Fourth Sunday in Lent – Year C

Sermon Notes from the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People

RCL Readings – Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; II Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32.

ACNA Readings – Joshua 4:19-5:12; Psalm 34; II Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:11-32.

Seasonal Introduction.  The earliest recorded reference to the practice of Lent, initiated by the fast of Ash Wednesday, came on the heels of the Council of Nicea, in about 325 AD. However, fasting prior to Easter was already established and practiced in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Jesus does not say “If you fast” but “when you fast” just as He said “when you pray”. There is an assumption that a disciple will humble themself and turn to God. At Gethsemane, Jesus told Simon Peter to “watch and pray that you might not enter into temptation.”

From the beginning of Jesus’ journey to the cross He fasted and prayed. Jesus continued to pray, not only for Himself but for His disciples and even us. While Jesus was tempted, He did not turn from His mission. We, on the other hand, must repent from our sins and return to our Father.

Common Theme.  Sin is a terrible thing. But we can have reconciliation with God. We are called to confess and repent but we should also rejoice in the God who sees us as His beloved children.

Hebraic Context.  Confession and repentance are powerful recurring themes in both Jewish and Christian theology. Confession is often diminished in comparison to repentance, but Psalm 32:5 says, “‘I acknowledged my sin to you… I will confess my transgressions to the LORD’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.” Knowledge (ידע, yada) and confession (ידה, yadah) are perfect for word play as the words are so similar in both sound and meaning.

But confession often comes with additional caveats before forgiveness, in Leviticus 26:40-41 God says, “But if they confess their iniquity… and also in walking contrary to me… if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob.” Numbers 5:7 says, “He shall confess his sins that he has committed. And he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong.”

Confession shouldn’t always be about the bad things we have done either. We not only confess our sins, we also confess the Lord as our Saviour and God. ידה (yadah) is often translated as praise, for it is a confession of truth. After David is delivered from his enemies he declares, “For this I will praise (ידה) you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing praises to Your name.”1

Repentance, on the other hand, often doesn’t come with the same caveats as confession. Repentance was considered to be so important that Jewish scholars considered it to be one of seven things created before the world began: the Torah, the Throne of God, the Garden of Eden, Hell, the Temple, the name of the Messiah, and Repentance.2 From where comes the tradition that repentance was made before the world? The answer is from Psalm 90:2-3 in which it is written “before you formed the earth, you said to man ‘return’”. The word “return” שוב shuv is also the root word for “repent.” תשובה teshuva.

One aspect of the Hebraic understanding of the word repentance is a returning to the place you were before, which, for a sinner who had departed from God’s presence, is to be back in the presence of God. To return doesn’t mean you start a long journey back towards God and might, if you don’t fail, eventually reach Him. Returning means being back in the same place or state that I started—we are immediately back with Him.

The call for God’s people to repent and return to the Lord is particularly evident in the prophets but it can be found throughout the Scriptures. Acts 3:19 uses the Greek word ἐπιστρέψατε, (epistrephate, sometimes translated as “converted” such as in the KJV). But it also has the Hebraic undertone of תשובה teshuvah (translated in the LXX as ἐπιστρέψατε in Ezekiel 14:6; Zechariah 1:3; Malachi 3:7; II Chronicles 30:6). One doesn’t return to something new, one returns to something or somewhere they have been before. When Peter called on those gathered in the temple, he called on them to repent and return back to the God of Israel through the risen Messiah.

But as amazing as repentance is, confession is still necessary. Whether we are confessing our God before the world, “Oh give thanks (הודו, hodu, from ידה, yadah) to the LORD, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever”3 or we are acknowledging our sin before the LORD, after our confession comes gladness and great rejoicing.

Joshua 5:9-12.4 The Israelites who crossed the Sea of Reeds on dry ground and left Egypt are not the same people who cross the Jordan river on dry ground. The leadership of the people of Israel has passed from Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to Joshua. While Jewish tradition now tries to recognize that every person who celebrates the Passover should celebrate it as if they themselves were the ones rescued by God from slavery in Egypt, the generation crossing the Jordan still took the time to set up their own memorial that they could share with their children.

Unfortunately, there was a problem. The Israelites still had to fight for the land promised them by God. But the Passover was only in a few days. The issue is that Exodus 12:48 states that “no uncircumcised person shall eat of it” and the Israelites had not circumcised their children during their forty years in the wilderness. Mass incapacitation of yourselves through male circumcision on the eve of battle is not a brilliant military strategy.5

But circumcision is the physical rite associated with the covenant God made with Abraham. The people entering the land of Canaan were not supposed to be slaves but a covenant people chosen by a holy God. And so, even though it was unwise militarily, the people showed their faith and resolve to remain faithfully in covenant with God. In turn, God “rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.”6

The first Passover recorded in the Bible preceded the Exodus from Egypt; the second one is recorded here as the Israelites leave the wilderness into the promised land. The celebration of the Passover binds the Israelites into the continuing story of God’s ongoing work of redemption. They are reminded that, whatever happens next, they are in covenant with a God who works wonders and saves.

Psalm 32.  The composer of Psalm 32 gives a stark contrast in the first four verses.7 The man who is forgiven is happy; the man who does not confess will waste away. What is the difference? Confession. David acknowledges his sin. Go to God when He may be found. This is the wisdom, or instruction (משכיל, maskil), of David.

Isaiah, as seen last week, joins with David when he declares that we must “Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way; and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Confession, fasting, and mourning are often very somber events, as is the entirety of the Lenten season. But, during our liturgical services, after confession comes the assurance of forgiveness. God is faithful and merciful. He has declared that He will forgive those who confess and turn to Him. If we have confessed our sins, we ought not continue to groan and mourn, for the hand of God is no longer heavy on us. We ought to be happy.

Psalm 32:8 changes from Psalm 32:1-7 grammatically, which is always a point of interest in Jewish study. There is both an argument that David is the one speaking to an unknown third party (those hearing the Maskil) and an argument that God is the one speaking. In Psalm 51, which is quite similar in theme to Psalm 32, David writes “then I will teach transgressors Your ways”. But, once again, scholars will note that there seems to be a very important difference in the grammatical structure as David refers to a third party, “transgressors” while, in Psalm 32, the address is direct.

Regardless of whether it is God instructing (שכל, sakal from which maskil is derived) or David, the way we should go is clear. Do we trust in the LORD to forgive us or will we try to hide our sins? Once we have confessed and are forgiven, will we be glad and shout for joy? Or will we continue without understanding?

II Corinthians 5:16-21.  Paul knew that God is love and that Jesus, the Messiah, truly loved him too. For Paul it was the love of Jesus that compelled him to continue to proclaim the good news, despite trials and tribulations and even possible death. But the love of Jesus was not only for Paul and Jesus’ closest disciples. Jesus didn’t only die for Paul, or Peter, or James. He had love for all, from the lost sheep to the prodigal son to the elder son who stayed by the father’s side, and so died for all.

This does not mean that all will be saved from death through Jesus’ death. Jesus died for all, but if everyone were automatically saved, what would Paul be compelled to do? Why would Paul have spoken so forthrightly about the god of this world blinding the minds of the unbelievers8 and why would he feel the need to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord?

Because Jesus has died for all then Paul says we should now “regard no one according to the flesh”. This is not to say that the physical world is evil and bad, which was a common thought in Greek philosophy in the 1st Century (and influenced several early Christian and Jewish theologians). Instead we are new creations and should see each other as we will be, a house not made with hands but rather eternal in the heavens. This outlook even included Jesus.9 Though we are all mortal and physical creatures, we have an immortal soul (and will one day have a body that will neither feel pain, sorrow, nor taste death).

If we saw each other in this way, it would eliminate racism and discrimination from within our communities as we relate to each other as “new creations”. C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory stated, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

The work of the Messiah to redeem the world from sin and death was only one aspect of the ministry of Jesus. Another is the ministry of reconciliation in which things that separate us relationally from the Lord, and from each other, are removed through the resurrected life of the Messiah. Paul reminds us here that God has given believers the ministry of reconciliation. We continue to participate in the work and mission of the Messiah. That work must be seen in our personal and community lives. Things that once held us apart from God and from each other, like discrimination, hatred, or jealousy should be removed from our communities. In serving to reconcile man with God and with one another (the conclusion of the love of Jesus that compelled Paul), we become the righteousness of God.10

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32.  In the first century, one community in particular kept strict segregations on the basis of moral and physical purity—the Dead Sea community, as seen in the Community Rule. With the avid study of Scripture becoming more and more popular, the ideal of 2nd Temple Judaism was not strict segregation but teshuvah (תשובה, repentance and a return to God).

