Biblical Theology XXXII: Zephaniah

The book of Zephaniah records a prophecy given to the prophet during the reign of Josiah between 641–609 B.C.  It is structured on a similar pattern with other prophetic books: God will judge the world by first judging His visible covenant community (1:1–2:3); the judgment of the rest of the world will follow (2:4–3:8); and then God will restore His visible covenant community, which will be made up of a remnant from His people and the nations that remain after His judgment (3:9–20).

Theology: God’s wrath is upon His own creation because it does not bring Him glory by worshiping Him as He made it to do. His wrath, therefore, is upon His own covenant community that also does not worship Him by giving Him glory, but rather worships other gods, created things, and governments. 

His judgment begins with His visible covenant community, as is commonly stated in the prophets.  It then spans out from there into all nations. His judgment is  described as a reversal of creation, even reversing the order in which things are made in Genesis 1, and describing their total destruction with the language of the flood in Genesis, creating an inclusion around the judgment of creation text in 1:2–3. He starts with His own covenant community who did not fulfill their role as priests who point the world toward the worship of YHWH, but rather were conformed to the world and were corrupted together with them.

The day of the Lord plays a prominent role, as in other books, as a day in which God will pour out His wrath upon the wicked world and all creation as a great purging event that will end the corruption in the world once and for all by removing all chaos and chaotic agents from it.

Instead of preserving His covenant community that has many wicked people in it, and preserving the rest of the world that is also filled with wicked people, God will remove them all in judgment and purify the creation by only letting the righteous remnant, both from Judah and the nations, dwell in it.

Ethics: There is an antinomian spirit present among the people. The nation is viewed as filled with darkness rather than being a light because of this spirit. In 1:12, God states: “At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish those who are apathetic about their sin,

those who think to themselves, ‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.”

Great judgment will come upon them. They must realize their vulnerable position in God’s judgment (e.g., 1:18–2:1, His judgment is a fire and they are like straw) and must repent during the brief time they have left to do so. The righteous are also challenged to keep worshiping Him in obedience so that they are not destroyed by the judgment (2:3).

The nations who mocked and oppressed the righteous of His people will perish in His judgment. Only the repentant righteous within them will survive it and give praise to God (3:8–9), along with the repentant remnant of Judah (3:11–13). Hence, the creation to come will consist of those who are righteous and repent of their sins, and worship YHWH. 

This vision of God’s completion of His creation both through the forgiveness of sins of the repentant and through the violent act of judging the unrepentant that create chaos in finality leads to His praise and fills His people with joy (3:14–20).  God removes chaos from creation by removing it from within His people and removing chaotic agents, i.e., the unrepentant wicked, from that creation. 

Hence, He removes evil from the world once and for all by these two means, i.e., His justice and His love. The skepticism of the antinomians who do what they please because God has not judged the whole world immediately is, therefore, misplaced. As God judged Judah almost immediately after Josiah’s reign (i.e., a microcosmic down payment of the larger judgment to come), He will judge the world in due time, and the message of the prophet is that the reader will want to assess whether he is in the group that will live on in the creation or the group that is removed from it.

The Fool Trudges On

The mortal seed, so invigorated and new,

blossoms death within an hour or two

The brightest candle its wick burns out.

A whisper ends the loudest shout.

The boldest life wears out its part.

Time intervenes and stabs its heart.

The scoffer of preparation will, on the morrow,

weep and mourn in pain and sorrow

For what is not eternal is chaff in the fire,

where hopeless ends prove bravado a liar.

Caught now finally in Grim’s cold stare,

careless fairies begin to care

About a soul for which they gave little thought,

and a life lived that was all for naught.

Cold is the strangle of death’s strong grip.

Heavy the anchor of damnation’s ship.

Lost is the voice never again to be found,

Gone in the darkness without a sound.

As greedy as the grave, as insatiable as hell,

time eternal exile can never dispel.

The Wise, in warning, call

out to one and out to all,

“Sowing night reaps futility at dawn!”

But the fool trudges on.

Biblical Theology XXXI: Habakkuk

The Book of Habakkuk is likely written in the late 7^th Century.  Many scholars think he is a temple prophet due to the use of instruments in their liturgical prophecies. The book is a dialogue between the prophet and God, written for those who are frustrated with God for not ridding the world of evil sooner. The message of Habakkuk is called a burden, as in other prophets (e.g., Zech 9:1; 12:1; Mal 1:1). The idea is that the message God has for His people is a burden to carry for the prophet.

Theology: The Book of Habakkuk is a book of questioning God’s righteousness. It begins by asking why God is not answering the prophet’s prayers to bring judgment upon the wicked in his community (1:1–4). God then answers by saying that He is bringing the Babylonians to bring down the people of Judah (1:5–11). Habakkuk then responds by asking how this is just since the Babylonians are worse than those in Judah (1:12–2:1). How is God just for allowing a more godless nation to destroy one that is less godless? 

God answers by stating that He will destroy the Babylonians too. They are merely an instrument of His justice, but they too will feel His wrath, as will the whole world (2:2–20). 

The book, therefore, argues that God merely tolerates evil for His purposes. The lack of immediate judgment is not due to God’s indifference toward what is being done within both His covenant community and the world. It is simply God abiding His time and using even the wicked to accomplish His goals.  When He does judge, it will end in the destruction of the current created order and a reckoning with all who live there. This will be a day of great terror, as the prophet himself freezes in terror at the thought of it; but He will judge the wicked in order to preserve His people and His Messiah (3:13).

Ethics:  There are quite a few things to take from the book. The first is that Habakkuk conveys his frustration with God tolerating evil at the beginning of the book, but by the end of the book, he acknowledges God’s justice and asks for mercy (3:2). Perhaps, if Christians actually knew what judgment looked like, they would ask God to give others more time before judgment rather than to judge them immediately. 

Second to this, God is just. His delay in judgment has nothing to do with injustice, but tolerance of the wicked until they have served the purpose He set for them to serve. This should cause the reader to also tolerate the evil among them in the sense that they know it will be judged and that God is letting it reside for a time to complete a greater goal with it.  Hence, although the one who questions  with a wicked mind will be overcome by the evil in the world and the question concerning God’s indifference, the righteous man will live by faith (2:4). In the context of the book, that means that they trust in God’s character and His promises to judge the wicked and to reward the righteous. Rather than going by their experience of seeing evil all around in the world, and getting their theology of God from that, they trust in the revelation they have been given by God (2:2–3).

The righteous, because they live by faith, after they question God and listen to His answers, will praise and glorify Him (Chapter 3). If this is not the response of questioning, it is not because God has not answered it, but because the person asking does not have an upright mind in asking them (2:4). Something to which many apostates attest by the rebellious lifestyles they choose to live out once they unshackle themselves from God due to their justification that God either does not exist or care because of the evil in the world.

Finally, questioning God is perfectly fine when one listens to the biblical answers God gives via revelation. A questioning that ignores the answers God gives is rebellious, but the type seen here in Habakkuk, one that ends in the praise and glorification of God, is actually a type of righteous questioning that does not bottle up in bitter sentiments toward God, but is honest with Him in seeking to worship Him through the questions.

Biblical Theology XXX: Nahum

The Book of Nahum is a victory poem written in the face of the Assyrian destruction and deportation of Israel. It exalts God in His wrath upon those who have abused their power to oppress God’s people, namely the Ninevites who have used their military power to oppress Israel. 

The book could be written during the fall of Nineveh in 612 B.C., predicting destruction for the city as the outcome of the Assyrian civil war, or it could be written later as a warning to the Babylonian Empire, using Assyria as a proverb against it (language concerning the oracles against Babylon in Isaiah are used in Chapter 1). 

The book is a compilation of three poems (1. What will happen: A poem of God’s powerful nature and what this means to His enemies and His people alike, as He issues a decree that the city will be destroyed. 2. How it will happen: A poem about the invasion and destruction of Nineveh. 3. Why it happened: A poem listing the atrocities of the empire).

Theology: God is the most powerful destructive force the world has ever seen. The entire cosmos and everything it contains is destroyed the wake of His judgment. Even the greatest of powers cannot contend with him or escape His judgment. As powerful as a mighty empire may be, it simply isn’t as powerful as God.

God is not bringing about immediate judgment because He is slow to anger, but in no way does this mean that He will not punish the guilty. The text says that He will not let the guilty go unpunished. No one will escape. One person described God’s wrath as milk simmering on the stove and suddenly it boils over. 

God raises up nations and brings them back down. As such, it does not matter how rich, militarily powerful, etc. a nation or world leader may be, when it is time for God to judge it, it will be judged, and its judgment will be final.

Ethics: The terror of God has two effects upon people depending upon who they are: (1) The people of Nineveh, Israel’s enemies, have everything to fear for what they have done to God’s people. His terror, then, is meant to bring fear and anxiety to the people. However, (2) to the people of God His power is comforting.

The picture of God as the most terrifying force in the universe brings comfort to those who are threatened by lesser forces of chaos because if He is so powerful, then every lesser power is put in check by Him. Whereas most people might think the terror of God is something that would cause His people to flee from Him, therefore, it actually has the effect of giving them a sense of peace. This causes them to praise God for His holy character that streams forth in wrath, precisely, because what is a terror for the wicked is salvation and rest for the righteous.

This idea that the judgment of God brings relief to the righteous but terror to the wicked depends not upon the changing of God’s character, but upon the view of the person’s involved in either activity.

