Trinitarian Worship

By Allen Vander Pol 4/1/2006

     When someone mentions Trinitarian worship, we may immediately think of the times when we make specific reference to the Trinity in our worship services. For example, we may think of some of the classic hymns of the church that mention the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The great hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” praises “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!” Or we may remember the progression of thought, from stanza to stanza, in “Come, Thou Almighty King.” After a stanza is devoted to each person of the Trinity, the hymn offers praises “to the great One in Three.” Frequently we sing the so-called “Doxology,” which concludes with, “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Besides the hymns we sing, many churches recite one of the ecumenical creeds each Sunday. These statements of faith are structured around the Trinity. Certainly the doctrine of the Trinity receives continual attention in classic Protestant worship.

     But worship that is in spirit and truth is Trinitarian also when the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly mentioned. In worship, the congregation lifts its collective heart to God to declare His worth. As the flow of worship progresses and God is praised, the congregation’s approach to God is always Trinitarian.

     Paul taught this when he wrote Ephesians. In Ephesians 2:18 he wrote, “For through him Christ] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” This announcement belongs to a paragraph that presents several reasons why Christ’s church is one. Paul explained that all Christians today, whether Jews or Gentiles, enjoy the same peace with God and stand on the same foundation where Christ is the cornerstone. Though, in the past, there was deep hostility between Jew and Gentile due to God’s sovereign dealings with mankind, the dividing wall of hostility was destroyed when Christ atoned for our sins. Now all who trust in Christ for divine forgiveness share one approach to God: through Christ, in one Spirit, to the Father. This universal — or catholic — approach to God is always Trinitarian.

     The reason true worship is Trinitarian is that God’s revelation of Himself to us, especially His saving revelation, is Trinitarian. When the Father sent the Son, the Son came in the power of the Spirit. Since the Father saved us through the Son by the power of the Spirit, we approach Him using the same pathway: through Christ we all have access in one Spirit to the Father. It becomes clear that our worship is our response to the Gospel of Christ. Our way of approaching God reflects the way He has approached us.

     Trinitarian worship is experienced in all the parts of a Christian worship service. When the early church assembled together, “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). Many Protestant reformers saw in this verse the content of the worship services that were under the authority of the apostles. The early church assembled to sit under the teaching of God’s Word and to engage in “fellowship,” or sharing, which included sharing financially with the needy. Through God’s means of grace, they received assurance of faith through the sacramental signs, and they prayed together. In these various acts of worship the church either received grace from God or offered itself to God’s service. In each part of their corporate worship they engaged in worship that was Trinitarian.

     The church receives grace when it prays, receives God’s Word, and receives the sacraments. These are means appointed by God for the Holy Spirit to impart or strengthen our Christian faith. Receiving grace through the use of these means is a Trinitarian experience because they are appointed by God to offer grace, they direct our faith to the Son of God, and they are powerless unless the Spirit is present to apply grace to our hearts. As the congregation lifts its heart to receive, the triune God condescends to give.

     The church also lifts its united heart to God when it offers itself to God’s service. Our prayer and gifts are offered “in the Spirit” to Christ, the Father’s gift to us (Eph. 6:18). The congregation’s psalms, hymns, and spirituals songs constitute some of its prayers to God. Such songs are addressed to God in Jesus’ name and are enabled by the presence of the Spirit. Singing that properly belongs to Christian worship offers to the triune God our words of praise, confession, and thanksgiving. Through these acts of worship, including prayer and gifts both offered to God, the church approaches God, depending on Christ’s merits to be received and on His Spirit’s presence to be sanctified.

     Such worship is both simple and profound. It is simple because God’s grace directs our faith to Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and man. In Christ we meet the face of the Father and the power of the Spirit. In Christ we entrust ourselves to the gift of the Father and the testimony of the Spirit. In Christ we become children of God and the temple of the Spirit. By worshiping in the name of one person, our Lord Jesus Christ, we engage in Trinitarian worship.

     True worship is also profound because we never exhaust all that there is to know, do, or feel in God’s presence. Certainly the reality of God’s transcendence, mercy, and presence will always humble us, move us, baffle us, and excite us. Through faith in Christ we enter heaven, the home of God, and God enters us, making us His temple. In Christ we begin to experience the privilege for which we were first created: to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Therefore we sing: “For His favor, praise forever unto God the Father sing; praise the Savior, praise Him ever, Son of God, our Lord and King. Praise the Spirit; through Christ’s merit, He doth us salvation bring” (from the Trinity Hymnal #243, “Praise the Savior Now and Ever”).

