The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

(Genesis 2.15-17)

We don’t know all that God told Adam and Eve in the garden. His appearance after their sin, “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (3.8), seems a major inconvenience, but not entirely an unprecedented development, as if he has graced his creations with his presence before. In fact, we could sum up his expectations of their relationship with him thus: walk with God.

But their sin brought a change. Following their expulsion from the garden, their children began to offer sacrifices. Again, we’re not told where they got this idea, but it’s reasonable to surmise that God had expressed some instruction to them, which we can sum up: bring God your best.

But things changed again, when Cain killed Abel and shattered the first household. Eve gave birth to another son, Seth, and during his lifetime, “people began to call upon the name of the Lord” (4.26).

This nebulous calling on God’s name lasted for quite some time, but rampant sin and corruption led to God’s decision to blot mankind out, leaving only Noah and his family to renew the human race. The next major change came, when God chose a family to be specially his, telling Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (12.1). This also came with promises, but the first instruction—go where God leads—is a good summary of the relationship he fostered with the patriarchs.

Of course, that was always a stepping stone on the way to a covenant with an entire nation. The record of his instructions—and his promises—to Israel is far more elaborate than anything he had told to his previous favorites. Yet despite the verbose nature of the covenant, it’s easier than ever to summarize how he expected his people to behave toward him.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

(Deuteronomy 6.4-5)

In the previous few verses, Moses practically came right out and said that this summarized the whole list of God’s commandments; but we can distill it even further. He expected Israel to love God.

§

But there has always been more to worry about than our relationship with God. Loving God impels us to treat his creation properly, but just as he slowly built up his expectations for how we should treat him, he also slowly revealed how we ought to treat each other.

We read of no direct instructions to Adam and Eve as to how they should get along, but the method and order of their creation suggested the proper course to Adam, who said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Ge 2.23). He saw Eve as his “helper” (v18) and was “one” with her (v24).

The change in their relationship with God coincided with a change in the relationship of man with man—partly because they’d been thrown out of Eden, and partly because the family expanded! Genesis 3 assigns new and unwelcome mutual responsibilities for man and woman; the next chapter uses Cain’s hatred to illustrate brothers’ duty to look out for each other’s best interests.

As time went on both humanity and sin multiplied. God gave new instructions for interpersonal relationships after the flood, in an attempt to start over with a clean slate.

“From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

        Whoever sheds the blood of man,

                       by man shall his blood be shed,

        for God made man in his own image.”

(Genesis 9.5-6)

It’s not that no one had ever thought to settle a score before—that was the default, ever since Lamech proclaimed, “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold” (Ge 4.24). In fact, in Noah’s time God was instituting a limit on vengeance, and sanctioning authorities’ use of violence to serve justice. This one is easy for us to summarize—stop killing each other.

But that’s a low bar to clear, and God never intended to leave it there. When he made his covenant with Israel, it came with two apex commandments. The first—love God—we’ve already examined. But when Jesus was asked by a lawyer, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Mt 22.36), he answered with the commandment just mentioned, then added: “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (v39). This was a quotation from Leviticus 19.18, and summed up God’s expectations for how his people should treat one another.

But whereas the proper relationship with God was fully explained—even if not actually achieved—in the Law of Moses, there was another step remaining, for the proper relationship between human beings.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

(John 13.34)

This was always the goal, but it wasn’t clearly visible until Jesus became flesh, lived, and died by the principle of perfect love for others. Now, he tells his followers that it’s not really enough to love your neighbor as yourself. To truly follow Jesus, you must love others, as Jesus loves you.

Jeremy Nettles

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

(Hebrews 1.1-4)

With this theological crash course begins one of the most debated books of the Bible, Hebrews. Every other New Testament letter (except 1 John) begins by identifying its author, but this one skips past that detail as if it’s utterly unimportant. Whereas most of these letters next identify their intended audience, this one’s is only apparent from its contents, and its traditional title reflects this, and not the author’s own title or one gleaned from the body of the work, as is usually the case. Hebrews is in a class all its own.

The first chapter concerns the superiority of Jesus, the Son of God, compared with mere angels and prophets. It doesn’t yet use his name, but instead refers to him as God’s “Son” (v2, v5, v8). In his introductory sentence, the author highlights the Son’s uniqueness; his position as God’s heir; his role in creation; his resemblance of his Father; his ongoing support of creation; his previously accomplished atoning sacrifice; and his glorification. He was already contrasted with “the prophets” in v1, and by v4 it is observed that Jesus’ glory outstrips even the angels!

There’s some overlap between these two categories, of course—one of the ancient prophets, Malachi, bore a name that means “my messenger” or “my angel” in Hebrew. But while the appearance of angels led good-hearted people to inappropriately fall down before them and worship (e.g. Re 19.10), and even some human prophets received such a response (e.g. Ac 10.25), the Son deserved far more honor than either of these!

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

        “You are my Son,

                        today I have begotten you”?

Or again,

        “I will be to him a father,

                        and he shall be to me a son”?

(Hebrews 1.5)

These are two quotations, the first from Psalm 2 and the other from 2 Samuel 7. Both are about David and his descendants reigning in Jerusalem, and being effectively adopted as God’s sons, given authority to speak and act on his behalf toward his people. But like so many of the prophecies, what started with David really looks forward to “the son of David,” the Christ (Mt 22.42). Not only is he descended from David and a legitimate member of the royal line; he is also God’s own Son, not by adoption but “begotten” by God!

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

        “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

Of the angels he says,

        “He makes his angels winds,

                        and his ministers a flame of fire.”

(Hebrews 1.6-7)

This time the author refers to Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 104. He interprets Moses’ song in Deuteronomy allegorically. On its surface, it seems only to predict Israel’s rebellion, punishment at the hands of gentiles, and eventual restoration; but the author of Hebrews sees a veiled prediction of God’s people’s salvation through the advent of his Son! In contrast, while this Son deserves the angels’ “worship,” these angels themselves are described as mere agents, powerful and awe-inspiring, but servants nonetheless.

The author then quotes two more Psalms, to the effect that the Messiah is addressed as “God” (vv8-9, cf. Ps 45.6-7), and that he preexisted and will outlast the earth (vv10-12, cf. Ps 102.25-27). The author knows just which prophecies to cite, demonstrating the ability Jesus attributed to “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven,” when he “brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt 13.52). Incidentally, this is the chief reason we shouldn’t worry about figuring out who wrote Hebrews. In the first place, if in the course of two thousand years this question has defeated the best efforts of the wisest Christians, it would be foolish for us to expect to find a firm answer; and in the second place, Hebrews doesn’t make any new assertions. It simply points to what the Old Testament says, in the light of what “was declared at first by the Lord, and” was later shared and reinforced by his witnesses, the apostles (He 2.3). We don’t have to trust the author of Hebrews, because he’s simply pointing out what we might have missed in the Holy Spirit’s previous revelations.

The chapter wraps up with one more rhetorical question about yet another messianic prediction in the Psalms:

And to which of the angels has he ever said,

        “Sit at my right hand

                        until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

(Hebrews 1.13-14)

This one comes from Psalm 110, and the author is far from finished with that particular Psalm. But his observation at the outset deals, again, with a comparison between the Son and the angels. They are sent to and fro as servants, carrying out God’s will for the good of his people. The Son, now that he has accomplished the task he undertook in the world, has sat down on a throne, to be served by the angels. If even the angels worship and serve him, then shouldn’t you, too?

Jeremy Nettles

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

(Ephesians 4.4-6)

This passage falls right in the middle of Paul's letter to the Christians of Ephesus, at the very point at which he shifts from theory, to practice—that is, from telling them what things are so, to telling them what they ought to do about it. But, as is so often the case for Paul, even his instructions are accompanied by profound statements of truth, which should naturally lead us to behave in ways that please God. Here, he highlights seven “ones.”

One Body

By “body,” Paul of course means the church, which he identifies thus both in the ensuing verses, and again in the next chapter, where he writes that “Christ is the head of the church, his body” (Ep 5.23). Of course, there are many separate churches, comprising individual congregations all over the world, each of which can just as accurately be called a church. These congregations will have their own particular circumstances and quirks, because they’re all made up of unique individuals; but all together they constitute the body of Christ, spread out across space and even time, so that a Christian today is part of the same body as the Apostle Paul.

One Spirit

Of course, as there are individual churches with their own distinct characteristics, individual Christians also all have their own spirits. But we strive to empty ourselves of our own, and welcome God’s to take their place! As Paul wrote in another letter around the same time,

if there is any…participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

(Philippians 2.1-2)

One Hope

We likewise may hope for many different things—to recover from an illness, to receive a pay raise, to see a loved one succeed, or even that a particular sports team will win Sunday’s game. Yet for Christians there’s only one hope at the center of our lives—the hope “for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (Ro 8.23-24). This may seem obscure to an outsider, but it shouldn’t be difficult for a Christian to understand! Paul means the hope for resurrection—that is, to join Jesus in eternal life, at the Father’s side.

One Lord

There will be many people placed in positions of authority over you; get used to it! Paul even highlights one of these situations later in the letter, “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling” (Ep 6.5). The Greek word behind “masters” is, of course, simply the plural of κύριος-kyrios, of which he has written that there is only one! It helps to think in terms of the Jews’ covenant with God. In order to avoid using God’s name יהוה-Yahweh flippantly, they replaced it with אֲדֹנָי-’Adonai-“Lord.” Notwithstanding the many earthly authorities with the right to tell you what to do in some matters, there is only one who has complete authority over you!

One Faith

The word faith can mean so many things that, while the proclamation of “one faith” seems perfectly plain on its face, a moment’s reflection yields up many questions and alternatives! Is this “one faith” the Christian religion? The belief that Jesus is the Son of God? The vocal profession and inward commitment to our Lord? The pattern of life and worship we follow? The short answer is, yes to all of these. The Greek word πίστις-pistis takes on all of these meanings in the Bible, with a few more nuances besides. But we can sum it all up in what Peter told the Jews’ council of leaders, that “there is salvation in no one else” but Jesus, and “no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Ac 4.12). People choose to put their faith in a wide variety of supposed powers, but only one faith is worthy.

One Baptism

From the time when John the Baptist began to “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mt 3.3), preaching the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven, baptism was a central rite. Of course, “John’s baptism” appeared in contrast to baptism “in the name of the Lord Jesus” at the beginnings of the church in Ephesus (Ac 19.3 & 5); and both John and Jesus mentioned contrasting baptisms, such as water, Holy Spirit, fire, and more. Even John’s baptism was modeled after the ritual cleansing prescribed in the Law of Moses to achieve or restore ritual purity. Although there is a great variety of bath-like cleansing ceremonies observed all over the world, in Christ there is “one baptism,” which is a participation in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, constituting “an appeal to God for a good conscience” (1Pe 3.21).

One God

The world is, and has nearly always been, full of idols. In former times, most people venerated objects fashioned after the likeness of imagined deities. These days, that practice has mostly died out; but idols have multiplied! For one thing, it’s more and more common to serve abstract idols, like wealth—Paul tells us that “covetousness…is idolatry” (Co 3.5). On top of these, there are more and more impostors, in the form of entirely false religions, as well as the more insidious perversions of the true one. But John instructs Christians, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1Jn 5.21), just after reassuring us that we “know him who is true” (v20). Make sure you’re serving him.

Jeremy Nettles

Last week, we further developed our spiritual discernment, by considering film and TV adaptations of biblical stories. These in no way replace the actual Bible, but dramatic productions feed our imagination, helping us to see biblical figures as real people, with the same daily struggles we endure. Pondering God’s will, and its execution through human beings just as flawed and weak as ourselves, is both humbling, and encouraging. This week, we’ll stay on the theme of spiritual discernment, but in a different area of life.

Spirits in Disguise

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

(2 Corinthians 4.17-18)

One of the central tenets of the faith is that the world we inhabit is not eternal. God created it for a purpose, wrapped up with his plan for mankind. When that is accomplished, it will give way to “the world to come” (He 2.5). At present we are stuck in a realm that is “a shadow of the things to come” (Co 2.17), but in Christ we are enabled to glimpse “the true form of these realities” (He 10.1), which in many cases not only will exist long after the physical creation, but also existed before the foundation of the world, just as its master is “the Alpha and the Omega…who is and who was and who is to come” (Re 1.8).

But our spiritual vision isn’t always clear. Even the Apostle Paul wrote, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1Co 13.12). This universal spiritual astigmatism, so to speak, is why he wrote, earlier in the same letter, “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know” (8.2). Thus he began a meandering answer to a question “concerning food offered to idols” (v1), which seems like it could have been handled in a very few words—God permits you to eat it, or else God forbids you to eat it. But no, we get three full chapters devoted, not to explaining why it’s permissible or prohibited, but why, even if “all things are lawful,” still “not all things are helpful” (10.23). It had to do with spirit, not flesh.

Five years ago, the world stumbled into a strange pandemic caused by a particular strain of the viruses that cause the common cold. The disease could be so mild as to go unnoticed in one person, and severe enough to kill another. It was new, and most of us felt like we lacked clear answers. Christians struggled to determine what they ought to do, and eventually formulated a wide variety of incompatible opinions. Those who who were wise saw the similarity to the issue in 1 Corinthians 8-10, and tried to adhere to what God told us there, as well as in Romans 14, “not to quarrel over opinions” (Ro 14.1).

But that didn’t satisfy everyone. While the application of these passages has generally been relegated to a nebulous category of so-called matters of indifference, the whole point has always been in the struggle to determine which matters are indifferent in God’s eyes, and which aren’t! If your opinion is that God is indifferent toward eating meat, then you eat what you please; if your opinion is that God will condemn carnivores to hell for all eternity, then you cannot describe it as a matter of indifference! When covid came along, it provided a perfect test for our application of these passages. Many failed.

This issue suddenly superseded everything else, to the point where God’s actual commandments began to be seen more as general guidelines, by some of the most straitlaced and conscientious Christians around. Others scorned brothers and sisters for worrying about trivial matters, or even outright denied that the disease existed. Why did this happen? The answer hides behind another question: whom can we trust? We live in an ideologically divided culture, and the messaging from the two main sides was an expression of different spirits. We’re supposed to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God,” but when we fail to discern, or even to recognize that there are spiritual ramifications to various ideas that swirl about the cultural aether, we leave ourselves open to attack by nefarious forces that emanate from Satan himself.

Five years later, it’s a little easier to discuss the polarizing issues—now that they no longer matter. That is the way of spiritual warfare! Modern Christians often read the book of Exodus and mercilessly mock the Israelites for their complaining, disbelief, and rebellion, without pausing to contemplate for a moment Jesus’ sobering admonition,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.”

(Matthew 23.29-32)

It’s easy to look back and pass judgment, when it no longer directly affects us. It was an entirely different matter, when we were in the middle of it! That doesn’t mean there were no right and wrong answers, attitudes, and actions, though. Let us look back to the frustration and uncertainty of covid, not to pass judgment on everyone’s mistakes, but to learn Satan’s tactics, now that the spirits have become a bit easier to identify. Then, prepare to recognize and defeat them through God’s playbook, the next time “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” and tries to deceive us (2Co 11.14).

Jeremy Nettles

Last week we considered another example of how God’s word can be misrepresented and twisted to mean the opposite of what God intended—the protest folk song, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” While it’s catchy and inoffensive at the casual first listen, attention soon yields the realization that the singer, in his sanctimony, believes the greater part of his audience is insufficiently enlightened to desire peace, of all things, and must be directed by his moral betters in the…entertainment industry…to pursue what is good. This week, we’ll follow the same theme, using a different medium.

Fact, or Truth?

So far we have considered two songs that abused the Scriptures in order to insinuate the opposite of what they mean. What happens, when artists openly alter or add to God’s word, for artistic purposes?

Almost since the motion picture industry’s birth, religious material has represented a sizeable share of its output. In particular, adaptations of biblical stories have been common. Every last one of these is riddled with inaccuracies, of course, and religious commentators are keen to tell us about them! From Zipporah’s creative backstory in 1998’s The Prince of Egypt, to Jesus’ bar mitzvah in 1977’s Jesus of Nazareth, to the exploding golden calf in 1956’s The Ten Commandments, to the soap opera antics of 2014’s Noah, there’s always extrabiblical material in these presentations. If they become public sensations, you’ll find very serious-minded individuals denouncing their lack of faithfulness to the source material. In their view, this is blasphemy. For some reason, one never seems to hear such criticisms of a film like 1998’s Saving Private Ryan, which manufactures details as much as any biblical epic. In fact, it’s widely considered to be among the most accurate war films ever made! But some people create unattainable standards for anything religious.

On the other hand, it’s easy to go too far in the opposite direction. Ted Neeley, who portrayed Jesus in 1973’s Jesus Christ Superstar, recalled that Pope Paul VI told him, “I believe it will bring more people around the world to Christianity than anything ever has before.” One can at least hope that Neeley doesn’t understand Italian very well, and something was lost in translation. A similar folly is evident in the credulous idolatry of a select few who hold up artistic representations as basically revelations from God. This is the very problem the grumpy purists feared! Even though many of these adaptations are accompanied by disclaimers, to the effect that they are not intended as a replacement for reading the Bible, some people take what they like and cling to it, regardless of what the Author says. In fact, the Monty Python crew produced a movie mostly focused on mocking this very tendency, 1979’s cutting (but highly raunchy) Life of Brian, a parody of the “life of Christ” film genre. It’s a sad state of affairs, but anything you create is liable to be misused, if enough people get their hands on it. Nothing is foolproof, to a sufficiently talented fool.

So, how should Christians approach modern religious art, which largely consists of film and TV adaptations of biblical stories? A verse from last week helps: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ec 3.1). If you keep them in their proper place, there’s no reason not to make good use of them. If you demand perfect adherence to the text, then, well, no one’s stopping you from reading your Bible! But it’s an impossible standard, for any artwork. We don’t know how a single one of these people looked or sounded; just by putting a face or a voice to Ruth or Barnabas, you’re adding extrabiblical details. You may say those details don’t matter; but the artists would say that, in a visual medium, they matter just as much as Simon the Zealot’s backstory, which likewise is not recorded in the Bible, but makes useful fodder for contemplation, and perhaps even edification. Art is supposed to affect us for the better, and its effectiveness is not limited to its words. When King Saul was tormented by a harmful spirit, “David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well” (1Sa 16.23).

Of course, this power can also be perverted into sensuality, as was the case with the later King Herod, who was so “pleased” by his step-daughter’s dance that he gave her as a reward the severed head of an innocent man he’d intended to keep alive (Mt 14.6ff). That’s making the art into an object of worship—an idol. But if we avoid that hazard, artistic depictions can be edifying, precisely because they are fantasies. We interpret reality all the time, but it’s limited in its scope. Art helps us to exercise our spiritual discernment by contemplating hypothetical situations. We can use Frodo, or Aslan, or Yoda, or Batman to make moral observations which, in turn, enable us to see the real world more clearly. These are the furthest thing from factual accounts, yet they help us to grasp truths.

Despite being largely fantasy, most of the biblical adaptations available today, from the absurdly irreverent Jesus Christ Superstar to the unsettlingly realistic The Passion of the Christ, contain well-crafted presentations of important spiritual insights. The same is true of The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and—yes—even Star Wars and Batman. If you want to know what really happened, read and study the Bible. If you want to understand heaven and earth better…well, read and study the Bible for that, too; but then give your powers of discernment a good workout, by observing and contemplating art.

Jeremy Nettles

*3/26/15 interview with Michael Heaton for Cleveland, OH newspaper The Plain Dealer