Whenever you read anything in the Bible about sexual sin, don’t make the mistake of thinking that God is only talking about sex. Sexuality is a major theme in Scripture and it is about so much more than just the physical differences between the sexes and the physical relationships that men and women enter into.

Our sexuality was created by God for the purpose of displaying deep spiritual truths about our relationship as created beings with him as our Creator. So anytime we come across any part of scripture that references our sexuality we should look for those deep truths: what does this passage reveal about me? What does it reveal about God? And what does it reveal about my relationship with God?

Because sexuality is such a major theme and because we live in a fallen world in which we as creatures have rebelled against the Creator, it follows that adultery is also quite frequently referred to in the Bible. So when we encounter adultery in Scripture, in addition to considering the plain, surface meaning of the text, we should also look for truths about a problem much deeper than our sexual dysfunction, which is our unfaithfulness and rebellion against our Creator. Yes, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” does mean, “Don’t go to bed with someone who is not your wife.” But that sexual sin of adultery is a gaping wound through which we can look into our insides and see the real problem, which is our sin against God.

So this seemingly obscure passage in Numbers in which a wife suspected of adultery goes through an elaborate test to determine her guilt or innocence does have relevance to us. When we see here the unfaithful wife, we are seeing ourselves. The humiliation that this woman experiences when she fails the test and is publicly exposed as an unfaithful wife is our humiliation. It is what would be exposed to all of your friends and family if they could see your heart, apart from the cleansing blood of Jesus and the renewal that only he can work in your life.

The passage begins with a statement of when this ceremony/test was to be utilized. But before we look at that in verse 12, remember that we are reading here from the Mosaic Law, which was given (according to the apostle Paul) to lead us to Christ. So neither Christians, nor Jews, nor Muslims, or anyone at all for that matter, are still under the ceremonial obligations of this law. It was temporary, a shadow of something fuller that was coming. It was never meant to be the way to God, but rather to point to the One who said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” The Law points to Jesus and since Jesus has come, there is no longer any need for jealous husbands to bring their wives before the priest, but more about that later…

Verse 12 gives the condition in which this test was utilized: “If a man’s wife goes astray and breaks faith with him.” So adultery is a “straying” from the path. We could say, SIN is a straying from the path. It is going beyond the limits that God has laid down in order to bless us and our relationships. It is stepping out-of-bounds.

Adultery is also a “breaking of faith”. This phrase speaks of a covenant relationship between two people that is based on mutual trust and commitment. And then the specific manner of this straying and this breaking of faith is spelled out: the man’s wife has had a sexual relationship with someone other than her husband. No one has witnessed this and there is no concrete proof that it has occurred. There is only a suspicion… a “spirit of jealousy” that comes over the husband.

Let’s think about this jealousy for a bit. On the face of it, this whole passage sounds (to our modern ears) very demeaning of women and at the same time it seems to condone what to us appears to be a very suspicious and condemning and untrusting attitude on the part of the husband.

The nature of the sin: Unfaithfulness and rejection of authority.

So is this jealousy a good thing or a bad thing? If we look only at the hebrew word that is translated “jealousy” we don’t get a whole lot of help. The range of meaning of this word is very broad and it is used many times throughout the Old Testament. It can refer very negatively to the sin of envy or jealousy. For example, Joseph’s brothers were jealous of the favor he had with their father and so they sold him into slavery in Egypt.

But it also used many times to refer to God. For example, when God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel he said, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” And even right here in the book of Numbers, on an occasion when the Israelites had begun to worship the local Canaanite gods and commit adultery with the canaanite people, one of the priests, Phinehas, in obedience to God’s command, killed one of the Israelite leaders who was involved in the adultery.   And God says of him in Numbers 25:11

“Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy.”

In an imperfect way, the husband’s jealousy in Numbers 5:14 is a picture of the righteous jealousy that God ascribes to himself later on in the book in chapter 25, and then repeatedly all through the Old Testament.

But still this doesn’t sit right to our modern ears! Why is it the husband that has the right to accuse the wife, but there is no mention made of a wife suspecting her husband and bringing him to the priest and making him drink the water of bitterness?

First of all, we must be clear that this passage is not in any way teaching that the woman adulteress is guilty of a greater sin than the male adulterer. According to Leviticus 20:10, in cases where there was proof of adultery, both the guilty woman and the guilty man would be stoned to death. But there is something deeper here than just the sexual sin that also gives us insight into the nature of our sin against God.

Three times in the passage, it is mentioned that the woman is under her husband’s authority. In verses 19, 20, and 29. Now as soon as we start talking about authority, we run a very high risk of misunderstanding the text because our notions of what authority is and how it is exercised are so skewed by our sinfulness and by wrong conceptions of authority that we immediately start assuming all kinds of things that are not true. A man’s authority over his wife does not imply at all that he is inherently superior to her, any more than the Father is superior to the Son within the Trinity. Just as they are One God, and yet the Son submits to the Father, the man and his wife are one flesh, and the wife submits to the authority of her husband.

The point is that the relationship that God intended between the man and his wife in order to bless the wife has been thrown aside… cast off as something worthless. What was meant to be a source of joy and pleasure and satisfaction and fulfillment has been exchanged for something that can never satisfy, but will only lead to defilement, disgrace, and death.

The reason that only the woman is mentioned is because what we have here is a picture of each one of us in our relationship to God. God designed the husband/wife relationship to portray our relationship with him. In our sinful rebellion we have “broken faith” with the One in authority over us–the One who is the only source of joy and pleasure and satisfaction and fulfillment–and have gone astray after other lovers.

God’s jealousy, that Phinehas was commended for valuing, is a jealousy for his own glory. Yes, God was jealous for his relationship with his people, and the man here is jealous for his relationship with his wife, but it is deeper than that. God knows that it is only when he sits enthroned over a creation that is submitted to him that the creation will find fulfillment and satisfaction and eternal joy.

God is not judging the woman more harshly than the man by instituting this test. It is that the husband/wife relationship was designed by God to show us something about His relationship to us. Just as the wife is under the authority of the husband and thus receives all the blessings that God intended from that relationship, so we as God’s people are under his authority and it is only when we submit to him that we can experience all the joy and happiness and pleasure and fulfillment and satisfaction that he desires for us.

And one more thought to show that God is not picking on the woman here, but showing us something deeper about ourselves. We have to understand this passage in the broader scope of the book of Numbers. One of the themes of this book is that the Israelites… all of them, are sinful rebels who can never enter the promised land. All of them, men and women alike, are like this unfaithful wife.

This adulterous wife is a picture of Israel just as much as she is a picture of each of us. In the test that follows, you see the wife speaking an oath declaring that if she is indeed guilty, then the water of bitterness will bring a curse. Israel had spoken that oath! They had declared to God in Exodus 24:7-8 that they would keep his law. They would be faithful to him and not stray from him, but they were unable to do it. In Numbers 14, the people are on the verge of entering Canaan, but because of their fear and unbelief, they are not able to enter. And not only them, but even Moses himself is shown in Numbers to be unworthy of entering the promised Land. In chapter 20, he disobeys God and strikes the rock and as a consequence, God says that he will not enter. In chapter 12, Aaron and Miriam oppose Moses’ leadership and Miriam is struck with leprosy. They too die before entering the promised land. No one can get in! They are all too sinful, too rebellious, too adulterous!

