged to keep it.
Auctor makes this clear by stating that Jeremiah's use of the word "new" implied that there was an old, and by implying that the old covenant was, in fact, old, Jeremiah was indicating that it was wearing out and getting ready to disappear, in his own day, as the means by which God placed the law among His people.
This means that if we do divide these two up into "ages," which is not quite accurate, we must consider it an age where the old covenant externals were used versus the age when they have been fulfilled upon the cross. There is no transition period unless one considers the time from Jeremiah to Christ as the transitional period. This would make sense since Christ declares all food to be clean before He dies. This would only be true if the new covenant was already taking over; but the point is that there is no transitional period after the cross. Cultural customs remain and can be observed, including those having to do with the temple, but these are not a means to make God's people holy, whereas the old covenant and the new covenant are, the former being a failed means because it was meant to culminate in the new and the latter being an effectual one because it is the culmination of the old.
THE PURPOSE OF THE COVENANTS
This brings us to the final point of this entry, which is that the purpose of the covenants was to make God's people holy like God. It was to change their lives from ones that were selfish and unjust to righteous worshipers of YHWH. God frees the Israelites so that they would come worship Him at the mountain, and at the mountain, God gave them the law. The law is connected to worship. To become holy is to become like God in His righteousness/justice/doing what is right/good/creational.
The old covenant failed at doing this because it existed as a bunch of external pictures that were meant to communicate from the outside what God's people were to look like and how they were to get there. It was meant, therefore, to look forward to Christ and His work; but as a means to make Israel holy without Christ's work, the covenant was rendered ineffectual (this was by God's design). Hence, as long as the old covenant merely represented the internal transformation brought about by the Spirit who applied the work of Christ back to His people during the old covenant, the covenant functioned as it should; but without Christ, the covenant became a dead letter that was incapable of making His people holy worshipers who were just/good/creational. Since only the new covenant could accomplish this, the old covenant was only the visible expression of the applied new covenant to come. Once the externals were wiped away in the exile and finally by the actually coming of the new in Christ's blood, they were superfulous, and shown to be what they were always meant to be, i.e., a shadow until the substance that cast the shadow had come.
This is why it is fine for Paul to circumcise Timothy and worship at the temple after the new covenant has come. These things are not means of sanctification. They are only cultural customs at that point that have no spiritual worth to them in and of themselves. But they are not forbidden because they are the old pictures of the God's covenant. It is not because there is some transition period, as though the old covenant was ever a means to becoming holy and some before A.D. 70 can somehow still use it as a means to do so; but because they are cultural acts that allow Paul and Timothy to work among the Jews without shadows getting in the way of the substance, which is the gospel of Christ. Certainly, Paul and Timothy are not still practicing the old covenant, especially since he discourages the Galatians from doing so (even telling them they are damned if they do it for spiritual reasons) and does not allow Titus to be circumcised. It can only be seen as a pragmatic move on their part, and not as something that supports the idea that the old covenant is still in effect.
CONCLUSION
With the understanding above, there is simply no indication in the New Testament that there is some transitional time between two covenant ages after the cross.
In PART II, we'll look at the verses that use "ages" terminology, as well as some lexicographical issues that are often ignored when interpreting the word.
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