The First Question to Ask of an Ancient, Holy Book: Is It Ancient?

By J. Warner Wallace 1/23/2017

     Many of the world’s best known religious texts are silent when it comes to claims about history. Many Eastern religious scriptures, for example, describe spiritual principles devoid of historical location or setting. Texts such as these are proverbial in nature, proclaiming ancient wisdom without any connection to historical context. The Abrahamic religions are very different, however. Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism make claims about ancient history. For this reason, these religious worldviews are both verifiable and falsifiable. We ought to be able to corroborate the historical claims of ancient religious texts just as we could other historical documents. Such verification would certify their antiquity, if nothing else. On the other hand, if the claims of an ancient holy book are consistently incorrect related to the ancient world it allegedly describes, we ought to consider the text with suspicion.

     It’s also important to remember that not every ancient text makes a claim about “divinity”; there are many texts from antiquity that are ancient, but not “holy”. If a text claims to be both ancient and holy, it needs to pass the first test related to antiquity before it can hope to qualify in the second category as holy. After all, a book cannot be holy or divine if it is lying about ancient history.

     The test of antiquity was incredibly important to me as a skeptic examining the claims of scripture for the first time. As I became interested in Christianity, my Mormon family encouraged me to examine Mormonism as well. I read the entire Book of Mormon before I completed the Old and New Testament. I wanted to determine the “antiquity” of the Gospels and the Book of Mormon before I could examine the question of “divinity”. I needed to know if the New Testament gospels were written early enough to have been written by eyewitnesses who were actually present to observe what was recorded in these accounts. Similarly, I needed to know if the Book of Mormon was an accurate account of the history of the American continent from 600BC to 400AD (as it claims). My first investigation was centered on the foundational question: Are these ancient holy books truly ancient?

     What kinds of questions can an investigator ask when trying to answer this important question related to antiquity? I considered the following:

James "Jim" Warner Wallace (born June 16, 1961) is an American homicide detective and Christian apologist. Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He has authored several books, including Cold-Case Christianity, God’s Crime Scene, and Forensic Faith, in which he applies principles of cold case homicide investigation to apologetic concerns such as the existence of God and the reliability of the Gospels.

• Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

• God's Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe

• Alive: A Cold-Case Approach to the Resurrection

• Cold-Case Christianity for Kids: Investigate Jesus with a Real Detective

• Keeping Your Kids on God's Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith

• Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith

Did God Really Command Genocide?

By Matt Flannagan and Paul Copan 11/2/2015

     Karen Armstrong and Philip Jenkins, among others, have argued that there’s far more violence in the Bible than in the Koran. Jenkins refers to the Old Testament’s ethnic cleansing, institutionalization of segregation, and hate and fear of other races and religions. F&C review some of these themes they’ve already covered: In terms of ethnic cleansing, what we find in the OT instead is “moral cleansing,” and long-awaited judgment on a wicked people whose time had finally come. And God warns the Israelites will experience the same judgment if they commit the same sins. The OT represents a God whose salvation is intended to affect all the peoples of the world. In terms of segregation, Israel was to be distinct morally and spiritually, but they were repeatedly commanded to care for the alien and sojourner in their midst since they too had been aliens in the land of Egypt. In terms of other races and religions, the charge of hating and fearing other races is clearly false, though the Bible is opposed to idolatry, and God brings judgment on ancient Israel for engaging in idolatry and breaking covenant with him after promising to love, cling to, and obey him.

     Biblical and Koranic Texts | We see many Koranic references to warfare, and this warfare is not simply defensive but offensive as well. F&C give copious examples; here’s just one: “And those who are slain in the way of God, He will not send their works astray…. And He will admit them to Paradise, that He has made known to them” (47:4, 6).

     Clear differences obtain between the Bible and Koran. First, military events captured in a biblical canon are merely descriptive of a unique part of the unfolding of salvation history. Second, whereas the biblical texts offer descriptions of unique history, the Koranic texts by contrast appear to be issuing enduring commands. Islam has exhibited a militaristic aggressiveness from the beginning, and this aggressiveness has been fed by Koranic texts that many Muslims throughout history have taken as normative or binding, enduring throughout history, and worldwide in applicability. Third, the distinctions between divinely commanded wars in the OT and Islamic jihad are much more pronounced than their similarities.

     In addition to being unique and unrepeatable events within scripture itself, these wars are restricted to a relatively small portion of land, and accompanied by widely witnessed miracles. By contrast, the “revelations” to Muhammad were private and not publicly available for scrutiny or reinforced by dramatic signs and wonders. What’s more, Israel was an instrument of divine judgment on wicked people, unlike Muhammad, who attacked and overtook even those who were “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians)—part of the global reach to which Muhammed and his followers aspired.

     Muhammad’s Example | Consider now Muhammed himself, the supreme human example for Muslims to follow. His goal was “to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no God but Allah.’” He died in AD 632 with his own plans for attacking neighboring nations unfulfilled. In his career, he fought in an estimated eighty-six military campaigns. The first authoritative biography of him covers his battles in 75 percent of its 813 pages, and includes depictions of assassination, rape, and cruelty that met with Muhammed’s approval. In one instance he said, “Kill any Jew that falls into your power.” A number of instances recount his approval of violence. According to the Koran and the traditions about Muhammed (Hadith), he permitted his soldiers to have sex not only with their wives, but also with female captives and female slaves.

Samson: Emptied to Be Filled

By Elton Higgs

     The story of Samson in the book of Judges (Judges 13-16) is one of the two longest narratives in the book, and the saddest and most incredible of all. How can a man endowed with such a gift from God, and born with such promise, be so utterly and stupidly reckless? It seems that God wanted to show in him how personal exploitation of a gift from God, without regard to the holy purpose for which God intended it, leads to a folly as great as the holy gift. It ends up as a supreme example of God’s strength being made perfect in weakness, as the blind and bound Sampson, in one final reckless act, slays more Philistines in his death than he had in his lifetime.

     Samson’s story begins with a kind of annunciation and a supernatural conception and birth (Judges 13), strangely foreshadowing the birth of Jesus. At the center of these events is the strict charge that Samson be dedicated from birth as a lifelong Nazirite, which required that he never cut his hair, that he imbibe no strong drink, and that he have no contact with dead bodies (see Num. 6). Although his final violation of the first of these is at the climax of his story, he had already by that time violated the first two, as well as having gone against the spirit of God’s sanctification of him by being sexually promiscuous. But at the core of his downfall is his failure to realize that God’s gift of supernatural strength to him was itself holy, and that to use it to satisfy his own pride was to set himself up for a profound fall.