• God in Three Persons: Biblical Testimony to the Trinity

Theology Has Consequences

By Tabletalk 4/1/2006

     Richard Weaver first made a name for himself when he published his seminal work, Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition. It is a brief work with ideas that are still reaping consequences. He was to the secular academic world something of a Francis Schaeffer, introducing thousands to the concept of worldview, arguing that what we think about little things, more often than not, is determined by what we think about big things. Weaver demonstrated how a modernist worldview was not something academia simply studied, but it was instead something that shaped academia. Indeed, modernism is academia’s mother. You wouldn’t have the latter if you did not first have the former. Schaeffer named many of the strongholds we are called to tear down, the sundry “isms” that we in the evangelical world carefully study, the same ones we once studiously ignored.

     While I don’t deny the importance of the study of worldviews, I’m afraid there just might be something modernist about our modern fascination with “isms,” whether we’re fighting or promoting them. The Bible does argue that we fight against every lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, but on the other hand, it spends far more time worrying about sins on a grand scale. The children of Israel, for instance, are never sent a prophet who thunders against them because they have embraced behaviorism. He never destroys a city with fire and brimstone because the citizens there believed in utilitarianism. No, the problem doesn’t have much academic allure. The problem was always idolatry. Nations rise and fall, cultures ebb and flow, based on this simple question: do they worship the true and living God? Worldviews may shape how we see the world, but theology shapes our worldviews.

     We are a schizophrenic people. We have a love/hate relationship with our own nation/history/culture. We, at least within the church, prefer to define ourselves in light of the heroes of our past. We are the heirs of the Puritans and the Pilgrims, faithful men and women. We are the children of Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, George Washington. We were, and there is the heartache, were, a great people. Today we are a nation of looters and rapists. We are child predators and baby killers. Today, third world nations, with pity in their hearts, send missionaries here, for the sake of our souls. And so we want to know where it all went wrong. When did our city on a hill become Sodom and Gomorrah?

     Of course, since the fall of Adam, wherever we were, there we would find the seed of our own destruction. But such doesn’t mean we can’t look for particular forces that toppled us in a particular direction. Some, for instance, see the war between the States as the great moment of national apostasy. Others look to the Scopes “Monkey” Trial as a watershed moment when we turned our backs on the God who had so blessed us. Still others think it all went wrong when prayer was removed from the state’s schools. A few might argue that it was January, 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade.

     I’d like to posit a different theory. The handwriting was already on the wall, we had already been tried in the balance and found wanting, when our New England forbears jettisoned not just the rugged Calvinism that had sustained them in times of hardship, but when they began to embrace Unitarianism. Here the problem isn’t simply the playing fast and loose with the Bible. The problem wasn’t merely the Pelagian revival, the notion that culturally speaking, we could create the New Man, and usher in paradise on earth. The problem wasn’t the smug pride that drove the rejection not only of the Bible, but of the wisdom of our fathers in church history. The problem was this, we stopped worshiping the true and living God. The evil of Unitarianism is that it isn’t Trinitarianism.

     So now what do we do? We do not simply change our worldview. We do not simply elect better politicians. We do not merely refute Darwin or Skinner or Derrida. All of this is lopping the tops off of dandelions, bandaging cancer cells. No. There is but one way for us as individuals, as families, as churches, as a culture, to become once more pleasing in God’s sight. We must worship God in spirit and in truth, which means we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We repent for our idolatry, and we turn away from it.

     The historians will argue for centuries over what brought about the downfall of this once great land. Dissertations will be written, and tenures will be denied. Great schools of thought will do battle with competing schools. Arguments as elaborate and as rickety as the tower of Babel will rise and fall, like rising and falling empires. But there is only one thing that exalts a nation, one way for a nation to enjoy blessing from the true and living God, and that is our worship of Him and Him alone. We will only enjoy His blessing when we pray, “And may the blessing of God Almighty — Father, Son and, Holy Spirit, abide with you now and always.” So let it be done, for the sake of our fathers, for the sake of our children, and for the glory of our triune God.

