Korah’s Rebellion & Trump’s Insurrection

Thoughts on Numbers Chapter 16

While reading the Book of Numbers chapter 16 (I have the full text shown below) accompanied by a commentary detailing the events of Korah’s rebellion, I came upon this passage in the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament1, the Book of Numbers:

The leader was Korah; and the rebels are called in consequence “Korah’s company” ( Numbers 16:5, Numbers 16:6; Numbers 26:9; Numbers 27:3). He laid claim to the high-priesthood, or at least to an equality with Aaron (Num_16:17). Among his associates were the Reubenites, Dathan and Abiram, who, no doubt, were unable to get over the fact that the birthright had been taken away from their ancestor, and with it the head ship of the house of Israel (i.e., of the whole nation). Apparently their present intention was to seize upon the government of the nation under a self-elected high priest, and to force Moses and Aaron out of the post assigned to them by God, – that is to say, to overthrow the constitution which God had given to His people.2

and I was jolted by the comparison between Korah’s rebellion and the American insurrection on January 6th, 2021 at the U.S Capital. Truly there is nothing new under the sun, Ecclesiastes 1:9.

The pride and gall of Korah and those 250 souls he inspired to follow him in his revolt against the leadership of Moses and the high priesthood of Aaron is really quite breathtaking. Not being satisfied with the honor he and his family were given, that is, the responsibility of the service of the Tabernacle he fostered an atmosphere of perceived injustice targeted at Moses and Aaron, whom God Himself had appointed the political and spiritual leaders of this new nation, Israel. He also unjustly accused Moses of being proud and lording his stature over everyone, when indeed, he was an extremely humble man, who on many occasions interceded with the Lord in protecting his sinful and rebellious people so that God would not wipe them out and make a new nation from Moses. It takes a humble and caring person to say no to being the father of a nation and pleading for his nation.

Here are four correlations that I could find between the insurrection of “Korah and his company” and the insurrection instigated by current ex-President Trump after he lost the presidential election of 2020. An insurrection the direct and immediate consequence of which was the storming of the U.S. Capitol attempting to stop the certification of the national election.

1) Both Korah and Trump had delusions of grandeur claiming power they neither had nor were permitted to have, and believed they were, and deserved to be, above the law. It takes a delusional mind to manufacture the belief that one deserves to have his own way in spite of lawful rules and regulations made to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power. But when the rules don’t apply to you because you alone can fix things then you can assume whatever power you desire.

2) Both sought to subvert the law and overturn an election and their government. Behavior belies intent, and if you stoke the flames of discontent, in spite of your advisors confirming you lost the election, and deliberately lie and mislead and use subterfuge to impose your own personal reality on everyone else, you only foster chaos and turmoil. The outcome is always a disaster.

3) Both enlisted the aid of conspirators to help them accomplish their objectives. If you were only a conspiracy of one individual then the movement would die out soon enough. But enlisting the aid of an army of people to plot, plan, scheme, and intimidate to further your objective, then inertia can be a powerful thing. It can foster a mob to attach the institutions you want to bend to your own will and the consequences can be devastating. People can and do die for their unthinking obedience to the autocrat.

4) Both were incapable of accepting the truth of the actual events of their day. Some people are so self-centered and narcissistic that they can see the truth, preferring the lie in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, in spite of all those around you contradicting their vision.

The results of Korah’s attempt to assume the priesthood and claim an office to which he was not appointed or elected was disastrous to his and everyone of his conspirators. When Moses told him and his followers that the ground would open up and swallow them it happened immediately with devastating effect. In the case of the January 6th insurrection the consequences have not been that swift, but justice will be certain, as the number of perpetrators already jailed is large and growing. It’s just a shame one delusional individual should cause such national chaos and turmoil.