     The marvel is that God went along with his self-indulgence for so long, for we are told that he judged Israel for twenty years (Judges 15:20), presumably holding the Philistines at bay for that entire period. At first, God is behind his apparently reckless and inappropriate actions, as he goes down to Timnah to get a Philistine wife, “seeking an opportunity against the Philistines,” an action he took because it was “from the Lord” (Judges 14:4). In all the rest of his great feats, even though we can infer that he revels more and more pridefully in doing them, God was still using him to deliver His people from their oppression.

     It was only at the end of this period that he had his disastrous encounter with Delilah (Judges 16). The narrator of the story does a superb job of teasing out the degrees of Samson’s downfall, showing how the hero taunts Delilah and her Philistine masters with false (but increasingly true) answers to her pleas to be told the secret of his strength. When he commits the final desecration of his Nazirite sanctification, and his hair has been cut and the Philistines are upon him, he says to himself, “’I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord had left him” (Judges 16:20). I think that must be among the most poignant statements in all of biblical history. When Samson’s eyes are gouged out, it is but a physical confirmation of his spiritual blindness which had occurred long before.

     Another mark of the inspired literary quality of this tragic story is that the account of Samson’s first great feat of strength, the killing of a lion and later finding honey in its carcass, foreshadows God’s final act of strength through a helpless (but enlightened) Samson. As the following poem indicates, Samson’s use of the experience with the lion to pose a riddle to his enemies was, ironically, even deeper than he himself knew.

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Translated by Henry Beveridge

     Eighth Commandment.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.

45. The purport is, that injustice being an abomination to God, we must render to every man his due. In substance, then, the commandment forbids us to long after other men's goods, and, accordingly, requires every man to exert himself honestly in preserving his own. For we must consider, that what each individual possesses has not fallen to him by chance, but by the distribution of the sovereign Lord of all, that no one can pervert his means to bad purposes without committing a fraud on a divine dispensation. There are very many kinds of theft. One consists in violence, as when a man's goods are forcibly plundered and carried off; another in malicious imposture, as when they are fraudulently intercepted; a third in the more hidden craft which takes possession of them with a semblance of justice; and a fourth in sycophancy, which wiles them away under the pretence of donation. But not to dwell too long in enumerating the different classes, we know that all the arts by which we obtain possession of the goods and money of our neighbours, for sincere affection substituting an eagerness to deceive or injure them in any way, are to be regarded as thefts. Though they may be obtained by an action at law, a different decision is given by God. He sees the long train of deception by which the man of craft begins to lay nets for his more simple neighbour, until he entangles him in its meshes--sees the harsh and cruel laws by which the more powerful oppresses and crushes the feeble--sees the enticements by which the more wily baits the hook for the less wary, though all these escape the judgment of man, and no cognisance is taken of them. Nor is the violation of this commandment confined to money, or merchandise, or lands, but extends to every kind of right; for we defraud our neighbours to their hurt if we decline any of the duties which we are bound to perform towards them. If an agent or an indolent steward wastes the substance of his employer, or does not give due heed to the management of his property; if he unjustly squanders or luxuriously wastes the means entrusted to him; if a servant holds his master in derision, divulges his secrets, or in any way is treacherous to his life or his goods; if, on the other hand, a master cruelly torments his household, he is guilty of theft before God; since every one who, in the exercise of his calling, performs not what he owes to others, keeps back, or makes away with what does not belong to him.

46. This commandment, therefore, we shall duly obey, if, contented with our own lot, we study to acquire nothing but honest and lawful gain; if we long not to grow rich by injustice, nor to plunder our neighbour of his goods, that our own may thereby be increased; if we hasten not to heap up wealth cruelly wrung from the blood of others; if we do not, by means lawful and unlawful, with excessive eagerness scrape together whatever may glut our avarice or meet our prodigality. On the other hand, let it be our constant aim faithfully to lend our counsel and aid to all so as to assist them in retaining their property; or if we have to do with the perfidious or crafty, let us rather be prepared to yield somewhat of our right than to contend with them. And not only so, but let us contribute to the relief of those whom we see under the pressure of difficulties, assisting their want out of our abundance. Lastly, let each of us consider how far he is bound in duty to others, and in good faith pay what we owe. In the same way, let the people pay all due honour to their rulers, submit patiently to their authority, obey their laws and orders, and decline nothing which they can bear without sacrificing the favour of God. Let rulers, again, take due charge of their people, preserve the public peace, protect the good, curb the bad, and conduct themselves throughout as those who must render an account of their office to God, the Judge of all. Let the ministers of churches faithfully give heed to the ministry of the word, and not corrupt the doctrine of salvation, but deliver it purely and sincerely to the people of God. Let them teach not merely by doctrine, but by example; in short, let them act the part of good shepherds towards their flocks. Let the people, in their turn, receive them as the messengers and apostles of God, render them the honour which their Supreme Master has bestowed on them, and supply them with such things as are necessary for their livelihood. Let parents be careful to bring up, guide, and teach their children as a trust committed to them by God. Let them not exasperate or alienate them by cruelty, but cherish and embrace them with the levity and indulgence which becomes their character. The regard due to parents from their children has already been adverted to. Let the young respect those advanced in years as the Lord has been pleased to make that age honourable. Let the aged also, by their prudence and their experience (in which they are far superior), guide the feebleness of youth, not assailing them with harsh and clamorous invectives but tempering strictness with ease and affability. Let servants show themselves diligent and respectful in obeying their masters, and this not with eye-service, but from the heart, as the servants of God. Let masters also not be stern and disobliging to their servants, nor harass them with excessive asperity, nor treat them with insult, but rather let them acknowledge them as brethren and fellow-servants of our heavenly Master, whom, therefore, they are bound to treat with mutual love and kindness. Let every one, I say, thus consider what in his own place and order he owes to his neighbours, and pay what he owes. Moreover, we must always have a reference to the Lawgiver, and so remember that the law requiring us to promote and defend the interest and convenience of our fellow-men, applies equally to our minds and our hands.