There is only one major character in Numbers who at the end of the book is poised with the second generation of Israelites to enter the promised land. His name is Joshua in Hebrew, and in Greek… Jesus!   Only Jesus can enter the promised land!

Moving on in the passage, the woman is taken through the established procedure that God will use to establish either her guilt or her innocence. We won’t look in detail at each aspect of the test but here’s a quick summary of what we read in verses 15-28.

2. The Consequence of the sin: the woman becomes a curse.

1. First there is a “grain offering of remembrance (not the typical grain offering because this one has no oil, no incense). Its purpose is to “bring iniquity to remembrance.”
2. She is “set before the Lord” (v. 16)
3. The water of bitterness that brings the curse is prepared (holy water with dust from tabernacle floor)
4. Her hair is unbound, and the grain offering of jealousy is placed in her hands.
5. She takes an oath, stating that if she is not guilty of the adultery, the curse will not come upon her, but if she has gone astray, she will be made a curse and an oath, and physical affliction will come upon her
6. Woman says, “amen, amen” to the curse.
7. The spoken curses are written on a book and then washed into the holy water.
8. A handful of the grain offering is burned on the altar.
9. Finally, the woman drinks the water, and if she is guilty the consequences come upon her, if she is not guilty, then they don’t.

Try to put yourself in the place of this adulterous woman after she has gone through this ritual and been exposed publicly by Jehovah God himself as the adulteress that she is.

Imagine the humiliation. There’s a lot here that we don’t fully understand because of the language and things we don’t know about the culture, but there is enough that we do understand to see that this guilty woman is forever disgraced. She is living in pain. There’s some debate over the nature of the physical affliction, but most scholars think that the terms here refer to childlessness, but not just a closed womb, but some painful condition that keeps her from ever bearing children again… something that is obvious to everyone. She not only has been cursed, she is a curse and an oath among her people (v. 27) Imagine being a curse. Imagine hearing people say, “May you be like ________. (insert your name!)”

Imagine being a curse!

3. Jesus drank for us this cup and became a curse for us.

But now imagine that the offended husband would go to his guilty wife, before this whole ritual takes place and say, “I’m going to become you. I am going to become a woman and sit before God in your place, and have my hair taken down in front of everyone. I’m going to bear the disgrace that you deserve. I’m going to be mocked and scorned as unfaithful and adulterous. I am going to drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and become that curse instead of you.

That is what Jesus did for us.

That’s why he said to Peter in John 18:11, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

We are all adulterers. If this test in Numbers 5 were to be applied to the heart of the wife in question, there would not have been a woman in Israel nor a man who could have escaped that curse. As Jesus himself said, and the apostle James repeated, we are a sinful and adulterous people.

Do you realize and feel the weight that what is described here is a description of your own guilt before God? Have you understood, and do you daily recognize, that you could never pass the test? You could never be vindicated before God as having been faithful to him, never having strayed?

The only way to escape eternal death and condemnation in hell is to receive the salvation that God offers to us through his Son, Jesus. Have you given your life to Jesus and received that salvation?

If you have already received that salvation, do you thank the Lord Jesus every day that he became a curse for you? That he bore your humiliation and disgrace and shame, so that you might be vindicated as one who passes the test?

4. The blessings of passing the test

Look at what is spoken upon the wife who is not adulterous, but who is vindicated by Jehovah God as having been faithful to her husband. Verse 28 But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.”

IN Christ, we receive that condition of being undefiled and clean, and so the blessing that is spoken on this woman comes upon us. Jesus took our place and became a curse, so that we might take his place and be free and conceive children. Let’s look at those two ideas more closely.

First of all, we are free. Free of what?

Free of condemnation and accusation. After passing this test, no one could point their finger at this woman and say, “You were unfaithful. You broke the covenant with your husband.” Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Free of guilt. After passing this test, this woman could know the lightness and freedom of being justified, (which is the opposite of condemnation. Condemnation is being declared “guilty”. Justification is being declared “not guilty.”)  Romans 3:24 says that those who trust in Jesus, are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus

Free of the humiliation and shame that we should feel. Had this woman failed the test her very name would have become an oath and a curse among her people. Her vindication meant that there was no basis for any humiliation or shame. Her honor was upheld. Romans 9:33 Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

And we are not only free FROM, but we are free TO…

Free to enjoy a restored relationship with our Husband, the Lord Jesus. Colossians 1:21-23 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Free to extend grace and love to those around us who are guilty of the same things that we were guilty of before Christ saved us. Acts 1:8 But you will receive power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

Free to fulfill the purpose for which God created us. And this is what I think is the significance of the second phrase in verse 28:  she shall be free and shall conceive children, I think it is pointing to God’s first command to Adam and Eve. God said, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Bearing children here is a picture of being restored to a position where we are able to bear fruit to God by fulfilling our destiny as his creatures.

1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

God made you for a purpose, which is to bring him glory, and because of what Jesus did for you, you are free to fulfill that purpose: to declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

What are you doing with the freedom that Jesus bought for you by drinking your cup? Are you fulfilling the purpose for which God created you? All of us who have received the salvation that God gives us in Jesus should be asking him this question:

“Lord, I deserve to be in hell right now, under your eternal curse, but by your grace, I am here. Why, Lord? In light of all that you have done for me, show me Lord how I can declare your praises. There is no one like you, Lord, who would become a curse for me; who would take my guilt, who would take my shame, who would drink my cup. Thank you, precious Lord Jesus–my life, my hope, my joy, my all!

Dear Allan,

I’ve been meditating much this week on Genesis 32 and Jacob’s wrestling with God. This is a fascinating passage with so much that I don’t understand in it. Two days in a row last week I sat with V after our devotional times and discussed this story at length. I won’t try to reproduce the whole conversation, or the development of my thinking on the passage, but let me share some of my conclusions since they relate very closely to this subject of waiting on God that we have been corresponding about.

Is this story about prayer

First of all, I have read many different commentators on this passage and all of them use as a starting point that the passage is primarily to teach us something about prayer. While I think the story has some implications for prayer, I don’t think it is primarily about prayer but about Jacob’s relationship with God. I also spent a good deal of time comparing the passage to Hosea 12:2-6 which mentions this event in the context of the nation of Judah.

The context of the story is definitely that Jacob had a need (Esau’s impending attack) and that he had prayed to God for deliverance (vs. 9-12). I don’t think there is any doubt that Esau was coming with the 400 men with the intention of destroying Jacob and his family. SOMETHING happened, though, to completely turn Esau’s attitude around, so that he was favorably disposed to Jacob when he met him. Those of the “prevailing prayer” school would say that Jacob “prevailed” in prayer with God and received the asked for deliverance. According to this line of thinking, Jacob’s wrestling with the angel was a vivid symbol of his perseverance in the prayer that is recorded in vs. 9-12.

(The strongest Biblical support for this idea of prevailing prayer I think comes not from this passage, but from Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18. Other passages might include Moses’ intercession for Israel that moved God to relent from destroying them.)

One of the problems with this interpretation however is simply that Jacob was not praying but wrestling! He appears to not even know that the man is a possible source of blessing until the morning hour when his hip is touched and he then asks for the blessing. So to say that he was wrestling to “get something” just doesn’t fit.

Could this story be about brokenness before God?

Another interesting point is that it does not say that Jacob wrestled with the man, but that “a man wrestled with him.” I picture the angel as being the one who initiated the encounter. (although grammatically, that interpretation is not required, I think it will bear out as I continue).

When the angel puts Jacob’s hip out, it is apparent that he is the stronger of the two and could have easily won the encounter at any point. When he puts out the hip, it is God’s way of showing Jacob that he is not strong enough to win. The angel is bringing Jacob to a place of brokenness. What is to be made then of the observation that “…the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob…” I think the angel is God’s representative bringing Jacob to a place of brokenness, and this phrase does NOT mean that the angel had been trying desperately to win, but couldn’t. RATHER the phrase is pointing out that this is the reason for dislocating the hip: Jacob’s stubborn refusal to quit, and his determination to keep on in his own strength.

Jacob’s whole life story to this point is one of wily deception in an attempt to make things work out in his favor, by his own strength. He had constantly sought to manipulate events. (for example, the stew for Esau, deception of Isaac, getting Laban’s flocks by the striped branches, and now the gifts for Esau). His whole life had been a “wrestling in his own strength.” God was now bringing him to a point of seeing that he was unable to win, and was about to be destroyed by Esau.

When Jacob’s hip is put out, he realizes his combatant’s superior strength and appeals to him for a blessing. He, as the weaker, asks the stronger for help. It isn’t clear if he was specifically asking the man to intervene in the Esau affair–probably he wasn’t, he just knew that he needed this man’s blessing.

At this point, the story is really strange because the hip incident surely showed that Jacob was powerless to detain the angel, and yet the man clearly acts as though Jacob IS detaining him further when he asks to be let go. What an amazing picture of our depending on God in faith, when it is really HE who is holding on to US. This is the point of the story where it comes closest to the persistent widow principle.

When the angel changes Jacob’s name, he names him, “strives with God.” It is interesting that this is seen as a positive thing. He has gone from being the “deceiver” to being the one who “strives with God.” His “prevailing” is also positive. I researched this word and there isn’t much mystery to it. It just means “to win”. Jacob wins! But HOW does he win? How does he prevail? Is it by forcing God’s hand and getting the blessing through his own perseverance? He wins by being broken.

Notice that in v. 30. Jacob does NOT name the place, “I have striven with God and won”, but rather, Peniel, or “face of God.” Jacob doesn’t bask in his victory, he marvels that he has seen God and continues alive. He is recognizing that the man had been God’s angel and that the man could have killed him. He has received grace, and he knows it.

When Esau arrives and is favorably disposed, I think Jacob knew that it was not because of his gifts, but because of the blessing he had received from the angel. The next chapter concludes with Jacob building an altar that is called El-Elohe ISRAEL, (his new name).

Hosea 12, a parallel passage

Going to Hosea 12, I find further support for this interpretation of the event.

The Lord has an indictment against Judah
and will punish Jacob according to his ways;
he will repay him according to his deeds.
3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel,
and in his manhood he strove with God.
4 He strove with the angel and prevailed;
he wept and sought his favor.
He met God at Bethel,
and there God spoke with us—
5 the Lord, the God of hosts,
the Lord is his memorial name:
6 “So you, by the help of your God, return,
hold fast to love and justice,
and wait continually for your God.”

V. 2 starts out by pointing out Jacob’s sin. This can refer to the sin of the nation, or to the sin of the man (Jacob) who represents the nation. I don’t think the following verses are a description of this sin. The sin has been described previously to v. 2. Vs. 3-6 now explain to Israel, the nation, how they should act in view of the indictment that the Lord has against them and his promised punishment. Jacob’s life is an example to them of what they should do.

Verse 3 shows the contrast between the person that Jacob was from his birth (a deceiver who “grasps the heel”), and the person he was after being re-named by God (“in his manhood he strove with God”). Verse 4 describes the striving with God and is crucial to understanding Genesis 32. “He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor.” Jacob’s “striving” was a weeping and seeking of God’s favor. This phrase captures so perfectly the brokenness of Jacob. He is weeping. He sees his need. He calls out to God for grace (favor).

Moving on in v. 4, it mentions God speaking at Bethel. If you look at this event in Gen. 35:9-10, you see that it also refers to the name change from Jacob to Israel. So this phrase is re-emphasizing Jacob’s victory in his striving. In v. 6 the application is drawn to the nation: “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.” The application of Jacob’s example is for them to OBEY the Lord (hold fast to love and justice) and to wait. V. pointed out to me the great contrast there is here between “waiting” and “struggling”. The nation is not to struggle as Jacob struggled, but to be broken as Jacob was broken, manifesting this brokenness in obedience and humbly waiting upon God, looking to him for his blessing.

Summarizing

Here is the great irony of this event: Jacob “won” by being beaten. I see Jacob’s “prevailing” as analogous to Abraham’s faith. His name, Israel, memorializes his holding on to the angel and asking for a blessing, and yet the whole story shows that the blessing would have never come had God left Jacob to continue on as he had been going. He would have vainly tried to assuage Esau’s rage with the gifts and then been decimated by him. God in his grace encountered Jacob, wrestled him to a place of seeing his weakness and asking for a blessing that he probably didn’t even fully understand what it would be.

So, can we just decide to wrestle with God in prayer about something? I don’t think so. But there are moments where God in his grace comes to us and humbles us so that he may bless us. The active part that we play in these encounters is revealed by Hosea 12. When we go to the Word and the Spirit shows us our sinfulness and our justly deserved judgment, we ask him for grace (v. 4–weep and seek his favor), repent (v. 6–”return, hold fast to love and justice”) and then “wait continually for him” (v. 6).

If we are faced with a great need to pray for, could it be that we would even pray all night, not as an attempt to get something from God, but recognizing at the outset that we are seeking to say to God by our extended praying that we are waiting upon him? We can say to him, “Lord, we are broken, we know we can’t meet this need through our own strength, nor can we earn anything from you by praying all night, but we are humbly seeking your favor. Break us further if there is any continuing self-reliance. We look to you for a blessing that we may not even fully understand.”

I can’t remember a time that I prayed all night for something, and my discipline in fasting is lacking also. I offer this interpretation humbly, recognizing that there are many in the “prevailing prayer” school who may have so much to teach me about waiting upon God. May the Lord give me wisdom to apply these insights to my own life.

Bryan

I argued that “binding and loosing” refers to God’s people declaring with authority the truth about Jesus. Here in verse 16, Peter is the first to make this proclamation when he enthusiastically responds to the Lord’s question with the glorious words, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” When the truth about Jesus (the gospel message) is declared by God’s people, this proclamation frees some–“looses” them–to enter into eternal life.  It is the key to the kingdom.  For others, that same proclamation “binds” them, shutting them out of the kingdom as they choose to reject the truth.

Now that I have offered this as an interpretation, here is more detail why I think this is the correct way to understand binding and loosing.  I also want to include in this post some thoughts on the implications of this interpretation for our efforts to complete the Great Commission and see Christ’s church advance to the ends of the earth.

“shall be bound” or “shall have been bound”

First, we have to consider the meaning of the words, “shall be bound” and “shall be loosed.”  Even if you are not a greek scholar (the original language of the New Testament), if you are an English speaker, you have a tremendous Bible study tool available to you in the various English translations.  Usually when there is a question of the correct way to interpret the original text, it will come up through a comparison of some of the major translations (you can do this using E-sword (which is free), or Logos, which I use–not free).  In this case, we discover that the ESV, which I usually use here on the blog, and the NASB have translated this phrase differently.  Here is the comparison:

ESV:  …whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

NASB:  …whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

There is a long-standing debate among biblical scholars over which of these is the better translation and I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that the NASB translation fits very naturally with what we have seen so far in the rest of the passage.  Let me explain how.

When we proclaim the gospel message, we are directly impacting people’s lives in that when they receive the message, they are loosed and brought into the kingdom.  When they reject the message (and only God knows when that final rejection occurs) they are bound over to eternal punishment.

But even though, as proclaimers of the truth, we are the agents through which this occurs, it is not as though we are the ones deciding peoples’ eternal destinies.  As the NASB translation makes clear, what we bind or loose on earth, God has already bound or loosed in heaven.  D.A. Carson (to whom I am greatly indebted for everything I am presenting in this post), put it this way in his commentary on Matthew:  “He (Peter) has no direct pipeline to heaven, still less do his decisions force heaven to comply; but he may be authoritative in binding and loosing because heaven has acted first.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew)

When we boldly and authoritatively declare the truth that it is only through Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, that man can be reconciled with his Creator, God’s eternal purposes are fulfilled.  His authority to save sinners is manifested in our authoritative proclamation of the means by which he saves sinners.  We are, in the language of Matthew 16:19, “binding and loosing.”

Binding and loosing put into practice…

The significance then of Jesus’ words here is immense.  God’s eternal purpose to call out for himself a people who will be saved by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ is placed into our hands!  Consider the implications for our efforts to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.  I believe Jesus’ words should embolden us to preach the gospel with courage and authority.  Isn’t this exactly what we see Peter doing in Acts, and then all the other apostles as well, who were then followed by their Timothys and Tituses?

Jesus has given us authority to preach the gospel!  And in our increasingly pluralistic and relativistic world, we need strong assurances of that authority in order to continue to be faithful to our calling as witnesses (Acts 1:8).  This verse was given to us not to emboldent us to speak to Satan, but to embolden us to speak to sinners.

I get worked up by this because I believe that many in the “bind Satan” camp, while they are well-meaning, are forgetting that the commission we received from Jesus’ lips was to “make disciples” and not to “bind Satan”.  And one of the very passages that provides us with the authority we need to make those disciples has been misconstrued and used to distract us from that original commission.  Yes, we must pray!  Absolutely we must pray, but let me be so bold as to say that when we say, “Satan, I bind you in the name of Jesus” we are not praying.  That is not prayer.  Prayer is talking to God, not talking to Satan, (note:  I am not saying that we are never to address demons directly, there is biblical precedent for a verbal rebuke of demons.  I am only saying that there is no biblical precedent for “binding Satan”.)

Another reason why applying these verses correctly is so important is that the very thing that Satan fears more than anything else is the proclamation of the glorious gospel of the blood of Christ that will wrench his captives away from him.  If we really want to wage spiritual warfare, let us do it with the most powerful weapon we have which is the gospel.  It is the gospel that declares that Satan was defeated at the cross.

What does it matter if we have courage to address Satan in prayer, but don’t have courage to address his subjects with the gospel.   Let me say it yet again, it is not for us to bind Satan.  At the appropriate time, he will be bound and cast into the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3), and according to Scripture it will not be we who do it.

Still not convinced?  A final argument

Binding and loosing in Matthew 18:18

If what I and commentators like D.A. Carson and Craig Blomberg (New American Commentary: Matthew) are saying is correct, then a good way to test this interpretation is to see if it fits with Matthew 18:18, which is almost identical to Matthew 16:19, but in a very different context.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Mattthew 18:15-20)

In neither Matthew 18 nor 16 is there any mention at all of Satan and his demons.  To read them into the binding and loosing verses totally ignores the context of the passage.

Here, the context is one of church discipline.  Notice that in verse 17, the brother who has been confronted with his sin “refuses to listen even to the church”.  He is therefore an example of one who is “bound on earth” in the sense that the church says to this brother, “if you are unwilling to live by the truth of the gospel that we as Christ’s body confess, then you are no longer a part of that body.”  It is not the church that is excommunicating the individual, but God, acting through the church as his agent on earth (NASB, here also:  shall have been bound). And just as in Matthew 16, the church does this through a proclamation of the truth, never acting arbitrarily outside of that truth but only serving as the agent by which God exercises his authority.

Here again, there is a tremendous application to our obedience to Jesus’ command to preach the gospel to all creation.  The growth of the kingdom of God is not accomplished simply by filling our churches with large numbers of people, doing everything in our power to keep people happy and not rock the boat.  We must exercise the authority that God has given us to hold people to the high standard of a life, “worthy of the calling that we have received” (Eph. 4:1).  When we fail to discipline believers who are not living that worthy life, then we are failing to “bind and loose” as Jesus gave us the authority to do.

If you’ve made it this far into a long post (I have trouble writing short ones), let me conclude by saying that I would love to hear your comments on this.  I have just put a new comment subscription plug-in on the blog.  If you care to leave a comment, you can also subscribe to the comments on that post by email and get an email whenever anyone else adds a comment.  Just look for the e-mail sign up at the bottom of the comments section.

What should we think of this prayer?  Does God teach us in his Word to “bind Satan”?  That is the question I want to take up in this post, based primarily on Matthew 16:19.

“Binding satan” has become a very common practice in certain circles of the evangelical church.  Some Christian leaders are presenting this as the fundamental need in evangelizing the remaining unreached peoples of the world.  Satan and his demons must be “bound,” they say, through prayer, so that people can be “loosed” from their captivity and come to Christ.

One thing is certain, more dependance upon God expressed in prayer is a very good thing, and I am convinced that without prayer my own work among an unreached people is going nowhere.  But just as with anything else in our Christian faith, our prayer practices need to be grounded in what God himself has taught us about prayer.

I cannot say everything in this post that needs to be said about spiritual warfare nor treat all of the Bible passages relevant to this particular practice, but I want to show that Matthew 16:19  does not support the practice of “binding Satan.”  To the contrary, I think that this brief study will show that such praying distracts us from what we should be doing, which is to declare the gospel, calling people to repent of their sins and turn to Jesus Christ in faith, all the time clinging to God in prayer and asking him to do what only he can do, which is change sinners into saints.

Here are the verses I want to study…

15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

In order to understand v. 19, which is our goal, we first have to wrestle with the following question:

What is the “rock” that Jesus says he will build his church on?

Several different answers have been offered, but the most obvious reading of the text is that the rock is Peter.  D.A. Carson says, “…if it were not for Protestant reactions against extremes of Roman Catholic interpretation, it is doubtful whether many would have taken “rock” to be anything or anyone other than Peter.” This doesn’t mean, however, that Peter was the first pope.  Carson goes on to say, “The text says nothing about Peter’s successors, infallibility, or exclusive authority. These late interpretations entail insuperable exegetical and historical problems.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Gospel of Matthew).

All Jesus is saying is that Peter especially, but the other apostles as well, are those upon and through whom he is going to begin building his spiritual temple.  Compare with Ephesians 2:19-20 where Christ’s church is called, “…the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” Yes, Jesus is the rock, the cornerstone, the foundation, but it is also true to Scripture to say that the apostles are the foundation upon which the church is built.

What, you might say, does this have to do with the question of binding Satan?  Hang with me, and I think you’ll begin to see how this whole passage hangs together (like that neat pun?).  The next important question is…

What is meant by, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”?

Those in the “binding Satan” camp interpret this phrase to mean that Satan is on the defensive.  “After all,” they say, “gates are for the purpose of defending a city.”  They understand Jesus to be saying that Satan will not be able to resist the attacks that the church brings as it “storms hell’s gates” and plunders Satan’s kingdom.

But the phrase, “gates of hell” is used several times in the Old Testament, and it always refers to death (see Job 17:16; 38:17; Psalm 9:13; 107:18; Isaiah 38:10).  This is probably why the RSV translates the phrase, “The powers of death shall not prevail against it.”

So what Jesus appears to be saying is that the Church he is building, starting with Peter and the other apostles, is indestructible.  Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God, is the one building this spiritual temple, and nothing, not even death, can destroy it, because this spiritual house is built of living stones (1 Peter 2:5).

Another argument against reading spiritual warfare into this phrase is that no matter what the understanding of “gates” should be, the verb “prevail” or “overcome” is not a defensive word, but an offensive word.  Jesus is saying that his church will not be defeated.  He is not saying anything about whom the church will defeat.

What are “the keys of the kingdom”?

First of all, this phrase is another reason why it makes sense to understand that Jesus was referring to Peter himself when he said, “on this rock I will build my church”. Peter is the rock, so Peter is the one who gets the keys.  But what are the keys?  Two important things can be said to answer that.

1. First, the keys speak of entrance into the kingdom.  The only other places that Jesus mentioned keys are Luke 11:52 and Revelation 1:18.

In Luke 11:52, he says, “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” In the context, the lawyers, who should have been the ones to show that the Old Testament prophets testified to Christ, were too busy loading God’s people with heavy legalistic burdens (v. 46).  As a result they cheated the people of the “knowledge” of what the prophets said about Christ, with which they could have entered the kingdom.

Also in Revelation 1:18, Jesus says, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” Apart from what Jesus did on the cross, we are condemned to eternal death, but he has the keys of death, and he can deliver us from that destination and bring us into eternal life.

Second, the keys and the binding and loosing phrase explain each other.

Think about what binding and loosing have in common with keys.  A key either unlocks a door, so that one can enter, or it locks a door, making it impossible to enter.  In the same way, binding keeps someone from doing something while loosing frees them to do something.  If you tie someone up, or take away a key, they are helpless.  But if you loose them, or give them a key, they can go do something.  In this context, people are either being enabled to enter the Kingdom, or prevented from entering the kingdom.  But by what?

Here is where the whole passage starts to hang together and all the parts illuminate the whole.  When Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus told him that he confessed this because the Father had revealed it to him.  Jesus then said that Peter was the rock upon which the Church would be built, and that he, Jesus, will give Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven.  In other words, the proclamation of the truth about Jesus is the key to heaven. As Peter proclaims the truth about Jesus, which the Father has revealed to him (and will continue to reveal as Peter grows in his understanding of who Jesus is and what he came to do), he is opening the door for many to enter the kingdom.

We see Peter using these keys in the first half of the book of Acts as he preaches and thousands come to faith in Christ.

And that same proclamation that opens the door to some, closes it to others. For the thousands that believed in Acts, there were others who were hardened.  I personally have experienced this with many people with whom I have shared the gospel.  It is a scary thing to see someone say no to Jesus and to know that it was because of my sharing the gospel with them that they came to that point of rejection.  Peter is not “binding” in the sense of keeping people from responding to Christ, but when he proclaims the gospel in Acts, he is the agent through whom people are brought to a point of decision and either bound or loosed.

When we are sharing Christ with someone and they say, “but I think I will find my way to God by some other way than Christ.  I’ll follow my own prophet,” it is our duty to say, “no, you cannot go by any other way, there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved.” We must bind them and deny them entrance by any other way except by the one who said, “I am the way… no one comes to the Father except through me.” When we declare to those unwilling to follow Christ that salvation is only through him, we are binding.  “No, you cannot enter… not on those terms.”

One more observation, there is no reason to understand Matthew 16:19-20 as applying only to Peter and not to us.  In the same way that the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 was given to us through Jesus’ words to the apostles, so this commission to bind and to loose as well is given to us through Jesus’ words to Peter.

Conclusion:

Back to our starting point.  What about “binding Satan” in prayer?  It is true that every human being who does not belong to Christ is a captive of Satan, but the biblical teaching is that freedom and salvation do not come from binding Satan, but from declaring the gospel message, calling sinners to repent and turn to Christ.  This is what  we need to be doing.  And all the while, we should be talking to God about those people, not to Satan.

Here was John’s concern…

I’m going to be the little trouble maker here.   I’m just thinking and would like your thoughts.  I’ve think you’ve made an interesting point and upon reading this, this is the only time i’ve heard rain, floods and winds referred to as final judgment.  My question would be “are those whose house is built on the rock going to go through the final judgment?  Was not the rain, floods and winds poured out on Christ?  Are believers going to be judged in the same manner as unbelievers?  If this passage is referring to “final judgement”, it appears that it is the same exact judgment on both believers and unbelievers….although the results of the judgement are remarkably different.

John, you brought up an important point concerning what God’s judgment is, so I am happy for the opportunity to clarify.  On the one hand, you are right in that believers will not be “judged” at the final judgment because our sins were judged in Christ.  God’s wrath was poured out on Christ, so that those who are united to him by faith will not face it.  But I think you were taking my point too far when you interpreted me to mean that “the rain, floods and wind” in this passage represent the wrath of God.  In that sense, yes, you are right, we will not be judged.

But the word “judgment” is used in two ways in the New Testament.  On the one hand, it is used in the sense of “condemnation” or a negative judgement.  In this sense, to “judge” someone is to pronounce them guilty.

But judgment is also used in a neutral sense.  This is the sense of separating or distinguishing or discriminating between two things.

You can see these two meanings in two apparently conflicting statements of Jesus.

First, in John 3:17 Jesus says, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (NASB). Here John is saying that the reason Jesus was sent into the world was not to bring condemnation, but to provide a way to be saved from condemnation.  That is why the English Standard Version uses the word, “condemn” instead of “judge.”  (“…did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world…”)

On the other hand, in John 9:39 Jesus says,  “For judgement I came into this world…” and in John 5:27 he says that the Father, “has given him authority to execute judgment”.  These verses do not contradict John 3:17 because they are referring to the fact that Jesus came to “distinguish” or “separate” those who are his from those who are not.

It is this distinguishing type of judgment that is happening in the house on the rock passage.  The storm does not represent the negative penalty of condemnation, but rather the discriminating act of judgment at the final judgment that will separate the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-46).  Actually, the Matthew 25 connection with the house on the rock is strong, because in both contexts there is a distinction being made between those who only call Jesus, “Lord, Lord” and those who are actually his people (compare Matthew 7:22 with Matthew 25:44)

Let me conclude with a quote from James Montgomery Boice:

Building on Christ’s words will also save you in death, for that is what escaping the storm’s destruction actually refers to. This is not merely a matter of finding something that will get you through life, fit to stand against “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” as it were. It is a matter of standing upright at the final judgment and not being carried off to hell by God’s verdict and command. (page 117 The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1, Baker Books, 2001)

The wise man built his house upon the rock

The wise man built his house upon the rock

The wise man built his house upon the rock

And the rains came a tumblin’ down…

But when Jesus tells us at the end of the Sermon on the Mount to “build our house on the rock,” what is he referring to?  How do we actually do this?

Here is the whole passage…

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

I’m not sure where my early understanding came from, but for a long time, I thought that the rain and the floods and the wind that beat on the house were the storms of life–the trials  and struggles that all of us go through.  But if you look closely at the context here at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking about the final judgment.  The beating storm that the house must endure is nothing less than the judgment that Christ himself will render when he evaluates our lives on judgment day.  The question at hand, then, is whether or not we will “enter the kingdom of heaven” (v. 21), or hear the awful words, “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (v. 23).

In order to enter the eternal kingdom and live forever with Jesus, we must be like the man who built his house on the rock.  And Jesus states very, very clearly what that means in verse 24.  “Everyone then who hears these words of mind and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

Although it is very true that we must obey everything that Jesus says, when he speaks of “these words” he is referring to what he has just taught in the Sermon on the Mount.  And it is not enough just to hear those words and appreciate them.  We must do them (remember James 1:22-25 and the man who looks at his face in the mirror).

So what does “doing” the things that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount entail?  Well, to be honest, it entails a lot more than you and I are capable of.  What makes Matthew 5-7 so stunning (in the sense of feeling numb like you’ve been hit on the head with a crowbar) is that Jesus doesn’t only endorse what God had already revealed in the Old Testament, he deepens it and makes it a matter of the heart.  So it isn’t enough to just “not murder”, we must also make sure our hearts aren’t harboring bitter and angry thoughts.  It isn’t enough to just “not commit adultery,” our thoughts have to be pure.  We can’t just “claim our rights,” but we must be willing to suffer injustice at the hands of others.  Religious duties like fasting, prayer and giving must be done with a right heart… This is only a partial list of some of the words that we have just heard from Jesus in the sermon on the mount.  Jesus has shown us that a true keeping of the law is so much deeper than just external behavior, it is the description of a life that springs from a pure heart.

Now, depending at what stage you are at in life, you will probably respond to this in one of two ways.  1)  “Well, I guess I better buckle down and get started.  Let’s see, what part of the sermon on the mount will I work on today?”  or 2) “Can I just go back to bed?”

You see, when Jesus says that the one who builds his house on the rock, “hears my words and does them,” it is like being told that you need to build the Biltmore House (click if you’ve never seen the Biltmore House) on your $20,000 a year salary in order to get into heaven.  There’s no way you can do it!

The problem is that the gospel of Matthew is filled with such passages.  Matthew presents the “gospel of the kingdom” that Jesus came preaching: a description of what life under King Jesus is like.  And as glorious as that picture is, and as much as we would like to live it, it can seem unattainable when we look only at this Biltmore House of a life that Jesus talks about and realize that we can’t begin to measure up.

But the gospel of Matthew doesn’t consist only of the “gospel of the Kingdom,” it ends with the King himself dying on a cross and then rising from the dead.  So what is the connection between the message of the King about the life that he wants us to live, and the death and resurrection of the King?

Although there are some clues scattered throughout Matthew, it isn’t until after Jesus ascends to heaven and the apostles, through the Holy Spirit, explain to us in their writings the significance of Jesus’ death that we begin to see how Jesus’ death and resurrection make it possible for us to build our house on the rock.

The only way possible for us to “hear Jesus’ words and do them” is to be united with Jesus in his death and resurrection.  His death becomes our death, and his life becomes our life, and the house on the rock that stands against the storm of God’s judgment is nothing less than the exquisite mansion of Christ’s own life that he builds for us through the Holy Spirit who indwells us.

So, summarizing, how do you build your house on the Rock?

Admit to Jesus your helplessness to build anything that stands a chance of surviving his end-time judgment.  Every day look to his death on the cross, and see there the death of all your attempts to make yourself acceptable to God.  See at the cross as well the forgiveness for all your failed attempts to do what Jesus says.  Receive by faith the resurrected Jesus into your life and ask him to fill you with the Holy Spirit.  And then go out and in the power of his indwelling Spirit, listen to his words and do what he says.

The principle of “reproducibility,” as it is usually presented, states that in missions, we should evangelize, disciple believers, and plant churches in such a way that the methods and practices we are using to do the work can be easily reproduced by those within the culture we are trying to reach.

Usually the focus falls on the methods and practices that we employ in ministry.  For example…

A mission is trying to reach a people group that is primarily poor, unskilled laborers, so they decide to build a first-class hospital where the people can come to get medical care that is not normally available to them.  The patients experience the love of Christ through the Christian doctors and nurses, hear the gospel proclaimed and become believers.  Discipleship classes are hosted at the hospital’s excellent facilities and hundreds if not thousands of people’s lives are touched every year.

Hospitals are a wonderful means of spreading the gospel and have been used by the Lord with great results through the years.  But this is not a reproducible method. In other words, the poor, unskilled laborers reached through the hospital are not able to take this same method and use it to reach others. They have no medical expertise.  They have no resources to build excellent facilities.  It is a good method, but it is not reproducible.

An example of a reproducible method, on the other hand, might be Evangelism Explosion.  I was trained in E.E. as a young pastor and was very impressed at the potential this method had to unleash an ever-increasing number of evangelists.  an E.E. trainer takes two others under his wing and teaches them a short, memorized presentation of the gospel that they can use to share with others.  Once they are trained, each of them can then train two others, who in turn then each train two others… and on it goes with a multiplication effect that essentially is limitless.  It doesn’t cost anything, it is simple, and within the North American culture it was designed for, it is very reproducible.

These are examples of the reproduciblity principle as it is normally understood by missiologists.  But here is the important “reconsideration” of reproducibility that I am proposing:

The power of reproducibility lies not in the ministry methods or practices used, but in the divine life that is at work in God’s people as the kingdom of God grows.

We cross-cultural workers who are seeking a reproducing movement that is constantly producing new believers and new churches must never forget this.  While it is certainly not wrong to apply the reproducibility principle to methods and practices, we must realize that methods and practices and strategies and tools in and of themselves are not capable of containing and generating divine life.

It is God’s divine life that reproduces itself in the lives of people and is spreading to fill the whole world with his glory.  This is why Paul so often refers to the Church as the Body of Christ that is growing and pulsing with Jesus’ divine life

Ephesians 4:15-16

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

In Colossians 2:19 we are told to hold fast to…

“…the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”

Could it be that in our attempt to discover and perfect reproducible methods we sometimes cut ourselves off from the power of this divine life that God has provided to give us fruit in our evangelistic, discipleship and church planting efforts?  By trying to find just the right reproducible method, we unintentionally blind ourselves to the need to seek the  life that is in Jesus himself and that is able to generate incredible growth and fruit as it flows through whatever method or practice God in his wisdom and sovereignty chooses to bless.

I realize that the reproducibility principle as it is applied to methods and practices does not exclude a dependance on the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through believers who are filled with him and living in the power of his life, but I think we need to remind ourselves that God is under no obligation to bless whatever methods and practices seem most reproducible to us.  He may very well choose to bypass them and to work in a way that is counter-intuitive to us just to show the greatness of the power of his life as it flows in his body.

1 Corinthians 1:27

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;

I have observed God’s power and divine life flowing through methods and practices that were very far from being “reproducible”, and I have also observed many excellent and reproducible methods and practices that just were not producing fruit.  The lesson to be learned is NOT that it is wrong to ask God to show us methods and practices that are able to be used by the people we are trying to reach, but to think that these in and of themselves are sufficient to bring about the multiplication that we desire to see.

As divine life is passed from those Christian doctors and nurses to the patients whose lives they touch, reproduction takes place and the Kingdom of God grows.  God can use a very un-reproducible method to grow his church.

On the other hand, if E.E. is seen as being “the answer” to reaching people with the gospel and is taught simply as words to be spoken and passed on to others, a very reproducible method will have no power at all to make any eternal difference in the life of a single person.

• So is it wrong to get excited about promising new methods or practices?  Absolutely not!  They may very well be God’s good gifts to us to enable us to do his work in the power of the Holy Spirit.
• Is it wrong to evaluate methods and practices on the basis of their capacity to be reproduced by the people we are trying to reach?  Absolutely not!  The desire to use reproducible methods springs from a desire that the power of God be glorified.  When God chooses to use a world-class hospital, it can be tempting to say that it was the hospital that brought about the conversions, but when God uses simple, reproducible practices, it is usually more apparent that it is his power that produced the fruit.
• Is it wrong to use non-reproducible methods?  Not if we receive specific instructions from “the Head” to do so.  I would not stand in the way of any Christian worker or organization who is following what they believe to the clear leading of the Holy Spirit.  The trick is to make sure that we are hearing from him and not depending on fleshly resources to do spiritual work.

Zechariah 4:6

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Here is a brief recap of my study thus far of this prayer for the Ephesian believers:

Like some people who like to read the last chapter to see if the book is going to be good, I started near the end of the request-portion of Paul’s prayer to see where he was heading.  The end result of Paul’s prayer, should God in his grace grant it (and he will because he inspired it!) is that we are “filled with all the fullness of God.” This phrase points to the completion of God’s work in us as he forms in us his very image and we become like him in all his moral perfection and beauty.  Wow!

But how will he get us there?  Paul prays first that we will experience the love of Jesus for us as the Holy Spirit reveals to us in our inner being that we are loved by him.  This experience of Jesus’ love has a rooting and grounding effect in our lives.  But here is where things start to really rev up!

There is more to a plant than the root and there is more to a building than the foundation.  Having experienced Christ’s love through the indwelling Holy Spirit, there is still infinitely more yet to be experienced.  The root is going to blossom into a full-grown plant someday and the building will one day be complete.

Here is where some of the teaching on the fullness of the Holy Spirit often leads people astray.  Some believers put so much emphasis on the initial experience of being filled with the Spirit and the experience of Christ’s love for them in that moment, that they forget that it is only the beginning!  It is only the root!  Paul goes on to pray…

“…that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…”

Paul knows that to reach our goal of being filled with all the fullness of God, we need to have a constantly renewed experience of the love of God.  In the words of C.S. Lewis in his final book of the Chronicles of Narnia…. “Further up and further in!”

Commentators do not all agree on what the four dimensions mentioned in v. 18 refer to, but I think the best interpretation takes them as referring to the love of Christ mentioned in v. 19.  After all, what is the “breadth” of God’s love?  What is its length?  What is its height and its depth?  Can it be measured at all?  How does one measure the love of the Father in sending his Son to take the penalty of death that we as a rebellious race deserved for our sins?  None of us has grasped the dimensions of God’s love that was displayed toward us at Calvary.  As v. 19 says, it “surpasses knowledge”

We can’t fully grasp God’s love because we have never seen the depths of our sin.  We may believe that Jesus died for bad people, or even for really bad people or even really, really wicked people, but we have no idea what is in our hearts apart from the grace of God.  This has been a long-term search for me personally.  I want God to show me the depths of my sin so that I can more fully appreciate what Jesus did for me.

We can’t fully grasp God’s love because we can’t fully see the infinite glory of God.  We have no idea whom we have scorned in turning away from God to follow our own ways.  If we knew, truly knew, the God we reject every time we sin, we would fall on our faces and call for the mountains to fall on us.  And we would see so much more clearly the condescension of his love in saving us through the sacrifice of his Son.

Let me backtrack a bit and talk about two important words in the text that support my premise that what Paul is asking God for in this prayer is that we might experience God’s love for us in Christ.  In v. 18, he prays that we may be able to “comprehend” the love of God.  And in v. 19, he prays that we may “know” the love of Christ.  The word translated “comprehend” is a strengthened form of the verb “to grasp” and means to “fully understand”  The word translated “know” can mean simply “to understand” but it often is used to denote a knowledge by experience–a knowledge of things as they really are.

Paul certainly is not just praying that we will have an intellectual and theological understanding of the love of God.  Word studies aside, the context cries for an understanding of these verbs as relating to an experiential knowledge of the love of God.  Besides, how else (other than experience) can one know something that “surpasses knowledge”?  Paul desires that we will have an ongoing, deepening, broadening, lengthening experience of a reality that we will never exhaust–the love of Christ.

I have a theory regarding the words “with all the saints” that I would like to throw out for your consideration, and if anyone is still reading by this point, perhaps you could leave me a comment with your take on this interpretation (I haven’t found it in any commentary).

Could it be that Paul prays that the Ephesians will be able to comprehend “with all the saints” because he knows that it is only in heaven that all the saints will have this experience that he writes about in verses 18-19?  In other words, only in heaven will this prayer be answered fully, and it will be answered for “all the saints.” We will all be filled up to all the fullness of God as we experience the love of Christ flowing to us with the same intensity with which it flows among the members of the Trinity, and that for all eternity.

It is a glorious thought, and I could write a lot more about this glorious prayer, but I have other responsibilities beyond writing for a blog!

So let me conclude this four-part study of this wonderful prayer with this comment:  Pray this prayer for yourself and for the believers you fellowship with and for all of us as God’s children.  Pray that God would grant us all the faith to believe that by His Spirt indwelling us we can have fellowship with Jesus that is even more intimate than the apostles experienced when they were walking with Jesus in the flesh.  Believe that God wants to bless you with this kind of closeness and intimacy with Jesus, and no matter what your experience or lack of experience has been in the past… he is “able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us…”

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

As I continue in this study, it is going to become more and more necessary that you read the preceding posts to follow what I am saying, but since I have no way of knowing whether you will actually do that, let me try to summarize what I have said thus far.

1)  The end result of the progression that the prayer walks through is our being “filled with all the fullness of God” (v. 19)  God is in a process of forming in us his very image.  Someday, when his work is complete, we will bear his moral likeness.

2)  The first step necessary to take us to that destination is an experience of the manifest presence of Jesus in our lives through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit we can be with Jesus!

Now, let’s pick up at the end of verse 17.  Here we have another participial clause that serves as a link between Paul’s petition in vs. 16-17a and the next petition in v. 18.  When we experience Jesus’ presence in our lives through the indwelling Holy Spirit, the result is that we are “rooted and grounded in love” Once we have been rooted and grounded, we can then begin a process of going deeper and deeper in our experience of the love of God until we are “filled up to all the fullness of God.”

What does it mean to be “rooted and grounded in love”?

Paul brings in the concept of Christ’s love almost as an aside, but it quickly becomes the centerpiece of his prayer.  Notice how he moves from the idea of “Christ dwelling in our hearts” to the state of “being rooted and grounded in love.”  Is there a connection here?

It is almost as if Paul assumes that it is obvious that the experience we have of Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit is an experience of his love.

Going back to my illustration yesterday of the child being adopted, you can see this more clearly.  When I, in Los Angeles, adopt the child in New York, that child knows he is loved.  Why else would I adopt him and promise him that we will live together and that I will provide for his every need?  He can know, to a certain extent, that I love him.  But when I actually arrive in New York and see him for the first time and take him in my arms and give him a great big Daddy bear-hug and tell him that I will always be with him, that is an experience of my love for him that he will never forget–the beginning of many happy years together, even though we most certainly will face difficult times in our relationship.

It is one thing to hear that Jesus loves you.  It is quite another thing to experience that love first-hand!  This is what Paul desires for his brothers and sisters in Ephesus–an experience of God’s love through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I’m convinced that this is the need of many believers as well.  They have never been rooted and grounded in the Father’s love for them.  They know it intellectually, but their experience of that love is limited to just seeing his love displayed in circumstances or in the “common grace” ways that all mankind is loved by God.  The love that Paul is asking for here is of a different sort.  To say that we know God loves us because he feeds us and clothes us would be like the adopting father in my illustration above sending checks to the adopted son in New York.  Sure, it is a way of showing love, but it is not a relationship.

In Romans 5:5 Paul says,

“…and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Through the Holy Spirit we experience firsthand the love of God in our hearts.  I find it hard to put this into words because it is like trying to express the love that we experience in any relationship.  When I tell you that I love my wife, I certainly mean that I feel love for her, but it is so much more than that. In the same way, through the Holy Spirit we know not just in our heads but with our hearts that God is with us and that he loves us.  This is what it means to be “rooted and grounded in love.”

I’ll never forget something I heard Pastor John Piper say about Romans 5:5.  He said (this is not a direct quote) if you wonder if you have really experienced the love of God being poured out within your heart by the Holy Spirit, then ask God to do it to you!  Say, “Lord, do Romans 5:5 to me!”  You need to know by experience that God loves you.  You need to be convinced of it.  When you know by experience that God loves you you are rooted and grounded in his love.

“Rooted and grounded in love” is a mixed metaphor.  Paul mixes an agricultural metaphor with a construction metaphor.   When you are certain of God’s love for you then you are “rooted” like a plant.  You can begin to grow and flourish and bear fruit.  When you are certain of God’s love for you, it is like the foundation of a building.  The word translated “grounded” is used for the foundation of a house.  You are “established” on the foundation of God’s love and the building can then be constructed.

But how do we avoid a frantic, subjective search of our own hearts to see if we really are “rooted and grounded” in God’s love for us?  We all know how fickle our hearts are.  No matter what experience of Christ’s love we have experienced in the past, the moments will come when we doubt everything and are tempted to despair that he has ever really loved us or that he will continue to love us, especially when we’ve really blown it!  Perhaps even as you are reading this, you are thinking… “Have I really experienced this?  Can I be sure that Jesus loves me?

This is why Paul is praying! He knows that the knowledge and experience of God’s love for us is the only way we will ever reach the goal of being “filled up with all the fullness of God.” So we need the constant strengthening of the Holy Spirit, who reveals the presence and love of Jesus to us.  Without this “root”–this “foundation” of God’s love, we will never be filled with the fullness of God.

I’m not sure exegetically how closely we can tie the “strengthening with power through his Spirit” of v. 16 with the “through faith” of v. 17, but we desparately need to be strengthened in our faith by the Holy Spirit if we are going to be assured of Christ’s love for us when doubts assail us.  We can’t forget that it is “by faith” that Christ dwells in our hearts.  When our faith is weak, we must cry out for the strengthening of the Spirit to believe the message of the gospel that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

More tomorrow!

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Yesterday, I talked a bit about where this prayer is heading… “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” What a glorious destination!  But what does God reveal to us through Paul’s prayer about how we can arrive there?

Paul’s first request in the prayer is… “that according to the riches of his (the Father’s) glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being.”

In the Greek language that Paul was writing in, this first petition is linked with the next phrase that is in verse 17.  “…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” The words “so that” are not literally present in Greek.  Rather v. 17a is another way of expressing the same idea that is in v. 16b.  In other words,  “being strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being” and “Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith” are two sides of the same coin.  They are two ways of expressing one reality.  It is through the Holy Spirit that Christ dwells in our hearts.  And as Christ dwells in our heart (which represents our inner being, our innermost self) we are strengthened with the Spirit’s power.

At this point, you may be thinking, “But why is Paul praying this for Christians? Isn’t it true that Christ already dwells in the heart of every true Christian?  Isn’t it true that every believer already has the Holy Spirit indwelling him?  (Romans 8:9  “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”)

Yes, that is true, but Paul is not referring here to Jesus’ initial taking up residence in our lives through the Holy Spirit when we are converted.  He is referring to an intimate experience of Jesus that is given to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  This is the same reality that Jesus was referring to in John 14 when he promised his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit.

He says in John 14:21-23…

21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

When Jesus promises that he and the Father will “come” to the one who loves him and “make their home” with the one who loves him, he is not talking about conversion, but about a fuller experience of the “manifest” presence of Jesus with the believer through the Holy Spirit.

We do not (and cannot) love Jesus apart from the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, and this promise Jesus gives is to those who “love him.” He is referring to the wonderful experience of the believing Christian that through the Holy Spirit we can be with Jesus… we can experience his real presence in our lives.

An illustration might help… Imagine that I adopt a child, but that child is in New York, while I live in Los Angeles.  That child is legally mine, but he does not experience my presence with him until I go to New York and “make my home with him.”  In a similar way, God makes us his children.  He adopts us into his family, but subsequent to that he comes to us through the Holy Spirit and “makes his home with us.”

I mentioned yesterday that one of the marks of every true Christian is a desire to be more like Jesus.  Another mark of the true Christian is the the desire to be close to Jesus.  Haven’t you experienced a longing to have a closer, more intimate, walk with Jesus.  Doesn’t you heart ache to know how to “abide in Christ” as Jesus says in John 15?

Be encouraged by what Paul prays for the Ephesians here, and by what Jesus promises his disciples in John 14.  Through the Holy Spirit, we can have an intimate experience of Jesus’ presence in our lives.  Why not ask the Lord today to come in the power of the Holy Spirit and to reveal to you the indwelling presence of the Lord Jesus in your life.

Paul says, “Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith” May the Holy Spirit grant you the faith to believe that no matter what experience of Jesus’ presence in your life you have already experienced, there is a deeper and fuller experience awaiting you as you reach out to him in faith and ask him for it.  Not just for yourself, but for your spiritual family as well.

Paul says in v. 16a that his prayer for the Spirit’s strengthening (Christ’s indwelling) is,  “according to the riches of his (the Father’s) glory.” Think about the words, “according to” Paul is asking for a “strengthening” that is proportional, or in line with (according to) the riches of the Father’s glory.  You don’t have to be a whiz at math to see that this is a pretty amazing “strengthening!”  The Father’s glory is infinite, boundless.  So no matter what experience you may have had in the past of the Holy Spirit’s fullness in your life, there is more that God has for you.