If Jesus Commended Mary, Why Can’t We?

A Sunday-school teacher asks the class of young children, “What is little and gray, eats nuts, and has a big bushy tail?”

After a moment one child replies, “I know the answer’s probably supposed to be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.”

There are many books and articles and sermons these days that seek to remind us that all of Scripture ultimately points to Jesus. I have benefited from these very much. It’s important to remember that the stories of David and Jonah and Samson aren’t simply children’s tales or morality plays. The point is not to “Dare to be a Daniel!” but rather to see God’s work of salvation through all of Scripture.

However, when we consider examples of faithful believers in Scripture, we shouldn’t lose sight of the lessons we are meant to learn from them. Granted the examples are as much “don’t do this” as “do this.” But there is a way to consider these lessons without forgetting that Jesus is the focus of the Bible. If we aren’t careful, our attempts to highlight Jesus in every passage end up like the old Sunday School joke.

Tim Challies has a post this week about who the true hero is in the Mary and Martha story:

The story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 is one of those accounts from the life of Jesus that is in danger of becoming cliché. And it will become that if we fail to see the true hero of the story. …

And so we learn that we are to be like Mary in a Martha world, people who prioritize spending time with Jesus instead of allowing the cares of life to overwhelm us. Mary is the hero.

Or is she? …

When we see Jesus sitting in Martha’s home, we see the true hero of the story.

Now, first things first, Jesus is absolutely the true hero of the Bible. That is one of the greatest truths of the gospel. All of the Biblical “heroes” point to the ultimate hero: Emmanuel, God with us.

However, I have some concerns about Challies’ attempt to refocus our attention in the story away from Mary and Martha. First, even though Jesus is the hero of all Bible stories, there are still important lessons to learn from the account. Why does Luke (and ultimately God) include this account? I don’t think it’s an accident that the story of Mary and Martha comes just after the “Good Samaritan” and before the Lord’s prayer. All three are instructional.

The “Good Samaritan” story ends with the command, “Go and do likewise.” The purpose of the story is to teach us about who our neighbor is and what our duties are towards our neighbors. Ultimately Jesus is the hero who rescues us from our sins and heals us by his own sacrifice. But there is an application for us too.

In the story of Mary and Martha, Mary is commended for choosing the “good portion.” What did she choose? She chose to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen to His teaching instead of being anxious and troubled over “much serving.” Her priorities were right, and it’s not wrong to point that out.

Choosing the “good portion” is a real challenge for most of us. We are often busy and anxious and troubled over many things. We are often distracted from listening to His teaching. We often need to remember what our priorities should be.

This is not to add more work or weight or guilt to our lives. It’s to free us from our running around and trusting in our own activity to save us. Because that is the problem with Martha’s actions. Martha’s heart wasn’t in the right place. She was more concerned about the serving than she was about listening to the guest of honor. Her “faith” or “trust” was in the wrong thing. Mary, on the other hand, is commended for putting her faith in the right thing. She was trusting and resting in Him.

Now, why does it matter whether we commend Mary or diminish her importance in the story? Well, my concern is that there is a strong movement within conservative churches that teaches that the home and domesticity are the ultimate callings and places of service for women. In True Woman 101, Mary Kassian and Nancy Leigh DeMoss write:

The woman, on the other hand, wasn’t created out in the field. She was created within the boundaries of the garden — the “home” where God had placed her husband. This detail is intriguing, since Scripture indicates that managing the household is a woman’s distinct sphere of responsibility. … The Bible teaches that God created woman with a distinctively feminine “bent” for the home. “Working at home” is on its Top Ten list of important things that older women need to teach the younger ones (Titus 2:4-5). Scripture encourages young women to “manage their households” (1 Tim. 5:14). It praises the woman who “looks well to the ways [affairs] of her household” (Prov. 31:27). And it casts in a negative light women whose hearts are inclined away from the home — those whose “feet” are not centered there (Prov. 7:11). (72)

They go on to say:

[C]reating a place to beget and nurture life is at the core of what it means to be a woman. … It’s about creating a warm, nurturing, orderly, stable place that promotes well-being and fosters physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual growth. It’s about welcoming others in. It’s about ministering to the soul. It’s about community. It’s about cultivating relationships. And that’s something God has particularly equipped women to do. (73)

If Kassian and DeMoss (and many others) are right that domesticity and caring for the needs of others are inherently what women are made to do, then shouldn’t Martha have been commended for her efforts at hospitality? Martha was just going around making sure her home was nurturing and ministering to others. Mary’s the one avoiding her God-given purpose, right? Why is Mary commended and Martha corrected?