Triune Monarchy

By R.C. Sproul 4/1/2006

     The most basic affirmation the Scriptures make regarding the nature of God is that He is one. The shema of Deuteronomy 6 reads as follows: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (v. 4). These words that preface the great commandment are axiomatic to the biblical understanding of the nature of God. Old and New Testaments together bear witness to the eternal truth that there exists one God — monotheism. Another term for monotheism is the word monarchianism, meaning that the God of the Bible is a monarch. Monarch comes from a Greek word that has a prefix and a root. The prefix mono means “one” or “single.” The root word archē means “beginning, chief, or ruler.” We hear of archbishops, archenemies, archangels, all of which employ the root term archē.

     A monarchy is a form of government in which the rule is restricted to one person, a king or a queen, as distinguished from the rule of the few (oligarchy) or the rule of many (plutarchy). The doctrine of the Trinity, central to Christian confession, is not the result of abstract speculation. Rather, it is the result of the church’s reflection on the teaching of the Bible. With respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, or what I call “triune monarchy,” the church was faced with two distinct issues. The first was the responsibility to exercise fidelity to the Bible. The second was to be clear in its rejection of heretical doctrine.

     Two virulent monarchian heresies emerged in the first three hundred years of the Christian church. The first was called Modalistic Monarchianism, as expressed in the heretical views of Sabellius. This form of monarchianism will be treated in another article in this issue of Tabletalk. Suffice to say, it was condemned at Antioch in 267 ad. Perhaps even more serious was the “Dynamic Monarchianism” of Arius, which threatened Christian orthodoxy in the beginning of the fourth century. It resulted in the Council of Nicea and the Nicene Creed. The theological struggles of the first three centuries were based upon the church’s desire to be faithful to biblical monotheism (monarchianism) and at the same time to be faithful to the attribute of deity for each of the three persons in the Godhead.

     The church looked at the role of Jesus in creation and in redemption as the only begotten Son of the Father who wrought for us our redemption. There are multiple manifestations of biblical claims for Jesus as God, as seen, for example, in the kenotic hymn of Philippians 2:6–11, in the high Christology of the book of Hebrews, in the “I AM” sayings found in the gospel of John, in the worship that is given to Jesus without rebuke (Matt. 14:33), such as in the case of Thomas at Christ’s resurrection appearance (John 20:24–29). But there is no passage of Scripture that more occupied the attention of the theologians of the early church than that found in the prologue to the gospel of John (1:1–18). In this prologue, Jesus is identified as the incarnate Logos, the Word who became flesh. This concept is so profound in the opening verses of John’s gospel that it preoccupied the finest minds of the church for the first three hundred years of the church’s existence.

     What is so striking about John’s prologue is found in its opening words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (1:1–4). These few verses are staggering in their affirmation. On the one hand, the Logos is distinguished from God, inasmuch as John writes that in the beginning the Word was with God. By using the term with, the Logos is distinguished from God, even though He was with Him from the beginning. But then the profundity intensifies in the very next clause where the affirmation is made that the Word was God. On the one hand, the Word is distinguished from God. On the other hand, the Word is identified with God. A Christology that honors these two affirmations of the prologue of John must include an identification of the second person of the Trinity with God, while at the same time having some distinction in it that would distinguish the Father from the Son and, subsequently, from the Holy Spirit.

     So in the formula of the Trinity, the church bows to sacred Scripture, honoring both the unity of God and the distinctions among the persons of the Godhead. The formula made use of terms such as person, subsistence, hypostasis, in an attempt to get at the unity and the distinction within God Himself. In addition to affirming the deity of Jesus, without which deity it would be blasphemous for Him to be an object of worship in the church, the Holy Spirit is also described in the Scriptures in terms of divine attributes. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is infinite. He is eternal. He is actively involved in the divine work of creation, and in conjunction with His being the author of life and human intelligence, He is active in empowering the work of Christ in redemption. We see in the Bible that the work of creation involves the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as the work of redemption includes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three are testified to uniformly by the Scriptures as being divine. They are not three gods, because the unity of God remains axiomatic in the monarchianism of sacred Scripture. The church still declares that the Lord our God is one. He is one being, though we must distinguish within that one being the subsistences of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

     Therefore, the church distinguishes among the three persons but sees these distinctions as not essential in character. They are essential in the sense of being absolutely vital and important for a true understanding of God, but they are not essential insofar as the distinctions among the three persons of the Godhead are not distinctions of essence, substance, or being, for God is one.

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 Trinity and Culture

By Gene Edward Veith 4/1/2006

     The doctrine of the Trinity is not only essential for good theology. Getting the Trinity right is also essential for love, politics, and art. God is an absolute union of three distinct persons. Thus, Scripture teaches that “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Not just that He is loving, but that He is, literally, love. That is, a union of distinct persons.