Ninth Commandment.

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOUR.

47. The purport of the commandment is, since God, who is truth, abhors falsehood, we must cultivate unfeigned truth towards each other. The sum, therefore, will be, that we must not by calumnies and false accusations injure our neighbour's name, or by falsehood impair his fortunes; in fine, that we must not injure any one from petulance, or a love of evil-speaking. To this prohibition corresponds the command, that we must faithfully assist every one, as far as in us lies, in asserting the truth, for the maintenance of his good name and his estate. The Lord seems to have intended to explain the commandment in these words: "Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness." "Keep thee far from a false matter," (Exod. 23:1, 7). In another passage, he not only prohibits that species of falsehood which consists in acting the part of tale-bearers among the people, but says, "Neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour," (Lev. 19:16). Both transgressions are distinctly prohibited. Indeed, there can be no doubt, that as in the previous commandment he prohibited cruelty unchastity, and avarice, so here he prohibits falsehood, which consists of the two parts to which we have adverted. By malignant or vicious detraction, we sin against our neighbour's good name: by lying, sometimes even by casting a slur upon him, we injure him in his estate. It makes no difference whether you suppose that formal and judicial testimony is here intended, or the ordinary testimony which is given in private conversation. For we must always recur to the consideration, that for each kind of transgression one species is set forth by way of example, that to it the others may be referred, and that the species chiefly selected, is that in which the turpitude of the transgression is most apparent. It seems proper, however, to extend it more generally to calumny and sinister insinuations by which our neighbours are unjustly aggrieved. For falsehood in a court of justice is always accompanied with perjury. But against perjury, in so far as it profanes and violates the name of God, there is a sufficient provision in the third commandment. Hence the legitimate observance of this precept consists in employing the tongue in the maintenance of truth, so as to promote both the good name and the prosperity of our neighbour. The equity of this is perfectly clear. For if a good name is more precious than riches, a man, in being robbed of his good name, is no less injured than if he were robbed of his goods; while, in the latter case, false testimony is sometimes not less injurious than rapine committed by the hand.

48. And yet it is strange, with what supine security men everywhere sin in this respect. Indeed, very few are found who do not notoriously labour under this disease: such is the envenomed delight we take both in prying into and exposing our neighbour's faults. Let us not imagine it is a sufficient excuse to say that on many occasions our statements are not false. He who forbids us to defame our neighbour's reputation by falsehood, desires us to keep it untarnished in so far as truth will permit. Though the commandment is only directed against falsehood, it intimates that the preservation of our neighbour's good name is recommended. It ought to be a sufficient inducement to us to guard our neighbour's good name, that God takes an interest in it. Wherefore, evil-speaking in general is undoubtedly condemned. Moreover, by evil-speaking, we understand not the rebuke which is administered with a view of correcting; not accusation or judicial decision, by which evil is sought to be remedied; not public censure, which tends to strike terror into other offenders; not the disclosure made to those whose safety depends on being forewarned, lest unawares they should be brought into danger, but the odious crimination which springs from a malicious and petulant love of slander. Nay, the commandment extends so far as to include that scurrilous affected urbanity, instinct with invective, by which the failings of others, under an appearance of sportiveness, are bitterly assailed, as some are wont to do, who court the praise of wit, though it should call forth a blush, or inflict a bitter pang. By petulance of this description, our brethren are sometimes grievously wounded. [217] But if we turn our eye to the Lawgiver, whose just authority extends over the ears and the mind, as well as the tongue, we cannot fail to perceive that eagerness to listen to slander, and an unbecoming proneness to censorious judgments are here forbidden. It were absurd to suppose that God hates the disease of evil-speaking in the tongue, and yet disapproves not of its malignity in the mind. Wherefore, if the true fear and love of God dwell in us, we must endeavour, as far as is lawful and expedient, and as far as charity admits, neither to listen nor give utterance to bitter and acrimonious charges, nor rashly entertain sinister suspicions. As just interpreters of the words and the actions of other men, let us candidly maintain the honour due to them by our judgment, our ear, and our tongue.

     Christian Classics Ethereal Library / Public Domain

     Institutes of the Christian Religion

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 15

1 O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
3 who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
4 in whose eyes a vile person is despised,
but who honors those who fear the LORD;
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
5 who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.

Exodus 32

By Don Carson 3/21/2018

     Exodus 32 is simultaneously one of the low points and one of the high points in Israel’s history.

     Only months out of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites prove so fickle that the delay of Moses on the mountain (a mere forty days) provides them with all the excuse they need for a new round of complaining. Moses’ delay does not prompt them to pray, but elicits callous ingratitude and disoriented syncretism. Even their tone is sneering: “As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’ t know what has happened to him” (32:1).

     Aaron is revealed as a spineless wimp, unable or unwilling to impose any discipline. He is utterly without theological backbone — not even enough to be a thoroughgoing pagan, as he continues to invoke the name of the Lord even while he himself manufactures a golden calf (32:4-5). He is still a wimp when, challenged by his brother, he insists, rather ridiculously, “Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” (32:24). Despite the covenantal vows they had made (24:7), many in the nation wanted all the blessings they could get from Yahweh, but gave little thought to the nature of their own sworn obligations to their Maker and Redeemer. It was a low moment of national shame — not the last in their experience, not the last in the confessing church.

     The high point? When God threatens to wipe out the nation, Moses intercedes. Not once does he suggest that the people do not deserve to be wiped out, or that they are not as bad as some might think. Rather, he appeals to the glory of God. Why should God act in such a way that the Egyptians might scoff and say that the Lord isn’t strong enough to pull off this rescue (32:12)? Besides, isn’t God obligated to keep his vows to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (32:13)? How could God go back on his solemn promises? His final appeal is simply for forgiveness (32:30-32), and if God cannot extend such mercy, then Moses does not want to begin a new race (as angry as he himself is, 32:19). He prefers to be blotted out with the rest of the people.

     Here is an extraordinary mediator, a man whose entire sympathies are with God and his gracious salvation and revelation, a man who makes no excuses for the people he is called to lead, but who nevertheless so identifies with them that if judgment is to fall on them he begs to suffer with them. Here is a man who “stands in the gap” (cf. Ezek. 13:3-5; 22:29-30).