The fact that God tolerates even great sin for a time is not an indication of His ignoring it. This should bring about a great fear of sinning, since when He does judge people for their sins, it will be an absolute terror that befalls them, a nightmare from which they will never wake up. But this should bring great relief to those who are the object of the terrors of these sinners, since their judgment is salvation to God’s people as the removal of chaos is order to the created world.

The Dead Sea Scrolls Do Not Contain a New Testament Text

It would be nice if it did, but I agree with Wallace's assessment.

The Last Enemy

You often hear postmillennialists speak of the absurdity to suggest that there are enemies that remain after Christ destroys the last enemy, which is death. The argument goes that if the last enemy is death, and the resurrection precedes His coming to destroy the wicked of the earth, then the last enemy is the wicked of the earth, not death. But the Scripture tells us that it is death, so the world must be converted to Christianity at that point.

There are a few problems with this.

1. There are numerous depictions of Christ returning and destroying the wicked of the world at His coming. The resurrection seems to precede this or happens at the same time in various texts.

2.  Prophecy very rarely happens in the exact order of speaking. The last enemy may simply mean the one that persists beyond the others, or is the last to be addressed. Certainly, Christ disarmed and disarming the rulers of the world, but physical death has not yet been addressed in terms of beginning the work of applying the cross and resurrection of Christ to it. That happens last.

3. To whom is it an enemy? I think this is often read as the enemy of Christ, but Christ isn't in any danger from it. He's already overcome death. It's already defeated in relation to Him in that sense. So it's actually the enemy of His people. Their last enemy will be death, even if the wicked remain upon the earth and are destroyed by Christ later. In fact, enemies will exist forever in hell. But once death is addressed among His people, there is nothing left that can harm them. It truly is the last enemy.
The fact that it is our enemy, and not directly Christ's enemy, is brought out by Paul's point that it will be defeated at the resurrection of His saints. They will be the ones who are relieved from it, as it is their enemy.

Hence, I don't think the postmillennial argument that follows this reasoning is persuasive.

Biblical Theology XXIX: Micah

Micah is an eighth century prophet who warned that both Samaria (i.e., the capital of the northern kingdom) and Jerusalem (i.e., the capital of the southern kingdom), by means of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, would be destroyed and deported/exiled. The book is structured in pairs of judgment and salvation oracles. Chapters 1–2, 3–5, and 6–7 make up these pairs and are introduced by the imperative šimʿû “Listen up!” The book serves as a court case against God’s people for their having broken the covenant and a promise that God will fulfill His part of the covenant through the remnant to which he adds the nations of the world to their number.

Theology:  As in the other prophets, God is bringing His people to trial and arguing a case against them for having broken the covenant. They worship other gods, either directly through their idols, or indirectly by distorting who God is so that they may practice their sin.

God will not listen to the prayers of those who cry out for Him because of their sin. True worship of God is not found in doing the right ritual at the right place, but in doing what is right as one acknowledges YHWH as God (6:6–8). Anything else is false worship and does not belong to the everlasting world ruled by the King of the earth to come. Hence, only the remnant of Israel  who do what is right will belong to that world.

God will end the world because of the sin of His people, so that the reader understands that God’s wrath is coming swiftly, not because of the world’s sin, but because of the sin within the covenant community.  Hence, He will judge His people first, then the world once He gathers the remnant of His people back together. At that time the Davidic king will rise up and rule over them and the other nations, who all become worshipers of God, protecting His people from any further chaotic force. The wicked will exist no more and false religion will no longer exist in the world (2:12–13; 4:1–4; Chapter 5).

Ethics: A major sin that is mentioned seems to be the depriving of the rich of their wealth, houses, and expensive clothing. Whereas most of the prophets emphasize the abuse of the rich toward the poor, Micah flips this script and argues that it is just as much an abomination that brings judgment to do violence toward the rich because they are rich. Here we have an ethic that echoes that of Leviticus 19:15 and Exodus 23:3: “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the prestigious, but judge your fellow covenant member fairly;” and “Do not show favoritism toward a poor man in his lawsuit.” The idea can be summed up simply in Proverbs 18:5 – “It is not good to show partiality to the wicked and so deprive the innocent of justice.”

Now, the reason why the majority of the condemnations go the other way (i.e., favoring the prestigious over the poor) is because we are enamored or intimidated by those who have power, cultural or political. Hence, it happens more often. However, Micah warns God’s people not to go the other way, as both are an abuse of power. In one situation the powerful might have control of the courts and government, but in another situation, the criminal has power in private crimes, the mob has control of the streets, etc. In whatever situation one has power, there is the possibility of misusing it to do harm to another. Micah is against all such abuses, regardless of who the perpetrators and victims are. Hence, he condemns the abuse of power by both the laity (Chapter 2) and the religious and political leaders (Chapter 3).