Josh King

Stars and Sucklings (Psalm 8)

Yahweh’s name is majestic in all the earth. It is no surprise that God who set His glory above the heavens is also majestic in the earth, but it is surprising how He magnifies His name on earth. From stars David turns our attention to sucklings. The God who sustains the sun at 53 thousand degrees Fahrenheit establishes strength and stills His foes using babes.

Some have gone to pains to argue how it is that children do this. Who are these toddlers and sucklings? Not simply children, but God’s children. When Jesus responded to the priest’s indignation at the children crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”, by quoting this psalm, it was not so much their age, but their act that made them “children.”

God magnified His name over the Egyptian gods by redeeming Israelite slaves. He defeated a giant using a shepherd boy. Once barren Hannah sang,

The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble bind on strength.
Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.
The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn (1 Samuel 2:4–5 ESV).

Hannah’s song was taken up and amplified in Mary’s,

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever (Luke 1:46–56 ESV).

God’s people, His children, are the toddlers and sucklings through whom God stills His enemies, as they proclaim the most surprising twist of all, Jesus Christ, crucified, thereby defeating His foes, drawing men to Himself, and magnifying His Father. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:27–29 ESV).”

The God who created UY Scuti—a star so big that if it replaced the Sun it would swallow up Jupiter—stills His enemies using sucklings. How majestic is His name in all the earth!

The Apologist: The Real Chasm

A second problem of those who left the Presbyterian Church was a confusion over where to place the chasm that marks off our identity. Is the chasm placed between Bible-believing churches and those that are not? Or is it between those who are part of our own denomination and those who are not? When we go into a town to start a church, do we go there primarily motivated to build a church that is loyal to Presbyterianism and the Reformed faith, or to the Baptistic position on baptism, or to the Lutheran view of the sacraments, etc., etc.? Or do we go to build a church that will preach the gospel that historic, Bible-believing churches of all denominations hold, and then, on this side of that chasm, teach what we believe is true to the Bible with respect to our own denominational distinctives? The answers to these questions make a great deal of difference. There is a difference of motivation, of breadth and outreach. One view is catholic and biblical and gives promise of success—on two levels: first, in church growth and then a healthy outlook among those we reach; second, in providing leadership to the whole church of Christ. The other view is inverted and self-limiting—and sectarian.

As Bible-believing Christians we come from a variety of backgrounds. But in our moment of history we need each other. Let us keep our doctrinal distinctives. Let us talk to each other about them. But let us recognize the proper hierarchy of things. The real chasm is not between Presbyterians and everyone else, or Anglicans and everyone else, or Baptists and everyone else. The real chasm is between those who have bowed to the living God and thus also to the verbal, propositional communication of God’s inerrant Word, the Scriptures, and those who have not. —Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster

Poetry and Masculinity (Psalm 7)

I’d wager that if you asked a large number of evangelicals what their favorite books of the Bible were, a significant percentage, would include the Psalms among them. And, I’d wager, that just as large a number as said so, are unfamiliar with the Psalms.

I would want to ask them, “Have you ever really read the Psalms?” Sure, they love the 23rd Psalm, and that verse on their coffee mug; they enjoy their devotional literature with excerpts from the psalms, and they “like” those picturesque memes with psalm references making their rounds on Facebook—but have they ever studied the Psalms.

It’s like a person who encounters a pet tiger, and as a result, concludes that tigers are the most wonderful of animals and that everyone should have one as a pet. How many tigers have you met? Do you really know tigers?

The reason I conclude that evangelicals are largely ignorant of the Psalms is this, evangelicalism is effeminate and emasculated. Doubt me? I dare you to walk into a Christian bookstore with open eyes or look around the average evangelical church observing the programming and try to continue deluding yourself.

This is to say nothing against femininity, for femininity not only complements, but encourages masculinity. To be effeminate is against both the masculine and the feminine—it is a marring of both. When men act like women, you’ll find women acting like men, and the result is that you have neither true masculinity nor femininity.

Oddly to some, a cure for this limp-wristedness is poetry. Not poetry like that which you see coming out of the Romantic period, so bent on emotion, but something closer to the Iliad and the Odyssey or Beowulf. David would retch to see his lyrics associated, nearly exclusively, with floral prints and pristine scenery. Not that such imagery is always inappropriate, but that it fails to capture the sweat, blood, fear, and war of the Psalter.

If you could juice the psalms you’d readily know a chief ingredient to be tears, sweat, and blood.

