According to Isaiah 56:3, sons of strangers ought not say that the Lord has separated him from the people; eunuchs ought not to think of themselves as dry trees. When eunuchs keep Sabbath, they become fruitful (vv. 4-5). The blessings to strangers and eunuchs are spelled out chiastically: A. What sons of strangers shouldn’t say, 3 B. What eunuchs shouldn’t say, 3 B’. Blessings on eunuchs, vv 4-5 A’. Blessings on strangers, vv 6-7 Verses 3 and 6 speak of... Read more
Sabbath-keeping is about what you do with your hands. Hands are organs for action. We set our hands to tasks. We give or withhold our hands from helping. You keep Sabbath by opening your hands, rather than grasping with them (cf. Deuteronomy 15:3, 7). Sabbath hands release debts, give food to the hungry and clothing to the naked. You keep Sabbath by guarding your hands, so they do nothing profane, no evil (Isaiah 56:2). Read more
In an interview with the New York Times Book Review , Clive James anticipates Dan Brown’s Inferno : “Dan Brown’s forthcoming Inferno , of which Dante will be the central subject, has already got me trembling. Brown might have discovered that The Divine Comedy is an encrypted prediction of how the world will be taken over by the National Rifle Association. When the movie comes out, with Harrison Ford as Dante and Megan Fox as Beatrice, it will be all... Read more
Isaiah 56 begins with an exhortation concerning justice. In parallel phrases, Yahweh instructs Israel to “guard judgment” ( mishpat ) and to “do justice” ( zedaqah ). Along with God’s statutes and commandments, His judgments are to by guarded (Leviticus 18:5, 28; 25:18). “Guarding” judgment suggests a conservative, protective, preserving something already achieved; “doing” justice is more active, accomplishing something not yet achieved. The two go together: Unless Yahweh’s judgments are guarded and preserved, justice will not be done. The... Read more
What’s The Trouble With Physics ? asks Lee Smolin. The answer has something to do with the absence of diversity within the scientific community (xxii): “Science requires a delicate balance between conformity and variety. Because it is so easy to fool ourselves, because the answers are unknown, experts, no matter how well trained or smart, will disagree about which approach is most likely to yield fruit. Therefore, if science is to move forward, the scientific community must support a variety... Read more
According to Robert Sparling’s account in Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project (145), Moses Mendelssohn considered human beings to be isolated individuals. Language is a tool used by these isolated individuals to connect concepts in our head to things in the world. Speech involves assembling little bundles of signs to communicate a message from one head to another. We can’t be sure it succeeds, since we never actually get into another’s head. Mendelssohn was thus an odd mix of... Read more
Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is largely a defense of definite atonement against the hypothetical universalists of his day (see Jonathan Moore’s English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology ). Owen argues that there is an inseparable connection between Christ’s death and His intercessory mediation. By His intercession, He prays that the benefits He purchased will be applied and given to those for whom He purchased them. The Father always hears... Read more
I am not convinced by the texts Owen cites in defense of the notion of a “covenant of redemption,” a “compact” between Father and Son “concerning the work to be undertaken, and the issue or event thereof” ( The Death of Death in the Death of Christ ). But the covenant of redemption idea has some interesting results as Owen unpacks the Father-Son relationship in redemption. By the compact, the Father commits Himself to defend and encourage His Son: (more…) Read more
Means are designed to serve ends, and John Owen ( The Death of Death in the Death of Christ ) says that the means are of two sorts. Some are good in themselves without any reference to the means. Others “have no good at all in any kind, as in themselves considered, but merely as conducing to that end which they are fit to attain. They receive all their goodness (which is but relative) from that whereunto they are appointed,... Read more
Christ’s life, says John Owen in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ , is entirely an oblation and a gift. Though “the perfecting or consummating of this oblation be set out in the Scripture chiefly in respect of what Christ suffered,” still Christ’s offering includes everything He did: “this oblation or offering of Christ I would not tie up to any one thing, action, or passion, performance, or suffering; but it compriseth the whole economy and dispensation... Read more
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