Num 16:1 Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took action,
Num 16:2 and they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown.
Num 16:3 They assembled together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”
Num 16:4 When Moses heard this, he fell on his face;
Num 16:5 and he spoke to Korah and all his company, saying, “Tomorrow morning the LORD will show who is His, and who is holy, and will bring him near to Himself; even the one whom He will choose, He will bring near to Himself.
Num 16:6 “Do this: take censers for yourselves, Korah and all your company,
Num 16:7 and put fire in them, and lay incense upon them in the presence of the LORD tomorrow; and the man whom the LORD chooses shall be the one who is holy. You have gone far enough, you sons of Levi!”
Num 16:8 Then Moses said to Korah, “Hear now, you sons of Levi,
Num 16:9 is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to Himself, to do the service of the tabernacle of the LORD, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them;
Num 16:10 and that He has brought you near, Korah, and all your brothers, sons of Levi, with you? And are you seeking for the priesthood also?
Num 16:11 “Therefore you and all your company are gathered together against the LORD; but as for Aaron, who is he that you grumble against him?”
Num 16:12 Then Moses sent a summons to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab; but they said, “We will not come up.
Num 16:13 “Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness, but you would also lord it over us?
Num 16:14 “Indeed, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor have you given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Would you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up!”
Num 16:15 Then Moses became very angry and said to the LORD, “Do not regard their offering! I have not taken a single donkey from them, nor have I done harm to any of them.”
Num 16:16 Moses said to Korah, “You and all your company be present before the LORD tomorrow, both you and they along with Aaron.
Num 16:17 “Each of you take his firepan and put incense on it, and each of you bring his censer before the LORD, two hundred and fifty firepans; also you and Aaron shall each bring his firepan.”
Num 16:18 So they each took his own censer and put fire on it, and laid incense on it; and they stood at the doorway of the tent of meeting, with Moses and Aaron.
Num 16:19 Thus Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the LORD appeared to all the congregation.
Num 16:20 Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,
Num 16:21 “Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly.”
Num 16:22 But they fell on their faces and said, “O God, God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will You be angry with the entire congregation?”
Num 16:23 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
Num 16:24 “Speak to the congregation, saying, ‘Get back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.'”
Num 16:25 Then Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram, with the elders of Israel following him,
Num 16:26 and he spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing that belongs to them, or you will be swept away in all their sin.”
Num 16:27 So they got back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the doorway of their tents, along with their wives and their sons and their little ones.
Num 16:28 Moses said, “By this you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not my doing.
Num 16:29 “If these men die the death of all men or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the LORD has not sent me.
Num 16:30 “But if the LORD brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the LORD.”
Num 16:31 As he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open;
Num 16:32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah with their possessions.
Num 16:33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
Num 16:34 All Israel who were around them fled at their outcry, for they said, “The earth may swallow us up!”
Num 16:35 Fire also came forth from the LORD and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering the incense.
Num 16:36 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
Num 16:37 “Say to Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, that he shall take up the censers out of the midst of the blaze, for they are holy; and you scatter the burning coals abroad.
Num 16:38 “As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be made into hammered sheets for a plating of the altar, since they did present them before the LORD and they are holy; and they shall be for a sign to the sons of Israel.”
Num 16:39 So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers which the men who were burned had offered, and they hammered them out as a plating for the altar,
Num 16:40 as a reminder to the sons of Israel that no layman who is not of the descendants of Aaron should come near to burn incense before the LORD; so that he will not become like Korah and his company–just as the LORD had spoken to him through Moses.
Num 16:41 But on the next day all the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You are the ones who have caused the death of the LORD’S people.”
Num 16:42 It came about, however, when the congregation had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared.
Num 16:43 Then Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting,
Num 16:44 and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
Num 16:45 “Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly.” Then they fell on their faces.
Num 16:46 Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put in it fire from the altar, and lay incense on it; then bring it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone forth from the LORD, the plague has begun!”
Num 16:47 Then Aaron took it as Moses had spoken, and ran into the midst of the assembly, for behold, the plague had begun among the people. So he put on the incense and made atonement for the people.
Num 16:48 He took his stand between the dead and the living, so that the plague was checked.
Num 16:49 But those who died by the plague were 14,700, besides those who died on account of Korah.
Num 16:50 Then Aaron returned to Moses at the doorway of the tent of meeting, for the plague had been checked.

_____________
1 this passage can be located on p. 1135 in the pdf file that can be downloaded here. Look for the entry listed as: Keil and Delitzsch – Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol. 1 – Genesis to Deuteronomy (1885).

2 Keil, C.F. and Delitszch, F. Commentary on the Old Testament, Volume I – The Pentateuch (1864–1874; reprint Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), comment on Numbers ch. 16, p.

[Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org]

Posted in insurrection | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Korah’s Rebellion & Trump’s Insurrection

Jesus’ Question to Nicodemus

John 3:2 ff. [Nicodemus] came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?”

All the times I have read this verse and was amused by Jesus’ question to Nicodemus, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?” I had not stopped to question why Jesus thought Nicodemus should have known the Old Testament Scriptures to realize right away what “born again” meant and why it was so crucial. So I pondered why Nicodemus was confused, thinking only in literal terms of being physically born a second time, an obvious impossibility! As one of the Jewish leaders he would have been very knowledgeable in all their Scriptures.

Being a born-again Christian myself I know what the term means, that the gift of Faith is something that God imparts to a person’s heart to reveal the reality of God’s existence, and the experience of His revealing Himself personally, that what is stated in God’s Word is the ultimate reality. Is this concept stated so clearly in the Old Testament that learned Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day should have understood the change a person required to see the kingdom of God? I decided to search the OT to find out.