     Since God is love, His triune nature can teach us about what real love has to involve. According to the Athanasian Creed, we can err in regards to the Trinity either by “confounding the persons” (that is, smushing them all together into one) or by “dividing the substance” (that is, separating the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into three deities).

     There can be heretics in love, as well as in theology. Some relations make the mistake of “confounding the persons.” A husband wants his wife to be exactly like he is. He wants her to conform exactly to his will. He does not allow her to be a separate person. He says he loves her, but in expecting her to conform to what he is, he is really only loving himself. This is no more love than Unitarianism is Christianity.

     Or consider a family, in which the father, mother, and children each exist in their own self-contained worlds and have nothing to do with each other. They don’t have meals together, they don’t communicate with each other, they are content to just be themselves. They are “dividing the substance” of the family. The family members are separate persons, to be sure — and some families fall into the Unitarian heresy — but they lack unity. They think they love each other in their toleration, niceness, and acceptance of the others’ differences. But this is no more love than polytheism is Christianity.

     True love — whether for and from a man and a woman, family members, friends, neighbors, or God Himself — affirms the “otherness” of the beloved. And, at the same time, is “one” with the beloved. The two have their own identities, and they also identify with each other, so as to form a unity beyond themselves. This is love by Trinitarian standards.

     We can extend this to society as a whole. God Himself is a sort of community, three distinct persons in one essence. That we human beings were created in His image must account for our social nature. It is not good for us to be alone (Gen. 2:18). So He has placed us in families, communities, and nations, making us dependent on others for our very survival. In a Trinitarian society, each member is a separate, individual person who — out of love for his neighbor — joins with the other members into a corporate unity. Families, churches, companies, governments are all societies in which we have both individual and corporate identities.

     In this sinful world, of course, such societies often turn heretical. The high school social scene that demands absolute conformity — this would be an example of “confounding the persons,” suppressing the unique individuality of the persons who constitute the group. Another would be a dictatorship that controls its citizens by stamping out liberties.

     The opposite heresy would be an assemblage of people in which there is no unity, no admission of common bonds or obligations, in which everyone lives completely for himself. This would be “dividing the persons.”

     We can also apply the Trinity to the creation He has made. God made a “universe” of an astounding variety of different things, which cohere into elements, species, and ecosystems. As the Psalmist put it, “O Lord, how manifold are your works!” (Ps. 104:24). Cells, each with their own individuality, come together to form a single organism.

     “The body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body,” says the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 12:12). He uses biological facts about eyes, ears, and feet as an image of theological and moral truth about the organism of the church. These utterly different organs come together — in a Trinitarian way — to form one unified body. Similarly, the utterly diverse Christians — with their different personalities, backgrounds, and gifts — who together constitute nothing less than the body of Christ on earth, should treat each other in a Trinitarian way: honoring each other’s differences, while being completely united in Christ (see vv. 13–25). In the physical body, as in the communion of the saints, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (v. 26).

     The unity of variety is also a principle of aesthetics. Some works of art have unity — consider the black canvas of the modern art gallery — but no variety. Others have variety — consider the spattered canvas of the paint-flinging abstract expressionist — but no unity. But the greatest works of art, whether painting or music or literature, have “a lot to them,” filled with details and an abundance of elements interesting in their own terms. And yet — as in the multiple melodies of a Bach fugue or the innumerable characters and subplots of a Shakespeare play — they also all come together into a larger whole.

     This fallen world is a realm of heresies, but looming behind all that is true and good and satisfying is the triune God.

Confusing Truth and Fiction

By Gene Edward Veith 5/1/2006

     If you do much witnessing to people these days, you have probably run into this phenomenon: You tell them about Jesus, and they say something like, “Well, the church has twisted around what Jesus really said.” You press them on what they mean and what makes them think so, and they start telling you about a really good book they read that opened their eyes about Christianity, namely, The Da Vinci Code.

     The book is a novel, you might point out, topping the charts for best-selling fiction. That means, by its own admission, the book is not true. And yet, that probably will not faze the person who just knows that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that His message of free love and tolerance for all was distorted by an oppressive, male-dominated, puritanical institution that made up the Bible to fit their plan to take over the world. And that person knows it because he read it in a really exciting novel.

     That novel does make historical claims. Historians and other scholars have examined them and have shot down each and every one. Even otherwise liberal scholars admit that the claims of Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown are balderdash. He can get away with them by claiming that, hey, this is just a work of fiction. It doesn’t have to be historically correct. It’s made-up. Though Mr. Brown still, on his website, insists that what he says in his novel is historical, he has that cover, should he ever need it. But for that deluded soul you are witnessing to, pointing out the historical whoppers in the book may do no good at all in changing his mind.

     In our postmodern climate, people confuse truth and fiction. They think all truth is fiction. So they “choose” their beliefs according to the particular fiction they “like.”

     Modernists and pre-modernists alike assumed that truth is something we can “discover.” Truth is “out there” apart from ourselves, an objective reality. We may know truth either completely or, more often, in a partial way, or we may remain ignorant of it. Some truths we can know through reason. Others through experience. Christians have always insisted that some truths we can know only through revelation. But “truth is truth,” whether we like it or not.

     Postmodernists, though, reject the objectivity of truth. They see truth not as a discovery but as a “construction.” The culture “constructs” particular views of reality. Different cultures therefore have different truths.

     That is to say, whoever has “power” in the culture constructs a truth to keep the people out of power (women, minorities, those with different sexual preferences) in line. All truth-claims, therefore, are essentially oppressive. But what can be constructed can be deconstructed.

     Individuals who wake up to the controlling paradigms can be liberated from the oppressive power structure. They can “construct” their own truths. Or, better yet, the oppressed minorities can get together and construct competing paradigms that tell their stories in an “empowering way.”

     So the academic world today is awash in “alternate histories.” The official histories, we are told, are also fictitious in their own ways, leaving out certain people and playing down certain events. So there is nothing wrong with “marginalized” people playing the same game in the same way to advance their power interests for a change.

     This equivalence of truth and fiction is taught in our major universities, and — however esoteric it may seem — has metastasized throughout the culture. Our information media are major carriers. We have new genre-blending art forms such as non-fiction novels and docu-dramas, plus Hollywood’s need to spin facts to make them more entertaining.

     A network news show did a consumer report on safety problems in an automobile. But the collisions they engineered did not always cause a good, photogenic explosion. So the network used explosives to blow up the car. Viewers, believing what they saw on the screen, watched the car explode and assumed this was evidence for a really bad safety problem, but it was all fiction. The filmmaker Oliver Stone did a movie, JFK, on the Kennedy assassination, mixing factual footage with a lurid thriller plot, in which the CIA and the military-industrial complex conspired to murder the president. Polls show that a substantial number of Americans believe that the movie version is what actually happened.

     The Da Vinci Code dramatizes all the postmodernist clichés: The white males who constructed Christianity are really just concerned about getting power so they can oppress women and free spirits. But here is an alternative narrative that is much more liberating. And because this newly constructed fiction is cool, fun to imagine, and allows sin, people buy into it as their truth. Christians once had to persuade non-believers that there is a God. Now Christians have to persuade non-believers that there is a truth.

Numbers 3

By Don Carson 4/26/2018

     From Sinai on, the Levites are treated differently from the other tribes: they alone handle the tabernacle and its accoutrements, from them come the priests, they are not given a separate allotment of land but are dispersed throughout the nation, and so forth. But here in Numbers 3, one of the most startling distinctives is portrayed.

     All the males one month of age and up from the tribe of Levi were counted. Their total was 22,000 (3:39). Then all the firstborn males one month of age and up from the rest of the Israelites were counted. Their total was 22,273 (3:43): the differential between the two figures is 273. God declares that because he spared all the Israelite firstborn at the first Passover in Egypt, the firstborn are peculiarly his (3:13). The assumption, of course, is that at one level they too should have died: they were not intrinsically better than the Egyptians who did. They had been protected by the blood of the Passover lamb God had prescribed. Clearly God was not now going to demand the life of all the Israelite firstborn. Instead, he insists that they are all his in a peculiar way — but that he will accept, instead of all the firstborn males of all Israel, all the males of the tribe of Levi. Since the two totals do not exactly coincide, the 273 extra firstborn males from Israel must be redeemed some other way, and so a redemption tax is applied (3:46-48).

     There are some lessons to be learned. One of them is intrinsic to the narrative and already noted: the Israelites were not intrinsically superior to the Egyptians, not intrinsically exempt from the wrath of the destroying angel. More importantly, those saved by the blood belong to the Lord in some peculiar way. If God has accepted the blood that was shed in their place, he does not demand that they die: he demands that they live for him and his service. Owing to the covenantal requirements of the Sinai code, a substitution is accepted: the Levites substitute for all the Israelites who should have come under the sweep of the Passover requirement.

     The fulfillment of these patterns under the terms of the new covenant is not hard to find. We are saved from death by the death of the supreme Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). Those saved by his blood belong to the Lord in a peculiar way, i.e., not only by virtue of creation but by virtue of redemption (1 Cor. 6:20). He demands that we live for him and his service, and in this we constitute a nation of priests (1 Peter 2:5-6; Rev. 1:6).

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).

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 42

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

By Gleason Archer Jr.

Micah

     The name  Micah is a shortened form of Mɩ̄-kā-Yāhū, which means “Who is like Jehovah?” The basic theme of his message is that the necessary product of saving faith is social reform and practical holiness based upon the righteousness and sovereignty of God. Because of the general lack of such saving faith, both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms are destined to experience God’s wrath. Yet after the punishment is over, the nation will be restored and the Messiah will eventually come.

Outline of Micah

I. Sentence of God upon both idolatrous kingdoms,  1:1–16

     A. God to crush Israel’s pride because of broken law,  1:1–4
     B. Punishment for idolatry: destruction of Samaria,  1:5–7
     C. Lament over the coming (Assyrian) invasion; its progress, city by city,  1:8–16

II. Bill of particulars: oppression by upper classes,  2:1–3:12

     A. Exploitation of the defenseless lower class as by the idle rich,  2:1–13
     B. The government a devourer instead of a defender of its citizens,  3:1–4
     C. Contrast between the corrupt state religion and the power and the message of God-fearing preachers,  3:5–8
     D. The utter destruction to be meted out on these three evil groups,  3:9–12

III. Ultimate triumph of God’s grace,  4:1–5:15

     A. Messianic triumph of the kingdom of God over the world,  4:1–8
     B. Necessary conditions to be first fulfilled: suffering, exile, restoration, judgment upon heathen neighbors,  4:9–13
     C. The divine-human Victor who shall bring this to pass, defending His flock, destroying the world powers,  5:1–6
     D. Triumph of Israel after humbling and purging from idolatry,  5:7–15

IV. God’s controversy with unfaithful Israel,  6:1–16

     A. Summons to the Northern Kingdom to respond to God in view of His exodus mercies,  6:1–5
     B. Response of an awakened conscience: holy living must accompany valid worship; yet Israel is still dishonest and oppressive,  6:6–13
     C. Failure to repent will be followed by a crop failure; the “clever” policy of alliance with unbelievers is to be discredited,  6:14–16

V. Fulfillment of covenant promise to the faithful remnant,  7:1–20

     A. Lament of true Israel over prevalence of barbarous selfishness and shameful corruption in their own land,  7:1–6
     B. True Israel’s continued trust in God’s mercy,  7:7–10
     C. Christ’s triumph through the church age and the millennium,  7:11–20

Micah: Authorship

     Micah was a citizen of the Southern Kingdom, having been born at Moresheth near Gath, about twenty miles west of Jerusalem. His father’s name is not given, and we may conclude that his family was of humble origin. It is significant that his preaching ministry was especially preoccupied with the sufferings of the common people and of the peasants in the agricultural areas who were exploited by rich and unscrupulous, landed nobility.  Micah seems to have spent much of his lifetime in the provincial areas rather than at the capital city of Jerusalem. Hence he was not in as close touch with international politics as was his contemporary,  Isaiah. Yet he did devote at least one chapter (chap.  6 ) to the declining career of the Northern Kingdom.

Micah: Date of Composition

     Micah’s ministry was contemporary with the earlier career of  Isaiah, that is, during the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah. Interestingly enough, the books of these prophets contain one passage in common ( Mic. 4:1–3 and  Isa. 2:2–4 ), an oracle relating to the Millennial Kingdom. Since Israel is addressed in  Micah 6 as if it were still capable of escaping divine judgment through a last-minute repentance, it may be fairly deduced that  Micah commenced his ministry at least before the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C. The conditions of corruption and immorality in Judah as  Micah depicts them correspond well with what is known of the reign of Ahaz (742–728), or else possibly of the earliest years of Hezekiah’s reign as co-regent with Ahaz (728–725). Actually Micah’s career must have begun even earlier than Ahaz’ reign, for  1:1 speaks of his prophesying in the reign of Jotham (751–736). As to the question of when his preaching ministry ceased, there is no certain evidence. From  Jer. 26:18–19, we learn that his earnest warnings during the reign of Hezekiah were taken seriously, and made an important contribution to the revival which took place under government sponsorship.

Micah: Integrity of the Text

     Some critics have challenged the authenticity of certain portions of chapters  6 and  7 on the ground that they contain thoughts and motifs which occur elsewhere only in passages from a later period of Israel’s history. For example, they prophesy the regathering of God’s dispersed people after a term of exile, and foretell the destruction of Israel’s foes on a catastrophic scale, to be followed by the ultimate triumph of Israel over the heathen under the lordship of the Messiah. Heinrich Ewald assigned chapters  6 and  7 to an unknown author living in the reign of Manasseh (697–642). Julius Wellhausen even regarded  7:7–20 as exilic in origin and contemporary with Deutero -  Isaiah; yet some of his more moderate successors like Driver (ILOT, pp. 308–13) question the necessity of so late a date being assigned to it. But all antisupernaturalists unite in denying the genuineness of  4:10: “Thou shalt come even unto Babylon: there shalt thou be rescued; there will Jehovah redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies” (ASV). Such predictions as these are impossible except upon the basis of supernatural revelation. Hence no eighth - century author could have written this verse; it requires a foresight which is more than human. Therefore this verse is denied to  Micah on the grounds of antisupernatural bias, just as  Isa. 40–66 is denied to an eighth - century author, as we shall presently see.

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

The Continual Burnt Offering

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

April 26

Jehovah Tsidkenu, my treasure and boast,
Jehovah Tsidkenu, I ne’er can be lost,
By Thee I shall conquer through flood or by field,
My cable, my anchor, my breast-plate and shield.
--- R. M. McCheyne

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Translated by Henry Beveridge

     32. It is certain that the use of singing in churches (which I may mention in passing) is not only very ancient, but was also used by the Apostles, as we may gather from the words of Paul, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also," (1 Cor. 14:15). In like manner he says to the Colossians, "Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord," (Col. 3:16). In the former passage, he enjoins us to sing with the voice and the heart; in the latter, he commends spiritual Songs, by which the pious mutually edify each other. That it was not an universal practice, however, is attested by Augustine (Confess. Lib. 9 cap. 7), who states that the church of Milan first began to use singing in the time of Ambrose, when the orthodox faith being persecuted by Justina, the mother of Valentinian, the vigils of the people were more frequent than usual; [482] and that the practice was afterwards followed by the other Western churches. He had said a little before that the custom came from the East. [483] He also intimates (Retract. Lib. 2) that it was received in Africa in his own time. His words are, "Hilarius, a man of tribunitial rank, assailed with the bitterest invectives he could use the custom which then began to exist at Carthage, of singing hymns from the book of Psalms at the altar, either before the oblation, or when it was distributed to the people; I answered him, at the request of my brethren." [484] And certainly if singing is tempered to a gravity befitting the presence of God and angels, it both gives dignity and grace to sacred actions, and has a very powerful tendency to stir up the mind to true zeal and ardor in prayer. We must, however, carefully beware, lest our ears be more intent on the music than our minds on the spiritual meaning of the words. Augustine confesses (Confess. Lib. 10 cap. 33) that the fear of this danger sometimes made him wish for the introduction of a practice observed by Athanasius, who ordered the reader to use only a gentle inflection of the voice, more akin to recitation than singing. But on again considering how many advantages were derived from singing, he inclined to the other side. [485] If this moderation is used, there cannot be a doubt that the practice is most sacred and salutary. On the other hand, songs composed merely to tickle and delight the ear are unbecoming the majesty of the Church, and cannot but be most displeasing to God.

33. It is also plain that the public prayers are not to be couched in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English (as hitherto has been every where practised), but in the vulgar tongue, so that all present may understand them, since they ought to be used for the edification of the whole Church, which cannot be in the least degree benefited by a sound not understood. Those who are not moved by any reason of humanity or charity, ought at least to be somewhat moved by the authority of Paul, whose words are by no means ambiguous: "When thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say, Amen, at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? For thou verily givest thanks, but the other is not edified," (1 Cor. 14:16, 17). How then can one sufficiently admire the unbridled license of the Papists, who, while the Apostle publicly protests against it, hesitate not to bawl out the most verbose prayers in a foreign tongue, prayers of which they themselves sometimes do not understand one syllable, and which they have no wish that others should understand? [486] Different is the course which Paul prescribes, "What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also:" meaning by the spirit the special gift of tongues, which some who had received it abused when they dissevered it from the mind, that is, the understanding. The principle we must always hold is, that in all prayer, public and private, the tongue without the mind must be displeasing to God. Moreover, the mind must be so incited, as in ardor of thought far to surpass what the tongue is able to express. Lastly, the tongue is not even necessary to private prayer, unless in so far as the internal feeling is insufficient for incitement, or the vehemence of the incitement carries the utterance of the tongue along with it. For although the best prayers are sometimes without utterance, yet when the feeling of the mind is overpowering, the tongue spontaneously breaks forth into utterance, and our other members into gesture. Hence that dubious muttering of Hannah (1 Sam. 1:13), something similar to which is experienced by all the saints when concise and abrupt expressions escape from them. The bodily gestures usually observed in prayer, such as kneeling and uncovering of the head (Calv. in Acts 20:36), are exercises by which we attempt to rise to higher veneration of God.

34. We must now attend not only to a surer method, but also form of prayer, that, namely, which our heavenly Father has delivered to us by his beloved Son, and in which we may recognize his boundless goodness and condescension (Mt. 6:9; Luke 11:2). Besides admonishing and exhorting us to seek him in our every necessity (as children are wont to betake themselves to the protection of their parents when oppressed with any anxiety), seeing that we were not fully aware how great our poverty was, or what was right or for our interest to ask, he has provided for this ignorance; that wherein our capacity failed he has sufficiently supplied. For he has given us a form in which is set before us as in a picture every thing which it is lawful to wish, every thing which is conducive to our interest, every thing which it is necessary to demand. From his goodness in this respect we derive the great comfort of knowing, that as we ask almost in his words, we ask nothing that is absurd, or foreign, or unseasonable; nothing, in short, that is not agreeable to him. Plato, seeing the ignorance of men in presenting their desires to God, desires which if granted would often be most injurious to them, declares the best form of prayer to be that which an ancient poet has furnished: "O king Jupiter, give what is best, whether we wish it or wish it not; but avert from us what is evil even though we ask it," (Plato, Alcibiad. 2) This heathen shows his wisdom in discerning how dangerous it is to ask of God what our own passion dictates; while, at the same time, he reminds us of our unhappy condition in not being able to open our lips before God without dangers unless his Spirit instruct us how to pray aright (Rom. 8:26). The higher value, therefore, ought we to set on the privilege, when the only begotten Son of God puts words into our lips, and thus relieves our minds of all hesitation.

35. This form or rule of prayer is composed of six petitions. For I am prevented from agreeing with those who divide it into seven by the adversative mode of diction used by the Evangelist, who appears to have intended to unite the two members together; as if he had said, Do not allow us to be overcome by temptation, but rather bring assistance to our frailty, and deliver us that we may not fall. Ancient writers [487] also agree with us, that what is added by Matthew as a seventh head is to be considered as explanatory of the sixth petition. [488] But though in every part of the prayer the first place is assigned to the glory of God, still this is more especially the object of the three first petitions, in which we are to look to the glory of God alone, without any reference to what is called our own advantage. The three remaining petitions are devoted to our interest, and properly relate to things which it is useful for us to ask. When we ask that the name of God may be hallowed, as God wishes to prove whether we love and serve him freely, or from the hope of reward, we are not to think at all of our own interest; we must set his glory before our eyes, and keep them intent upon it alone. In the other similar petitions, this is the only manner in which we ought to be affected. It is true, that in this way our own interest is greatly promoted, because, when the name of God is hallowed in the way we ask, our own sanctification also is thereby promoted. But in regard to this advantage, we must, as I have said, shut our eyes, and be in a manner blind, so as not even to see it; and hence were all hope of our private advantage cut off, we still should never cease to wish and pray for this hallowing, and every thing else which pertains to the glory of God. We have examples in Moses and Paul, who did not count it grievous to turn away their eyes and minds from themselves, and with intense and fervent zeal long for death, if by their loss the kingdom and glory of God might be promoted (Exod. 32:32; Rom. 9:3). On the other hand, when we ask for daily bread, although we desire what is advantageous for ourselves, we ought also especially to seek the glory of God, so much so that we would not ask at all unless it were to turn to his glory. Let us now proceed to an exposition of the Prayer.

     Christian Classics Ethereal Library / Public Domain

     Institutes of the Christian Religion