The Vision (11.29.24): Seven Lessons from the Death and Burial of Sarah (Genesis 23)

 

Image: Camelia, "Pink Perfection," Lee County, NC, November 2024.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 22:20--23:20.

Between the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19) and the marriage of Isaac (Genesis 24), there is Genesis 22:20—23:20. It provides a much less well-known episode related to the death and the burial of the matriarch Sarah. It reports to us the death of a godly woman.

Here are seven practical applications that flow from this passage:

1.     We are reminded that the God of the Bible is a God of providence, who is working all things to His glory and our good.

Genesis 22:20-24 reveals the providential work of God in history. It tells us that God was raising up Rebekah from the line of Abraham’s brother Nahor to be a wife for Isaac after the death of Sarah. He is Jehovah-Jireh, the LORD who provides (Genesis 22:14). We should remember that “God is at work all around us,” even when it seems we are surrounded by frowning providences.

2.     We are reminded that God will keep his Word.

God was at work to keep his promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). He spared Isaac and will provide through Isaac’s union with Rebekah the raising up of a great nation from Abraham. He will keep his promises to his people.

3.     We are reminded of the shortness and the preciousness of each life.

Genesis 23:1b says, “these were the years of the life of Sarah.” Should Christ tarry we will each have both a birthday and a death day. As Moses prayed, “So teach us to number our days, that we might apply hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

4.     We are taught that the proper response to death is godly grief and sorrow and even tears.

We see this in Abraham’s response to Sarah’s death: “And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her” (Genesis 2:2b). The Christian sees death as a consequence of sin (Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death”), and so it calls for grief and sobriety.

5.     We are shown by example that the proper way to dispose of the body at death is burial in the ground in hope of the resurrection from the dead.

Genesis 23:19: “And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife…”

6.     We are taught that the land promise was fulfilled to Abraham, but an even greater promise is yet to be fulfilled.

Abraham was indeed “a stranger and a sojourner” (Genesis 23:4), but we move toward “a better country” the “heavenly” country, the city God hath prepared for us (Hebrews 11:16).

7.     We are told that a godly woman is to be praised and honored even in her death.

As with all fallen men, Sarah was a sinner. She had concocted the plan to have Hagar serve as a surrogate. She had deceived Abimelech. She had laughed when God promised her a son. She was also, however, by God’s grace, a godly woman. God’s love for her in Christ covered a multitude of sins.

The description of a godly woman in Proverbs 31 begins, “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies” (v. 10). Sarah was a virtuous woman. Peter put her forward as an example in 1 Peter 3:1-6, noting, “whose daughter ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement” (v. 6). Proverbs 21:28 says a godly woman’s children and her husband will arise to praise her. Of course, no godly woman lives only for the praise of mere men, but she desires most of all the smile and approval of her God.

Finally, we must also note also that our ultimate hope is not that we would be praised in our death. Our hope is that we will be raised from the dead by the same power that raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the tomb on the third day. Because he lives, we too have the hope of life eternal. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul asked, “O grave where is thy victory?” (v. 55), declaring, “The sting of death is sin” (v. 56). Yet he concluded, ^“But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 57).

Christ is indeed our only comfort and hope in life and death.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 315: Review: Gallagher on Paul, LXX, and Canon

 

JTR

The Vision (11.22.24): Christ: The New and Better Isaac

Image: The Binding of Isaac, by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, c. 1593, Piasecka-Johnson Collection, Princeton, New Jersey.

Note: Devotional based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 22:1-19.

Christians have long seen the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 as a type (a shadow, a prefiguring, an anticipation) of the cross of Christ.

Consider these parallels:

Isaac is the son of Abraham (see the title given eight times in Genesis 22:2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13). Christ too is “the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1), but also “the Son of God” (Mark 1:1).

Isaac is a beloved son of Abraham (22:2: the son “whom thou lovest”). Christ is the beloved Son of God the Father. Cf. at his baptism and transfiguration, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17; 17:5). See also Ephesians 4:6 where Paul said, “he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

Isaac is the only son (three times in 22:2, 12, 16). Christ is the only begotten Son (cf. John 1:14, 18; 3:16).