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and co-founder (with Tim Keller) of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, and recently edited The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016).

Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century

By Gleason Archer Jr.

     PERHAPS THE MOST helpful way to present the trends of Old Testament scholarship between 1890 and 1950 is to arrange the effect of their contributions upon the structure of the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis. Hence the order followed will be topical rather than strictly chronological.

     As we have already indicated, much of modern scholarship has remained loyal to the methods of Documentary analysis, and their innovations have been limited more or less to isolating a few more “Documents” beyond the time-honored four, JEDP. Thus, for example, Otto Eissfeldt in his Hexateuchsynopse (1922) thought he discerned within J a Lay Source (L)—more or less equivalent to Julius Smend’s J (Die Erzählung des Hexateuchs auf ihre Quellen untersucht, 1912). This L (Laienschrift as Eissfeldt called it) reflected a nomadic, Rechabite ideal (cf. the reference to Rechab in  2 Kings 10 and the Rechabite ideal in  Jer. 35:1–19  ), which was completely hostile to the Canaanite way of life. He concluded that L arose in the time of Elijah (ca. 860 B.C.) and found its way into  Judges  and  Samuel  as well.

     Somewhat similar to L was the new document K (for Kenite). This dealt mostly with certain details in the life of Moses, or described relations between the Israelites and the Kenites. It was isolated by Julius Morgenstern (The Oldest Document of the Hexateuch, 1927), and identified by him as the basis for the reforms of King Asa (ca. 890 B.C.) as recorded in  1 Kings 15:9–15.  Even Robert H. Pfeiffer (as already mentioned) announced in his Introduction to the Old Testament the discovery of a document S (for Mount Seir, the most prominent landmark in Edom) which appeared in the J and E sections of  Gen. 1–11  and also in the J and E portions of  Gen. 14–38.  This supposedly appeared in the reign of Solomon (ca. 950 B.C.), but later additions (made from 600 to 400 B.C.) composed an S2. Thus we have as a result of the industry of the post-Wellhausians the additional letters K, L, and S, largely drawn off from J or E.

     For the most part, however, the trend of twentieth-century scholarship has been toward the repudiation of the Graf-Wellhausen theory, either in whole or in part. In order to sort out these attacks and arrange them in a systematic fashion, we may imagine the Documentary Hypothesis in the form of a beautiful Grecian portico supported by five pillars: (1) the criterion of divine names (Jahweh and Elohim) as an indication of diverse authorship; (2) the origin of J, E, and P as separate written documents, composed at different periods of time; (3) the priority of J to E in time of composition; (4) the separate origin of E as distinct from J; (5) the origin of D in the reign of Josiah (621 B.C.). Let us consider the criticisms leveled at each of these pillars in the above-mentioned order.

Against the Validity of Divine Names as a Criterion of Source

     As early as 1893 August Klostermann (Der Pentateuch) rejected the inerrancy of the Masoretic Hebrew text in the transmission of the divine names, and criticized their use as a means of identifying documentary sources. But the first scholar to make a thoroughgoing investigation of the relationship of the MT to the LXX was Johannes Dahse in his “Textkritische Bedenken gegen den Ausgangspunkt der Pentateuchkritik” (“Textual-critical Doubts About the Initial Premise of Pentateuchal Criticism”) in a 1903 issue of the Archiv für Religionswissenschaft. Here he showed that the LXX has a noncorresponding name (i.e., theos for Yahweh or kyrios for Elohim) in no less than 180 instances. This means that the MT is not sufficiently inerrant in the textual transmission of the names to serve as the basis for such subtle and precise source division as the Documentarians have attempted. (This appeal to the LXX was all the more damaging because of the high prestige that version enjoyed as over against the MT in matters of textual emendation. Because the Documentarians themselves had been using it so freely for correction of the Hebrew text, it was more than embarrassing for them to be exposed as naively assuming the inerrancy of the transmission of the divine names in the Hebrew Torah.)

     In England, a Jewish attorney named Harold M. Wiener began a series of studies in 1909 which dealt with this same troublesome discrepancy between the LXX and the MT. He argued that this uncertainty as to the correct name in so many different passages rendered the use of names impractical and unsafe for the purposes of source division. Wiener also discussed the alleged discrepancies between the various laws of the Pentateuchal legislation, showing that these so-called disagreements were capable of easy reconciliation and required no diversity of authorship. While he conceded the presence of some non-Mosaic elements, he insisted upon the essential Mosaicity of the Pentateuch.

     The eminent successor of Kuenen at the University of Leiden, B. D. Eerdmans, also admitted that the force of this argument derived from Septuagintal data, and definitely asserted the impossibility of using the divine names as a clue to separate documents (Altestamentliche Studien, vol. 1, Die Komposition der Genesis, 1908). In this same work he attacked Wellhausian source division from an entirely different approach, that of comparative religions. He felt he could trace a primitive polytheistic background behind many of the sagas in  Genesis,  indicating a far greater antiquity in origin than either an 850 B.C. J or a 750 B.C. E. Even the ritual elements embodied in P were much older than the final codification of the laws themselves, because they reflected ideas belonging to a very early stage of religious development. The codifying priests included provisions of such antiquity that they themselves no longer fully understood their significance.

     According to Eerdmans, the Mosaic era should be recognized as the time when much of the Levitical ritual had its origin, rather than in the Exilic or post-exilic age (as the Documentarians had supposed). Moreover, from the standpoint of literary criticism, the fundamental unity of the  Genesis,  sagas was flagrantly violated by the artificial source division practiced by the Graf-Wellhausen school. Eerdmans therefore withdrew from the Documentary School altogether and denied the validity of the Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen theory in the preface of the above-mentioned work. He felt that the earliest written unit in the Pentateuch was a polytheistic Book of Adam (commencing at  Gen. 5:1),  which originated sometime before 700 B.C. (although of course the oral tradition upon which it was based was many centuries older). Later there was united with this another polytheistic work which he called an Israel recension. But after the “discovery” of  Deuteronomy,,  these earlier writings were re-edited according to a monotheistic reinterpretation, and after the Exile this entire work received some further expansions. In this alternative to the Graf-Wellhausen theory, we see a revival of the old supplementary approach, combined with an exaggerated dependence upon comparative religion techniques. But at least Eerdmans showed how flimsy were the ‘assured results’ of Wellhausen scholarship under the impact of a fresh investigation of the data of the Hebrew text. The revered triad of J, E, and P was no longer so secure upon its pedestal.

     The attack of Sigmund Mowinckel, a Norwegian scholar, against the J-E source division was from a different standpoint, that of Form Criticism (see next section). In two articles published in the Zeitschrift für Altertumswissenschaft (1930) he denied the independence of the J and E traditions from each other, and denied also that E was of North Israelite origin. He asserted that E was simply a religious adaptation of J from the standpoint of a Judahite school. The stories of ancient times contained in E always depend upon the narratives contained in J, and E quite often employs Jahweh as a name for God. In this connection he denied that  Ex. 3:14,  represented a promulgation of Jahweh as a new name for God, but on the contrary it presupposed that Jahweh was already known to the Hebrews. (He shows from  Josh. 24:2–4,,  an E passage, that the author knew that Abraham had lived in Mesopotamia, even though all of this account in  Gen. 11,  had been assigned to J.) Mowinckel concluded that E was really not an author at all, but an oral tradition which continued the same body of material as that which found an earlier written form in J. E then signifies a long drawn-out process between the period when J found written form and the final inscripturation of the E material after the fall of the Jewish monarchy.

     W. F. Albright expresses skepticism concerning the reliability of the divine-names criterion, saying, “The discovery of relatively wide limits of textual variation antedating the third century B.C. makes the minute analysis of the Pentateuch which became fashionable after Wellhausen completely absurd. While it is quite true that there is less evidence of recensional differences in the Pentateuch than there is, for example, in  Samuel-Kings,,  there is already more than enough to warn against elaborate hypothetical analyses and against finding different ‘sources’ and ‘documents’ whenever there appears to be any flaw or inconsistency in the received text. Such a subjective approach to literary-historical problems was always suspect and has now become irrational.” (While Albright remains basically Documentarian in his acceptance of J, E, and P as separate written sources, he feels that they must be identified by other criteria than the use of Yahweh or Elohim alone, and that their history was somewhat more complicated than Wellhausen supposed. Cf. Albright, p. 34.)

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

The Problem Of The Old Testament

By James Orr 1907

IV. IMAGE-WORSHIP IN ISRAEL

A more important question than any of the above is — Was image-worship an original or permissible part of Israel’s religion? To most the Second Commandment would seem decisive on that point; but it is not so to the critics. The Decalogue is denied to Moses, and a principal reason for rejecting the precept prohibiting images is precisely that images are held to have been, in point of fact, worshipped. That there was deplorable defection, and lapsing into idolatry, in the time of the  Judges,  and under the kings, no one, of course, denies; it is the assertion of the Bible itself, and the constant subject of the denunciation of the prophets. It is a different matter when it is maintained that the worship of Jehovah was originally, and all down the history, by images. The assertions of the critics here are of the most positive kind. Wellhausen says roundly: “The prohibition of images was during the older period quite unknown.” Professor H. P. Smith tells us that even the great prophets “no doubt conceived God as existing in human form.” It was not, however, in human form, but under the image of a bull, that Jehovah is supposed to have been worshipped from ancient times in Israel. The support for this is chiefly drawn from the calf-worship set up by Jeroboam in Northern Israel, and confirmatory evidences are sought in the ephod of Gideon, the images of  Micah,  the brazen serpent of Moses. It is allowed that there was no image of Jehovah in the temple at Jerusalem; but it is urged that there were other visible symbols, and that images were common among the people. Nothing, in our view, could be more baseless than this contention, but it will be well to look at the subject more closely.

1. We are entitled to say that the oldest periods of the history afford no confirmation of this theory. The worship of the patriarchs, in the Book of  Genesis,  was without images. The only apparent exception, as before noticed, is in the “teraphim” of Laban’s family. What these “teraphim” were is obscure. They are probably correctly enough described by Kuenen as “images which were revered as household gods, and consulted as to the future.” They were at any rate not images of Jehovah, and were put away by Jacob at Shechem as incompatible with the pure worship of God. In the cases of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Joseph, or, indeed, of any of the patriarchs, image-worship is not so much as hinted at. “The worship of God in the house of Abraham,” as Dillmann says, “was imageless.” Baudissin, indeed, would carry back the bull-worship even to Abraham; but this is baseless conjecture. Again, in Mosaic times, and in the Book of  Joshua,  there is no suggestion of a lawful worship of images. The only recorded instance of image-worship is in the making of the golden calf at Sinai, and this is denounced and punished as a flagrant transgression, which all but cost the people their covenant privilege. The prohibitions of image-worship, and of participation in the idolatry of the Canaanites, are, on the other hand, absolute. The brazen serpent erected by Moses was not an image of Jehovah, or an image for worship at all, though it became at a later time an object of worship to the Israelites, and was in consequence destroyed by Hezekiah. Neither Moses nor Joshua — none of the leaders — showed the least tendency to image-worship. The first notice of idolatrous practices in the wilderness journeyings is in the prophet  Amos  —if even there.

2. When we pass to the Book of  Judges,  it is different. We are now in a period expressly signalised as one of declension and sinful adoption of Canaanitish idolatries. But even here we seek in vain in the greater part of the book for evidence of an image-worship of Jehovah. The sin for which the people are blamed is much more that of forsaking Jehovah, and serving “the Baalim and the Ashtaroth” (Astartes), “the Baalim and the Asheroth” (sacred trees or poles), of their heathen neighbours, — an undeniable violation of fundamental law, — than image-worship of their own God. One clear example of the latter is in the case of the Ephraimite Micah, whose images were carried off by the Danites. The other case usually cited is that of Gideon, who, after his victory over the Midianites, made from the spoils a golden “ephod,” which, it is declared, became a “snare” to Gideon and his house. On this mistaken act of a man whose zeal had been conspicuous against the Baal altars and the Asherahs, a whole edifice of rickety conjecture is built up. It is first assumed that Gideon’s “ephod” was an “image” of Jehovah; it is next taken for granted that the image was in the form of a bull; lastly, it is concluded that bull-worship, or at least image-worship, was common among the people. It may be observed that, even if it were true that Gideon made an image for worship, these sweeping inferences would not be justified. There would in itself be nothing more wonderful in this heroic man falling in his latter days into the sin of idolatry, than there is in Solomon, in his old age, building idolatrous shrines for his wives. But the inferences are unwarranted on other grounds. What the text says is, not that Gideon made an “image,” but that he made an “ephod” —a massive and costly piece of work, certainly, and not designed for actual use, but in some way suggestive of the high priest and his oracle. There is no indication that he meant the ephod for worship. Least of all is there any ground for the assertion that it was an image in the form of a bull. The ephod is expressly declared to have become a “snare” to Gideon and his house: a condemnatory statement not to be got rid of by the too easy hypothesis of interpolation. There remains, therefore, as the single prop of the theory of an image-worship of Jehovah in the time of the  Judges,  the case of Micah, who made for himself “a graven image and a molten image,” a sanctuary, “an ephod (here evidently distinguished from the images) and teraphim”: an undisputed instance of idolatry in the worship of Jehovah. We willingly make a present of this weak-minded, superstitious Ephraimite, and of the Danites who stole his images from him, to the critics; but decline to accept his behaviour as evidence of the fundamental law, or better religious practice, in Israel. It is more to the point to notice that even Micah does not appear to have had images till his mother suggested this use of the stolen silver to him.

3. The stronghold of the case for image-worship, however, is in the two calves of gold which Jeroboam set up at Bethel and Dan, after the division of the kingdom. It is true that no hint is given that such images were known before in Israel, unless the words, “Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” be an allusion to the golden calf of  Ex. 32;  but it is thought unlikely that Jeroboam would set up a symbol entirely new, and it is pointed out — at least alleged — that no protest was made against the worship of the calves by prophets like Elijah and Amos. The denunciations in the Books of  Kings  are regarded as representing a later point of view. Here, again, the history which we have is thrust aside and a new history invented which suits the critic’s theory. No ingenuity, however, can give this new theory the semblance of probability. How strange, if this was an old and well-known custom in Israel, that absolutely no trace of it should be discoverable, or that it should need to be “revived”! How remarkable that nothing of this bull-worship should be known in Jerusalem, or in the temple, the seat of Jehovah’s worship, in which there was no image, or, apparently, in Judah generally, where it was universally regarded as an abomination! The narrator in the Book of  Kings,  who had access to old records, plainly regarded it as something new. The judgment of the prophets, when we turn to these, does not differ from that of the Book of  Kings. Hosea,  it is generally admitted, is unsparing in his denunciation of the calves, and he was a prophet of Northern Israel. It is held, however, that his attitude in this respect is not that of his predecessors. “There is no feature in  Hosea’s  prophecy,” says Professor W. R. Smith, “which distinguishes him from earlier prophets so sharply as his attitude to the golden calves, the local symbols of Jehovah adored in the Northern sanctuaries. Elijah and Elisha had no quarrel with the traditional1 worship of their nation. Even  Amos  never speaks in condemnation of the calves.” This last sentence is astonishing. To the ordinary reader  Amos  and  Hosea  would seem to speak with precisely the same voice on the Northern calf-worship—  Amos,  if possible, with the greater vehemence of the two. “When I visit the transgressions of Israel upon him,” says this prophet, “I will also visit the altars of Bethel.” “Come to Bethel,” he exclaims, “and transgress.” He speaks of those “that swear by the sin of Samaria, and that swear, As thy god, O Dan, liveth.” Even Kuenen agrees that  Amos  speaks in the same way as Hosea of the calf-worship.

With greater plausibility it may be maintained that there is no direct denunciation of the calf-worship by Elijah and Elisha. The argument from silence, however, is a peculiarly unsafe one here. In the only episodes in which Elijah is brought before us, he is engaged in a life-and-death struggle of another kind—the conflict between Jehovah and Baal arising from the introduction of the Tyrian Baal-worship into Samaria by Ahab and Jezebel. It requires great faith to believe that a stern and zealous monotheist like Elijah could have any toleration for the calf-worship, which every other prophet of that age is represented as denouncing. It is a sounder application of the argument from silence to observe that Elijah is never found as a worshipper in the neighbourhood of Bethel or Dan, and that he never drops a word indicative of recognition of that worship. When he speaks despairingly of Jehovah’s altars being thrown down, he can hardly have included Bethel and Dan among their number, for these altars stood, and doubtless had their crowds of worshippers. We may suppose that to him they would be practically in the category of the Baal-altars. And does his threatening to Ahab, “I will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat,” etc., convey no allusion to that by which peculiarly Jeroboam “made Israel to sin”?

A dispassionate review, therefore, of this long catalogue of superstitions alleged to belong to pre-prophetic religion in Israel fails to establish the theory of the critics that any one of these formed part of the genuine religion of Israel. They show abundant defection in particular periods from the pure norm of that religion; but the evidence is overwhelming that they were foreign to the true genius of the religion, were condemned by its laws and by the prophets, and at no time received countenance from its great representatives. The ideas on which the religion rested — the unity, holiness, universal providence, and saving purpose of God — were, as before shown, entirely distinct from those of other religions. As it is with the idea of God and with the adjuncts of His worship, so, we shall next see, it is with the institutions of the religion.

The Problem of the Old Testament

From The Holiness of God

By R.C. Sproul

     The biblical record contains the stories of men and women who have wrestled with God. The very name Israel means “one who strives with God.” God is holy. He is high above us, transcendent. Yet He is a God with whom we can wrestle. In our wrestling match the goal is not final war but final peace. Some have found it. In this chapter we will look at examples of people who have gone to the mat with God and come away at peace. We will look at Jacob, Job, Habakkuk, and Saul of Tarsus. Then we will examine what it means to make peace with God.

     Jacob was a rascal. His name means “Supplanter.” He was the fellow who deceived his father, conned his brother, and entered into an ungodly conspiracy with his mother. It is hard to imagine that the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham could be so corrupt. But in the course of his life he underwent a radical transformation. It started at Bethel:

     See Genesis 28:10-11 in yesterday's Daily Bible reading.

     Travel in ancient Palestine was often an ordeal. The evening brought danger from marauding thieves and wild beasts. On Jacob’s journey there was no way station for him to seek lodging. He traveled as far as he could until the sun went down. At that point he made camp under the stars. His pillow for the night was a stone. When he settled into sleep, he had a dream that was destined to change his life:

     See Genesis 28:12-15 in yesterday's Daily Bible reading.

     The stairway Jacob saw in his dream is commonly referred to as Jacob’s ladder. It served as a bridge between heaven and earth. Up to this point in his life Jacob was not a man who was in touch with heavenly things. He had a profound sense of the absence of God. It seems strange that a son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham would be so “secular.” Abraham had spoken with God. Surely young Jacob had sat around camp fires and heard stories from his father and grandfather. He must have known about God’s order to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar at Mount Moriah.

     Jacob’s life had been lived out on the plane of this world. Talk about heavenly matters had made little impression upon him. His mind was fixed on the earth. As far as he was concerned there was an unbridgeable chasm between heaven and earth. If there was a God, He was so remote, so utterly transcendent that He had no relevance to Jacob’s life. This God of whom his parents spoke was too high for Jacob to reach. Until he had a dream.

     The dream featured a stairway. The stairway was a contact point, a connection between the realm of the holy and the realm of the profane. On the stairway Jacob saw angels ascending and descending. They were moving in both directions, from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. The traffic was continuous. They moved from the presence of God to the presence of men. At the top of the staircase Jacob saw the figure of God. God spoke to him confirming the promise that He had made earlier to Abraham and Isaac. The promise of God would continue to future generations. It was going to pass through Jacob. He would be the carrier of the covenant oath that God had sworn. God promised to be with Jacob wherever he went and to stay with him until all the promises had been accomplished.

     Whatever happened to Jacob’s ladder? The image virtually disappears in Old Testament history. Centuries pass with no mention of it. Then suddenly, it appears again in the New Testament:

     45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

     Jesus’ words to Nathanael were radical. In this conversation He declared that He is the ladder of Jacob; He is the bridge between heaven and earth; He is the one who spans the chasm between the Transcendent One and mortal men. The angels of God ascend and descend upon Him. He makes the absent God present among us. Was this what Jacob saw in a dim, shadowy way?

     When Jacob awoke from his dream he was stunned. He was overcome by the power of his nighttime vision:

     See Genesis 28:16-17 in yesterday's Daily Bible reading.

     The name of the place where Jacob had his dream became known as “Bethel.” The word Bethel means in Hebrew “house of God.” There was no tabernacle there, no temple, no church. Jacob called it the house of God because there the Holy One made Himself known. Jacob’s words are typical of the plight modern man feels. Ours is a day when men feel a sense of the absence of God. We see no burning bushes, no pillars of fire, no incarnate Christ walking in our midst. We feel abandoned, thrown to the waters of a hostile, or even worse, indifferent universe. We seem locked into a world from which there is no exit, no stairway to the stars.

     Jacob felt the same way until he had his dream. His words are relevant to our modern situation. “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” God was there all the time. He was not remote from Jacob but Jacob had missed Him all his life. He was unaware of the presence of God. This tragic ignorance of God’s presence is played out in our culture every day in the lives of millions of people. God is here but we are unaware. The moment awareness of His divine presence begins, the deepest personal struggle a man can experience begins as well. The dream did not end Jacob’s struggle. It was the beginning of a struggle that was for keeps. From that moment on, he was fighting for his own soul.

     “How awesome is this place!” This was Jacob’s response to being in the house of God. People do not normally feel that way in church. There is no sense of awe, no sense of being in the presence of One who makes us tremble. The complaint that church is boring is never made by people in awe.

     Scholars do not agree on the precise time of Jacob’s conversion. Some locate it here at Bethel when he had the overwhelming sense of God’s presence. Others pinpoint it years later in Jacob’s life when he had his fateful wrestling match with God:

     (Ge 32:22–30) 22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”

     Obviously the “man” Jacob wrestled was more than a man—he was the angel of God. The battle was fierce, raging through the night with neither combatant gaining the upper hand. Finally the angel used the overpowering might of God to touch the socket of Jacob’s hip. Jacob’s “victory” was not one of conquest but of survival. He walked away from the duel, but he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

     The discussion with the angel about names is significant. The angel demanded the name of Jacob. The demand for the name was similar to the custom we have today of indicating surrender by saying “uncle.” For the combatant to yield his name meant that he was acknowledging the superiority of the other party. The yielding of the name was an act of submission. When Jacob surrendered his name, he surrendered his soul. He relinquished authority over his own life. With the surrender came a new name, a new identity. Israel.

     In defeat Jacob was still hoping for a draw, a tie in the contest that would leave his pride intact. Even a split decision would help. He said to the angel, “Please tell me your name.” Note the difference in the name-exchange issue. The angel demanded Jacob’s name and Jacob surrendered it. Jacob politely requested the angel’s name and did not get it. This was the final act of divine conquest. There are no draws with God, no split decisions. When we wrestle with the Almighty, we lose. He is the undefeated champion of the universe.

     The Holy One cannot be defeated in personal combat. But there is some consolation here. Jacob wrestled with God and lived. He was beaten; he was left crippled, but he survived that battle. At least we can learn from this that God will engage us in our honest struggles. We may wrestle with the Holy One. Indeed, for the transforming power of God to change our lives there is a sense in which we must wrestle with Him. We must know what it means to fight with God all night if we are also to know what it means to experience the sweetness of the soul’s surrender.

Robert Charles Sproul, 2/13/1939 – 12/14/2017 was an American theologian, author, and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. Dr. R.C. Sproul was founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education and discipleship organization located near Orlando, Fla. He was also copastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., chancellor of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Dr. Sproul has contributed dozens of articles to national evangelical publications, has spoken at conferences, churches, and schools around the world, and has written more than one hundred books. He also served as general editor of the Reformation Study Bible.

The Pilgrim's Progress From This World To That Which Is To Come;
Delivered Under The Similitude Of A Dream

By John Bunyan 1678

THE THIRD STAGE

“We have a strong city;
he sets up salvation
as walls and bulwarks.  ESV

Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.

     He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.

     Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, “He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.” Then he stood still a while, to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.

Zech. 12:10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.   ESV

     Now as he stood looking and weeping, behold, three Shining Ones came to him, and saluted him with, “Peace be to thee.” So the first said to him, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,”

Mark 2:5 And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”   ESV

the second stripped him of his rags, and clothed him with change of raiment,

Zech. 3:4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.”   ESV

the third also set a mark on his forehead,

Eph. 1:13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,   ESV

and gave him a roll with a seal upon it, which he bid him look on as he ran, and that he should give it in at the celestial gate: so they went their way. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing,

“Thus far did I come laden with my sin,
Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in,
Till I came hither. What a place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here the burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!”

     I saw then in my dream, that he went on thus, even until he came at the bottom, where he saw, a little out of the way, three men fast asleep, with fetters upon their heels. The name of the one was Simple, of another Sloth, and of the third Presumption.

     Christian then seeing them lie in this case, went to them, if peradventure he might awake them, and cried, you are like them that sleep on the top of a mast,

Prov. 23:34  You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
like one who lies on the top of a mast.

for the Dead Sea is under you, a gulf that hath no bottom: awake, therefore, and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, If he that goeth about like a roaring lion,

1 Pet. 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.   ESV

comes by, you will certainly become a prey to his teeth. With that they looked upon him, and began to reply in this sort: Simple said, I see no danger; Sloth said, Yet a little more sleep; and Presumption said, Every tub must stand upon its own bottom. And so they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way.

     Yet he was troubled to think that men in that danger should so little esteem the kindness of him that so freely offered to help them, both by awakening of them, counselling of them, and proffering to help them off with their irons. And as he was troubled thereabout, he espied two men come tumbling over the wall, on the left hand of the narrow way; and they made up apace to him. The name of the one was Formalist, and the name of the other Hypocrisy. So, as I said, they drew up unto him, who thus entered with them into discourse.

CHR. Gentlemen, whence came you, and whither do you go?

     FORM. AND HYP. We were born in the land of Vain-glory, and are going, for praise, to Mount Zion.

     CHR. Why came you not in at the gate which standeth at the beginning of the way? Know ye not that it is written, that “he that cometh not in by the door, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber?”

John 10:1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.   ESV

     FORM. AND HYP. They said, that to go to the gate for entrance was by all their countrymen counted too far about; and that therefore their usual way was to make a short cut of it, and to climb over the wall, as they had done.

     CHR. But will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the city whither we are bound, thus to violate his revealed will?

     FORM. AND HYP. They told him, that as for that, he needed not to trouble his head thereabout: for what they did they had custom for, and could produce, if need were, testimony that would witness it for more than a thousand years.

     CHR. But, said Christian, will you stand a trial at law?

     FORM. AND HYP. They told him, that custom, it being of so long standing as above a thousand years, would doubtless now be admitted as a thing legal by an impartial judge: and besides, said they, if we get into the way, what matter is it which way we get in? If we are in, we are in: thou art but in the way, who, as we perceive, came in at the gate; and we also are in the way, that came tumbling over the wall: wherein now is thy condition better than ours?

     CHR.  I walk by the rule of my Master:  you walk by the rude working of your fancies. You are counted thieves already by the Lord of the way: therefore I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. You come in by yourselves without his direction, and shall go out by yourselves without his mercy.

     To this they made him but little answer; only they bid him look to himself. Then I saw that they went on, every man in his way, without much conference one with another, save that these two men told Christian, that as to laws and ordinances, they doubted not but that they should as conscientiously do them as he. Therefore, said they, we see not wherein thou differest from us, but by the coat that is on thy back, which was, as we trow, given thee by some of thy neighbors, to hide the shame of thy nakedness.

     CHR. By laws and ordinances you will not be saved, since you came not in by the door.

Gal. 2:16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.   ESV

And as for this coat that is on my back, it was given me by the Lord of the place whither I go; and that, as you say, to cover my nakedness with. And I take it as a token of kindness to me; for I had nothing but rags before. And besides, thus I comfort myself as I go. Surely, think I, when I come to the gate of the city, the Lord thereof will know me for good, since I have his coat on my back; a coat that he gave me freely in the day that he stripped me of my rags. I have, moreover, a mark in my forehead, of which perhaps you have taken no notice, which one of my Lord’s most intimate associates fixed there in the day that my burden fell off my shoulders. I will tell you, moreover, that I had then given me a roll sealed, to comfort me by reading as I go on the way; I was also bid to give it in at the celestial gate, in token of my certain going in after it: all which things I doubt you want, and want them because you came not in at the gate.

     To these things they gave him no answer; only they looked upon each other, and laughed. Then I saw that they went all on, save that Christian kept before, who had no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly, and sometimes comfortably: also he would be often reading in the roll that one of the Shining Ones gave him, by which he was refreshed.

     I beheld then, that they all went on till they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty, at the bottom of which there was a spring. There were also in the same place two other ways besides that which came straight from the gate: one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring,

Isa. 49:10  they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them.

and drank thereof to refresh himself, and then began to go up the hill, saying,

“The hill, though high, I covet to ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the way to life lies here:
Come, pluck up heart, let’s neither faint nor fear.
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”

     The other two also came to the foot of the hill. But when they saw that the hill was steep and high, and that there were two other ways to go; and supposing also that these two ways might meet again with that up which Christian went, on the other side of the hill; therefore they were resolved to go in those ways. Now the name of one of those ways was Danger, and the name of the other Destruction. So the one took the way which is called Danger, which led him into a great wood; and the other took directly up the way to Destruction, which led him into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell, and rose no more.

     I looked then after Christian, to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now about the midway to the top of the hill was a pleasant Arbor, made by the Lord of the hill for the refreshment of weary travellers. Thither, therefore, Christian got, where also he sat down to rest him: then he pulled his roll out of his bosom, and read therein to his comfort; he also now began afresh to take a review of the coat or garment that was given to him as he stood by the cross. Thus pleasing himself awhile, he at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night; and in his sleep his roll fell out of his hand. Now, as he was sleeping, there came one to him, and awaked him, saying, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.”

Prov. 6:6  Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.

     And with that, Christian suddenly started up, and sped him on his way, and went apace till he came to the top of the hill.

     Pilgrim's Progress (Illustrated): Updated, Modern English. More than 100 Illustrations.

The Continual Burnt Offering

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

January 28

O teach me, Lord, that I may teach
The precious things Thou dost impart;
And wing my words, that they may reach
The hidden depths of many a heart.

O give Thine own sweet rest to me.
That I may speak with soothing power
A word in season, as from Thee,
To weary ones in needful hour.
--- F. R. Havergal