Phil Gons

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Theology

Jesus Is Yahweh, the Covenant God of Israel—and the World

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Many Christians read their Old Testament and see in it mostly the story of God the Father, perhaps with occasional pre-incarnate appearances of the Son and the rare glimmer of the Holy Spirit. They think that human history can be broadly divided up into three continuous phases:

  1. The Acts of the Father (Genesis–Malachi)
  2. The Acts of the Son (Matthew–John)
  3. The Acts of the Spirit (Acts–Jude)

In other words, the Father was the primary actor from the creation of the world until the incarnation of Jesus, when God incarnate assumed center stage until his ascension into heaven and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the promised comforter sent to replace him (John 14:16; 16:7; Acts 1:4).

While there is some truth to this sequencing of the roles that the three persons of the Trinity have played in the history of redemption, is this compartmentalized view of the persons how the apostles read the Old Testament? Or did they see Jesus playing a much more prominent role than a handful of Christophanies?

Jesus Is Yahweh, the Covenant God of Israel—and the World
Jesus Is Yahweh, the Covenant God of Israel—and the World
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The Judgment of the Sons of God by the Sons of God

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In Psalm 82, the psalmist describes the rebellious sons of God ruling unjustly over the nations (Ps 82:2–4) that Yahweh had allotted to them at Babel (Gen 10–11), which we read about in Deuteronomy 32:8 in the DSS and LXX.

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

Deuteronomy 32:8

We get a glimpse of this reality in Daniel 10, where Jesus and Michael, the prince of Israel (Dan 12:1), have a conflict with the prince of the Persian kingdom (Dan 10:13, 20) and the prince of Greece (Dan 10:20). These are real heavenly rulers who rule over real nations.

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This reality was at play in the Exodus narrative when Yahweh promised to “bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt” (Exod 12:12; cf. 15:11; Num 33:4). These were not idols. They were evil heavenly rulers empowering the Egyptian sorcerers and magicians (Exod 7:11–12, 22; 8:7) to perform miracles to rival the ones Moses performed.

Moses provides further insight into this relationship between the these evil heavenly rulers and the Gentile nations. Yahweh hadn’t given these gods to Israel (Deut 29:26); rather, he’d apportioned them to the other nations (Deut 4:19). The Psalmist identified these heavenly rulers as demons (Ps 96:5 [LXX]; 106:37; cf. Isa 13:21; 34:14; 65:3 [all in LXX]), and Moses said that those who sacrificed to them sacrificed to demons (Deut 32:17; cf. Lev 17:7), a point that Paul (1 Cor 10:20; cf. 1 Cor 8:4–6; Acts 17:18) and John (Rev 9:20) corroborated.

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A Biblical Theological Framing of Technology

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The team at Logos asked me to write some thoughts on technology and how we at Logos think about the role of technology in the mission of the church and our for-profit business that exists to “use technology to equip the church to grow in the light of the Bible.”

Many have angst about this new era of large language models and generative AI. While this next wave of innovation brings with it its own set of unique risks and dangers, there are also many opportunities for good. And that has been true of virtually all technological innovation since the beginning of time.

It’s my conviction that the Bible’s timeless message provides us with a strong foundation for building and applying technology in every generation for the good of the church and the glory of God, neither being ignorant of its risks and dangers nor being negligent to put it to productive use in kingdom and gospel work.

A piece entitled “Redeeming Technology: How Technology Fits into God’s Story” appeared on the Logos blog yesterday. In it I briefly trace the theological theme of technology through the overarching good-news story of the Bible and tease out some principles that Christians should be mindful of as they evaluate, use, build, and apply technology.

Followers of this blog may be interested in reading it.

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What Is the Gospel? How Genesis 12:3 and Galatians 3:8 Open Our Eyes to the Whole-Bible, Whole-World Good News

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It seems like an elementary question with a simple answer. Almost every Sunday school child at gospel-preaching churches knows that the gospel is the good news about Jesus dying on the cross to save sinners through faith so they can be forgiven and have eternal life.

While there’s a beautiful simplicity to the gospel that even a child can understand and savingly believe (Matt 18:3, 6; 19:14), there’s also a depth and multifaceted richness to the gospel that drops the jaws of the inhabitants of the spiritual realm (1 Cor 2:6–10; Eph 3:10–11; cf. 1 Pet 1:12), baffles theologians (1 Pet 1:10–12; cf. Dan 12:8–9; Zech 4:4–6), can’t be exhausted in all the world’s books (cf. John 21:25), and will be an endless source of delight for all eternity (cf. Rev 4:9–10; 5:13; 7:12).

In this post, I’d like to consider some common conceptions of the gospel and then invite you to broaden your horizons beyond these essential elementary truths into depths and glories of the gospel that you might not often enough consider.

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The Eternal Promise of Eternal Life: The Covenant of Redemption in Titus 1:2

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Titus 1:2
Titus 1:2

Our church is studying Titus on Sunday mornings, and our family happens to be working through Titus right now in our regular Bible time together, too. We’ve be making our way through the New Testament over the last few years, slowly reading through a portion of Scripture and looking for patterns and major themes and discussing anything that stands out. During a recent family Bible time, something in the opening few verses piqued my curiosity, which I’d never deeply considered before. As with most fruitful study, it began by asking a question and then led into digging deeper in Logos.

Here’s how Paul opens his letter to Titus:

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness—2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3 and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior.

Titus 1:1–3

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5 Ways You Shouldn’t Try to Be Like Jesus

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One of the most common ways people relate to Jesus is by seeing him as an example to follow. This idea is captured in the popular modern phrase “What would Jesus do?” or in the acronym WWJD. Even many non-Christians recognize Jesus as a positive moral example. While it’s not the primary way we should relate to Jesus—relating to him as creator, sustainer, and redeemer is—following his example is thoroughly biblical.

However, I recently had a discussion with someone who said something like this: “I’m a follower of Jesus. If Jesus obeyed the law, then so will I.” While it sounds biblical on the surface, it’s misguided. In this post, I’d like to briefly survey what the Bible teaches about being like Jesus and then offer some cautions against an overly simplistic approach to trying to be like Jesus, where we try to follow him in ways we were never meant to. Those who reason this way have the best of intentions, but rather than honor Jesus they may dishonor him.

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How Do Love for God and Love for Others Relate? The Two Greatest Commands as One?

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Matthew 22:37–38: The Greatest Commandment

The Bible is full of commands to love God and love others. Jesus called these the two greatest commands.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:36–40

So, one answer to the first question posed in the title of this post is that they occupy the #1 and #2 spots in a prioritized list of the most important commands in the Old Testament. While that’s true, there’s more to discover about the relationship between loving God and loving neighbor.

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But before we suggest other answers, let’s look at how the two greatest commands relate to the Ten Commandments or the Decalog.

Table of Contents

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments (referred to as such only in Exod 34:28; Deut 4:13; 10:4) are recorded in Exodus 20:1–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. They were written—twice—on the front and back (Exod 32:15) of two tablets of stone (Exod 31:18; 32:15; 34:1, 4, 29; Deut 4:13; 5:22; 9:10, 11, 15, 17; 10:1, 3; 1 Kings 8:9; 2 Chr 5:10) by the finger of God (Exod 31:18; Deut 9:10).

Opinions vary on (a) how to divide them into ten (e.g., merge 1 and 2, divide 10), (b) how to group them (e.g., 1–4 and 5–10 or 1–5 and 6–10), and (c) how they were recorded on the two stone tablets (e.g., half on each, all on both). I won’t get into those details here, since they’re not relevant to the topic of this post. David Baker’s “Ten Commandments, Two Tablets: The Shape of the Decalogue” (Themelios 30, no. 3) covers the issues well, and I commend it to you.

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The New Testament Ethic of Love

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1 John 4:19 Verse Art from Faithlife

What is the New Testament all about? If I were to ask this question to my three-year-old son during our family Bible time, he’d answer, “God,” followed by “Jesus.” He’s usually right! And he wouldn’t be wrong in this case, either. There are many good candidates for the central idea of the New Testament. God, Jesus, the Spirit, the gospel, the kingdom, the church, fulfillment, salvation, grace, faith, and love all come to mind. A true theme statement for the New Testament, however, would include many of these concepts.

But what if we narrow our scope to the ethic of the New Testament? An ethic is a set of moral principles. That’s much easier to capture in a single word. No better candidate exists than love.

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Table of Contents

The Primacy of Love

Several texts position love at the center of the New Testament’s ethic.

John 13

Jesus gives his disciples a new command: we must love one another as Jesus has loved us. As Jesus was known by love, so, too, must we be. Love is the defining characteristic of followers of Jesus.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

John 13:34–35

1 Corinthians 13

Paul ranks love as the greatest of the triad of faith, hope, and love in the famous love chapter.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

1 Corinthians 16:14

Paul also identifies love as the governing virtue for all of life.

Do everything in love.

1 Corinthians 16:14

Romans 13 and Galatians 5

In Romans and Galatians Paul sees the command to love others as summing up and fulfilling everything the Mosaic Law required.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Romans 13:8–10

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

Galatians 5:13–15

Fruit of the Spirit

Paul also lists love as the first evidence of the Spirit’s presence.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Galatians 5:22–26 (Cf. Romans 5:5)

Colossians 3

Paul calls Christians to put on love “over all” (ἐπὶ πᾶσιν) the other virtues.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Colossians 3:12–14

1 Peter 4

Peter places love at the top of the list of Christian duties.

The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. 8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 4:7–11

So, love for others clearly plays a special role in the church’s ethic. It’s the primary visible marker of the true people of God and evidence of the presence of the Spirit. It’s the summation and culmination of the law. It’s our highest duty to one another. It’s the new way of life for God’s people.1

The Meaning of Love

But what does love look like? How do we know if we have it, if we’re doing it?

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  1. See also Rom 14:19; cf. 14:15; 1 Cor 12:31; 14:1; 1 Th 5:15. [↩]