All the nations, the angel says, have drunk the “wine of the passion of her fornication” (Revelation 18:3). What does this mean? In Revelation, the wine that the harlot drinks is the blood of the saints. She is drunk on that wine-blood, totters, stumbles, and falls. Her passion for the . . . . Continue Reading »
I am glad Osama bin Laden is dead. He was an evil man. And I think the surgical method used to kill him is commendable. The Bible, especially Judges, endorses assassinations: Kill the head, and the body becomes powerless . Wars slaughter thousands, or hundreds of thousands of relatively innocent . . . . Continue Reading »
Tyre is monumental in the background of Revelation 17-18, which draws extensively on Ezekiel 26-28. If the chapter describes the destruction of the harlot-city Jerusalem, why is Tyre so much a part of the texture of the prophecy? Beale notes that Isaiah 23:17 is one of the rare instances where the . . . . Continue Reading »
Beale notes the connection between Revelation 18:1, which describes the glory of the angel lighting the earth, and Ezekiel 43:2: “the earth shone with his glory.” The LXX overlap is not strong, but the two passages are clearly connected in meaning. What’s striking is the . . . . Continue Reading »
In WCF 8.6, we read that the “virtue, efficacy, and benefits” of the work of redemption were “communicated unto the elect” even before the actual accomplishment of redemption in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. “From the beginning of the world” . . . . Continue Reading »
Revelation 18 falls out in a fairly neat chiasm: A. Angel descending and illuminating the earth: announcing fall, 1-3 B. A second voice: Get out because of the double retribution for her sins, vv 4-8 C. Kings lament, vv 9-10 D. Merchants lament, vv 11-17a C’. Shipmasters and sailors lament, . . . . Continue Reading »
The twenty-four uses of the verb “fall” (Greek pipto ) are distributed in an interesting way through the book of Revelation. Initially, falling is an act of worship (1:17; 4:10; 5:8, 14; 7:11). Most of this falling is done in heaven (apart from John, 1:17). Through the next several . . . . Continue Reading »
According to some Reformed thinkers today, the law was a republication of the covenant of works, and as such offered the promised inheritance on the “principle” of law. Do this and live; do this and inherit the land. That is the principle of law at work. The WCF 7.5, however, gives a . . . . Continue Reading »
Luke’s genealogy of Jesus is a “Gentilic” genealogy, with 77 names, a riff on the 70 nations of Genesis 10. But embedded in the genealogy are other numerologically important sequences. Ruth ends with a ten-generation genealogy from Perez to David, inclusive of both. Luke’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Yahweh promises Israel that he will raise a banner around which the exiled people of God will gather (Isaiah 11:12), but this gathering is also a gathering for battle (11:14-15). At the beginning of the oracle against Babylon, Yahweh again promises to raise a banner, and again it is a military . . . . Continue Reading »
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