Indeed it turns out there are 15 instances of this very description in the Old Testament.

(Deuteronomy 29:4) “Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.

1. (Deuteronomy 30:6) “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

2. (Psalm 51:10) Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

3. (Isaiah 32:15) Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fertile field, And the fertile field is considered as a forest.
4. (Isaiah 44:3) ‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land And streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants;
5. (Isaiah 59:21) “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from now and forever.”

6. (Jeremiah 24:7) ‘I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.’
7. (Jeremiah 31:31 ff.) “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
8. (Jeremiah 32:39, 40) and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them. “I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.

9. (Ezekiel 11:19) “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
10. (Ezekiel 36:26) “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
11. (Ezekiel 36:27) “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
12. (Ezekiel 37:14) “I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.'”
13. (Ezekiel 39:29) “I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,” declares the Lord GOD.

14. (Joel 2:28) “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions.
15. (Joel 2:29) “Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

Fifteen direct statements that God tells His people through the Scriptures that what is needed by people to be saved is a radical change of heart, one that can only come supernaturally from the hand of God in order to effect a life pleasing to God. It can’t be done without God’s intervention. No amount of self-improvement studies can make a person see the reality of God’s existence and start to live a life in real communion with Him. That is why Jesus told Nicodemus that you MUST be born again. It wasn’t an option. And after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, the day of Pentecost was to usher in exactly this beginning.

[Scriptures are taken from New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Jesus’ Question to Nicodemus

The Christian and the Creation Story

There is some consternation in confronting the Creation Story as described in the Bible’s first book, Genesis. With Christians and non-Christians alike. The main difficulty is that the stages of creating the universe as written there do not seem to match the visible evidence of our environment as perceived by scientists throughout the ages. And so the story is either outright discarded or the details are viewed as either a parable or allegory, to be manipulated, altered, or arranged to match what science has articulated.

In the first problems are that Genesis states that there is a God, and secondly that he manufactured all that we see out of nothing, i.e., prior to the time described matter did not exist and then it did exist.

It is easy to understand why non-believers would conclude the impossibility of these events so described, and one even might forgive Christians of coming to similar conclusions about the story. But I propose a conclusion that is simply based on Scripture from the perspective of being a Christian.

First a basic definition. A Christian is a person who believes in Jesus Christ as reported in the book of the Bible. And one believes this because, as explained in both testaments of the Bible, it is the Spirit of God that convinces one that He is and the Scriptures describe his story as fully as God wants us to know. A manufacture’s user manual, as it were. So a Christian reads the Bible and learns about God and his interaction with his creation, including mankind, in whose image man was made.

So my conclusion concerning the Creation Story is that it needs to be understood exactly as it is described, without reading between the lines, without embellishment. It is not a scientific textbook, it is a genuine description of how God made all that we see and experience. The story leads us to the conclusion that there is a powerful God who existed before all things and created everything we see, and that is was good just as he made it. He made the heavens and the earth, he created light, he formed living vegetation, and creatures that fly, that live on land and that swim in the seas all after their own kind, one implication of which things didn’t evolve from amino acids to higher forms of life.

The reason the Christian can believe the story as written is because he believes in the reality of miracles. He believes in the supernatural as detailed all over the narration of the Bible. The Christian believes in the virgin birth, the multitude of healing of diseases described in the Old and New Testaments, he believes that Jesus really did multiply the loaves and the fish, that he really did raise a number of people from the dead, including his own resurrection after dying on the cross and laying for days in a tomb. If one does not believe in any of these things, or of the claims Jesus made for himself, then nothing in the Bible can be believed and it is all a lie; and the creation story can’t possibly make any sense. It is only believed by Faith, as the eleventh chapter of Hebrews defines it as “the assurance of things hoped for.” And that assurance can only come supernaturally as God changed the human heart, and as Jesus says one is “born again.”

Indeed without such a change of heart, without being “born again”, it all seems nonsensical. How can God create something out of nothing? The answer is, the same way Jesus created a multitude of loaves and fish out of nothing. In a word, miraculously.

As Jesus told the multitudes who followed him, “he who has ears, let him hear.”

====================
Deut. 30:6 “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

Isaiah 32:15 ff. Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fertile field, And the fertile field is considered as a forest.

Isaiah 44:3 ‘I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants’

Isaiah 59:21 “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from now and forever.”

Jeremiah 32:39, 40 “and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.”

Ezekiel 36:27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Ezekiel 37:14 “I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.