Isaac is the servant of his father (22:6 “and laid it upon Isaac his son”). Christ is the Servant of God the Father (Mark 10:45: He came “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”).

Isaac cried out, “My father” (Genesis 22:7). Christ cried out at Gethsemane, “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36).

Isaac carried the wood to Mount Moriah (22:6-7). Christ carried his cross to Mount Calvary (Matthew 27:32: “him they compelled to bear his cross.”).

Isaac was told, God will provide himself a lamb (22:8). Christ is the Lamb of God (see John 1:29, 36; and Revelation 13:8: “the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the earth.”).

Isaac was bound for the sacrifice (22:9: “and bound Isaac his son”). Christ was bound and handed over to Pilate (Matthew 27:2, “And when they had bound him”

God provided a substitute for Isaac (22:13: there was “a ram caught in the thicket by his horns… who was offered “in the stead of his son.”). Christ served as a substitute for elect sinners (Romans 5:8). Christ is both the Lamb and the Ram.

Isaac’s ram was caught in a thicket by his horns (22:13). The sacred head of Christ was encircled by a crown of twisted thorns pressed upon his brow (Matthew 27:29).

Perhaps the apostle Paul had Genesis 22 in mind when he said of God the Father’s offering up of Christ, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

Here is one writer’s summary of this analogy:

The Lord Jesus “enters his day of suffering  as the new Isaac, the true son of Abraham in the fullest sense, the one who would offer himself wholly up to death, according to the divine foreordained plan, and bring the blessing of forgiveness and eternal life to all who put their faith in him” (Nicholas P. Lunn, The Gospels Through Old Testament Eyes, 183).

Christ is indeed the New and Better Isaac.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.15.24): God is with His Elect

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 21:9-34.

And God was with the lad (Genesis 21:20a)

God is with thee in all that thou doest (Genesis 21:22b).

Genesis 21 begins with the announcement of the birth of Isaac (vv. 1-8). The long-awaited promise to Abraham and Sarah is fulfilled. The threat of barrenness is overcome. God will keep his Word (Genesis 12:1-3). From Abraham would come a great nation, and by it all families of the earth would be be blessed.

The remainder of the chapter outlines two further threats to this promise.

The first concerns a threat from within, from Hagar and her son Ishmael, who stood as a potential rival to Isaac (vv. 9-21). Sarah says to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son” (v. 10). This was “very grievous” for Abraham to do, but the LORD assured him that he would make Ishmael “a nation, because he is thy seed” (v. 13).

The second concerns a threat from without, from King Abimelech whom Abraham and Sarah had previously deceived (vv. 22-34; cf. Genesis 20). Abraham, however, enters into a covenant with Abimelech, and they live in peace.

The threat averted, Abraham “planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God” (v. 33). The proper response when one recognizes the LORD’s gracious provisions in his life is worship.

Within Genesis 21 there are two statements in which what we might call the “Immanuel Principle” is given emphasis.

First, in Genesis 21:20 Moses says, “And God was with the lad [Ishmael].”

Second, in Genesis 21:22 Abimelech says to Abraham, “God is with thee in all that thou doest.”

God is with those through whom he has chosen to work. He is with his Elect.

There is a longing in man’s heart for God to be with him. We see that principle here, and it will find its greatest fulfillment in the New Testament.

In the fullness of time Christ would come from the seed of Abraham to be blessing to the nations.  One of his titles would be Immanuel:

Matthew 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Having died on the cross and risen again the third day, soon to ascend, he promised his disciples:

Matthew 28:20b and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

The apostle John on the isle of Patmos had a vision of the new heaven and the new earth and of the new Jerusalem, of which he wrote:

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

The one true God has been with his elect; he is with them now; and he will be with them at the end of the age.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 314: Review: Meade on "I've heard it said the Old Testament is full of errors"

 

I want to offer a brief review of a video and an article that was recently posted to the Crossway website (October 29, 2024) in the series titled “I’ve heard it said.”

This short video (less than two minutes) features Dr. John D. Meade, OT professor at Phoenix Seminary, and a recent critic of the Reformation Bible Society and its defense of the traditional MT of the Hebrew OT.

Meade’s segment is titled “I have heard it said that the Old Testament is full of errors,” This video (and others in this series) are meant to address various controversial topics on theology or apologetics from a contemporary evangelical perspective.

Let’s listen to the video and then I’ll offer a few observations.

Meade’s video is presumably meant to defend the authority, authenticity, and integrity of the text of the OT against unnamed modern skeptics who argue that it cannot be trusted because it is full of errors.

If you listen to Meade’s presentation, however, you will find that he does not deny or refute the charge that the text of the OT is full of errors. In fact, he agrees with and affirms this perspective.

Meade begins by noting, rightly, that there are no longer any extant autographs or original manuscripts of the OT books. We do not, for example, have any of the books of the Pentateuch handwritten by Moses. We do not have autographs but only apographs, copies of the OT books. The Puritan John Owen speculated that God did not allow the autographs to be preserved because he knew that men would be tempted to worship them.

Meade then adds that these copies of the OT are riddled with human “fragility” and are filled with transmissional errors. He says it is not a question as to whether or not there are errors, affirming plainly, “There are errors.”

Meade then suggests, however, that this admitted situation of an overwhelmingly corrupted OT text should not lead to pessimism or despair. Despite this confused textual situation, Meade says, one cannot conclude “We don’t have the Bible.” He assures his listeners, in fact, that we have “a wealth of manuscripts” (some modern scholars are fond of saying we have “an embarrassment of riches”).

Our saving grace (or saviors), Meade asserts are “textual critics” who can compare manuscripts, “sift out” copyist errors, and “actually restore the original text,” by comparing all of the evidence.

Meade concludes by saying he is “optimistic, that we can get back to the original books of the OT.”

Let me offer five observations on Meade’s presentation:

First, as already noted, Meade is NOT refuting the charge that the OT is full of errors. He is in basic agreement with that assertion. The title of the video might well have been, “I agree that the OT is full of errors, but I am nonetheless optimistic we can almost fix it.”

His approach here reminds me of the veritable cottage industry that developed among evangelical scholars a few years ago in order supposedly to “refute” the textual criticism of Bart Ehrman. The only problem was most of these men who lined up to “refute” Ehrman confessed that they basically agreed with Ehrman that the text of the NT was overwhelmingly corrupt, that traditional passages like Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53—8:11 are spurious, and that it is the task of scholars to attempt to reconstruct it to some semblance of what the original might have been. These evangelical scholars did not so much disagree with Ehrman as to whether the NT text was grossly corrupt and needed reconstruction, but only as to whether, under these circumstances, it could still be said to be inspired and to hold authority for faith and practice.

Meade is essentially suggesting a similar approach with regard to the text of the OT, though he does not explicitly cite a “Bart Ehrman” type OT scholar as a foe.

Second, Meade is promoting in this video a modern restorationist view of textual criticism. This view suggests that the text of the Bible is rather hopelessly corrupted, but that modern academic scholars can examine the extant empirical evidence and use human reasoning to at least “reconstruct” a close approximation to the original text. Such scholars are typically clear to point out that they cannot guarantee that the text they reconstruct is, in fact, the authorial text. It will be subject to change based on new discoveries and methods developed by scholars.

Third, this modern reconstruction model is a departure from the classic Protestant approach to the text of Scripture. That view held that the Bible had been immediately inspired by God, and it has been kept pure in all ages (see WCF/2LBCF 1:8). This view holds that though the autographs have not been preserved, they remain accessible through faithful copies (apographs). There were some scribal discrepancies in transmission, but these were minor and could be easily corrected using those faithful copies and the consensus of the rule of faith.

With respect to the OT the Protestant fathers affirmed that these ancient “oracles of God” had been preserved by the Jews in the traditional Masoretic Text of the Hebrew OT (cf. Romans 3:2). This text had then providentially come into print at the dawn of the Protestant era (first published by Daniel Bomberg in 1524-1525). These printed editions of the Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Old Testament were used as the touchstone and standard for all the classic Protestant translations of the Bible.

The Dutch divine Petrus Van Mastricht declared, “Neither the Hebrew of the Old Testament, nor the Greek of the New Testament has been corrupted” (TPT 1:164).

The English divine John Owen suggested that to attempt to amend or alter the traditional text would be “to make equal the wisdom, care, skill, and diligence of men, with the wisdom, care, and providence of God himself” (Works 16:357).

Fourth, the reconstruction method is advocating departure from the traditional Masoretic Text, affirmed by both Jews and Protestants for centuries, in favor of a modern critical text, reconstructed using reasoned eclecticism.

Fifth, as indicated by Meade’s answer, and as touched on above, those who hold to this modern view do not believe that we currently have the text of the OT rightly reconstructed in hand. They are only “optimistic”—to used Meade’s term— that perhaps a very close approximation of the text might be achieved sometime in the future, as a result of the application of modern textual criticism.

Sadly, we seem to be observing the same undermining of the stability and authority of the OT text, under the application of modern textual criticism, as has already largely taken place among many evangelicals and mainline Protestants with respect to the NT text. No doubt many evangelical scholars making use of this reconstruction method would be willing to say of the OT text what Daniel B. Wallace has already said of the NT Text. Something like:

We do not have now—in our critical [Hebrew] texts or any translations—exactly what the authors of the [Old] Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it [cf. Gurry and Hixson, Eds. Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, xii].

Let us, finally, return to the topic. “I’ve heard it said that the OT is full of errors.” Is it possible that we might still respond to this topic in the way that Van Mastricht and Owen the Westminster divines and the Particular Baptist fathers did in their day?:

The Hebrew OT is not full of errors. It was immediately inspired by God and has been kept pure in all ages in faithful copies. As it did for the ancient Jews and for men of the Reformation, the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text continues to provide for Bible-believing Protestant Christians a clear and authoritative canonical standard for both the sacred books and the sacred text of the OT.

JTR

Article: "Does the King James Version Wrongly Translate Acts 5:30?"

 

 

Jeffrey T. Riddle, "Does the King James Version Wrongly Translate Acts 5:30?" Bible League Quarterly, No. 499 (October-December, 2024): 22-28 [PDF Draft].

You can read it here on my academia.edu page.

JTR

Notes:

Draft PDF: Some spacing and tab adjustments needed. Corrections: P. 23 change "kremantes" to "kremasantes" in two places P. 25 add bold to RSV and NIV citations P. 26 remove duplicate of word "that" P. 27 change "constitutes" to "constitute" P. 28 change "causes" to "cause"

WM 313: Rejoinder to Ward, Ross, & Meade on the LXX and Classic Protestant Bibliology (Part 2)

 

JTR

Vision (11.8.24): I also withheld thee from sinning against me (Genesis 20:6)

 

Image: King Abimelech Restores Sarah to her Husband, Abraham, tapestry, by Frans Geubels, c. 1580, Dayton Art Institute.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 20:1-21:8

Genesis 20:6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.

After the just destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we are told that Abraham “journeyed” south and then “sojourned in Gerar” (Genessis 20:1). In this foreign land, rather than trust in the LORD’s protection, Abraham deceived Abimelech the king of Gerar by saying that Sarah was his sister and not his wife. He later explains that he did so, thinking, “Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake” (v. 11). He had done this same thing in Genesis 12 when he had traveled to Egypt during a time of famine (cf. Genesis 12:10-13). As Pharaoh had taken Sarah in Egypt, so Abimelech took her in Gerar.

The LORD then spoke to the pagan king in a dream and declared him to be a “dead man” for taking another man’s wife (20:3). Abimelech protested that he had been deceived and had only acted “in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands” (v. 5).

In v. 6 we hear the LORD God’s response. He begins, “Yea, I know….” This is worthy of meditation. The God of the Bible is God of all knowledge. He is omniscient. He knows all things, because he decrees all things.

He knows of Abimelech’s innocence, yet he reveals something further. The LORD knew that Abimelech had not approached Sarah, but the king had only been restrained from doing so, not by any righteousness in him, but only by the LORD’s own providential intervention: “for I also withheld thee from sinning against me” (v. 6).

That statement is truly something to consider. Who gets the glory in all things? When we do what it right, it is only by the grace of God and to God alone be the glory. And when we do NOT do that which is evil, this too is only by the grace of God, and to God alone be the glory.

Consider how many sinful things (actual transgressions) you have already done in your life. Then consider how many sinful things the LORD has, in his kind providence, graciously kept you, restrained you, from doing.

In how many circumstances, known and unknown by men, might the LORD say to us, as he did to Abimelech in Genesis 20:6: “for I also withheld thee from sinning against me.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 312: James Snapp Jr. on Mark Ward and his "Ridiculous Claim" About the KJV

 

JTR

Article: "Verses with 'Zero-Support' in the Modern Critical Text of the Greek New Testament"

 

Jeffrey T. Riddle, "Verses with 'Zero-Support' in the Modern Critical Text of the Greek New Testament," Quarterly Record, No. 649 (October-December 2024): 21-26.

A PDF of the print version of the article can be found here.

An expanded online version of the article with complete End Notes can also be found here.

JTR

The Vision (11.1.24): Lot: That Righteous Man

 

Image: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 1929-1930, J. J. Haverty Collection.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 19:23-38.

And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt (Genesis 19:29).

Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father (Genesis 19:36).

And delivered just Lot… (2 Peter 2:7). For that righteous man…. (2 Peter 2:8).

Genesis 19 is, at one and the same time, one of the greatest chapters in the Bible demonstrating the righteous judgment of God in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and one of the greatest demonstrating his mercy in the salvation of Lot.

Lot had a complicated history. He had pitched his tent toward Sodom (13:12), dwelt in Sodom (14:12), and sat in its gate (19:1). But he had also extended hospitality to the angelic visitors which came to Sodom. He had seemed to obey the angels, but when told to leave the wicked city on the eve of its destruction he had lingered (19:16). Still, the LORD intervened, remembering Abraham’s intercession for his nephew, and brought Lot “out of the overthrow” (v. 29).

The account of what happened later in Genesis 19:30-38 is one of the most disturbing in Scripture, as Lot, in a drunken stupor, commits incest with his daughters and fathers two sons who will be the heads of two nations (Moab and the Ammonites respectively), which will be a snare to the descendants of Abraham in years to come.

Given the sorry state of things, how could be apostle Peter refer to Lot as “just [righteous] Lot” and “that righteous man” (2 Peter 2:7-8)?

We must gather that Lot was a believer. Like Abraham he was saved by grace through faith in Christ. What Genesis 15:6 says of Abraham we can assume for Lot: He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. If saved, he was granted the righteous life of Christ. See:

1 Corinthians 5:2:1  For he [God] hath made him [Christ] to be sin for us [elect believers], who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

That’s how Sodom-dwelling, lingering, and even incestuous Lot could be called righteous and that’s the only way any sinner can be called righteous in the sight of a holy and righteous God.

The Christian looks at Lot and asks not, “How was this man considered righteous?”, but he looks within and asks, “How can I be called righteous?” How could adulterous and murderous David be called righteous? Or church-persecuting Paul?

Do you really think your sin is greater than the righteousness of Christ? It is not. If you think it is, you have made your own sin a false god and worship at a false idol.

Does this mean it does not matter how we live? The apostle Paul raised this question in Romans 6 when he asked, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound” (v. 1)? He answered, “God forbid” (v. 2).

The authentic believer experiences not only salvation through Christ, but also progressive sanctification. This person grows in holiness, but he is made righteous only the way Lot was, by the righteousness of Christ. As one has put it, When God the Father looks at us, the Son (S-o-n) gets in his eyes. Praise be to God!

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle