Millennialism is a belief that there will be a paradise here on earth before the final judgment. There are, of course, various scriptural discrepancies within this view, as I have often pointed out in my other papers. For example, how will people live here on earth if the earth itself will be destroyed in a great conflagration? 2 Pet. 3.10 reads:
âthe heavens will pass away with a loud
noise, and the elements will be dissolved
with fire.â
Besides, there are other contradictions. For instance, how could the same people who would not be resurrected âuntil the thousand years were completedâ (Rev. 20.5) simultaneously live and reign with Christ for a millennium? (Rev. 20.4). They cannot be both dead and alive at the same time! There are other contradictions as well. For example, Millennialism directly contradicts scripture by implying that there will be at least 2 additional comings of Christ, 2 appearances by Satan, 2 Great Wars, 2 Great tribulations, 2 resurrections, 2 apocalypses, 2 Armageddons, 2 judgments, 2 Great Ends, and so on. This is preposterous. In Scripture, there is only one of each. Scripture mentions only one resurrection (Dan. 12.2) and only one Armageddon (Rev. 16.16)! Where else does it mention a second resurrection or a second Armageddon? Besides, 1 Thess. 4.17 says that after the rapture âwe will be with the Lord forever,â not just for 1,000 years. And the Book of Daniel is clear that both the Saved and the Damned will be resurrected simultaneously, not successively (12.2). Therefore, this DOUBLING of scriptural events is unwarranted and without merit! It is worth mentioning that the doctrine of millennialism was formally condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council in 381 AD.
Millennialism Repeats Events a Second Time; But Revelation is Recording Single Events
The same event that is mentioned in Ezekiel 38 is repeated in Revelation 20. The endtime Gog/Magog war that Satan is said to unleash at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20.8) is the exact same Gog/Magog war that is mentioned in Ezekiel 38, which is also alluded to in Luke 21.20! The Book of Revelation isnât saying that the exact same Gog/Magog war of Ezekiel will repeat 1,000 years later. Thatâs ridiculous. Itâs actually talking about one and the same Gog-Magog war; not 2. In fact, the phrase that is used to indicate that Satan will be released âfor a little whileâ (Rev 20.3) is actually a reference to the Great Tribulation, which only lasts for âa little while,â namely, only 3 and a half years, or 42 months, or 1,260 days, or a time, and times, and half a time (cf. Rev. 11.2; 12.6, 14; 13.5)!
Moreover, the narrative in Rev 19 & 20 is basically telling the reader what will happen when God no longer restrains Satan (see 2 Thess 2.7)ââthat is, when the restrainer is removedââand the Antichrist is finally revealed at the end of a thousand years. Thatâs when Satan will be unleashed, once and for all, to wreak havoc âfor a little whileâ (i.e. for 3 and a half years, during the Great Tribulation)!
Why would the Book of Revelation REPEAT the exact same story TWICE, like the film âEdge Of Tomorrowâ? Why would Satan (Incarnated; Rev. 12.9) come out TWICE âto deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth [from the exact same location, Gog & Magog (Ezekiel 38)] in order to gather them for the [exact same] battleâ (Rev. 20.7-9)? And why is it that âfire came down from heaven and consumed themâ (Rev 20.9) exactly as it did in Ezekiel 38.22? And why is it that they âsurrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved cityâ exactly as they did in Luke 21.20? Are you kidding me? What is this, a repeat of âGroundhog Dayâ?
Thereâs an Interpretive Mixup: Millennialists Conflate Scenes that Occur Before 1,000 Years with Scenes that Occur After 1,000 Years
If Jesus appears BEFORE the millennium on a white horse, and the beast and his armies are killed, and the beast is then captured and âthrown alive into the lake of fireâ (Rev 19.19-21), then how does Satan manage to escape âthe lake of fireâ and mount a comeback? Notice that following Christâs FIRST encounter with the Beast, BEFORE the millennium (Rev. ch. 20), the Beast was captured & immediately âthrown alive into the lake of fireâ (Rev. ch. 19)! But the lake of fire is the second death! Itâs game over! No one survives the lake of fire and comes back to to tell stories about it. Thatâs another red flag. It would be a scriptural contradiction to state that AFTER being âthrown into the lake of fire,â the Antichrist escaped and mounted a comeback. That would constitute a scriptural contradiction. Notice the description of the âlake of fireâ in Rev. 20.14:
âThen Death and Hades were thrown into the
lake of fire. This is the second death, the
lake of fire.â
This event is final! It is the final separation of life and death. So, itâs completely bogus to say that Satan survived the lake of fire in chapter 19 & came back physically to fulfill chapter 20. Itâs complete nonsense! Moreover, Satanâs activities in Rev. 20 suggest that heâs incarnate, otherwise how does a nonphysical being fight a war on earth? Besides, Rev. 12.9 tells us that Satan will be incarnated on earth! So, the Millennialists are mixing apples with oranges. Theyâre conflating scenes that happen BEFORE the 1,000 years (Rev. 19) with scenes that take place AFTER the 1,000 years (Rev. 20)! And if the description in Rev 20.10â-concerning what happens to Satan AFTER the supposed 1,000 yearsââturns out to be the exact same version of Rev 19.20â-about what happens to Satan BEFORE the 1,000 yearsââthen we obviously have one story, not two!
Conclusion
The Bible never mentions the alleged âthousand-year reign of Christ on earth.â Only 2 verses mention those who âreigned with Christ a thousand years.â These are temporal signs that reveal the timing of Christâs coming and of the apocalyptic events! In other words, when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be loosed for a little while (a reference to the 3 and a half year Great Tribulation). Then, the resurrection will occur, followed by the rapture, and the believers will henceforth reign with Christ forever!
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Western Dharma and the Problem of the Primacy of Experience
One of my bigger frustrations with dharma practice in the west (and that of Zen in particular) is the unbridled freedom that every practitioner grants themselves in being interpretive experts on the tradition, despite having no particular training or schema to guide such eisegetical opining.
