More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 14 - April 13, 2019
the New Testament presents Jesus as fulfilling ‘OT expectations of the restoration of human vicegerency’.
According to Paul, mankind lost his vicegerency in Adam, but gains it again in Christ.
the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:2–10 contain an interesting contrast between present and future rewards. Whereas the rewards of verses 2 and 10, which frame the Beatitudes, are in the present (‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’), all of the other rewards are future orientated: they shall be comforted; they shall inherit the earth; they shall be satisfied; they shall receive mercy; they shall see God; they shall be called sons of God. This distinction is significant, for it underscores that although the kingdom of God (the reign of Christ) is a present reality, the consummated kingdom awaits his
...more
The kingdom associated with Jesus Christ’s first coming does not bring to an end all evil on earth.
While the divine kingdom is growing, evil powers constantly oppose it. Only at Christ’s second coming in royal splendour will the world be purged of everything opposed to God’s presence and sovereignty. Only at that stage will redeemed humanity experience the full reality of being God’s viceroys.
By living in obedience to Christ, his disciples participate in the establishment of God’s kingdom on the earth.
Yet, although this divine kingdom continues to grow, with more and more people acknowledging the supreme sovereignty of God, many of the earth’s inhabitants defiantly refuse to enthrone God as their Lord.
God will be victorious and his throne will be exalted in the golden garden-city that will one day fill a transformed earth.
For the church has been appointed by Christ to be ‘a royal house of priests’ (i. 6; v. 10), to mediate his royal and priestly authority to the whole world. Through the church he is to exercise his sovereignty over the nations, smashing their resistance to his rule and releasing their subjects for a new and better loyalty (i. 5; ii. 26f.; xi. 15ff.; xii. 5; xv. 3–4; xvii. 14; xix. 11ff.). Through the church he is to mediate God’s forgiveness and lead the world to repentance (iii. 7–9; xi. 13; xiv. 6–7; xx. 1–6). And all this they may achieve only by following the Lamb wherever he goes (xiv.
...more
A perfect cube in shape, it is the authentic Holy of Holies, the reality to which the Old Testament models of the tabernacle and temple pointed.
unrestrained human dominion brings violence to the earth, rather than peace.
What distinguished the Israelites from the Egyptians was not that the former were inherently more righteous than the latter. Judged by God, the Israelites and the Egyptians all deserved to die. However, the Passover lambs became a substitute for the Israelite firstborn.
The smallest lie is offensive to the One who is truth. The tiniest feeling of animosity towards another person is repulsive to the One who is love.
If God is to be true to his own righteous nature, all wrongdoing must be punished.
In addition, if God is to condemn and punish Satan, then he must be consistent in condemning and punishing all who are like Satan. For God to deal justly with the prince of evil, he must punish every other creature that has rebelled against his divine authority.
While the sacrificial death of the lamb atones for human sin, the sprinkling of its blood purifies those within the house.
Although atonement secures peace with God, it does not remove the stain of sin.
More needs she the divine than the physician. (Act V, Scene i, lines 79–82)
Of necessity, purification must accompany atonement.
If eating holy meat sanctifies the ancient Israelites, the New Testament equivalent is the Lord’s Supper.
Like the original Passover sacrifice, his death atones for the sin of the people, his blood purifies and cleanses, and those who eat his body at the Lord’s Supper share in his holy nature.
as David Peterson argues in detail, the New Testament writers present sanctification not as a process that occurs after justification but as something that coincides with justification.
Only those who have been sanctified through the sacrificial death of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, can expect to enter the New Jerusalem to live in the presence of God on a transformed earth.
The life to come will be truly abundant and fully satisfying. This hope is reflected in themes found in Revelation 21 – 22 that reappear throughout the entire biblical meta-story, in particular, the concepts of ‘holy people’, ‘tree of life’ and ‘nations’.
What is true of the model will be equally true of the reality to which it points.
Holiness is closely associated with God, for he alone is innately holy. As
holiness emanates from him.
Since the Lord radiates holiness to everything near to him, the inner sanctum of the tabernacle is the holiest part of the tabernacle. However, the further one moves away from the Holy of Holies, the less holy everything becomes. By way of reflecting this, the book of Leviticus draws attention to three related categories: holy, clean/pure and unclean/impure. The existence of these three distinct categories is reflected in the layout of the Israelite camp. At the heart of the camp stands the tabernacle courtyard, a holy area. The rest of the camp is viewed as clean, and everywhere outside the
...more
Words based on the Hebrew root qādaš (e.g. ‘holy’, ‘holiness’, ‘sanctify’) come 152 times in Leviticus, representing about one-fifth of all occurrences in the Old Testament. The adjective ṭāhor, ‘clean’, and associated words occur 74 times, representing more than one-third of all Old Testament occurrences. The adjective ṭāmē’, ‘unclean’, and cognate terms come 132 times, representing more than half of the total occurrences in the Old Testament.
nonpriestly Israelites are given the opportunity to enjoy a special holy status by becoming Nazirites.
the book of Leviticus envisages a world in which people and places have differing degrees of holiness.
In marked contrast, among those impurities that cannot be rectified are sexual sins (Lev. 18:20, 23–25, 27–30), idolatry (Lev. 20:2–5), murder (Num. 35:16–21, 31) and profaning the sacred (e.g. Lev. 7:19–21; 22:3, 9). In these cases only the death of the guilty party can remove the pollution caused by his or her sin.
holiness and uncleanness form a spectrum of closely associated categories. On the one side is holiness, in the middle cleanness and on the other side uncleanness
For the ancient Israelites every person, object, place and period of time could be located somewhere on this holiness-to-uncleanness spectrum.
The evidence from Leviticus indicates that holiness and uncleanness are dynamic in nature: they have the ability to transmit their nature to other people or objects.
Holiness comes through sanctification, the process by which someone or something is made holy.
Holiness is the result of divine activity: it is God who sanctifies.
Those made holy by God are expected to remain holy by doing nothing that will compromise their special status
Closely linked to the concepts of holiness and wholeness is the ‘tree of life’,
the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed,
While initially little is said about the ‘tree of life’ in Genesis 2, its location at the centre of the garden points to its significance, as does its name.
In keeping with its designation, the tree of life produces fruit that gives immortality.
Whereas Genesis 3 highlights the negative impact of being excluded from the tree of life, John’s vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 22 includes a description of the tree, echoing an earlier passage in Ezekiel 47:12.
Revelation 22
underlines the tree’s life-giving power by describing how it produces twelve kinds of fruit every month. The context implies that the tree’s leaves renew those who eat them. The concept of rejuvenation predates cosmetic companies! God patented it when he created the tree of life. No one will grow frail by becoming old in the New Jerusalem. Citizens of the new earth will experience and enjoy both wholeness of body and longevity of life. They will have a quality of life unrestricted by disability or disease. To live in the New Jerusalem is to experience lif...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