Obviously I’m exaggerating a bit here. But there are many voices today encouraging women to accept that domesticity and motherhood are the highest calling. And much like Challies is concerned about in his article, when we tell women that, we are taking the focus off of Jesus. Domesticity, hospitality, and motherhood are all wonderful things, but the highest calling and purpose for all mankind (male and female) is found in glorifying God and enjoying Him forever.

Our first and greatest priority must always be Jesus. Many women will serve God through their families and homes. Other women will serve God in their callings outside the home. In all that we do, we seek to glorify Him.

In Luke’s account, Mary chose the “good portion” and demonstrated that her priorities were correct. Jesus commended her for it and told Martha that Mary would not have this taken away from her. If Jesus commended Mary, and did so for our instruction, shouldn’t we also commend her and teach the lesson Martha learned?

Did Jesus only preach about God’s wrath to the religious people of his day?

Something that I’ve seen asserted in various books, articles, and sermons is the statement that Jesus only preached about God’s wrath to the religious people of his day. The idea is that Jesus had two basic messages: one of God’s wrath and the other of God’s grace. The first message was for the church and the religious. The second was for sinners. The application, then, is that we should also only preach grace to sinners.

While I absolutely believe that we should never preach about God’s wrath without also preaching of His grace and the salvation we have through Jesus, I don’t believe that this bifurcation of Jesus’s teaching is accurate. Jesus preached both God’s wrath and His grace to everyone, and so should we.

The first question to ask is did Jesus ever speak on wrath or punishment to sinners and those outside the religious leaders? To answer that question, we need to decide which portions of Scripture we should consider. Some believe that we can only look to the “red lettered” verses. But are those the only words of Jesus?

I think it’s important to remember that all of Scripture is God breathed. All of the Bible is the Word of God. The verses in the red letters are not more inspired than the rest. So, before we consider what Jesus spoke in the gospels, let’s look at some other portions of Scripture where there is a message or warning of God’s wrath to sinners.

One of the best known passages is probably from Jonah. After Jonah stops running from God, he spends days proclaiming a message from God to the people of Ninevah, definitely a group of sinners, no question. What’s the message God told Jonah to give to Ninevah?

Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4, ESV)

And what was the result of this message of impending destruction?

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:6-10, ESV)

The people repented and believed in God. And the message God used to turn their hearts? One of wrath and destruction.

Of course, God’s wrath is a frequent theme in the prophets, but what about in the New Testament? Well, John the baptist (or baptizer) is called to prepare the people for the coming of the Savior. What is his message?

He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him,“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn,but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. (Luke 3:7-18, ESV)

What was John’s message? One of coming destruction and wrath. Who was John preaching to? The people of Israel, certainly, but also tax collectors and soldiers are specifically mentioned. And these exhortations were considered “good news!”

This use of warnings and exhortations is the basis of the Reformed understanding of the first use of the law: to convict sinners of our sin. John Calvin wrote in his Institutes:

Thus the Law is a kind of mirror. As in a mirror we discover any stains upon our face, so in the Law we behold, first, our impotence; then, in consequence of it, our iniquity; and, finally, the curse, as the consequence of both. He who has no power of following righteousness is necessarily plunged in the mire of iniquity, and this iniquity is immediately followed by the curse. Accordingly, the greater the transgression of which the Law convicts us, the severer the judgment to which we are exposed. To this effect is the Apostle’s declaration, that “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” (Rom. 3:20). By these words, he only points out the first office of the Law as experienced by sinners not yet regenerated. In conformity to this, it is said, “the law entered that the offence might abound;” and, accordingly, that it is “the ministration of death;” that it “worketh wrath” and kills (Rom. 5:20; 2 Cor. 3:7; Rom. 4:15). For there cannot be a doubt that the clearer the consciousness of guilt, the greater the increase of sin; because then to transgression a rebellious feeling against the Lawgiver is added. All that remains for the Law, is to arm the wrath of God for the destruction of the sinner; for by itself it can do nothing but accuse, condemn, and destroy him. (Institutes 2.vii.7)

While the message of wrath should be tempered with the message of grace, to deny this first use of the law is to truncate the gospel. To understand our need for a Savior, we must first understand the depth of our sin. God’s reconciling peace means nothing until we know we are separated from God by the offense of our sin. Some say that sinners, especially those with no church background, are already well-versed in their own misery and have no need of being shown the truth of their sin. Certainly we should be gentle in our application here. Our message should be kind, but it isn’t kindness or love to not tell people that they are dying apart from Christ. Most people think they’re not that bad particularly when they compare themselves to others.