Ezekiel 39:29 “I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,” declares the Lord GOD.

Joel 2:28, 29 “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

[Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1995]

Posted in Creation | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Christian and the Creation Story

Paul’s Allusion to the Trinity in I Corinthians

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.
1 Cor. 12:4 – 6

The concept of the Christian dogma of the Trinity of the Godhead is the toughest concept with which to grapple. As Philip SAchaff wrote on the topic, ” For the holy Trinity, though the most evident, is yet the deepest of mysteries, and can be adequately explained by no analogies from finite and earthly things” 1. That there is “one God” is plain from even a cursory reading of the Old Testament, from the inference of Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” throughout the Scriptures. In the New Testament there were plenty of inferences, from Jesus Himself saying “I and the Father are one, and He who has seen Me has seen the Father in John 14:9, as well as the Baptismal formula in Mat 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”. But there was no expressed unifying doctrine of the Trinity, as the first believers were preoccupied with living the Gospel and expecting a fairly immanent return of Jesus, until aberrant beliefs like Gnosticism and Arianism began to threaten Christian’s understanding of just who it was they were worshiping. That came to a head in the mid 2nd century culminating in the Council of Nicea which evaluated the current concepts of Christology and agreed on an orthodox belief, as published in the Apostles Creed.

But there were lots of inferences of a “three persons in one” in the Apostolic writings. And my current Bible reading brought me to the passage above where for the first time I saw Paul implicitly offer a threefold personhood of God. Strangely in all the myriad times I’ve read through these verses I had not seen this. I only saw the discussion of the results of the Holy Spirit, of the Lord Jesus, and of God the Father on the life and heart of the believer. Paul in countless places has written of the Spirit and of the Lord Jesus and the Father, but these verses, to me, imply the unity of the persons of the Godhead. Especially as they are embedded in Paul’s discussion of the unity of the body, the Church.

Coming to a true idea of just who is God, and who is Jesus Christ is paramount to the believer’s worship of God. Obviously the Scriptures stress the importance of there being “one God” and only one God. We know that from the first commandment given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and then in all God’s preaching to Israel with its accompanying curses if they don’t comply, culminating it God’s removal of the nation from the Promised Land primarily for violating this very commandment.

So I thought I’d bring to notice these verses which bolster many others that indicate that Jesus Christ is to be considered fully God, like Philippians 2:5 – 7 “Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men”, and Colossians 1: 15 – 16 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth”.

So how awesome is it that God should dwell among us, the very one who created all that exists? How can we not worship our Lord Jesus and the Father as the one God of all?

1 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Vol. 2, page 516, downloaded from Christian Classics Etherial Library, https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2 . For a good discussion of the developement of the dogma of the Trinity read the section in the same location, section 149, pp. 514 – 518.

[Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1995]

Posted in Trinity | Tagged , | Comments Off on Paul’s Allusion to the Trinity in I Corinthians

Ask Me Anything

“In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full. ”
John 16:23, 24

I have always assumed that when Jesus told His apostles that they can ask anything in His name it would be granted that this applied to ‘anything,’ such as healing someone, or performing other such miracles. But I now read these verses in the context of what Jesus is telling the disciples starting at the beginning of the 16th chapter. And from 16:16 through to 16:28 Jesus is telling them a lot of “strange” things about Himself, the Father, and where He is going. He’s telling them so much that they are confused (see 16:17-18 as well as before this in 15:8 and 22) and they question Him about all this new and curious information. Jesus tells them “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12) Kind of an information overload. But the truth is they do not yet have the spiritual capacity to understand these things. Even when the disciples reply to Him, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.” (John 16:29-30) Jesus knows they really don’t fully comprehend all that is going on that night.

So in light of this 16th chapter, Jesus is trying to advise His disciples that there are so many things about the character, behavior, and plan of God that very soon they will be able to comprehend it all. And thus He tells them that “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf.” (John 16:24 and 26) Soon the “Helper” He has promised will help them in a very many things in ways they can’t begin to understand, but soon a time will come when figurative language will no longer be necessary. Just ask the Father and understanding will be given to you. After all, Jesus does not want Apostles preaching the Gospel using defective information about God, the Gospel, and the Church. In the book of Acts they are able to correct mistaken notions about what being a Christian entails, like in the fate of Ananias and his wife, and dealing with the magician Bar-Jesus or ministering to those who only incompletely understood the Gospel. Accurately handling the Word of Truth is paramount to the spread of the Good News.

So I think that the things Jesus referred to are all the things that would help them in administering the Gospel to the fallen world. And God can be depended upon to stand beside them in their task because of His promises and that He has overcome the world.

[Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1995]

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Ask Me Anything