Whatâs more? When this lack of training and schema is pointed out, many fallaciously appeal to âBodhidharmaâs Sacred Verseâ (as a scripture) to justify not responsibly using scripture, tradition, or reason. In other words, Zen in the west has a problem with the primacy of experience.
This is where, as Westerners, we can truly benefit from the culturally relevant constructs that have been developed in the west to responsibly engage our traditions. I suggest we start with some basic grounding in historical-critical textual criticism, which demands an understanding of the difference between exegesis and eisegesis, and a model akin to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (which for Zenists, I would argue, should give equal voice to the authority of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in the interpretation of our practice-rooted Experience) to guide the process.
The world is full of terrible movies with ellipsis-laden, glowing reviews on their posters. You might read â...a great movie...â when the original quote was âI really wish this was a great movie.â It happens all the time.Â
It seems obvious that context is important. Words get their meaning from how they are used with other words, not as isolated units. Even words that everyone agrees are absolutely awful, such as n----- or c---, can be not-awful when used in a particular context by particular people.Â
Unfortunately, claiming that something was taken âout of contextâ has become popular as a counter-argument, and itâs rarely questioned. If someone confidently avers âout of contextâ as a response to anything, itâs completely reasonable to ask for that missing context. If they are unable or unwilling to provide any, then you have outed them as a purveyor of nonsense.
You can have similar fun with people who claim something is âethnicâ just by asking them which ethnicity theyâre referring to.
If you remove the context of a quote to line up with an ideological opinion you have, itâs called eisegesis, sometimes called âproof-textingâ. If you do this repeatedly, itâs called âquote miningâ, and advertises the poverty of your argument.
An example of how removing context from a quote can dramatically alter its meaning is here, where removing the last few words promoted the exact opposite of the original message. Itâs so blatant that it can only have been intentional (which makes me wonder why, if the message is that everyone should learn to pronounce difficult names, they didnât use a source that actually supported that idea, instead of hacking the context away from a source that didnât).Â
A quote is never âout of contextâ simply because you donât like or understand it, but thereâs no shame in making sure. Always check the context.
Thereâs a seeming contradiction in the Bible concerning Abrahamâs age when he left Haran. The apparent contradiction is as follows. If Terah died when he was 205 years old, but fathered Abram when he was 70, then Abram must have been 135 years old when his father Terah died (as Gen. 11.26, 32 suggest), not 75, as Gen. 12.4 indicates. For the story to work without any discrepancies, Terah would literally have to be 130 years old when he fathered Abram. But it seemed as if he were only 70 years old. Hence the apparent contradiction. Below are the relevant citations that appear to contradict each other.
â-
Genesis 12.4 (ESV):
So Abram went, as the LORD had told him,
and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-
five years old when he departed from
Haran.
Acts 7.2:
And Stephen said: âBrothers and fathers,
hear me. The God of glory appeared to our
father Abraham when he was in
Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.â
Acts 7.4:
Then he went out from the land of the
Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his
father died, God removed him from there
into this land in which you are now living.
Genesis 11.26:
When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered
Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Genesis 11.32:
The days of Terah were 205 years, and
Terah died in Haran.
âââââ
Apologetic Exegesis
The key passage is Gen. 11.26. The Hebrew text doesnât explicitly say that *when* Terah was 70 years old he begat Abram. Rather, it puts it thusly (Gen. 11.26 KJV):
And Terah lived seventy years, and begat
Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Nowhere is it explicitly mentioned that Terah had all 3 children when he was 70 years old. Nor is there any direct evidence that these children were triplets, or that they were born on the exact same date, month, or year. The verse in Gen. 11.26 merely indicates that after Terah reached a certain ageâânamely, 70 years oldââhe began to father children. But exactly when these children were actually born is unknown. The only thing thatâs clear from Gen. 11.26 is that they were born after Terah had reached a certain age.
Itâs quite possible, for example, that some of his children could have been born when Terah was 130 years old. Nothing in the text would contradict the timing of such a birth. As long as Terah fathered at least one child after he was 70, the rest could have been born anytime between Terahâs 70th and 205th birthday.
The order in which the names of Terahâs sons are listed may not reflect the precise chronological order in which the children were actually born. The text is simply indicating their order of importance. Given that Abram is a key figure in the Old Testament and the common patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, heâs obviously mentioned first:
there is yet a question whether Abram was
born first as listed, or perhaps he is listed
first because he was the wisest similar to
Shem, Ham, and Jafeth where Shem was
not the oldest, but was the wisest. ⊠the
Talmud leaves the above question open.
(Wikipedia)
âââââ
Conclusion
Actually, Abram could have been 75 years old when he left Haran, as the text indicates (Gen. 12.4). And maybe he did leave Haran âafter his father diedâ (Acts 7.4) at the age of 205 (Gen. 11.32). There is no contradiction with regard to the dates. The assumed contradiction is actually based on fallacious reasoning and speculation. Itâs based on an eisegesis, that is, a misinterpretation of the text. Readers often assume that the text is telling us that Abram was born *when* Terah was 70 years old. But thatâs a conjecture. The text doesnât say that at all. All the text says is that once Terah reached a certain age, he began fathering sons. But exactly when each and every son was born is unknown.
If we are to see things as they really are, not as we would wish them to be, we must free ourselves from ingrained religious systems of indoctrination, which always end up in some kind of a *confirmation bias* (i.e. the inclination to interpret new evidence as verification of one's preexisting presuppositions or beliefs). Thatâs why this way of reading and interpreting scripture is not called âexegesisâ (i.e. drawing out the meaning according to the authorial intent), but rather âeisegesisâ (i.e. reading into the text). One such Biblical preconception is that past tenses *always* refer to past actions that occurred in history.
Any Bible *interpretation* of past tenses that lays primary emphasis on a historical orientation is partly due to a confusion of terms and context. Insofar as the New Testament (NT) is concerned, verbal aspect theory, which is at the cutting edge of Hellenistic Greek linguistics, demonstrates that *tense-forms* do not have any temporal implications. According to Stanley E. Porter, âIdioms of the Greek New Testamentâ (2nd edn; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), p. 25:
Temporal values (past, present, future) are
not established in Greek by use of the
verbal aspects (or tense-forms) alone. This
may come as a surprise to those who, like
most students of Greek, were taught at an
elementary level that certain tense-forms
automatically refer to certain times when an
action occurs.
In other words, we should never interpret Biblical tense-forms as if theyâre corresponding ipso facto to past, present, or future events (i.e. past tense doesnât equal (=) past action; present tense doesnât equal (=) present action; future tense doesnât equal (=) future action). To further complicate matters, thereâs another tense in grammar called the "historical present,â which employs verb phrases in the present tense to refer to events that occurred in the past. In narrative accounts, the historical present is often used to evoke a dramatic effect of immediacy. Itâs variously called the "historic present, the narrative present, or the dramatic present.â And there are also past tenses that refer to future events. For example, Revelation 7:4 uses the perfect-tense âthose who were sealedâ to refer to an event that has not happened yet. Bottom line, tenses serve a literary function and should not be confused with the time when an action takes place. Koine Greek, especially, relates aspect rather than time!
Many of the Bibleâs tenses suggest various events taking place without specifying the precise timing of their occurrence. Some of these verses are in the âconditional mood.â The conditional mood is used in grammar to convey a statement or assertion whose validity is dependent on some specific condition, possibly a counterfactual one (e.g. what if?). The conditional mood may refer to a particular verb form that expresses a hypothetical state of affairs or an uncertain event that is contingent upon the independent clause. It is sometimes referred to as the "conditional tense.â The following examples will show you that the Biblical statements are conditional or contingent on the happening of an event. In other words, if Christ truly died (condition), then the TIMEFRAME (result) would be mentioned in the Biblical verses. But since the TIMING is not given, in these particular examples, the premise remains conditional upon the happening of this event.
Proper exegesis does not ask us to fall back on personal opinions, private interpretations, presuppositions, or conjectures when we encounter biblical difficulties, but that we pay close attention to the EXACT words of a verse, always asking ourselves WHEN did this happen. Does this or that particular verse tell us? For example, 1 Peter 3.18 (NRSV) is in the conditional mood. It says:
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,
the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to
bring you to God. He was put to death in the
flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
But Does 1 Peter 3.18 tell you precisely **WHEN** Christ died? No! All of the past tenses are still in the conditional mood. The timing is still hypothetical. In other words, itâs as if the text were saying:
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,
[at some point in history], the righteous for
the unrighteous, in order to bring you to
God. He was put to death in the flesh, but
made alive in the spirit [at some point in
human history].
Thatâs why it is conditional. It doesnât specify when or at what point in time this took place. And 1 Pet. 3.18 employs the exact same word that is used in Hebrews 9.26b, namely, âonce for allâ (hapax). But Heb. 9.26b **DOES** tell you PRECISELY when he dies: âin the end of the worldâ (KJV). A concordance study of the phrase áŒÏ᜶ ÏÏ ÎœÏÎ”Î»Î”ÎŻáŸł Ïáż¶Îœ αጰÏΜÏΜ (âthe end of the ageâ; Dan. 12.4 LXX; Mt. 13.39-40, 49; 24.3; 28.20; Heb. 9.26b) demonstrates that this particular time period, indicated by the aforesaid phrase, could not have possibly occurred 2,000 years ago. And 1 Peter 1.20 (NJB) confirms that Christ âwas revealed [initially] at the final point of timeâ!
ââ-
Proof that Passages Set in the Past Tense Can Actually Refer to Future Prophecies
Notice that we are not speculating, here. We are using the analogy of scripture, allowing the Bible to define and interpret itself. This hermeneutical method will not be questioned by any credible expositor who has a competent knowledge of exegesis!
The notion that past tenses are not necessarily referring to the past can be proven. It can be demonstrated. The undermentioned passage from Deutero-Isaiah dates from the 6th century bce (500âs). Thatâs about 500 years BEFORE the purported coming of Christ. But a perfunctory reading of the Book of Isaiah would suggest that Christ ALREADY DIED in the 6th century bce. Notice that Isaiah 53.3-5 (NRSV) is saturated with *past tenses*:
He was despised and rejected by others; a
man of suffering and acquainted with
infirmity; and as one from whom others hide
their faces he was despised, and we held
him of no account. Surely he has borne our
infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we
accounted him stricken, struck down by
God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for
our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities; upon him was the punishment
that made us whole, and by his bruises we
are healed.
Judging from the PAST TENSES that are used, it appears as if Christ already died in the 6th century bce, prior to Isaiahâs written account. Thatâs certainly what the past tenses imply.
What do you think? Did it happen? No! Of course not! Isaiah is not writing about a past event. Heâs writing about a PROPHECY. But he sets the entire prophecy in the past tense as if it already happened. Thatâs EXACTLY what the NT is doing. Itâs writing about a prophecy, but setting it in the past tense as if it already happened. The author of Isaiah 53 composed this work 500+ years PRIOR to Paul and the NT writings. A cursory reading of Isa. 53 would suggest that Christ died in the 6th century *before Christ* (BC). We tend to read the NT in like manner. Isaiahâs text therefore *proves* that prophecy can be set in the past tense!
Similarly, 1 Peter 2.22-24 (a NT passage) seems to be modeled on Isaiah 53, and is therefore very telling in that regard:
âHe [Christ] committed no sin, and no deceit
was found in his mouth.â When he was
abused, he did not return abuse; when he
suffered, he did not threaten; but he
entrusted himself to the one who judges
justly. He himself bore our sins in his body
on the cross, so that, free from sins, we
might live for righteousness; by his wounds
you have been healed.
It is the same with Hebrews 1.3. It sounds as if this event already occurred. But, on closer inspection, notice that the text doesnât explicitly say that this event took place in history. It just tells you that it took place at some unspecified time period. Therefore, it would not be incorrect to read it as follows:
When he had made purification for sins, [at
some point in human history] he sat down
at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
The text just gives you the outcome. It doesnât tell you when this event actually took place. But there are certain passages that DO tell you when. And if you run a concordance study, youâll realize that they refer to the end of the world. Iâm referring to verses like Hebrews 9.26b, 1 Peter 1.20, and all the passages that refer to the REVELATION of Jesus. Remember, if Jesus has already been manifested, he cannot be revealed again. Apokalupsis (revelation) refers to a first time disclosure. I have written extensively about these topics. They should be clear by now!
ââ-
The Phrase âChrist Died for Our Sinsâ is Almost Always Misinterpreted as Referring to a Past Event
Letâs explore another popular verse, namely, 1 Cor. 15.3, which people love to quote as proof âthat Christ died for our sinsâ:
All itâs saying is âthat Christ died for our sins according to the Scripturesâ (1 Cor. 15.3 NIV). Notice, this verse is not certifying that Christ in fact died in antiquity. Rather, itâs saying that Christ died for our sins (at some unspecified time in human history, the timeframe of which is unknown and not given) according to the prophetic scriptures, or just as the Old Testament (OT) scriptures had predicted. In fact, it doesnât say that Christ died according to the historical accounts, but rather according to the prophetic writings (ÎłÏαÏÎŹÏ). In short, Christ died to fulfill the scriptures. But the TIMING of this event is not specified.
Letâs look at another passage that is often taken to mean that âChrist died for the ungodlyâ (NRSV) 2,000 years ago. Observe what the verse says, but also what it doesnât say. Romans 5.6 suggests that Christ âdiedâ (áŒÏÎΞαΜΔΜ) at some unspecified time of human history by using the phrase ÎșαÏᜰ ÎșαÎčÏÏΜ, which means âat the right timeâ (cf. 1 Tim. 2.6), or at âthe proper time,â and does not necessarily warrant a reference to history:
So, although scripture once more reiterates that âChrist died for the ungodlyâââand even though this is often uncritically assumed to refer to a past event that supposedly happened in antiquityââthe text is NOT saying that this event already happened (cf. Rom. 5.8; 14.9; 1 Thess. 5.9-10). The problem is not with the text. The problem is with our *interpretation* of the text.
Similarly, in 2 Pet. 1.16â21, the eyewitness testimony of Jesusâ transfiguration in vv. 16-18 is not historical but rather a vision of the future. Thatâs why verse 19 concludes: âSo we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed.â The same goes for the apocalyptic passage in 1 Pet. 1.10-11 (see my article âFirst Peter 1.10-11 Suggests An Eschatological Soteriologyâ: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/184378109027/by-author-eli-kittim-concerning-this-salvation).
By Author Eli Kittim
"Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with t
Therefore, the churchâs dogma that Jesus died in Antiquity appears to be a proof-text fallacy that is out of touch with the *teaching* of the epistles. Case in point, there are numerous passages in the epistles that place the timeline of Jesusâ life (i.e., his birth, death, and resurrection) in *eschatological* categories (e.g., 2 Thess. 2.1-3; Heb. 1.1-2; 9.26b; 1 Pet. 1.10-11, 20; Rev. 12.5; 19.10d). For example, 1 Cor. 15.22 puts Christâs resurrection within an eschatological timetable.
ââ-
Conclusion
If the canonical context demands that we coalesce the different Biblical texts as if weâre reading a single Book, then the overall âpropheticâ message of Revelation must certainly play a significant exegetical role. Accordingly, the Book of Revelation places not only the timeline (12.5) but also the testimony to Jesus (19.10d) in âpropheticâ categories.
The *apocalyptic theology* of the NT epistles is multiply attested in the OT canon, which confirms the earthy, *end-time Messiah* of the epistolary literature (cf. Job 19.25; Isa. 2.19; Dan. 12.1-2; Zeph. 1.7-9, 15-18; Zech. 12.9-10)!
A revelation by default means âa first-timeâ occurrence. In other words, itâs an event that is happening for the very first time. By definition, a ârevelationâ is never disclosed twice. If we examine the NT verses, which mention the future revelation of Christ, we will find that they are not referring to a second coming, a coming back, or a return, as is commonly thought, but rather to an initial appearance (see e.g. 1 Cor. 1.7; 16.22; 1 Thess. 2.19; 4.15; 2 Thess. 1.10; 2.1; Heb. 10.37; Jas. 5.7; 1 Pet. 1.7; 2 Pet. 1.16; 3.4; 1 Jn 2.28; Rev. 2.16; 22.20). See my article âWhy does the New Testament Refer to Christâs Future Coming as a âRevelationâ?â: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/187927555567/why-does-the-new-testament-refer-to-christs
By Goodreads Author Eli Kittim
Itâs important to note the language thatâs often used with regard to the future coming of Christ, namely, a
Due to time constraints, it is beyond the scope of this paper to illustrate either the âunhistoricalâ nature of the gospel genre or the scant external evidence for the historicity of Jesus. Suffice it to say that the gospels appear to be written beforehand (or before the fact) through a kind of foreknowledge or prognĂłsis (ÏÏÎżÎłÎœÏÏΔÎč; cf. Acts 2.22â23; 10.40â41; Rom. 1.2). They are conveyed from a theological angle by way of a *proleptic narrative,* a means of *biographizing the eschaton* as if presently accomplished. For further details, see my article, â8 Theses or Disputations on Modern Christianityâs View of the Bibleâ: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/638877875512262656/8-theses-or-disputations-on-modern-christianitys
By Author Eli Kittim
ââ-
A Call For a *New Reformation*
A common bias of modern Christianity is expressed in this way:
âIf your doc
All in all, this paper has demonstrated that Biblical past tenses do not necessarily imply past history. In fact, it can be shown from various passages (e.g. Isaiah 53.3-5) that prophecies can also be set in the past tense!
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In discussing Jesusâ baptism in the Holy Spirit, Iâm not referring to John the Baptistâs water baptism. Rather, Iâm referring to a Spirit baptism or a conversion experience where Jesus had a personal encounter with the power of God. Many Christian denominations emphasize that without such a âborn-againâ experience no one can enter the kingdom of God (Jn 3.5). From the outset, scripture emphasizes the need for a baptism of the Spirit (Mt. 3.11 NRSV):
âHe will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
fire.â
In Mk. 16.16-17, itâs not merely by faith alone but by spirit âbaptismâ that salvation is accomplished! Given that the born-again Christians âwill speak with new tongues,â itâs clear that the text isnât referring to a symbolic immersion in water but rather to a baptism of the Holy Spirit! And although Baptism is defined as a rite of admission into Christianityââby immersing in waterââthis ritual is *symbolic* of being cleansed from sin (1 Jn 1.7) by the death of the self. First Peter 3.21 (NIV) reads:
and this water symbolizes baptism that now
saves you alsoânot the removal of dirt from
the body but the pledge of a clear
conscience toward God.
In Rom. 6.3-4, Paul talks of a baptism Into Jesusâ death! Itâs a believerâs participation in the death of Christ to allow them to âwalk in newness of life.â Itâs part of the same regeneration process which comprises the death of the old self & the rebirth of the new one (Eph. 4.22-24). The best example of Spirit baptism is in Acts 2.1-4! Colossians 2.12 (NIV) similarly says:
having been buried with him in baptism, in
which you were also raised with him through
your faith in the working of God.
Keep in mind that, in the gospel story, Jesus didnât start his ministry prior to his regeneration. Nor was Jesus revealed prior to his rebirth. Mt. 3.16-17 (NRSV) suggests that Jesusâ regeneration began with Johnâs baptism and was followed thereafter by his encounter with the devil in the wilderness:
And when Jesus had been baptized, just as
he came up from the water, suddenly the
heavens were opened to him and he saw
the Spirit of God descending like a dove and
alighting on him. And a voice from heaven
said, âThis is my Son, the Beloved, with
whom I am well pleased.â
This is a symbolic account of his rebirth. Notice that it was Jesus *alone* who saw (ΔጶΎΔΜ), presumably for the first time, the Spirit of God (cf. Jn. 3.3) who would later indwell him. If Jesus already had the Holy Spirit, there would have been no need for a temptation in the desert. Jesus already had the fullness of the Deity within him in bodily form (Col. 2.9) but, being innocent, he still had to receive the Holy Spirit in order to energize it and be transformed. The next verse says (Mt. 4.1 NRSV):
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
This is a continuation of the earlier baptism motif in the previous chapter. If â âJohnâs baptism was a baptism of repentanceâ â (Acts 19.4 NIV), as âPaul said,â then Jesus would have had to necessarily confront his sin nature at some point. For those who object to the notion that Jesus had a sin nature, how could he have been âlike His brothers in every wayâ (Heb. 2.17), fully human, if he were unable to be tempted? Not to mention that it would also render the temptation pericope ipso facto meaningless because how could the devil tempt someone who is unable to be tempted by sin? Thatâs why scripture says that âGod made him who had no sin to be sin for usâ (2 Cor. 5.21 NIV)!
So, as part of his rebirth experience, Jesus had to confront the devil. Thatâs why the text emphasizes that he didnât do it on his own. Rather, âhe was led up [áŒÎœÎźÏΞη] by the Spirit.â Jesus then confronts the devil head on. He is persistently tempted in order that he may prove his loyalty to God. He faces various temptations and is put to the test. He experiences what the German Protestant theologian Rudolf Otto (1869â1937) calls the âmysterium tremendumâ:
A great or profound mystery, especially the
mystery of God or of existence; the
overwhelming awe felt by a person
contemplating such a mystery (Oxford
English Dictionary).
The text shows that, by the end of his temptation experience, Jesus had been reborn in God by following the same principle as the one found in James 4.7 (NRSV):
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist
the devil, and he will flee from you.
Jesus does precisely that. Notice that the spirit of God and the angels did not minister to him prior to his rejection of Satan (Mt. 4.10-11 NIV):
Jesus said to him, âAway from me, Satan!
For it is written: âWorship the Lord your God,
and serve him only.â âThen the devil left him,
and angels came and attended him.
This is a clear demonstration that even Jesus himself had to be reborn in order to both see & enter the kingdom of God (Jn. 3.3, 5). Given that heâs fully human (Heb. 2.17), heâs not exempt from the regeneration process, which is the necessary means by which a human being can become united with God.
This concept creates an obvious oxymoron. For example, if Christ was purportedly born-again, does this mean that Jesus got saved? Or that Jesus became a Christian? This is the kind of paradox that such an experience can suggest. In a certain sense, the answer is yes. Think about it. Being fully human, even Christ has to undergo a dangerous temptation in order to encounter God. But if thatâs the case, then it means that there was a time when Jesus didnât know God; a time when he didnât have a personal and intimate relationship with him. Lk. 2.52 (NRSV) says:
Jesus increased in wisdom and in years,
and in divine and human favor.
If âJesus increased in wisdom,â then this means that there was a time when he didnât have much wisdom. The above verse also suggests that the divine favor towards him increased as Jesus got older. All these passages clearly show that Jesus grew up as a normal human being who underwent all of the spiritual experiences for regeneration and rebirth that we all encounter. He was not exempt from any of them, including that of regeneration & rebirth!
Conclusion
Scripture, then, shows that in being fully human, Jesus had to go through everything that we also face, including suffering, pain, depression, rejection, and so forth. Yet there are some pastors who teach that Jesus didnât have a sin nature, never sinned, could not be tempted, was not reborn, and the like. Remember Isa. 53.3 (NLT)?:
He was despised and rejectedâ a
man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest
grief.
Yet in response to a Christian talk-show host, a famous preacher who heads a megachurch in Redding, California argued that Christ âwasnât born again the way weâre born again.â Specifically, the Christian talk-show host posed the following question: So, âhe [Christ] wasnât born again the way weâre born againâ? To which Christian minister and evangelist, Bill Johnson, replied: âNo, goodness no, no. I have to be born again; heâs already God, so, absolutely not.â So much for pastoral care!
âReading into or reading out of: reading scripture should make us uncomfortable and ask us to learn.â
[First given as a sermon on August 24, 2025]
Find this interesting? Please register for the upcoming class inspired by it:
Original and Amendable: Reading the US Constitution in Light of Rabbinic Legal Methodology
Once, when meeting an African American minister for the first time, I was asked, more interrogated: âDo you do exegesis or eisegesis?â
I must admit, no one had used both those words to me since classes in rabbinical school!
After giving the apparently correct answer, namely âexegesisâ, the minister told me that he observed serious caution in new relationships with faith leaders and wanted to know if I read scripture in ways that would justify enslaving African Americans. We can use the texts that we hold sacred and important to rationalize abhorrent behavior. This minister, understandably, would refuse partnership with someone who would use texts to justify their own unethical opinions.
In Deuteronomy, Chapter 13, Verse 1, the Divine says: âdonât add or take away from anything I tell you.â
This seems to say we must take the entire teaching literally, word for word.
And yet, none of us do.
Truly â no one adheres to all that is written in Scripture â it is not possible.
Some people try, thatâs for sure, but everyone must interpret, and our texts often demand contradictory things from us.
Furthermore, Jews have never taken the entire text literally. Reading farther on in the Deuteronomy, Chapter 13:6, it says: âNow that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put-to-death.â[1] This contrasts with the caution against the death penalty in Jewish traditions. We have a much later text, from the Mishnah, which dates to around 200 CE, over 1,800 years ago, that shows the reluctance with which the death penalty was used for a capital crime. This long discourse shows that ancient Jewish courts made the death penalty so difficult to impose that it almost never happened. The early rabbis supported this with this teaching:
Adam the first person was created alone, to teach you that regarding anyone who destroys one soul, the verse assigns them blame as if they destroyed an entire world, as Adam was one person, from whom the population of an entire world came forth. And anyone who sustains one soul, the verse ascribes them credit as if they sustained an entire world.[2]Â
Recognizing that it is all well and good for the ancient rabbis to have interpreted away literal readings, while also admitting that Jewish culture reveres the writers of our ancient texts as bearing more authority than we ever can, how can contemporary Jews claim authentic interpretations when the text says: âadd and subtract nothingâ?
For methods of interpretation, we often divide into two general camps, those of us who try to do exegesis, and those who use eisegesis. Exegesis asks us to learn from the text âreading out of the text. We use the entire canon to help us create context to understand what it says. Eisegesis uses what we think already as a lens on what the text says â reading into the text.
Letâs dismiss most eisegesis from the outset â those who use it often flagrantly bring a text to prove what they already think. They are not endeavoring to learn something from the text. They attempt to teach their own perspectives using the text for their own devices. This seems to be clearly âadding and subtractingâ from the text and makes it difficult to adhere to our text today. We will return to all the people who nonetheless do this.
For those of us trying to engage scripture in âgood faithâ â we need to learn from it, to use it as a source of wisdom not a proof of how we are already wise. In our death penalty example, we see ancient rabbis clearly dismissing an entire form of justice from the Five Books of Moses, the central canonical text for the Jewish people. There are a lot of death penalties enumerated in scripture â for violating the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14), for idolatry (Deuteronomy 17:5), even for being a disobedient child (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), plus the text we read today about the false prophet being put to death. How do the rabbis, who claim absolute devotion to doing what the text says, not only as a religious observance of faith, but also most importantly as a civic law for the basic functioning of their society, allow themselves to so clearly âsubtractâ from the text while also adhering to it?
The rabbis start with principles that the entirety of the teachings of Judaism lay out clearly. We cannot say that life is important, as shown by the story that tells us that we are all descended from one person and therefore every person contains the potential for an entire world, and be so cavalier about lifeâs importance that people are put to death all the time. The rabbinic tradition of reading text this way in Jewish society dates back formally at least to the Babylonian Exile, when the earliest academies were founded and Jews needed to figure out how to apply Biblical teachings away from the centers in Jerusalem â thatâs more than 2,500 years ago. That means that from the very earliest days of attempting to use Biblical texts as a guide for all of the Jewish people, Jewish scholars developed a system of reading and interpretation that was not based on a slavish literal interpretation â âdo this because it says soâ â but in fact started with fundamental questions about what the text was trying to teach us as a whole. What are the principles of the society that we hope to build together?
The real principles are often found in the stories, and they help us to understand how to read texts that are often inconsistent. The story shows us the teaching and serves as a more powerful example than any listing of âthou shaltâsâ and âthou shalt notâsâ.
Jewish exegesis is informed by principles of the text that require us to NOT do literal commands that are contrary to the principles found in the stories that show us what society could be like when we work together. These readings receive support from Jews throughout history in large part on account of the inherently communitarian and democratic approaches of Jewish culture â Jewish authorities really do âserve at the pleasureâ of the Jewish people historically.
We see this all the time today because people in power regularly say they âonly do what the law saysâ while reading it entirely differently from its plain language or ignoring plain meanings altogether. Public textual interpretations go directly at the flawed usage of eisegesis that we dismissed and that the African American minister cautioned me about. So many tell us that they can or canât do things based on their readings of texts. We have leaders claiming that the plain text of the US Constitution doesnât say what it clearly says, like that every person has certain rights regardless of citizenship. We have religious people saying that their interpretations of scripture must apply to all of us, regarding our own relationships, womenâs health, and personal identity.
The Supreme Court used a tortured reading of the Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution to requalify Donald Trump to run for president. Hereâs what the text says:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.[3]
The Supreme Court decided that this part of the Constitution was not âself-activatingâ and used what was clearly tortured reasoning to deny the State of Colorado the power to remove a candidate from the ballot because the State has no jurisdiction over Federal candidates (despite Statesâ Constitutional responsibilities to run Federal Elections), reading the Congressional power to âremove such a disabilityâ as an additional requirement that Congress must first impose the disability.[4]
Apologies for getting into the weeds of Supreme Court decisions.
Yet, this is the point, and this is the problem with these two terribly âmy eyes are glazing over termsâ â exegesis and eisegesis â they are stand-ins for the real thing thatâs happening, which is about power, the use and abuse of authority, and the denial of rights and power to the people.
When someone uses a text to explain why they get to tell us what to do:
- especially claiming a tortured reading as a plain reading that we must obey, like the Supreme Courtâs machinations above, or their use of âoriginalismâ or the phony history that they attempt to do with âhistory and traditionâ arguments, or not even telling us their reasoning at all, as they have repeatedly done on the so-called âEmergency Docketâ;
- or a faith leader attempting to end discussion by saying âScripture says soâ;
- or a political leader claiming that they have the power to do something because they looked for and found an obscure legal decree;
what they are really saying is that they have power over us, they have the authority to tell us what language and text mean, that they can make any argument they like to perpetuate their power at the expense of our powerlessness.
In contrast, when we offer a set of principles to read a text with one another, to explain why this way makes sense and that other way makes less sense, we engage in the conversation because we are in community together, because we respect that each of us is a reflection of something sacred, something infinite in the universe, and a fundamental principle behind that is that I donât get to tell you what to do because I said so. We honor the teaching of the rabbis that we think of ourselves as all descended from one source and that therefore we are all equally endowed with reason, and merit, and value, and wisdom to interpret. We accept that our difference of opinions, often uncomfortable, is the source for productive discussion, out of which will emerge something greater than your opinion or my opinion, namely our shared opinion.
The most important aspect of life together is building community and power collaboratively, through community, so that we can work with one another. This isnât easy. It takes work, and listening, and admitting that we donât know everything ourselves, and that solutions are found in compromise and collaboration. When instead we follow a less arduous path and submit to the sovereignty of a one-opinion, one source of wisdom for all of us model, then we give up our rights to self-determination and freedom for all of us together.
Let us learn with one another, develop principles that we can all work on together, and build something better, more inclusive, with liberty and justice for all.
 [1] Fox, E. (1997). The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Schocken, p. 912
[2] Steinsaltz, A. (2007). Mishnah sanhedrin 4:5. Sefaria: a Living Library of Jewish Texts Online. https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.4.5?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
[3] The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (1866, June 13). National Constitution Center â The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv
[4] DONALD J. TRUMP, PETITIONER v. NORMA ANDERSON, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF COLORADO. (2024, March 4). Supreme Court of the United States. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf)
âReading into or reading out of: reading scripture should make us uncomfortable and ask us to learn.â
[First given as a sermon on August 24, 2025]
Find this interesting? Please register for the upcoming class inspired by it:
Original and Amendable: Reading the US Constitution in Light of Rabbinic Legal Methodology
Once, when meeting an African American minister for the first time, I was asked, more interrogated: âDo you do exegesis or eisegesis?â
I must admit, no one had used both those words to me since classes in rabbinical school!
 After giving the apparently correct answer, namely âexegesisâ, the minister told me that he observed serious caution in new relationships with faith leaders and wanted to know if I read scripture in ways that would justify enslaving African Americans. We can use the texts that we hold sacred and important to rationalize abhorrent behavior. This minister, understandably, would refuse partnership with someone who would use texts to justify their own unethical opinions.
 In Deuteronomy, Chapter 13, Verse 1, the Divine says: âdonât add or take away from anything I tell you.â
This seems to say we must take the entire teaching literally, word for word.
And yet, none of us do.
Truly âno one adheres to all that is written in Scripture â it is not possible.
Some people try, thatâs for sure, but everyone must interpret, and our texts often demand contradictory things from us.
Furthermore, Jews have never taken the entire text literally. Reading farther on in the Deuteronomy, Chapter 13:6, it says: âNow that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put-to-death.â[1] This contrasts with the caution against the death penalty in Jewish traditions. We have a much later text, from the Mishnah, which dates to around 200 CE, over 1,800 years ago, that shows the reluctance with which the death penalty was used for a capital crime. This long discourse shows that ancient Jewish courts made the death penalty so difficult to impose that it almost never happened. The early rabbis supported this with this teaching:
Adam the first person was created alone, to teach you that regarding anyone who destroys one soul, the verse assigns them blame as if they destroyed an entire world, as Adam was one person, from whom the population of an entire world came forth. And anyone who sustains one soul, the verse ascribes them credit as if they sustained an entire world.[2]
 Recognizing that it is all well and good for the ancient rabbis to have interpreted away literal readings, while also admitting that Jewish culture reveres the writers of our ancient texts as bearing more authority than we ever can, how can contemporary Jews claim authentic interpretations when the text says: âadd and subtract nothingâ?
For methods of interpretation, we often divide into two general camps, those of us who try to do exegesis, and those who use eisegesis. Exegesis asks us to learn from the text âreading out of the text. We use the entire canon to help us create context to understand what it says. Eisegesis uses what we think already as a lens on what the text says â reading into the text.
Letâs dismiss most eisegesis from the outset â those who use it often flagrantly bring a text to prove what they already think. They are not endeavoring to learn something from the text. They attempt to teach their own perspectives using the text for their own devices. This seems to be clearly âadding and subtractingâ from the text and makes it difficult to adhere to our text today. We will return to all the people who nonetheless do this.
For those of us trying to engage scripture in âgood faithâ â we need to learn from it, to use it as a source of wisdom not a proof of how we are already wise. In our death penalty example, we see ancient rabbis clearly dismissing an entire form of justice from the Five Books of Moses, the central canonical text for the Jewish people. There are a lot of death penalties enumerated in scripture â for violating the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14), for idolatry (Deuteronomy 17:5), even for being a disobedient child (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), plus the text we read today about the false prophet being put to death. How do the rabbis, who claim absolute devotion to doing what the text says, not only as a religious observance of faith, but also most importantly as a civic law for the basic functioning of their society, allow themselves to so clearly âsubtractâ from the text while also adhering to it?
The rabbis start with principles that the entirety of the teachings of Judaism lay out clearly. We cannot say that life is important, as shown by the story that tells us that we are all descended from one person and therefore every person contains the potential for an entire world, and be so cavalier about lifeâs importance that people are put to death all the time. The rabbinic tradition of reading text this way in Jewish society dates back formally at least to the Babylonian Exile, when the earliest academies were founded and Jews needed to figure out how to apply Biblical teachings away from the centers in Jerusalem â thatâs more than 2,500 years ago. That means that from the very earliest days of attempting to use Biblical texts as a guide for all of the Jewish people, Jewish scholars developed a system of reading and interpretation that was not based on a slavish literal interpretation â âdo this because it says soâ â but in fact started with fundamental questions about what the text was trying to teach us as a whole. What are the principles of the society that we hope to build together?
The real principles are often found in the stories, and they help us to understand how to read texts that are often inconsistent. The story shows us the teaching and serves as a more powerful example than any listing of âthou shaltâsâ and âthou shalt notâsâ.
Jewish exegesis is informed by principles of the text that require us to NOT do literal commands that are contrary to the principles found in the stories that show us what society could be like when we work together. These readings receive support from Jews throughout history in large part on account of the inherently communitarian and democratic approaches of Jewish culture â Jewish authorities really do âserve at the pleasureâ of the Jewish people historically.
We see this all the time today because people in power regularly say they âonly do what the law saysâ while reading it entirely differently from its plain language or ignoring plain meanings altogether. Public textual interpretations go directly at the flawed usage of eisegesis that we dismissed and that the African American minister cautioned me about. So many tell us that they can or canât do things based on their readings of texts. We have leaders claiming that the plain text of the US Constitution doesnât say what it clearly says, like that every person has certain rights regardless of citizenship. We have religious people saying that their interpretations of scripture must apply to all of us, regarding our own relationships, womenâs health, and personal identity.
The Supreme Court used a tortured reading of the Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution to requalify Donald Trump to run for president. Hereâs what the text says:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.[3]
The Supreme Court decided that this part of the Constitution was not âself-activatingâ and used what was clearly tortured reasoning to deny the State of Colorado the power to remove a candidate from the ballot because the State has no jurisdiction over Federal candidates (despite Statesâ Constitutional responsibilities to run Federal Elections), reading the Congressional power to âremove such a disabilityâ as an additional requirement that Congress must first impose the disability.[4]
Apologies for getting into the weeds of Supreme Court decisions.
Yet, this is the point, and this is the problem with these two terribly âmy eyes are glazing over termsâ â exegesis and eisegesis â they are stand-ins for the real thing thatâs happening, which is about power, the use and abuse of authority, and the denial of rights and power to the people.
When someone uses a text to explain why they get to tell us what to do:
- especially claiming a tortured reading as a plain reading that we must obey, like the Supreme Courtâs machinations above, or their use of âoriginalismâ or the phony history that they attempt to do with âhistory and traditionâ arguments, or not even telling us their reasoning at all, as they have repeatedly done on the so-called âEmergency Docketâ;
- or a faith leader attempting to end discussion by saying âScripture says soâ;
- or a political leader claiming that they have the power to do something because they looked for and found an obscure legal decree;
what they are really saying is that they have power over us, they have the authority to tell us what language and text mean, that they can make any argument they like to perpetuate their power at the expense of our powerlessness.
In contrast, when we offer a set of principles to read a text with one another, to explain why this way makes sense and that other way makes less sense, we engage in the conversation because we are in community together, because we respect that each of us is a reflection of something sacred, something infinite in the universe, and a fundamental principle behind that is that I donât get to tell you what to do because I said so. We honor the teaching of the rabbis that we think of ourselves as all descended from one source and that therefore we are all equally endowed with reason, and merit, and value, and wisdom to interpret. We accept that our difference of opinions, often uncomfortable, is the source for productive discussion, out of which will emerge something greater than your opinion or my opinion, namely our shared opinion.
The most important aspect of life together is building community and power collaboratively, through community, so that we can work with one another. This isnât easy. It takes work, and listening, and admitting that we donât know everything ourselves, and that solutions are found in compromise and collaboration. When instead we follow a less arduous path and submit to the sovereignty of a one-opinion, one source of wisdom for all of us model, then we give up our rights to self-determination and freedom for all of us together.
Let us learn with one another, develop principles that we can all work on together, and build something better, more inclusive, with liberty and justice for all.
Â
[1] Fox, E. (1997). The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Schocken, p. 912
[2] Steinsaltz, A. (2007). Mishnah sanhedrin 4:5. Sefaria: a Living Library of Jewish Texts Online. https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.4.5?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
[3] The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (1866, June 13). National Constitution Center â The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv
[4] DONALD J. TRUMP, PETITIONER v. NORMA ANDERSON, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF COLORADO. (2024, March 4). Supreme Court of the United States. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf)