"The State of Theology: Theological Awareness Benchmark Study" by Ligonier Ministries

Ligonier Ministries has published the results of a survey conducted in order to assess the theological understanding and awareness of our fellow citizens. Here is the description of the survey:

It is Ligonier's desire to serve the church in fulfilling the Great Commission. This survey has helped to point out common gaps in theological knowledge and awareness so that Christians might be more effective in the proclamation, teaching, and defense of the essential truths of the Christian faith. View the infographic [pictured at right], listen to Dr. R.C. Sproul discuss these findings on Renewing Your Mind, or download the official white paper and survey with key findings.

The Executive Summary included in the official white paper goes on to state:

Ligonier Ministries is “committed to faithfully presenting the unvarnished truth of Scripture to help people grow in their knowledge of God and His holiness.” Anecdotal evidence has shown an increasing lack of theological understanding in America, both outside and inside the church. Ligonier Ministries wanted to understand with accuracy the extent of the need to improve that understanding. Ligonier Ministries commissioned a research study by LifeWay Research to measure the theological awareness of adult Americans. Ligonier Ministries identified specific doctrines and heresies that they wanted to test. LifeWay Research helped refine these questions and to conduct a survey of 3,000 Americans. Questions focused on seven key doctrinal areas and included a number of specific areas where Americans differ from historic and orthodox views.

The key doctrinal areas covered by the study include beliefs about God, beliefs about goodness and sin, beliefs about salvation and religious texts, beliefs about heaven and hell, beliefs about the church, and beliefs about authority. For those of us who are devoted to the Scriptures as our ultimate authority, who care about a correct understanding of truth, and who therefore have been paying particular attention to the disintegration of our culture and the deplorable state of professing Evangelical Christianity, many of the survey's finding will come as no surprise. However, some of the findings might surprise you, especially when the views of those identified as Evangelical Protestants are compared to the common views of Americans who are not Evangelical Protestants. For example, 64% of Americans surveyed agreed with the statement that "A person obtains peace with God by first taking the initiative to seek God & then God responds with grace" (which is not surprising), but 68% of those identified as Evangelical Protestants also agreed with the statement (which I find a bit surprising, given that even an Arminian should no better). At any rate, I thought the readers of this blog would find the study both interesting and helpful. Feel free to let us know what you think.

Psalm 133 – The Blessing of Unity (Teaching Outline)

Note: As with most of the the other outlines I have posted on this blog, this expositional outline was originally used for teaching on a Sunday morning at Immanuel Baptist Church, where I have been blessed to serve as the primary teaching elder for more than twenty years. This outline is yet another sample of the kind of expository teaching to which we Reformed Baptist pastors are committed and about which we are so passionate. If you wish to hear the audio of the teaching from back in 2012, you can listen here.

Introduction: What measures did you take to prepare your heart before you came here this morning to worship the Lord? Did you spend time in prayer about it last night? Did you pray about it when you woke up this morning? Did you perhaps sing or listen to worship songs at home or in the car on the way here? Or did you do nothing in particular? If not, then I encourage you to pay special attention to this morning's teaching, for we will see that David thought it was very important to prepare our hearts as we come together as a community of believers to worship the Lord. It is my hope that we will all learn from him today more about how we ought to come before the Lord in worship.

Notice first of all that this psalm has a title: “A Song of Ascents. Of David.” The Songs of Ascents are made up of Psalms 120-134. These fifteen Psalms were apparently written to be sung by the people of the Lord as they went up to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. They may therefore be regarded as songs designed to prepare the hearts of the people for worship in the Temple. As we shall see in Psalm 133, this meant that the people were prepared for worship only if they recognized the blessing and importance of doing so as a part of a community of the faithful. With this in mind, let's turn our attention now to verse 1.

NKJ  Psalm 133:1 Behold [הִנֵּה, hinnēh], how good and how pleasant it is for brethren [אָח, āḥ] to dwell together in unity!

Charles Spurgeon comments helpfully on David's call to “behold” the unity of the brethren when he writes:

It is a wonder seldom seen, therefore behold it! It may be seen, for it is the characteristic of real saints, therefore fail not to inspect it! It is well worthy of admiration; pause and gaze upon it! It will charm you into imitation, therefore note it well! God looks on with approval, therefore consider it with attention. (Treasury of David, e-Sword).

I think he has captured well the sense of wonder and excitement David wants us to have as we consider with him the blessing of the brethren who live together before the Lord in unity. But it is important to recognize that, when David speaks of the “brethren” here, he does not have in mind only close family relationships. Rather he has in mind at a minimum all of his fellow Israelites who find their unity in their common commitment to the Law of God. This is in keeping with other Old Testament uses of the Hebrew word for brother or brethren, which also clearly demonstrate such a meaning. For example, let's take a look at just a few instances in the Book of Deuteronomy:

NKJ  Deuteronomy 15:1-3 At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. 2 And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the LORD's release. 3 Of a foreigner you may require it; but you shall give up your claim to what is owed by your brother [אָח, āḥ] ….

Notice that a “brother” here is not just a member of one's immediate family, but anyone who is not a foreigner, even if that person is poor. In other words, a brother is a fellow Israelite, no matter what his social standing. We see the same thing as we look further on in the same passage:

NKJ  Deuteronomy 15:12 If your brother [אָח, āḥ], a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.

Again we see that a fellow Israelite is regarded as a “brother” even if he is of inferior social standing, in this case even if he is a slave.

NKJ  Deuteronomy 25:1-3 If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, 2 then it shall be, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, according to his guilt, with a certain number of blows. 3 Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother [אָח, āḥ] be humiliated in your sight.

Notice in this case that a fellow Israelite is to be regarded as a “brother” even if he has offended you and deserves to be punished. And because he is your brother you should want to be merciful to him even if you have to inflict punishment upon him.

Thus we have seen that the Old Testament usage of the term brother could refer not just to one's immediate family, but to anyone who is a fellow Israelite. However, I would argue that David's usage of the term here, while similarly broader than simply one's own immediate family, is nevertheless restricted to only some other Israelites, namely those who are like-minded in their commitment to the Lord. For in this context David has in mind all of those who come together to worship the Lord, no matter who they are. He is speaking, then, of the community of the faithful as though they are themselves a family, a spiritual family, if you will.

Remember that this is a “Song of Ascents,” intended to be sung by the faithful who travel to Jerusalem and go up to the Temple to worship. So, when David refers to the “brethren” in verse 1, he means all those who come to worship God together, no matter who they are – no matter what their social or economic standing (Deut. 15:3,12), and no matter whether or not they may have offended you at some point (Deut. 25:3).

But, although David wrote this Psalm to be sung as one ascended up to Jerusalem and to the Temple to worship, and in order to describe the unity of such people, he clearly intends that the unity expressed as they worship together should also be present in the totality of their lives as they “dwell together” – or live together – in the land. Otherwise, they could not sing this song with sincerity when they came to worship. 

David is assuming, then, that sincere worship is reflected in our lives and in the way we treat one another, and he is assuming that sincere worship can only take place when we live together in unity as we should. In this he anticipates Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, when He said:

NKJ  Matthew 5:23-24 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Jesus clearly assumes that we cannot truly worship the Lord if there is a problem in our relationship with a brother, if there is a sin that has not been reconciled. Thus we may see that because of our sins we may often have obstacles to unity.

William Barrick, Professor of Old Testament at The Master’s Seminary, reminds us of the potential obstacles to unity the ancient Israelite believers may themselves have faced as they traveled to Jerusalem to worship:

Pilgrims faced not only the potential disharmony within individual families, but the tensions of getting along with others in competition for the same resources for lodging, food, and water. In addition, there may have been clan rivalries that could disrupt the peace of a pilgrim encampment after days of weary travel. (Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs: The Master Musician’s Melodies, p. 2)

We too experience many obstacles to genuine worship, don't we? For example, we also have to travel to worship the Lord together on Sunday morning, and there may be any number of distractions as we travel, ranging from bad drivers on the road, unexpected delays, cranky children in the back seat, a cold shoulder from a spouse that we should have told we were sorry for something we said or did the night before, the sudden reminder of a problem at work, and so on. 

But despite such obstacles, the Lord would have us remember “how good and how pleasant” it is for us to live together in unity with our spiritual brothers and sisters. This will help to motivate us to put things right with others before we come to worship Him. It will help us to remember that we must not only love God with all our heart, but that we cannot really do so if we do not also love our brother.

However, we might be thinking about how hard this is, and we might be wondering how on earth we could ever come consistently before the Lord with such love and unity between us. Well, David points us to the answer in the next two verses, where he reminds us of the fact that such unity is first and foremost a blessing that comes from God.

NKJ  Psalm 133:2 It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down [יָרַד, yāraḏ] on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down [יָרַד, yāraḏ] on the edge of his garments.

At first we might be wondering what on earth oil running down Aaron's beard has to do with unity, or with how good and pleasant unity is! How can unity be like oil? Well, perhaps we will understand better if we find out a bit more about this oil. For the “precious oil” mentioned here is oil that was especially mixed with spices and was to be used only for the anointing of the priests and the articles of the Tabernacle – and later the Temple. We read about this precious oil in Exodus 30:

NKJ  Exodus 30:22-33 Moreover the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 23 “Also take for yourself quality spices – five hundred shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much sweet-smelling cinnamon (two hundred and fifty shekels), two hundred and fifty shekels of sweet-smelling cane, 24 five hundred shekels of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. 25 And you shall make from these a holy anointing oil, an ointment compounded according to the art of the perfumer. It shall be a holy anointing oil. 26 With it you shall anoint the tabernacle of meeting and the ark of the Testimony; 27 the table and all its utensils, the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense; 28 the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the laver and its base. 29 You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy; whatever touches them must be holy. 30 And you shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister to Me as priests. 31 And you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'This shall be a holy anointing oil to Me throughout your generations. 32 It shall not be poured on man's flesh; nor shall you make any other like it, according to its composition. It is holy, and it shall be holy to you. 33 Whoever compounds any like it, or whoever puts any of it on an outsider, shall be cut off from his people.'” 

So, we see that, in comparing the goodness and pleasantness of unity between believers to the precious anointing oil, David pictures this unity as something that is special, valuable, unique, giving off a sweet aroma – i.e. creating a pleasant atmosphere around us – and, above all, he pictures such unity as something that is holy. This oil signifies that which is precious to God. And the anointing of Aaron with this oil signified God's special blessing upon him.

David also describes this oil as “running down” Aaron's beard and his garments. So, he wishes for us to see our unity not only as a special sign of God's blessing, but as a sign of His blessing poured out in abundance.

NKJ  Psalm 133:3 It is like the dew of Hermon, descending [יָרַד, yāraḏ] upon the mountains of Zion; for there the LORD commanded the blessing -- Life forevermore.

Willem VanGemeren describes the significance of this metaphor when he writes:

Because of the high altitude of Mount Hermon (nearly ten thousand feet above sea level) and the precipitation in the forms of rain, snow, and dew, Mount Hermon was proverbial for its lush greenery even during the summer months … and for its dew that sustained the vegetation. (Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol.5, p. 817)

David describes the unity of God's people as they live and worship together as though the dew of Hermon had descended upon Zion. He thus pictures God's people living and worshiping together in unity as something that is so refreshing that it is as though God had caused the dew of Hermon to fall upon Jerusalem.

When David says that “there” the LORD commanded the blessing, he perhaps means at Zion, the particular place where God's people came to worship. But it is likely that by “there” he simply means wherever God's people live and worship in unity. Derek Kidner was right on when he wrote:

The second half of verse 3, with its strong accent on God's initiative (commanded) and on what is only His to give (life forevermore), clinches another emphasis of the psalm, which is made by a threefold repetition, partly lost in translation: literally, 'descending' (2a)… 'descending' (2b)…  'descending' (3a). In short, true unity, like all good gifts, is from above; bestowed rather than contrived, a blessing far more than an achievement. (Tyndale Old Testament Commentary, Vol. 14b, p. 453)

By ending with a focus on the ultimate blessing of God – everlasting life – as something experienced in unity with God's people, David emphasizes a very important fact that too many do not understand in the Church, namely that we are not fully experiencing the joy of the life we have from God if we are not experiencing it together! Where there is not real unity among believers, there is lacking also a full expression of the life of the age to come in the here and now!

Paul made essentially the same point when he addressed some issues that could potentially disrupt the unity of the church in Rome:

NKJ  Romans 14:13-19 Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way. 14 I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. 15 Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. 16 Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; 17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. 19 Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.

Jesus also taught this important truth when He said that our joy would be full in the experience of love toward one another:

NKJ  John 15:9-12 As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Conclusion: It is my hope that today we will all commit ourselves more fully and passionately than ever to Christ and to His body, the Church. We must never forget that the Christian faith is about relationships. It is about our relationship first to God, and then to one another, and these two spheres of interpersonal relationships cannot be severed. As the Apostle John reminds us:

NKJ  1 John 4:20-21 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

Mark Driscoll Resigns From Mars Hill Church

In an article entitled BREAKING: Mark Driscoll resigns from Mars Hill Church, Religion News Service broke the story today that Mark Driscoll has resigned as pastor of Mars Hill Church. Here is the opening portion of the article:

(RNS) Mark Driscoll, the larger-than-life megachurch pastor who has been accused of plagiarism, bullying and an unhealthy ego that alienated his most devoted followers, resigned from his Seattle church Tuesday (Oct. 14), according to a document obtained by RNS. 

The divisive Seattle pastor had announced his plan to step aside for at least six weeks in August while his church investigated the charges against him. Driscoll’s resignation came shortly after the church concluded its investigation. 

“Recent months have proven unhealthy for our family — even physically unsafe at times — and we believe the time has now come for the elders to choose new pastoral leadership for Mars Hill,” Driscoll wrote in his resignation letter.

READ: Mark Driscoll’s resignation letter (RNS) 

Driscoll was not asked to resign from the church he started 18 years ago, according to a letter from the church’s board of overseers. “Indeed, we were surprised to receive his resignation letter,” they wrote.

RNS appears to have done a thorough and fair job of reporting on this issue, and the articles linked should put things in perspective as far as the order of events and basic issues are involved. It is sad to see such a failure, but it is not altogether unexpected when a man begins his ministry as a maverick who was unqualified to pastor when he first took on the task anyway. Let us all learn from this just how important it is not to put a novice into pastoral ministry and then proceed to enable him for years simply because he becomes popular.

Update 28 October 2014

Warren Throckmorton, who has been one of the writes who has broken many parts of the story concerning the saga of Mars Hill Church and Mark Driscoll, issued the following report on October 19: Mars Hill Church Board of Elders: Mark Driscoll Resigned Instead of Entering a Restoration Plan. At this point, who among us could really be surprised?

Update 8 November 2014

It is now being widely reported now that Mars Hill Church has announced that it will dissolve the church and sell all of its property (see here for example). A post at the church's website states:

Following much prayer and lengthy discussion with Mars Hill’s leadership, the board of Mars Hill has concluded that rather than remaining a centralized multi-site church with video-led teaching distributed to multiple locations, the best future for each of our existing local churches is for them to become autonomous self-governed entities. This means that each of our locations has an opportunity to become a new church, rooted in the best of what Mars Hill has been in the past, and independently led and run by its own local elder teams. 

We recognize this reorganization plan is a significant and complex undertaking on many fronts; however, our goal is to have the process completed by January 1st, 2015.

May the Lord give the leaders of this church wisdom to begin following His Word more closely in the future.

Christ Our Kinsman Redeemer

Note: The following is a teaching outline on Ruth 2:20, in which Boaz is described as a goël – a kinsman redeemer – which not only enabled him to become an ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ but also enabled him to serve as a type of Christ as well.

Introduction: The LORD adopts a number of metaphors by which He reveals to us the salvation He has wrought on our behalf. Among these metaphors is the metaphor of redemption, which literally refers to the action taken and the price paid to redeem someone from poverty or slavery. In fact, God later takes up the very term used of Boaz in the second chapter of Ruth in order to describe Himself as our Redeemer. Let's take a look again at the account in Ruth to see where this term is first used:

NKJ  Ruth 2:20 “Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, 'Blessed be he of the LORD, who has not forsaken His kindness to the living and the dead!' And Naomi said to her, “This man is a relation [קָרֹב, lit. a near one] of ours, one of our close relatives [גֹּאֵל, goël, Qal Participle > גָּאַל, gā’al, redeem].”

A person could act as a goël – or redeemer – on behalf of another family member in a number of instances. For example, the New Geneva Study Bible correctly lists at least four ways in which this could be done:

The law of redemption now comes into view. According to this law, the nearest male blood relative had the duty of preserving the family name and property. This duty could entail (a) avenging the death of a family member (Num. 35:19-21); (b) buying back family property that had been sold to pay debts (Lev. 25:25); (c)  buying back a relative who had sold himself into slavery to pay debts (Lev. 25:47-49); and (d) marrying the widow of a deceased relative (Deut. 25:5-10).

It is this latter means of acting as a kinsman-redeemer that is in view in the Book of Ruth, where Boaz marries Ruth in order to provide an heir for her deceased husband Mahlon, but this role is combined with Boaz's redemption of the land that had belonged to Naomi's husband and brothers as well (4:3-10). Let's take a few minutes, then, to review one of the key passages that describes the role of such a kinsman-redeemer so that we can get in our minds the proper background for our study of how it foreshadows the salvation we now have in Christ. The passage we will examine focuses particularly on the redemption of a family member from slavery:

NKJ  Leviticus 25:25, 47-49 “If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative [גֹּאֵל, goël] comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold. [And then later in the passage we read…] 47 Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you, or to a member of the stranger's family, 48 after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; 49 or his uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him; or anyone who is near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself.”

Notice that there are at least three conditions that must be in place if one is going to be helped by a goël: 1) The goël must be a kinsman, 2) he must possess the means to pay price of redemption, and 3) he must be willing to do so, for the text says that the kinsman may redeem his brother from slavery, not that he must do it. As we consider the way that God took up the metaphor of the goël and applied it to His own saving action in Christ, these factors will become important in our understanding of what He has done. But first we must see 1) how God described Himself as our Goël, 2) how He promised a Messiah who would be our Goël, and 3) how Jesus became our Goël in fulfillment of God's promise.

I. God Described Himself as Our Goël

In fact, this is a special theme in the Book of Isaiah, where the term goël is used repeatedly and exclusively in reference to the LORD Himself. For example:

NKJ  Isaiah 44:6 “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer [גֹּאֵל, goël], the LORD of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God.'”

NKJ  Isaiah 44:24 “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer [גֹּאֵל, goël], and He who formed you from the womb: 'I am the LORD, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself….'”

NKJ  Isaiah 47:4 “As for our Redeemer [גֹּאֵל, goël], the LORD of hosts is His name, the Holy One of Israel.”

NKJ  Isaiah 48:17 “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer [גֹּאֵל, goël], the Holy One of Israel: 'I am the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go.'”

NKJ  Isaiah 54:5-6 “For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is His name; and your Redeemer [גֹּאֵל, goël] is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. 6 For the LORD has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused,' Says your God.'”

NKJ  Isaiah 54:8 “'With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness [חֶסֶד, ḥeseḏ] I will have mercy on you,' Says the LORD, your Redeemer [גֹּאֵל, goël].”

This last reference is particularly noteworthy, in that it combines a reference to God as our Goël with His ḥeseḏ (kindness) toward us, and this is similar to the way these concepts are combined in Ruth chapter 2. Recall again Naomi's words in verse 20:

NKJ  Ruth 2:20 “Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, 'Blessed be he of the LORD, who has not forsaken His kindness [חֶסֶד, ḥeseḏ] to the living and the dead!' And Naomi said to her, 'This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives [גֹּאֵל, goël].'”

Even so God describes His work as our Goël as a manifestation of His everlasting kindness toward us (Isa. 54:8), which led to His promise of salvation through Christ. And this brings us to the second point.

II. God Promised a Messiah Who Would Be Our Goël

The LORD describes how He will redeem His people in a key passage found in Isaiah 52-53. Let's take a brief look at a a couple portions of this passage:

NKJ  Isaiah 52:9-10 “Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem! For the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed [גָּאַל, gā’al] Jerusalem. 10 The LORD has made bare His holy arm In the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”

After this the LORD speaks of a servant who would come in the so-called “servant song” beginning in 52:13 and extending all the way through 53:12. Let's just read verses 1-6 of chapter 53:

NKJ  Isaiah 53:1-6 “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” [Note: Peter applies this text to Jesus our Savior in 1 Pet. 2:24-25.]

We see here that the promised Messiah would be a suffering servant who would die in our place and bear our sins, taking upon Himself the punishment we deserve. He would pay the price to redeem us from slavery to sin. This is why, later on in Isaiah, the LORD specifically refers to the coming Servant or Messiah in the same way He has referred to Himself, as a Goël:

NKJ  Isaiah 59:20 “'The Redeemer [גֹּאֵל, goël] will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,' Says the LORD.”

The Apostle Paul cites this passage with reference to the work of Christ in Romans 11:

NKJ  Romans 11:25-27 “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The Deliverer [ῥύομαι, based on LXX] will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; 27 for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.'” [Note: Paul seems to combine his citation of Isa. 59:20-21 with allusions to Ps. 14:7 (“salvation… out of Zion”) and Isa. 27:9 (“taking away… sin”).]

And so we have found not only that the LORD repeatedly referred to Himself as our Goël, but that He also referred to the promised Messiah as our Goël. So let's turn our attention now to the last point.

III. Jesus Became our Goël in Fulfillment of God's Promise

Remember that earlier we saw that there are at least three conditions that must be in place if one is going to be helped by a goël: 1) the goël must be a kinsman, 2) he must possess the means to pay price of redemption, and 3) he must be willing to do so. I would submit to you that all three of these conditions were met by our Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf.

First, Jesus was a kinsman who could serve as our Redeemer. He was one of our brethren. In fact, this was a primary purpose of the incarnation, as the author of Hebrews makes quite clear:

NKJ  Hebrews 2:9-11, 14-17 “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren …. [Then in verse 14 he stresses that …] 14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 16 For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. 17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

Second, Jesus possessed the means to serve as our Redeemer. He alone was able to pay the price of redemption. Consider, for example, the words of the Apostle Peter:

NKJ  1 Peter 1:17-19 “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

Third, Jesus was willing to act as our Redeemer. He was willing to give His life as the price for our redemption. In fact, Jesus Himself made this perfectly clear when He said:

NKJ  John 10:14-18 “I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. 17 Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Conclusion: I hope that we have gained through this brief study a greater appreciation for how the LORD has acted to save us through His Son Jesus Christ. And I hope we have gained a greater appreciation for how the work of the goël Boaz– the kinsman redeemer – foreshadowed His saving work.

e-Sword 10.4 Update

I have been a long time user of e-Sword (alongside BibleWorks) and cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a free Bible study software program that rivals many that you would have to pay for and is better that most. This program also makes basic word studies a breeze and has been of great use to those in my congregation to whom I have recommended it. In fact, they often tell me that they love the layout and how user-friendly the program is. There is not a very steep learning curve with this program, so most anyone can catch on to it quickly. But with its recent update to version 10.4, an already great program has gotten even better. For those interested, here is the rest of the list of updates in the latest version:

New Find on Page button located next to the Search button on each view's toolbar. This Find feature makes locating content easier on large articles, such as those in many commentaries, dictionaries and reference books.

New User Files Location field in the Resources dialog (under the Options menu) for customizing where you wish for your user files to be located. This is very convenient for setting up with backup or synchronizing programs, such as Dropbox. Initially these files will still default to your "My Documents\e-Sword\" directory, but now you can easily change that!

Fixed Editor issue where it could possibly give a formatting error and not save the changes.

Although a number of modules have been developed for purchase by eStudySource, the list of free modules grows daily. There are quite a few free modules already offered at the e-Sword downloads page, such as John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, the Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament, or A.T. Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament. This list has grown steadily over the years. There is also a growing list of free modules available at BibleSupport.com, about which I have previously posted here.

For those interested in finding out more about the program, Christian Computing Magazine has also recently written a series of favorable reviews of the software:

Digital Evangelism digital evangelism with e-Sword (Part 1)

Digital Evangelism digital evangelism with e-Sword (Part 2)

Digital Evangelism digital evangelism with e-Sword (Part 3)

Give it a try, and let us know what you think.

In case you are interested in how I am currently using the program, here is a screenshot of the passage I am studying for this coming Sunday:

Click on the screenshot in order to enlarge it, and you can see that I have purchased a few modules but also that I have many modules that I have downloaded for free from BibleSupport.com.