Author: Josh King

Shooting at Mercy and Thinking You’ve Hit Injustice (Deuteronomy 7:1–16)

“It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:7–8)

When critics try to take potshots at the Bible, our response shouldn’t be embarrassment, but laughter. What they thought was an easy hit, is miles off the mark. When they think they’ve blown a whole through the Bible, we snigger because we know the Bible is nowhere downrange of where they’re aiming.

Bible assassins will ridicule the injustice of the conquest of Canaan. They may compare this holy war to the Jihad of Islam. Or they might liken Israel’s actions to the Hutu genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. The problem is that you can’t aim at such apples and think you’re hitting the Bible’s oranges.

When you read the Bible, you have to read it on its own terms. If it is what it says it is, it changes everything. The Bible says it is the word of God. The Bible says that this God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel, is the Creator of all things and that He is sovereign. God plainly spells out the implications of this through the prophet Jeremiah. He is the Potter. We are the clay (Jeremiah 18). God is responsible for every pot made and for every pot smashed. He opens the womb. He closes the grave. 

God is responsible for one hundred percent of all deaths all the time. Man may sin in taking a life, but God never sins in using one sinner to take another sinner’s life. Foundationally then, we must understand that the conquest of Canaan was not a matter of ethnic genocide nor the arrogance of one people thinking their religion superior to another’s. In the conquest of Canaan, the holy God of heaven brings righteous judgment to bear on a wicked people (Deuteronomy 7:1–2; 9:4–5).

Israel is to destroy, but they are to be a willing sword in the hand of their God. And God uses this sword against a people whose iniquity is now full (Genesis 15:16). The destruction of Sodom was a preview both of what the Canaanites were to become and what was to become of them as a result. Recall how Abraham pled for that city to be spared if there were found fifty, forty-five, thirty, twenty, even ten righteous souls therein. Lot would be rescued out of Sodom, but Sodom was not to be rescued. Her iniquity was full. the Judge of all the earth does not sweep away the righteous with the wicked. He does what is just (Genesis 18:23, 25). As Sodom was full, so now the land as a whole is full. The land is full of sinners who sin is full. Leviticus 18 speaks of the Canaanites so polluting the land that it vomits them out.

Alongside the critic, what we are often uncomfortable with isn’t the death itself, but the sword used. Such an objection fails to take into account the utterly unique position Israel then enjoyed. Israel was the only absolute theocracy that has or will exist as a geo-political state in this age. She was a rusty sword, but God personally forged her and owned her as His own. Her armies were His armies. These are the oranges you have to deal with.

But that these oranges are not being shot at is most apparent in this: God brings this judgment as mercy. The conquest of Canaan is an act of mercy towards Israel. Deuteronomy 9:4–5 explains, 

“Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

D.A. Carson comments, “It may be true to say that the Israelites won because the Canaanites were so evil. It does not follow that the Canaanites lost because the Israelites were so good.”  Here is where the real rub is. Why should Israel receive mercy and the Canaanites wrath? The funny thing about our cries of injustice are that what we are crying out against is mercy. I will agree that mercy is not fair. It’s merciful. As R.C. explains, mercy is in the category of non-justice, but it is not in the category of injustice. The Potter, Yahweh, has mercy on whom He will have mercy.

And this mercy toward Israel is for the purpose of God’s mercy toward the world. God promised Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). The God who had His son Israel spill blood, did so only as part of a plan to have His eternal Son spill His own. Through the judgment of Canaan, God was bringing salvation to the world, just as by His judgment on the Son, He brought salvation, purchasing for Himself in mercy a bride from every people, tribe, and tongue. He will return to bring judgment in full, and in its wake, salvation in full, the inheritance of the meek, the earth made new.

Why to Take a Scenic Drive through Flyover Country (Deuteronomy 5:1–27)

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” —Deuteronomy 5:6

Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote, “The real division of the Bible is this: first, everything you get from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 3:14; then everything from Genesis 3:15 to the very end of the Bible.” Spot on, and yet, we must also say that here we come to another major dividing line, not simply within Scripture itself, but especially in the church. Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum state, “It is the interpretation of the relation of the old covenant to the new the is the basis of all the major divisions among Christians, i.e., all the denominational differences derive ultimately from different understandings of the covenant at Sinai to us today.” While I would argue that the differences between we Reformed Baptists and our Presbyterian brothers go all the way back to Genesis 3, it is here that they come to a head. 

Also, it is here that we diverge sharply with our Dispensational friends. And the division is growing generally among Christians and Evangelical churches for whom the Old Testament, the Law, is avoided like the Judean wilderness. No one lives there anymore. It’s flyover territory. We may mine the OT for some illustrations and inspirational stories. We may rip some sentimental lines from the Psalms or grab a proverb or two when needed, but can we say with Psalmist, “Oh how I love your law! It is my mediation all the day,” (Psalm 119:97).

I’m afraid that Andy Stanley’s asinine exhortation that the church needs to unhitch her faith from the Old Testament, though many reacted against it and Andy himself tried to walk it back, wasn’t really a needed exhortation. We largely are unhitched. 

As for those of us who are hitched, or who wish to be, do we know what it is that we’re pulling? We know we’re hauling law, but do we recognize that the trailer itself on which the law rests is covenant? Further, do we realize that this covenant is one of redemption and grace? Hijacking Paul’s contrast of the Old and the New and driving it places he never intended, we pit the Old and the New against one another. Because we do, we now don’t know where we’re going. While we will largely still agree that the law is meant to drive us to grace, we’ve forgotten that grace also leads us back to the law.

Additionally, because we don’t know the Old, our supposed knowledge of the New is hollowed out. We’ve lost the plot, the background, the anticipations, the images, the shadows, the promises, the types, and the covenant soil out of which the New Covenant blooms. In short, we’ve become strangers to the covenants of promise.

The Doctor: Justifying Justification in Translation

“Take the argument about the terms that the modern man does not understand, the words ‘justification’, ‘sanctification’, and so on. I want to ask a question: When did the ordinary man ever understand those terms? I am told the modern Teddy boy does not understand them. But consider the colliers to whom John Wesley and George Whitfield used to preach in the eighteenth century. Did they understand them? They had not even been to a day school, an elementary school. They could not read, they could not write…

Yet we are told, It must be put in such simple terms and language that anybody taking it up and reading it is going to understand all about it. My friends, this is nothing but sheer nonsense! What we must do is to educate the masses of the people up to the Bible, not bring the Bible down to their level. One of the greatest troubles in life today is that everything is being brought down to the same level; everything is being cheapened. The common man is made the standard and the authority; he decides everything, and everything has got to be brought down to him. You are getting it on your wireless, your television, in your newspapers; everywhere standards are coming down and down. Are we to do this with the Word of God? I say, No! What has always happened in the past has been this: an ignorant, illiterate people in this country and in foreign countries, coming into salvation, have been educated up to the Book and have begun to understand it, and to glory in it, and to praise God for it. I am here to say that we need to do the same at this present time.” —D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Knowing the Times

The Doctor: You Must Read

“Let me summarize all that I have been trying to say to you thus. If you want to be able ministers of the gospel, if you want to present the truth in the right and only true way, you must be constant students of the Word of God, you must read it without ceasing. You must read all good books that will assist you to understand it, and the best commentaries you can find on the Bible. You must read what I would call biblical theology, the explanation of the great doctrines of the New Testament, so that you may come to understand them more and more clearly, and may therefore be able to present them with ever increasing clarity to those who come to listen to you. The work of the ministry does not consist merely in giving our own personal experience, or talking about our own lives or the lives of others, but in presenting the truth of God in as simple and clear a manner as possible. And the way to do that is to study the Word and anything and everything which aids us in that supreme task.

You may say to me: Who is sufficient for these things? We have other things to do; we are busy men. How can we do this which you have asked us to do? My reply is that none of us is sufficient for these things, but God can enable us to do them if we are really anxious thus to serve Him. I am not much impressed by these arguments that you are busy men, that you have much to do in the world and therefore have no time to read these books on the Bible and to study theology. and for this good reason: that some of the best theologians I have met, some of the most saintly, some of the most learned men, have had to work very much harder than any of you, and at the same time have been denied the advantages that you have enjoyed. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ If you and I are concerned about lost souls, we must never plead that we have no time to equip ourselves for this great ministry; we must make the time. We must equip ourselves for the task, realizing the serious and terrible responsibility of the work. We must learn, and labour, and sweat, and pray in order that we may know the truth ever more and more perfectly. We must put into practice in our own lives the words to be found in I Timothy 4:12-16. God grant us the grace and the power to do so, to the honour and glory of His holy name.” —D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Knowing the Times

Why You Walk (Genesis 17)

1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” —Genesis 17:1–2

When the covenant was cut with Abram in Genesis 15, God walked it alone. Concerning the covenant promises, Abram had asked God, “How shall I know…?” (Genesis 15:8). God instructed Abram to bring him several animals. Abram cut them in half and laid the pieces opposite one another. Manifest as something like a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, God passes between the pieces. Normally, when a covenant was made, both parties would walk through the pieces, pledging covenant loyalty and invoking a curse on themselves should they fail to keep covenant. But God walked it alone.

In Genesis 12, Abram walks, leaving Haran to journey to the land God would show him. In Genesis 17, Abraham walks before God, keeping covenant, circumcising all the males in his household. Between Abraham’s two walkings, God walks it alone. and it is there, in Genesis 15, where Abram does nothing but believe God’s word, that we are told, “he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

Paul makes a big deal of this order in Romans 4 telling us that Abraham “received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Romans 4:11–12; emphasis mine). The order is critical. It is an order one must keep in mind when they read “walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly” (Genesis 17:1–2; emphasis mine).

Before the sign, the signified. God circumcises before Abraham does. There is a circumcision without which circumcision means nothing. Because God walked it alone, Abraham walks. His covenant faithfulness ensures ours.

Saints, Jesus walked it alone. He walked before God all His days to be your righteousness. He walked to the cross to bear the wrath of the Almighty for your sin. He walked out of the tomb conquering death and Satan. Because He walked it alone, you walk in Him. Because He died and rose, you have died and risen and may be baptized. Because He circumcised your heart, you may love. Because of His covenant faithfulness you may keep covenant.

The Doctor: Be Strong in the Lord—An Illustration

“Go back to the Old Testament. We find Moses leading those grumbling, recalcitrant children of Israel. They come to him one day and say: ‘There is no water here; have you brought us out of Egypt in order that we may die of thirst here in the wilderness? There is no water; everything is as dry as a bone; what can we do?’ And God told Moses to strike a rock, informing him that when he did so water would come pouring out of it. Now there lies the predicament. Moses was a man, and though he was a very good man he knows that if he strikes rocks nothing will happen. He may have struck many a rock but no water had come gushing out. But here he is told that if he strikes a certain rock with his rod water will come gushing out of it. That constitutes the whole predicament of faith. That is exactly the position of all of us as we stand face to face with the command: ‘Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might’. ‘But who am I?’ you say. ‘I am just a weakling. What is the use of telling me to be strong?’ The answer is this. Moses in faith took his rod and he smote, he struck, the rock; and out of it came the water gushing forth. It was not Moses’ power, but it was his arm and it was his rod. Moses did not just stand by and see the water gushing out. Moses had to lift up his arm and he had to strike, to smite, that rock. But as he did so the power was given to him, and the water came gushing out of the rock. There you see the two elements in this matter. You see the activity of the man, but you see that the power is given to him by God. It was not Moses—Moses lacked the power to do such things. But Moses was given the power to do them. The two things come together. But the point I am emphasizing now is that Moses, if he had hesitated there, and had done nothing, would not have seen this marvellous miracle; but by acting he discovered that the power was given. He ‘tasted’ and he ‘saw’! That is the way in which it happens.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Soldier

What Will You Give? How Am I to Know? (Genesis 15:1–21)

“And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: ‘This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.’

And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’

Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’

And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” —Genesis 15:4-6

When all you have is God’s covenant word, you already have all you need. Twice Yahweh comes to Abram repeating His covenant promises (15:1, 7). Twice Abram replies with a lament of faith mingled with doubt.

“O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?…

O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”  (Genesis 15:2, 8; emphasis mine).

“What will you give?” While Yahweh does lead Abram to look at the stars, these simply serve as an illustration of the Word. When Abram doubts the Word, Yahweh gives him the Word. Abram has nothing more in his hand, but the Word is once again laid on his heart.

“How am I to know?” While Yahweh does formally establish a covenant with Abram at this juncture, nothing of the promise is realized. This covenant act is simply one reinforcing the covenant promises already made. God has spoken. Now He speaks louder as it were, still, this covenant act is essentially the promise spoken again. God had spoken. It will certainly be. He speaks again in this act to emphasize to Abram the certainty of His promise. When Abram doubts the Word, God still essentially gives him the Word.

All the days of our pilgrimage, the fullness of the promise will ultimately lie ahead of us. All the days of our pilgrimage, we will have nothing but the Word, sacraments, and our Lord’s covenant presence with us as His people. This is all we need. As we sojourn, as far as the promise of full and final deliverance from sin and of a land not marred by its curse, we have nothing but the Word. And in this, we have all that we need, for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. When you doubt the Word, cry out to your covenant Lord, that by His Spirit, He would minister the word of Christ to you afresh.

What has he given? He has given us Christ. He has given us His Word testifying of Christ.

How are we to know? He has given us Christ. He has given us His Word testifying of Christ.

The Doctor: Smiling Sin

“Sin always comes with a smile; it is most ingratiating, it always pays us compliments; we are very wonderful—if we only listen! It plays on our pride in some shape or form, our appearance, our good looks, our nature, something about us—wonderful! And so it deceives us by flattering us. It is always attractive, of course. It is a very ugly thing in itself, but as I have said, it knows how to use the paint and the powder. That is how the Bible always describes the harlot. The paint and the powderl she always pretends to be something she is not. And she knows that if she does not appear attractive she will not entice. Sin does that in every realm, it always comes in an attractive form. And we are fools enough to look on the surface and to judge by outward appearance and not by the reality itself.” —D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Darkness and Light

Uncommonly Common (Genesis 8:20–9:17)

12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. —Genesis 9:12–15

Everyday of humanity’s existence is full of complaint at the curse come for man’s violating the covenant of creation while little gratitude is shown for God’s faithfulness to the Noahic covenant that preserves creation despite our unceasing sinfulness. We complain of the curse we have merited and offer no thanks for the faithfulness of God in relation to the rainbow that hangs in the sky.

The Noahic covenant might be the most unappreciated of covenants by those bound by it. At least mankind acknowledges the covenant of creation in a sense by his grumbling at its enduring curse. But the common grace that rains down on all man in the Noahic covenant is unacknowledged. It is assumed. It is too common to treat God’s common grace as a common thing. It is not.

All that is, is now, because God remains faithful to this covenant. Even among the saints this covenant is neglected. We study the others. That’s where the controversy and interest is. But among orthodox theologians, everyone agrees for the most part on the substance of the Noahic covenant. Ho hum. So common.

We are the poorer for our lack of attention to this covenant of common grace, this covenant of preservation. Brown and Keele write, 

“At the end of God’s multi-colored bow rests a theological pot of gold. The Lord’s promise not to destroy the world is a covenant, with an integral place in Reformed theology. The Noahic covenant is the covenant of common grace, the realm of our everyday lives under the sun. Its theological significance extends in several directions. It broadcasts how God governs this world and its goodness. It discloses some of man’s obligations and roles in the world, and it even points us to Christ. The Noahic covenant is crucial to a biblical understanding of the world and is a necessary part of covenant theology.”

God’s common grace is comely. It is surprising and stunning. His common grace is uncommonly wondrous. It doesn’t save, but it does preserve. Without this preservation of humanity there would be no humanity to save. Let’s not fail to gaze upon God’s bow hung in the sky and wonder at the rich colors of this covenant with all its blessings of common grace upon creation fallen under the curse for man’s disobedience.

The Doctor: Major in Sin to Major in Grace

” It is people who have the deepest understanding of sin and what it means who have the greatest understanding and appreciation of the love and the grace and the mercy and the kindness of God. A superficial view of sin leads to a superficial view of salvation, and to a superficial view of everything else. So we follow the Apostle as he shows us the depths of sin and iniquity, in order that we may be enabled to measure the height and the depth and the breadth and the length, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” —D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Darkness and Light