A clear indication of the effeminacy of the church is her refusal to face up to the reality of the psalms. When we come to the imprecatory psalms, those which speak a curse upon enemies, we’re altogether uncomfortable. We’re confused. Thus, we either ignore, them, perhaps naively brushing them off as Old Testament and irrelevant, or, we reject their inspiration altogether. One theologian, J. Sidlow Baxter, has written, “To some minds, these imprecatory passages are perhaps a more difficult obstacle than any other in the way of a settled confidence in the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures.”

A great deal of clarity can be brought to the issue with this question, “Whose side are you on?” While we herald the good news of Jesus Christ longing for the repentance of all men, we also long for the day of His return and the vanquishing of His foes. Jesus is King. Ultimately, may all who refuse to repent of their rebellion perish. The imprecatory psalms are not Old Testament. They’re so new they’ve yet to fully be.

“This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed (2 Thessalonians 1:5–10 ESV).”

The Apologist: A Big Evangel Is Better than a Big Evangelicalism

What is the use of evangelicalism seeming to get larger and larger if sufficient numbers of those under the name evangelical no longer hold to that which makes evangelicalism evangelical? —Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster

The Rod of God (Psalm 6)

This past June there was a small bit of heat over a blog post at The Gospel Coalition that argued that we should discipline, not punish our children. Some were quick to quote Hebrews 12:6; “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” What the ESV has as “chastises” the HCSB and NIV have as “punishes.” Chastise and punish are synonyms. Yes, but what does the Greek mean? Well the NASB, KJV, and NKJV get at it pretty well with “scourgeth.”

Am I advocating for scourging? Do the Scriptures? I don’t believe so. When we try to read a sentence’s meaning out of a word, rather than a word’s out of a sentence we’ve got things backwards. I believe there is something to the distinction the author was trying to make, but the problem, the reason I believe the post created more heat than light, was because the distinction was forced into words when it lies within metaphor. Both judges and fathers punish, but they punish differently. Ultimately, judges condemn whereas fathers correct.

In the sixth psalm, David appears fearful that the lines might be blurred between judge and father. David doesn’t plead against discipline, for this would be unwise and mark him as a bastard (Hebrews 12:8). David pleads not to be disciplined in wrath.

The psalm transitions from lament to faith in verse 8 as David warns his enemies that his prayer has been heard. We’re aware of no change of circumstances or prophetic revelation that came to David to assure him of this. What made the transition? The answer isn’t in something outside his prayer, but within it. David pleas with God on the basis of covenant, repeatedly using God’s covenant name, “Yahweh,” as indicated by all caps “LORD” in our English translations. God’s “steadfast love” (v. 4) is His covenant love (cf. Exodus 34:5–7, Deuteronomy 7:9). David knows that because of God’s covenant, wrath is not His lot. Earthly fathers may mix sinful and destructive wrath and anger with their punishment, but not God. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But, for those who are sons in the Son, there is correction. David here how God as Father breaks to heal. The same God who shatters the nations with a rod of iron, breaks and heals his children with the rod of discipline.

The Apologist: Materialistic Christians

Christianity is not just a mental assent that certain doctrines are true—not even that the right doctrines are true. This is only the beginning. This would be rather like a starving man sitting in front of great heaps of food and saying, “I believe the food exists; I believe it is real,” and yet never eating it. It is not enough merely to say, “I am a Christian,” and then in practice to live as if present contact with the supernatural were something far-off and strange. Many Christians I know seem to act as though they come in contact with the supernatural just twice—once when they arejustified and become a Christian and once when they die. The rest of the time they act as though they were sitting in the materialist’s chair. —Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City

The Apologist: Reformation and Revival

The church in our generation needs reformation, revival, and constructive revolution.

At times men think of the two words reformation and revival as standing in contrast one to the other, but this is a mistake. Both words are related to the word restore.

Reformation refers to a restoration to pure doctrine; revival refers to a restoration in the Christian’s life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture; revival speaks of a life brought into its proper relationship to the Holy Spirit.

The great moments of church history have come when these two restorations have simultaneously come into action so that the church has returned to pure doctrine and the lives of the Christians in the church have known the power of the Holy Spirit. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation; and reformation is not complete without revival.

Such a combination of reformation and revival would be revolutionary in our day — revolutionary in our individual lives as Christians, revolutionary not only in reference to the liberal church but constructively revolutionary in the evangelical, orthodox church as well.

May we be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival, so that this poor dark world may have an exhibition of a portion of the church returned to both pure doctrine and Spirit-filled life. —Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City

Further Up and Further In (Exodus 40)

Exodus is like climbing a mountain, whereupon coming up through the mist and cloud, expecting to arrive at the summit, you discover yet another mountain remains to be climbed. How sad that many climb only through the first mist and soon give up for exhaustion or for boredom. By God’s grace one presses on through the first summit of God’s ten wonders of judgment. From there you behold intimidating Sinai, but sure of your mediator Jesus Christ, you press upward and behold greater glories. Still, God called his children to go further up with Moses, to the heavenly heights to behold the tabernacle as a revelation of heavenly truths.

On the other side, after a laborious but worthwhile climb, you come to the consummation of the construction of this tent, anticipating the greatest sight of glory yet.

The filling of the tabernacle is the climactic glory of Exodus; the supreme manifestation of God’s glory in this epic book. Israel has seen the Nile turned to blood, the Egyptian’s livestock die of plague, hail decimate her crops, darkness cover their land, and their firstborn die. She’s seen the Red Sea split and walked through it. She ate manna in the wilderness and water from the rock. She has seen Sinai covered in smoke and fire, trembling beneath the glory of God—but this surpasses all she’s seen. Here is how you know that this is the supreme manifestation of God’s glory—Moses, who spoke with God at the burning bush, Moses, through whom God’s ten wonders came, Moses, who split the river and struck the rock, Moses, who ascended Sinai and beheld God’s glory and spoke with God as a man speaks to his friend—this Moses couldn’t enter the tent for the glory of God (Exodus 40:35). One commentator says that the tabernacle thus becomes “a miniature portable Sinai [MacKay].” It may be miniature as to physical size but it is bigger in glory.

Exodus ends on this climax without consummation or resolution. It ends on a to be continued. There are heights yet to climb. Exodus is clearly part of a multi-volume work with Leviticus picking up where Exodus leaves off. Yes, even with all five volumes of the Pentateuch, Moses didn’t get to finish. The same cloud of glory that dwells in Israel’s midst will guide and protect them bringing them to the promised land, and thus into fuller enjoyment of Yahweh’s covenant with them. Moses didn’t write that chapter, because he didn’t experience it, but this isn’t to say he missed the height of heights.

God, by His Spirit is still leading his people home, and He will not forsake any of us, bringing us all to the height of heights, Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem, where all is temple, illuminated by the glory of God.

The Apologist: When the Dead are Living and the Living are Dead

I remember hearing a certain existential theologian speaking some years ago. After he had finished, I overheard one old Christian saying to another, ‘Wasn’t it wonderful?’ The other answered, ‘It was wonderful, but I couldn’t understand it.’ True Christianity is quite different. When the Bible says, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,’ a child and a philosopher can understand that it means God created the heavens and the earth in antithesis to the idea that God did not create the heavens and the earth. It does not mean that we can plumb to the exhaustive depths of all God knows about this, but it does mean that the basic facts have been clearly expressed in terms of antithesis. With the paradox-ridden new liberal theology, statements have a way of seeing to be profound while actually being only vague. To get the full impact of this, just read a chapter in the works of B.B. Warfiled, J. Gresham Machen, Abraham Kuyper, Martin Luther or John Calvin, and then read a chapter by one of the existential theologians. —Francis Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World

Follow the Tendons (Exodus 39)

As you study the anatomy of the Scripture, don’t be so wowed by its muscle that you fail to notice the ligaments and tendons. The connective tissue of the Bible is fascinating. Often it tells you what the muscle is there for—what it does.

Note the way this section (Exodus 39:1–32), which clearly deals with the priest’s garments, begins. There is no introduction. It seems abrupt and clumsy. In urging you to pay attention to the connective tissue of the Bible I am also asking you to pay little regard to chapter divisions. They’re helpful as addresses and pretty much detrimental otherwise. The chapter divisions often dissect the text unnaturally, separating muscle from tendon. Read from 38:21 forward, without the chapter division, and see if there is a flow. When you read about the records for the tabernacle, do you feel as though something is missing? Of all the things contributed for the tabernacle, we’re only told about the precious metals. What about the fabric?

So while Exodus 39:1–32 is different, it clearly has ties back to chapter 38. Here is why this is significant: it means that the priestly garments are part of the tabernacle. The making of them is included as part of “the records of the tabernacle (38:21).” This section ends speaking of the completion of “the work of the tabernacle (39:32).” These garments match the tabernacle curtains and the veil because they are one with it. The priest, clothed in holiness is linked to the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies as part of it. Vern Poythress writes, “The high priest himself is in fact a kind of vertical replica of the tabernacle.”

So, this is significant, because all of this is significant. All of this, altogether, inseparably, is a sign pointing to Christ. This is what the connective tissue of the Bible always tells us. Why is the muscle there? Follow the tendons. They always lead to Christ.