In Luke 14, Jesus spoke of the cost of following Him as a disciple. Many were not ready to pay the cost, but Luke records that tax collectors and sinners drew near to Jesus. Earlier, one such man, Levi did leave everything and followed Jesus. He was a tax collector and died a faithful martyr—an amazing testimony of repentance and forgiveness.

However, the cultural and political struggles within Judaism as many turned away from God to Hellenism (and even to become tax collectors for an oppressor) may have influenced even some of the Pharisees and Scribes—who normally would have taught that God desires teshuvah rather than punishment—to forget their own teaching.11 Regardless of the circumstances, they didn’t need to be taught anything new but be reminded that God welcomes the repentant sinner with open arms.

And so Jesus reminded them of something they already knew with three stories in one parable.12 The parable is simple. As with all parables, there is no mention of a particular people group. It is open to all cultures, nations, and people and, as is common in the book of Luke, both a man and a woman are included.13 The parable starts with a shepherd and one-hundred sheep and only one who wandered far from home. It continues with ten coins, one of which is lost, but it is within the house. The final part of the parable is the story of only three people, a father and his two sons and travels far abroad before returning home.

The younger son who asked for an inheritance, took it, and squandered it represented everything wrong in almost every ancient culture. He did not respect his father, he left his familial homeland and family, and he brought dishonour in reckless living and working the poorest of jobs. It would be within the rights of the father to completely refuse his son the inheritance in the first place and even declare that, as far as the family was concerned, the son was legally dead.

Instead the father joyfully accepted his son back. He wouldn’t even listen to the idea that the son would become a servant but ran to greet him—there was repentance, a return to the family, and immediate forgiveness. Forgiveness didn’t mean there would be no consequences. The remaining inheritance would not be redivided but remain with the elder son.

However, Jesus is telling this parable to a people who knew all about forgiveness and would write extensively about the need to repent before God in their literature. In the first two parts of the parable, there is a lost sheep or article that is searched for and found. Jesus even spells out what the parable is about, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” But the final story within the parable has a twist that Jesus leaves without explanation to the Pharisees and scribes.

As the Pharisees and scribes asked before, “why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”14 They should have known the answer. They should have rejoiced that Levi, the tax collector, had turned from his ways. They preached repentance and encouraged the population to turn to God. But instead they grumbled when their brothers, who were dead, were made alive; those who were lost, now found. Jealousy and anger overcame their theology when they should have rejoiced.

Hebraic Perspective.  According to the Oxford dictionary the word righteousness is defined as, “the quality or state of being morally correct and justifiable.” Unfortunately, words can lose certain meanings in different languages, cultures, and times. If righteousness is defined as “morally correct and justifiable” none of us could think of this characteristic being within

ourselves and that righteousness is actually only a characteristic of the Lord. After all, “no one is righteous, no not one” and, “all our righteousness is like filthy rags”.

So how is it that Paul can claim in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that we become the righteousness of God? In Greek the word righteousness is δικαιοσύνη dikaiosynē. Strabo, in Geography 16.2.36, states that, in the religion of Moses, “those who practiced temperance and justice (δικαιοσυνης), and none else, might expect good, or some gift or sign from the God, from time to time.” H.C. Hamilton and W. Falconer consistently translated δικαιοσυνης as justice or “rectitude of conduct” in their translation of Strabo’s Geography. Underlying the Greek text is a Hebrew context where

the word righteousness is ָקה ָד ְצ shortly.

ְצ ָד ָקה tzedaka.

has several different meanings as we shall see

In several places, Israel is called to remember the righteousness, or righteous acts, of God. Judges 5:11 recalls the righteousness of God in battle against Israel’s enemies while Micah 6:5 recalls that God acted in righteousness when he poured out his anger on Israel when they committed adultery. Micah continues in 7:9 in looking for God’s righteousness when He redeems the despised from darkness. On the one hand, here is something of the justice of God but, on the other hand, also of the saving acts of God. Righteousness and justice are paired throughout the Scriptures, starting in Genesis 18:19, “For I have chosen him… to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice.”15

Malachi makes a strong statement, equating the righteous with the one who serves God, “Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous (צדיק) and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.” So what does practicing righteousness look like? Deuteronomy 6:25 states, “It will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God.”

But that hardly clarifies what righteousness looks like. Over time, righteousness came to be understood as being charitable, as seen in Matthew 6:1-2, “Beware of practicing your righteousness (δικαιοσυνην) before other people in order to be seen by them. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you…” Charity may be part of righteousness, but so is justice and so are saving acts (which is a form of charity). Matthew 6:33 states that we should seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. God’s kingdom goes hand-in-hand with God’s redemptive, saving activity. And, Paul states, through the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we become part of the redemptive saving plan or the “righteousness of God”.

ACNA Readings

Psalm 34.  Psalm 34 has a specific history associated with it and the context can help illuminate what David was thinking, feeling, and declaring. David starts the Psalm with a reminder of his own shortcomings, specifically his own fear and humiliation. I Samuel 21:10-22:1 tells of when David had to flee from his closest allies, his own father-in-law and his king, to seek refuge from his worst enemies, the Philistines of Gath. The name of the Philistine king is Achish in I Samuel while he is called Abimelech here in Psalm 34. Abimelech simply means, “My father is king” and was a common title taken by would-be rulers (such as Abimelech, son of Gideon, the first prince of Israel.)

However, he immediately continues with thanksgiving and praise for God’s protection. David has been delivered from his enemies and his response was, appropriately, to bless and praise the Lord. Even when David acted foolishly, God has not abandoned him for, as David wrote afterwards, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him”. In I Samuel 21:12 David feared Achish. But when David turned to seek God he was delivered from fear (of man) into fear (of God). For, “the angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.”16

Psalm 34:8 is, perhaps, an unusual concept for the modern reader of Scripture. However, using all the senses in worship of God and in walking out their faith was important for the Jewish people. As David declared, “taste and see that the LORD is good.” Too often we focus only on hearing or reading the word of God (often on Sundays) and too little on the thanksgiving, joy, or labour that comes with taste, touch or other everyday senses and activities we should also participate with to walk out our faith. God’s goodness is (and should be) physically tangible.

The role of food was an incredibly important part of the instructions God gave to His people. Whenever Israel celebrated the works of God, often against their enemies, they were to also eat and drink (or fast). The popular Jewish saying “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat” certainly fits well with Psalm 34. Whenever Israel settled down and were comfortable in their own lives, they were to give thanks for the food and drink God had given them. These were events that families physically did yearly, weekly, and even daily.

But even beyond celebrations of particular events, food was always directly related to God. For instance, Exodus 24:9-11, at first glance, seems quite strange. As Moses was preparing to go up Mount Sinai to receive the instructions of God, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel went with Moses part way towards the mountain (they were allowed to go that far and no further) but as they waited they “beheld God, and ate and drank.” People are often confused that Luke’s sermon on the plain and Matthew’s sermon on the mount are different, but whether we hunger and thirst for righteousness or simply hunger and thirst, God is the one that provides and satisfies.

David, however, wasn’t the only one that needed to seek God. All the saints need to fear God. The opposite are young lions, likely a metaphor for those who think they are the strongest and believe that they do not need the help of God. They will go hungry. David instead invited children, the righteous, the brokenhearted to join with Him in celebration of God’s protection.

The faithfulness of the Lord to redeem David from his situation prompted him now to admonish us to fear the Lord. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom has the component of action as David pairs fearing God with seeking Him. Sometimes we measure ourselves and others by the standards of the world—looking at the young lions with envy. But David reminds us that God seeks those who are humble, who fear God, and who bless His name. We too can be among the righteous and the saints if only we seek God with these characteristics.

In context, David was fleeing from Saul—without family or refuge. David even tried to hide among the enemies of Israel, surrounded by the idolatry and immorality of the Philistines.17 The Lord rescued David from both Saul and the Philistines. During this time David did not own a palace nor raise large herds and yet he proclaimed that he did not lack for good things. With the right perspective you can have very few possessions but know that the God who holds everything is near, even to the brokenhearted.

David invited children, the righteous, and the brokenhearted to join with him in celebration of God’s protection. He used his experience as an opportunity to teach others.18 In verse 11-14 David described fear of the Lord as an action more than it is an emotional state of being.

Fearing God involves a measure of obedience to His commandments. Here David instructed the listener to guard the tongue and refrain from evil speech. Quite simply David urges us to “depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it”.

Peace, shalom, is not the absence of war it is much more than that. David was a man accustomed to battle who often met his enemies on the field, but the peace he expressed here is the one that passes all human understanding—it goes beyond all our natural and temporal circumstances. Paul will later tell us that we should be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”19

To convey the truth of God’s activities on earth, David described God with human characteristics–eyes, ears, and face. While God is incorporeal, David’s description was not untrue as God is not some force or power. God is personable and, while not nearly accurate enough of a word, a person. God has emotions throughout the Scriptures and He certainly sees and hears the righteous and sets Himself against those who do evil. The Bible often uses symbolic language to convey truth that would be lost if it remained nebulous.

God is watchful and attentive towards His people. But it isn’t only the righteous that God watches. The doers of evil will also receive the Lord’s attention but in its negative sense as God would “cut off the memory of them”. David knew from experience that God is an advocate and helper of the humble and righteous, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34 isn’t simply a theological treatise, it was formed from the personal experience and testimony of David. David called out to God and God delivered David—although David still had to struggle against people who lied about him and pursued strife rather than peace.

Most people ignore the brokenhearted but God does the opposite, He delights to save those crushed in spirit. This does not mean that the godly do not go through times of trial and danger. David acknowledged that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous”. This is a classic Hebraic tension of the walk of faith as he also states that “The Lord delivers them out of their troubles.” God watches and cares for His people, yet the life of the believer is not without its sufferings.

Perhaps the final words of the psalm are truly apt when David declared that “The Lord redeems the soul of His servants; none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.” It isn’t that we won’t go through hard times–it is so much greater than that. God will not find us guilty.

The words of verse 20 “He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken” were used in the Gospel of John as a prophetic fulfillment of the death of Jesus and His experience at the cross (John 19:31-37). The majority of Psalms were viewed with some idea of messianic expectations, regardless of whether the Psalm had any obvious prophetic references. As such, Psalm 34:20, although clearly not about the Messiah in David’s writing, was, nonetheless, used in John 19:36 in reference to Jesus’ death.

In today’s hyper-literary analysis, many of the prophecies mentioned in the Gospels (particularly in the Gospel of Matthew) seem like very poor scholarship. However, in the 1st Centuries, they would have made perfect sense as scholars used word association, paradox, and questions rather than our modern hermeneutics or systematic theology. The proximity of the Passover to Jesus’ death, the close word and calendar association to Numbers 9:12, “they shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break any of its bones; according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it” would have made the link clear to eye-witnesses.

The Roman soldiers saw that Jesus was already dead and felt no compulsion to break Jesus’ legs to ensure death prior to the onset of the Sabbath.20 The use of David’s words does not seem out of context in John 19:36 as David was writing of God’s deliverance of the godly. Psalm 34:19-22 speaks of the righteous being delivered from the condemnation of God—without guilt before God. While Jesus’ legs weren’t broken, He still suffered the horrid pain of crucifixion. But Jesus also died in order that those who would be condemned by God might be delivered as ones without guilt.

Endnotes

1.  II Samuel 22:50
2. Torah, from Proverbs 8:22; the throne of God and Temple, Jeremiah 17:12; the garden of Eden, Genesis 2:8; Gehenna, or hell, Isaiah 30:33; the name of the Messiah, Psalm 72:17; Repentance, Psalm 90:2-3. Pesachim 54a and Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 3.4 along with Midrash Rabbah 1.4.
3. I Chronicles 16:7-36
4. 4 ACNA may include Joshua 4:19-5:8
5. Under the circumstances, perhaps the strategy of walking around the walls of Jericho rather than fighting was not such a bad plan after all.
6. Gilgal becomes a play on words to remind future generations of what happened in that location. גלל means to roll something. From this a few different words developed, such as Gilgal, גלגל, likely referring to a circle of some kind—an encampment or cultic site such as the 12 stones—or גולגולת (gulgolet, skull).
7. “Of David” could mean it is written by David, written for David, or even commissioned by David. It certainly fits with other Psalms of David, such as Psalm 51.
8. II Corinthians 4:4
9. Paul says, “even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer.” Paul may be referring to his own encounter on the road to Damascus or Paul may have even seen Jesus as a Pharisee and student of Gamaliel when visiting Jerusalem for the festivals when he was younger or even to the community of Christians who may have known Jesus personally. Who the “we” are here is not clear.
10. See Hebraic Perspective.
11. Ritual purity was still important, particularly as the people approached Passover, as seen in John 18:28 “They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.” Ritual purity became particularly important to the Jewish people under Roman rule in the 1st century as meat sacrificed to idols was the hellenistic norm in many parts of the Roman Empire. But there was also precedent for people who weren’t consecrated or ritually pure in Numbers 9:1-14 and II Chronicles 30:1-27 to attend such important events as the Passover at a separate time.
12. Grammar was quite important in Hebraic thought. Luke does not speak of three separate parables but a single parable, “την παραβολην”. The parable develops and expands on a single theme.
13. God visits Zechariah and then Mary; both Simeon and Anna see their Redeemer in the temple; Jarius and His daughter along with an unnamed woman found solace in Jesus’ healing; etc.
14. Luke 5:30
15. See also: Deuteronomy 33:21; I Kings 10:9; I Chronicles 18:14; II Chronicles 9:8; Job 37:23; Psalm 33:5, 99:4, 103:6, 106:31; Proverbs 21:3; Isaiah 9:7, 33:5, 58:2; Jeremiah 33:15; Ezekiel 18:5, 19-27, 33:14-19, 45:9; Amos 5:24.
16. Some scholars take this to be an early example of the belief in guardian angels. Jesus, in Matthew 18:10 speaks of angels watching over children–specifically, children have their own angel as αγγελοι (angels) are given the possessive pronoun, “his / of him” (the child). Other passages where angels guard someone start as early as Genesis 19:15-16, when Lot’s family are physically removed from Sodom, Psalm 91:11, where the concept of guardian angels is most explicit, to Daniel 6:22 and even Hebrews 1:14. Other scholars identify the angel of the LORD, as mentioned here in Psalm 34:7, with God Himself (or Jesus). This comes from passages where the angel of the LORD, without literary inference on how or why, starts to talk as God Himself, such as in Exodus 3:2-6. Judges 6:11-18 is similar in that the Angel of the LORD first appeared to Gideon before the LORD spoke to him (although the Septuagint reverts to αγγελος Κυριου in Judges 6:14, 16). An example of where the angel of the LORD was not God is found in Luke 1:11, 19 where Gabriel is specifically named as an angel of the LORD.
17. Idolatry and immorality so often go together (Ephesians 5:5, Revelation 9:20-21). Without a fear of God, society either seeks other gods (made in their own image) or denies them altogether. Either way, hedonistic excess and immorality become prevalent. And, if gods are like us or don’t exist, what would be the problem with immorality? In a world where people question what should be considered sexually immoral, the Christian response isn’t to look towards societal norms but directly at what God declares.
18. In Psalm 51, having failed through both adultery and murder, David asked to be restored by God. If God was gracious, then David in turn would “teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.” We should not only be content in God’s grace for ourselves, but help others seek it as well.
19. Ephesians 4:3
20. None of the Gospels nor I Corinthians spoke of Jesus’ body being broken for us except for a few manuscripts of I Corinthians 11:24 that were used to translate the KJV. Nonetheless, while Jesus’ bones were not broken, He was “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.”