Back to our question, I believe that Jesus spoke throughout the Scriptures on both God’s wrath and God’s mercy. But what about in the gospels. Did Jesus preach on God’s wrath in the gospels? Certainly. But who was the audience? Let’s look at some passages.

In Matthew 13, Jesus is preaching to a crowd by the sea. He gave the following parable:

And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:3-9, ESV)

He explained the parable this way:

And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:3-9, ESV)

In Luke, when Jesus is sending out the 72 disciples, He speaks of the destruction of whole cities:

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
“The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Luke 10:13-16, ESV)

Again in Matthew, Jesus is speaking to the crowd in parables:

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:11-14, ESV)

And in Luke, Jesus is speaking to the crowd:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1-5, ESV)

And again:

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” (Luke 13:22-30, ESV)

This is a small sampling of Jesus’s teaching recorded in the gospels. While it is absolutely true that Jesus spoke with great kindness and gentleness to His people, His message to the crowds, both sinners and religious, was one of both God’s wrath and God’s mercy. We should be equally kind and gentle in our gospel presentation, but we should not shy away from speaking the whole truth, preaching the message of reconciliation we’ve been given.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-21, ESV)

N.T. Wright’s New Perspective on Christmas

Jesus’ birth usually gets far more attention than its role in the New Testament warrants. Christmas looms large in our culture, outshining even Easter in the popular mind. Yet without Matthew 1—2 and Luke 1—2 we would know nothing about it. Paul’s gospel includes Jesus’ Davidic descent, but apart from that could exist without mention of his birth. One can be justified by faith with no knowledge of it. Likewise, John’s wonderful theological edifice has no need of it: God’s glory is revealed, not in the manger, but on the cross. …

If the first two chapters of Matthew and the first two of Luke had never existed, I do not suppose that my own Christian faith, or that of the church to which I belong, would have been very different.

N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, pgs. 171, 178

In the Name of the One who Turned Water into Wine

In preparing for Easter, I’ve been thinking on what John says about Jesus:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5, ESV)

Jesus, who came and lived and died for the sins of His people, is the One through Whom all things were made. Scripture tells many ways in which He demonstrated His authority over the world He created. One of my favorite of those accounts is from the wedding at Cana, His first miracle. I love that it was at a wedding feast. What a beautiful foreshadowing of the coming Wedding Feast! And what an appropriate focus for us as we celebrate His victory over sin, death, and Hell. He is risen, and He will come again!

Here some thoughts on the miracle at Cana:

One of the fruits of the Reformation is the hermeneutic of using Scripture to interpret Scripture. How does that apply to the discussions of Genesis and origins? Well, we have many examples of miracles that Jesus performed. Since Jesus is the Word through whom and by whom everything was made, it seems reasonable to compare His work at Cana with His work at creation. Here is something I read recently on the authority of Scripture versus the authority of science:

As for determining what science says versus Scripture, how does one decide what is miraculous and what’s not?

For example, suppose there was an expert wine maker at the wedding feast at Cana, and let’s suppose that he was hired to make the wine selections for the father of the bride. Being an expert wine maker he would know the age of the wines and the vineyards they came from and could speak of their relative merits and taste.

Suppose that when Jesus turned water into wine the wine maker tested this wine for its age, maturity, bouquet and such, based on his knowledge of wine he would declare that this wine was years old and came from a wonderfully cared for vineyard. Using the best science of assessing wine, he would be forced to draw this conclusion.

So what would his response be when the servants told him that this exquisite wine wasn’t years old but just a few minutes old, that a few minutes before there was only water in the pots and that this man Jesus turned the water into wine.

Which authority would we believe? The science that has the corner on wine making or in Jesus who is able to act supernaturally? Why is it so hard to believe that the one who changed water into wine instantly and supernaturally could not also create the universe, visible and invisible, by the word of his power?

In the Name of the One who turned water into wine,
Rachel

Is N.T. Wright Wrong on Jesus?

“I do not think Jesus “knew he was God” in the same sense that one knows one is tired or happy, male or female. He did not sit back and say to himself, ‘Well, I never! I’m the second person of the Trinity!’ ( N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, 154).”

I have found from time to time that the Jesus I knew by faith seemed less and less like the Jesus I was discovering by history (The Meaning of Jesus, 25).

N.T. Wright, formerly Bishop of Durham, is well-known for his association with the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) and for his staunch defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I was first introduced to Wright’s books through a pastor who thought Wright had been unfairly criticized. The pastor encouraged me to read him for myself and not to be swayed by unfavorable reviews. He told me that Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope, was the best he’d read on heaven. So I began to read Wright. I started with Surprised by Hope, and I found much that concerned me on a number of topics.

Instead of agreeing with the pastor, I was shocked that any Reformed pastor who had read the book would recommend it, given how far off-base Wright was on many different issues. I continued to read Wright’s books and articles, and I also began researching what others had written in critique of his work. I discovered that the one area I found the most troubling almost no one had written about: Wright’s Christology.

Early on in my reading, I began to wonder if Wright really believes that Jesus is/was God. This article is the result of two years of research into what Wright believes, or at least has written, about Christ. The books and articles I’ve read and will quote here are: Surprised by Hope, The Meaning of Jesus, Simply Jesus, Jesus and the Victory of God (I’ve read portions, but not the whole of this one), “Jesus and the Identity of God“, and “Jesus’ Self Understanding“.

To help explain why I began this research, here is Wright’s answer for “Is Jesus God?”

When people ask “Was Jesus God?,” they usually think they know what the word God means and are asking whether we can fit Jesus into that. I regard this as deeply misleading (The Meaning of Jesus, 144).

And,

I do not think Jesus “knew he was God” in the same sense that one knows one is tired or happy, male or female. He did not sit back and say to himself, “Well, I never! I’m the second person of the Trinity!” ( The Meaning of Jesus, 154).

This article will look first at what Wright has written concerning Jesus generally and then specifically at how Wright interprets the major events in Jesus’s life.

First, N.T. Wright is very concerned, in all his writings, that modern readers of the Bible pay attention to the historical setting and context of the books. For the New Testament, he writes that  it is important to understand what a first-century Jew would have believed about God, salvation, Israel’s history, and Israel’s future. This, then, is the way he approaches understanding Jesus:

We have to make a real effort to see things from a first-century Jewish point of view, if we are to understand what Jesus was all about (Simply Jesus, 9).

Wright recognizes that his understanding of Jesus and many key doctrines are not traditional, but he says that’s a good thing:

This way of looking at the climax of Jesus’s story is not, to be sure, the standard, traditional, “orthodox,” “conservative” reading, though it highlights from a new angle the “traditional” dogmas of “incarnation” and “atonement.” My contention is that it enables us to understand the original, historical reality for which those dogmas are later, often dehistoricized, abstract summaries (Simply Jesus, 172).

He then briefly outlines common views within Western Christianity that he says need to be rethought:

Here we find the classic Western Christian myth about Jesus, which is still believed by millions around the world. In this myth, a supernatural being called “God” has a supernatural “son” whom he sends, virgin-born, into our world, despite the fact, that it’s not his natural habitat, so that he can rescue people out of this world by dying in their place. As a sign of his otherwise secret divine identity, this “son” does all kinds of extraordinary and otherwise impossible “miracles,” crowning them all by rising from the dead and returning to “heaven,” where he waits to welcome his faithful followers after their deaths. … In the Protestant version, Jesus commissions his followers to write the New Testament, which reveals the absolute truth about Jesus and, once more, how to get to heaven (Simply Jesus, 30).

He goes on to explain the error of this understanding:

[I]t will not do to suppose that Jesus came to teach people “how to get to heaven.” That view has been immensely popular in Western Christianity for many generations, but it simply won’t do. The whole point of Jesus’s public career was not to tell people that God was in heaven, and that, at death, they could leave “earth” behind and go to be with him there. It was to tell them that God was now taking charge, right here on “earth”; that they should pray for this to happen; that they should recognize, in his own work, the signs that it was happening indeed; and that when he completed his work, it would become reality (Simply Jesus, 146).

And,

[M]ost important, we must avoid jumping to the conclusion, from all that has been said above, that Jesus was doing things that “proved his divinity” – or that the main point he was trying to get across was that he was the “son of God” in the sense of the second person of the Trinity (Simply Jesus, 149).

Wright is, of course, aware that many theologians have used the title, “Son of God,” to refer to Jesus’s divinity. He cautions against using it in that way:

Why Did Jesus Come?

As Christmas is almost upon us this year, I’ve been thinking about why Jesus came to earth. In reading the Scriptures this week, I was struck again by the clarity of this statement:

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
(Matthew 1:20-21 ESV)

“For He will save His people from their sins.” What beautiful words.

N.T. Wright and others in the progressive/New Perspective crowd believe that believers have gotten too caught up with salvation and sin as it relates to individuals:

the normal Western Christian view: that salvation is about “my relationship with God” in the present and about “going home to God and finding peace” in the future … to make the point once more as forcibly as I can, this belief is simply not what the New Testament teaches.

N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, pg. 196

Instead, Wright believes:

The New Testament, true to its Old Testament roots, regularly insists that the major, central, framing question is that of God’s purpose of rescue and re-creation for the whole world, the entire cosmos. The destiny of individual human beings must be understood within that context-not simply in the sense that we are only part of a much larger picture but also in the sense that part of the whole point of being saved in the present is so that we can play a vital role (Paul speaks of this role in the shocking terms of being “fellow workers with God”) within that larger picture and purpose.

N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, pg. 184

As a result, N.T. Wright explains Matthew 1:21 this way:

Matthew agrees with his Jewish contemporaries that the (Babylonian) exile was the last significant event before Jesus; when the angel says that Jesus will “save his people from their sins,” liberation from exile is in view. Jesus, David’s true descendant, will fulfill the Abrahamic covenant by undoing the exile and all that it means.

N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, pg. 159

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see great comfort in Wright’s interpretation of the passage. We were a people in exile, however, our exile was not merely from the promised land, but a much greater one. We were exiled from the very presence of God. Every believer who is aware of his sin knows how desperate his situation is apart from Christ.

I find that I much prefer Matthew Henry’s discourse on this passage:

In the reason of that name: For he shall save his people from their sins; not the nation of the Jews only (he came to his own, and they received him not), but all who were given him by the Father’s choice, and all who had given themselves to him by their own. He is a king who protects his subjects, and, as the judges of Israel of old, works salvation for them. Note, those whom Christ saves he saves from their sins; from the guilt of sin by the merit of his death, from the dominion of sin by the Spirit of his grace. In saving them from sin, he saves them from wrath and the curse, and all misery here and hereafter. Christ came to save his people, not in their sins, but from their sins; to purchase for them, not a liberty to sin, but a liberty from sins, to redeem them from all iniquity; and so to redeem them from among men to himself, who is separate from sinners.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Matthew 1

Maybe I’m overemphasizing the work that Jesus did in reconciling God and man. Then again, maybe Wright et al are seriously under emphasizing the gravity of sin and what it cost Him to save us from it.

Was Jesus Born of a Virgin? Does it Matter?

The doctrine of the virgin birth, that Jesus did not have a human father, is one that most professing Christians have considered central to an orthodox understanding of who Jesus is. The Apostles’ creed says Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.” The Nicene creed says He was “incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary.” Yet many modern scholars have sought to either deny the virgin birth of Christ as foolishly unbelievable or to diminish the importance of the doctrine. So, does it matter whether or not Jesus was born of a virgin? Here are two well-known writers very different answers.

N.T. Wright, Anglican bishop and New Testament Scholar, wrote an essay for the book, The Meaning of Jesus, on the subject of the virgin birth. Here is a short excerpt of that essay:

Jesus’ birth usually gets far more attention than its role in the New Testament warrants. Christmas looms large in our culture, outshining even Easter in the popular mind. Yet without Matthew 1—2 and Luke 1—2 we would know nothing about it. Paul’s gospel includes Jesus’ Davidic descent, but apart from that could exist without mention of his birth. One can be justified by faith with no knowledge of it. Likewise, John’s wonderful theological edifice has no need of it: God’s glory is revealed, not in the manger, but on the cross.

If the first two chapters of Matthew and the first two of Luke had never existed, I do not suppose that my own Christian faith, or that of the church to which I belong, would have been very different. (171, 178)

John MacArthur, pastor and writer, took a different approach in his book, God With Us: