The German Catholic Church

Words are often the sources of misunderstandings and even of conflicts, and the word 'catholic' is no exception. One must always return to the primary meaning of this word; it is not primarily religious or spiritual in nature. The first part of the word is the Greek root cat- which we find in catalogue and cataract and catapult.

The second part of the word comes from the Greek root hol- which is manifested in words like holistic and hologram. The word 'catholic' means "with respect to everything" or "concerning everything" or "all-embracing" or "universal" - and we see this in nonreligious expressions like "he is a man of catholic tastes" which simply means that he has eclectic tastes.

So, then, when the church claims to be "catholic," it is merely expressing that it is a collection of all those who follow Jesus, regardless of where they live, which language they speak, or which culture informs their social context. That we have a "catholic" faith is simply saying that God loves all humans, that Jesus offers forgiveness to all humans, and that eternal life in heaven is made available to all humans.

The confusions begin to emerge because one particular institution is called the "Roman Catholic Church" - a paradox created by the words alone. The word "Roman" refers to a concrete specific place, and connotes certain traditional social structures which accompany it, while the word "catholic" denotes just the opposite, something which transcends a particular physical situation.

The phrase 'church universal' or 'invisible church' is often used to refer to the collection of all people who are followers of Jesus, regardless of which, if any, specific 'church' or denomination they embrace. The word 'church' generates ambiguity, as does the word 'catholic' - and the two of them together create a downright conceptual jungle.

Although we use words to attempt to clarify and articulate our concepts, they often risk doing just the opposite. It is at least a step toward clarity to distinguish the "Roman Catholic" church, which is a specific institution, from the invisible universal "catholic" church, which is a set of people with no regard to membership in a particular organization or denomination.

Mark Dever offers a historical insight into the development of this terminology. Going back in history, before the phrase "Roman Catholic" emerged, which it did after Luther's Reformation in the 1500s, we can see the word 'catholic' being used when there was less confusion or ambiguity surrounding it:

As far as we know, Ignatius of Antioch was the first person to use the word catholic in relation to the church. In his letter to the Smyrnaeans, written around A.D. 112, he wrote, "Where Jesus Christ is, there is the universal church." Early Christian writers believed in the catholic church — that Christians everywhere trusted in one God, confessed one faith, received one baptism, and shared one mission. In that sense, catholic meant "real" or "authentic."

The earliest institutional churches were geographically defined: the Chaldean Church, the Ethiopic Church, the Syrian Church, etc., and so the Roman Church was simply institutional Christianity as it occurred approximately within the boundaries of what was, or had been, the Roman Empire.

There were different varieties of Christianity, but each was a sort of monopoly within its geographic area. Only after the Reformation did a situation arise in which different variations of Christianity existed side-by-side within the same region. Despite the notion of "religious wars," they coexisted peacefully for the most part, and when so-called "religious wars" arose, they were often motivated by quite nonreligious political ambition, poorly disguised by a thin veneer of religious vocabulary.

A new vocabulary was needed for this situation, a situation of various flavors of Christianity heterogeneously occupying the same space. Thus arose a colorful spiritual landscape of Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics. Because 'catholic' is already three syllables, and 'Roman Catholic' is five, 'catholic' quickly became shorthand for 'Roman Catholic' - generating confusion. Generations of Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists have stated that they belong to the catholic church, but not to the Roman Catholic church.

In addition to meaning 'authentic', the word also came to denote 'orthodox' - or, simply put, 'true' or 'accurate' - in contrast to institutions which might promote specious or incorrect ideas. As we saw, above, from Ignatius of Antioch, who died around 110 A.D., his notion of the church's catholicity meant that it was actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact, and not something merely not imagined or supposed, and that it was genuine, and not an imitation or something artificial.

Clement of Alexandria, who was born around 150 A.D., exemplifies this added layer of meaning - orthodoxy on top of authenticity - in a passage cited by Mark Dever:

There is one true Church, the really ancient Church, into which are enrolled those who are righteous according to God's ordinance ... The one Church is violently split up by the heretics into many sects. In essence, in idea, in origin, in pre-eminence we say that the ancient Catholic Church is the only church. This Church brings together, by the will of the one God through the one Lord, into the unity of the one faith which is according to the respective covenants (or rather according to the one covenant established at various times), those who were already appointed; whom God fore-ordained, knowing before the world's foundation that they would be righteous. The preeminence of the church, just as the origin of its constitution, depends on its absolute unity: it excels all other things, and had no equal or rival.

Another translation of Clement's thorny syntax confirms his perception of the tension between the one and the many: centuries before the Great Schism of 1054 A.D., and centuries before Luther's Reformation, there were divisions of other kinds, and while those divisions may have been quite real in the concrete functioning of institutions, and in the specific points of doctrinal statement, there is still a notion of the church's oneness:

From what has been said, then, it is my opinion that the true Church, that which is really ancient, is one, and that in it those who according to God’s purpose are just, are enrolled. For from the very reason that God is one, and the Lord one, that which is in the highest degree honorable is lauded in consequence of its singleness, being an imitation of the one first principle. In the nature of the One, then, is associated in a joint heritage the one Church, which they strive to cut asunder into many sects. Therefore in substance and idea, in origin, in pre-eminence, we say that the ancient and Catholic Church is alone, collecting as it does into the unity of the one faith — which results from the peculiar Testaments, or rather the one Testament in different times by the will of the one God, through one Lord — those already ordained, whom God predestinated, knowing before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous. But the pre-eminence of the Church, as the principle of union, is, in its oneness, in this surpassing all things else, and having nothing like or equal to itself.

Around 350 A.D., Cyril of Jerusalem nudged the word 'catholic' a little closer to its modern meaning, while yet retaining its previous meanings. He spoke of geographical diversity and social class diversity; he spoke of a church which is universal because it addresses those things which are precisely human, those things which all humans face or need. Mark Dever cites this passage:

It is called Catholic then because it extends over all the world, from one end of the earth to the other; and because it teaches universally and completely one and all the doctrines which ought to come to men’s knowledge, concerning things both visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; and because it brings into subjection to godliness the whole race of mankind, governors and governed, learned and unlearned; and because it universally treats and heals the whole class of sins, which are committed by soul or body, and possesses in itself every form of virtue which is named, both in deeds and words, and in every kind of spiritual gifts.

As the followers of Jesus are called to clarify their task again to each new generation - semper reformanda - Mark Dever sees four challenges to clarifying the catholicity of the church in the twenty-first century. The church must overcome, first, provincialism: we are inclined to project our social, cultural, and geographic specifics onto the universal church, rather than seeing the universal truth of Jesus weaving its way through various traditions, cultures, and places; second, sectarianism: which is not to minimize or deny the significance of doctrinal and dogmatic differences, but rather to see what might be maintained and achieved in spite of them, as we work together on those tasks which God has assigned to us; third, racism: while much has been improved concerning this topic, much remains to be done, and the challenge grows as immigrants and emigrants flow through the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas; fourth, exclusivism: the Good News about Jesus is for all people, and no socio-demographic variable should exclude anyone from fellowship - marital status, income level, profession, etc.

A quick review of John's Gospel, chapter seventeen, or Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter four, will suffice as evidence from Scripture, despite the fact that the word 'catholic' or its Greek equivalent do not appear in the New Testament.

While millions of Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists are not members of the Roman Catholic church, they are members of the universal invisible catholic church - as are millions of Eastern Orthodox (Russian, Greek, etc.), millions of Copts, millions who belong to the Chaldean Church or to the Syrian Church or to the Ethiopic Church. And, of course, equally, members of the Roman Catholic church are also reminded to remember that they are part of this invisible universal church.

The Real Bonhoeffer. Really.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is appropriately considered one of the most significant Christians of all time. This consideration, to be sure, needs clarification in the light of a sense of spiritual equality in which God views all humans equally. Metaphysically, Bonhoeffer is no more important than any other human. Yet the role which he played in concrete, physical, specific history is a role with more significance than some others.

Yet those less significant, but equally important, roles were necessary to Bonhoeffer's role: Aaron holding up Moses' arms. Someone had to change Martin Luther's diaper, or there'd have been no Reformation. Someone had to teach Mother Theresa how to read and write, or there'd have been no world-changing mission in Calcutta.

Precisely because so much has been written about Bonhoeffer, the reader risks losing him. Bonhoeffer has been made and remade, into a liberal and into a conservative, into a Lutheran and into an ecumenist, into a German and into a global citizen, into a revolutionary and into a traditionalist. When a historic individual becomes an icon, the literary world can reduce him to two dimensions, and eventually to one. A pure symbol becomes subject whichever meanings are arbitrarily attached to it.

Consider JFK and MLK as quick examples. Which vote-seeking candidate will fail to praise both of them, and yet attach his own political agenda to both of them?

Thus we need to keep in touch with the specific and concrete details of Bonhoeffer's life, or we will lose him. He will become a symbol to be misinterpreted and exploited by successive ideologies.

To this end, biographies gain their value. Were it not for this danger, one might well dispense with biography. But the physical facts of the man's life act as anchors to keep texts, written by or about him, pegged to reality. One familiar with the daily routine of the Finkenwalde Seminary cannot seriously entertain Bonhoeffer as practical atheist. One versed in Bonhoeffer's academic life cannot embrace the view that, while he explored ecumenism, he abandoned traditional Lutheranism.

Recent biographies, notably one by Eric Metaxas, merit study as companions to Bonhoeffer's writings, and companions to the huge body of literature about Bonhoeffer. Writing about Charles Marsh's biography of Bonhoeffer, Timothy Larson muses about

the sheer unlikelihood of Bonhoeffer's emergence as the boldest opponent of efforts to Nazify the German church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was too young and too academic to offer serious resistance to the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler. He was a rich kid from an intellectual family. He enjoyed kicking around a soccer ball with seminary students. He had no real monetary income even to support himself.

But what power did Bonhoeffer wield in 1933? He was 27 years old, financially dependent on his parents, and virtually bereft of experience in the working world. His sole professional appointment was an unpaid, non-tenure-track position as a voluntary lecturer. Adjunct professors don't normally stand athwart emperors.

Yet Bonhoeffer was ahead of the curve, ahead of his peers, and ahead of the times. While many of his fellow clergymen and fellow theologians would take several years to learn exactly how evil Hitler was, Bonhoeffer seemed to sense it from the very first. And Bonhoeffer would resist it from the very first. Indeed, along with resisting Hitler, and eventually making plans to overthrow Hitler, Bonhoeffer would be faced with the task of alerting his fellow pastors to the evil and persuading them to oppose it.

Yet Bonhoeffer did. Within weeks of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Bonhoeffer declared in public that the Führer was offering a false path to salvation — and, in private, that Hitler was an antichrist. When the Nazis called for ethnically Jewish Christians to be expelled from the churches, he alone insisted that the gospel was at stake. (Initially even Karl Barth, like other anti-Nazi dissenters who founded the Confessing Church, claimed that this was merely a question of church order, not a theological issue.) Marsh, director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia, makes a convincing case that by 1933, Bonhoeffer was the most radical and outspoken opponent of Nazi church policy.

Bonhoeffer's sense of personal holiness and the strict ethical code by which he lived aided him in his opposition to evil - here again the daily routines at the Finkenwalde Seminary are worth noting: Bonhoeffer forbade seminary students from talking about anyone who was not in the room; this was Bonhoeffer's way of avoiding gossip and observing Luther's explanation of the eighth commandment. But Bonhoeffer also understood clearly that personal holiness earns nothing, and is in fact rubbish in God's sight. Yet personal ethical convictions prepare the soul for confrontation with evil.

Unlike the rumors that sometimes surround him, Larsen writes, Bonhoeffer was "so sexually innocent" that twenty-first century readers find it difficult to believe.

Even Bonhoeffer's physical relationship with his fiancée, Maria — whom Marsh says Bonhoeffer was "smitten" by — comprised only a solitary occasion when, as a prisoner, he kissed her on the cheek in the presence of the public prosecutor. In a late prison letter, Bonhoeffer observed that he had lived a full life even though he would die a virgin.

Connecting with Anglican, Reformed, and Roman Catholic teachers and friends, Bonhoeffer was willing to absorb ideas which passed his litmus test. Particularly interesting are his experiences with American Christianity: which aspects of it he rejected, and which ones he embraced. Larsen reflects on

how willingly Bonhoeffer learned from disparate ecclesial influences. He was a kind of theological hoarder. When he went to Rome, he did not react with disgust as Martin Luther had, but rather gained a new appreciation of the church's universal nature. One is supposed to have to choose between Adolf von Harnack and Barth, but Bonhoeffer managed to value them both. Indeed, to extrapolate, one might see Bonhoeffer's late musings on "religionless Christianity" as blending Barth's insight that "Jesus simply has nothing to do with religion" with Harnack's method of separating the kernel (of biblical truth) from the husk (of cultural and historical circumstance).

While wrestling with theology at the most rarified and abstract intellectual heights, Bonhoeffer was grounded by teaching confirmation classes to teenagers in gritty urban factory neighborhoods. One of his litmus tests for theological ideas was the reality of daily life for these ordinary people. Did any of those ideas help them, make a difference to them, or apply to their lives?

Bonhoeffer was disappointed by his encounters with seminary professors and students in New York in the 1930s. Dismissive of Biblical text and direct discourse about Jesus, these seminarians sought to be relevant but did so without intellectual or spiritual foundations.

Initially, Bonhoeffer was disgusted by American Christianity. He was bewildered and frustrated by theologians who did not care about doctrine and preachers who were not interested in the gospel. Everyone wanted to pontificate on social issues. In time, however, he came to learn that his fellow Germans were also half-wrong in refusing to recognize the ethical demands of the Christian faith. Moreover, Bonhoeffer found in the African American church a community committed to both gospel proclamation and social action. Why, at the tender age of 27, was Bonhoeffer the lone German minister who immediately saw the scandal of excluding Jewish Christians from the church? Precisely because his experience in America taught him to connect faith and practice.

Bonhoeffer also saw quite early on that he would probably die at the hands of the National Socialists. He absorbed this calmly and continued his work. He knew he was risking his life at least as early as 1938, when he took up contact with a broader circle of resisters in Germany, and 1939, when he chose to return to Germany from New York, aware that he was placing his life in danger.

Timothy Larsen argues that one of Bonhoeffer's main points "was that Christianity is not merely a matter of what one believes, but of how one lives." To which we might add, and how one dies.

As German Lutherans rested complacently in their commitment to faith alone, while turning a blind eye to suffering and injustice, Bonhoeffer pointedly preached a Reformation Day sermon on I Corinthians 13:13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." It turns out that even an unemployed 20-something can stand against the world when empowered by the Love that moves the sun and other stars.

While much has been made of "religionless Christianity," exactly what Bonhoeffer meant by that must be understood in light of his actions and in light of the way he lived his life. The eternal Jesus was so real for Bonhoeffer that religion, as a manmade institution, was often more a hindrance than a help. Bonhoeffer, like many Christians, had to overcome the church to get to Jesus.

When an Angel is Not an Angel

In chapters two and three of the book of Revelation, John writes seven letters to seven churches. All seven of these letters follow a clear pattern. Each of them begins: "To the angel of the church at N write," where N is the name of one of the seven cities.

This seems a bit odd. Since when do human beings write letters to angels? And why would Jesus tell John to write letters to angels?

One possible solution to this mystery lies in the Greek word angelos. Like its Hebrew counterpart, malak, this word gets translated as 'angel' into English. This word's semantic field is, however, much larger that the domain of possible meanings for the English word 'angel' which represents it in our translations.

The primary meaning of angelos and malak is 'messenger' and can also be understood as one who has been deputized, dispatched, or sent as an ambassador.

Angels are included as referents of this word, not because they are supernatural or non-human, but rather because they are sent by God. In the text, the word malak is often used to refer to humans who have been tasked with carrying a message (cf. Genesis 32:3 and Joshua 7:22), and angelos is used in the same way (cf. Luke 7:24 and James 2:25).

So we may well understand the letters dictated to John as being addressed, not to supernatural angels, but to messengers, i.e., to the leaders of the seven churches. Richard Lenski writes that angelos

means "messenger"; so the prophets mentioned in Hag. 1:13, and the priests mentioned in Mal. 2:7 are called angels (messengers) of the Lord. While the seven stars match the seven pedestal lamps, and the singular "angel" is used in chapters 2 and 3, we need not think of only one pastor for each church; each may have had several "elders," who are collectively called a star and a messenger (angel), or one of the elders may have been the chief or the president. Although some regard this as an argument for the date of Revelation, the time being the turn of the first century, we are willing to let this pass. When each church began to have but one pastor is a question.

In each of the seven letters, Jesus gives Himself a different title. Each of the seven titles is derived from the vision which John sees in chapter one. An eighth title, faithful witness, is given to Jesus in chapter one. The title given Jesus at the beginning of each letter connects in some way with the content in that letter.

The titles are "him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lamp-stands," in the first letter; "the first and the last, who died and came to life," in the letter to Smyrna; "him who has the sharp two-edged sword," in the letter to Pergamum; "the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze," in the letter to Thyatira; "him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars," in the letter to Sardis; "the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens," in the letter to Philadelphia; and "the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation," in the letter to Laodicea.

The seven cities, in order they are mentioned, roughly bound an area which approximates the Roman province of Asia. This province would correspond to the western end of Turkey, i.e., to Ionia plus a bit of the inland territory to east. The modern reader may not in any way think of this as 'Asia' in the sense of 21st-century English usage. Richard Lenski continues:

The order in which the letters are dictated is that found in 1:11; it is geographical and has nothing to do with a prophetic, chronological succession of churches and church conditions to the end of time. The seven churches and their varying conditions existed simultaneously when Jesus dictated these letters in the year 95. They are typical of the conditions obtaining in the churches of all time irrespective of the number that at any time may belong to the one type or to another.

In each letter, Jesus makes one or more observations about the church in question. The observations may be complimentary or rebuking, or a mixture of the two. The letters are addressed to the leaders of the congregation, but by implication, also to the entire church. When the observations are complementary, we must not allow them to be understood as implying that the church has earned approval, but rather that the Holy Spirit has been at work in this church. When the observations are critical, we may not allow them to be understood as a call to human effort, which is futile and displeasing to God, but rather as announcement of what the Holy Spirit will reform among the congregants if they refrain from preventing it. Lenski notes that more than one congregation may constitute a church:

Ephesus lies nearest to Patmos and is thus made the first in the series. The church in Ephesus may include more than one congregation of this large city. So the angelos may include the entire eldership although many think of only one pastor, the head pastor or bishop. This is true with regard to each of the seven churches: Jesus dictates the letters; John takes the dictation and writes as the dictation proceeds.

The criticisms and complements vary from church to church: Sardis and Laodicea receive sterner criticisms than the others. There is no attempt to be artificially even-handed, and thereby keep the level of criticism roughly the same from letter to letter. The criticisms are quite specific to the concrete situations of the churches, and yet general spiritual lessons can be extracted from them. The churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia receive sympathetic appraisals. Thus we see, while the form is very similar, the content varies substantially. Lenski describes the form:

The seven letters are alike in having a form of their own. The same command to John to write precedes each one. They do not have the common epistolary form; there is no greeting in the nominative, followed by a dative, etc.

Following the observations, instructions are given to each congregation. These imperatives may be seen, at least in part, as correctives to any negative observations which that church may have received. The instructions, penultimate in the letter, are an extension of the beginning of the letter, which is dictated as a command. At the start of each letter, the command to write is given,

and a name for him who "declares theses things." This is stated in the third person.

Following the command to take dictation, and an identification of the recipient of the letter, that third-person title is followed by the first-person observations. The use of the verb 'know' in these observations reminds us of the Scriptural sense of 'knowledge' - both a Kennen and a Wissen, both experiential and factual: Jesus knows His people well, and He knows all about them. Lenski notes:

"I know," in the first person, followed by a statement of the condition of the church, after which come promises, threatening warnings, etc. At or near the end appears the refrain: "The one having an ear, let him hear," etc., and the promise to "the one conquering."

A promised blessing constitutes the end of each letter. We may not think of the blessing as earned or merited by the churches, but rather as freely given by the Holy Spirit. It is incumbent upon the churches not to resist the Spirit's work among them, but that does not constitute earning. A refrain at the end of each letter is "he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." This refrain can be taken as a hint that these messages are relevant not only to the year 95 A.D. and not only to the seven churches listed, but rather to the Body Christ throughout time and space. The principles are general, while the applications are specific:

In the case of each letter the Lord designates himself in terms that are taken from chapter 1, and each of the designations is different. Each designation has its individual bearing on the individual church addressed. The reference to the seven stars (1:16) appears also in 3:1.

There are several things which the exegete must ever bear in mind. One of them is that John's Revelation was given to comfort the followers of Jesus. The promises at the end of each letter can do this only if they are not strictly conditional on human effort. It does not comfort people to tell them what they must do to earn God's love; it comforts them to tell them that God already loves them, and His Spirit will work gratitude in their hearts, and will cause them to act in god-pleasing ways out of gratitude. Legalism, and the notion that one must perform works in order to gain or merit God's favor, do not comfort. Grace comforts. Freely-given forgiveness comforts. Unearned favor comforts. God gives gifts generously: this fact comforts.

God at Work

The last book of the New Testament has evoked more fascination than most of the others. Scholars are fairly confidant in dating the text to around the year 95 A.D., and in asserting that it was written on the island of Patmos. The John who wrote it is the same John who wrote the fourth book of the New Testament and who also wrote the three epistles which bear his name. Philology confirms his authorship of all five texts by means of statistical analysis of his vocabulary.

The question which one may pose to the text is this: what is God doing?

The text states that God gave this revelation, that God is showing what must take place, and that God made this content known by means of an angel. The text gives a noteworthy title to Jesus: the faithful witness. Often texts tell of people who are witnesses to, or witnesses about, Jesus. But in this case, Jesus Himself is the witness. About what, or to what, is He a witness?

Further, the text states that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth, that He loves us, that He has freed us, that He has made us to be a kingdom, and that He has made us to be priests. Richard Lenski writes:

In Revelation the Apostle John presents the prophetic visions that were given him to see and to hear on a certain Sunday in the year 95 while he was in exile on a the small island Patmos opposite the southern coast of the Roman province Asia, toward the end of the reign of the great persecutor of the church, the Emperor Domitian. The apostle wrote Revelation by the Lord's own order (1:19); divine Inspiration guided his pen.

At the beginning of the text, John states one of the themes which recurs throughout its twenty-two chapters: "He is coming." Jesus is on His way. In the text, God also says of Himself that He is the "Alpha and the Omega," "who is, and who was, and who is to come." God emphasizes His all-encompassing nature in order to contrast Himself with the Roman emperor. While Emperors like Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan might work to project an image of power and authority, they are, in fact, infinitesimal on God's cosmic scale.

God is communicative. He says things; He sends angels with messages. The Greek and Hebrew words rendered as 'angel' in English mean, non-metaphorically, 'messenger' in those languages.

After the introductory chapter come the seven letters to the churches. He praises the deeds of the Ephesian church, saying that the people in that church work hard and persevere; the Christians in Ephesus "cannot tolerate wicked men" and investigate and examine the concepts presented by false teachers. They persevere, endure hardships, and do not grow weary. But, given that all humans are born with original sin, and all humans further commit their own sins, what does it mean, not to "tolerate wicked men"? Perhaps this indicates those who bring nothing positive to the fellowship, but maliciously, or at least negligently, detract from the church's efforts at charity.

To the church in Smyrna, Jesus says, more than once, that He "knows" them and their conditions. He knows their difficulties and knows that they publicly ridiculed. He reminds them, however, that they have received spiritual blessings (cf. Romans 15:27 and Ephesians 1:3).

In Pergamum, Jesus says, His followers are dwelling among great evil, yet remain true to Him. They have not renounced Jesus, even though at least one of them has been martyred.

As in Smyrna, so also in Thyatira, Jesus reports that He "knows" about His people - He knows their deeds, love, faith, service, and perseverance - and that they "are now doing more than" they did at first. The repetition of the theme of 'being known' emphasizes the importance which humans attach to it: people seem to want to know that somebody somewhere is aware of them and of their circumstances, and that somebody somewhere cares about them.

Jesus addresses stern words to the church in Sardis: only "a few people" have remained faithful to Him.

For the church in Philadelphia, Jesus says that He is holding open a door which nobody can shut. His followers in that city have kept His word despite their weakness: the have endured "patiently."

The Christians in Laodicea, Jesus states, are largely useless.

After assessing each of these churches for strengths and weaknesses, Jesus speaks of future blessings. To the Ephesians, "the right to eat from the tree of life." To His followers in Smyra, He says that they "will not be hurt at all by the second death." To those in Pergamum, Jesus promises mysterious blessings: "hidden manna" and "a white stone with a new name written on it." To the church in Thyatira, He promises "authority over the nations" and "the morning star." To His few isolated followers in Sardis, Jesus says that they "will walk" with Him, dressed in white, and that He "will never blot out" their names from the book of life, "but will acknowledge" them before the Father. To the Philadelphians, He promises that each one of them will be "a pillar in the temple of" God, and that He will write on each of His followers "the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven," and that He "will also write on" each of them "my new name." To the Laodiceans, He promises that, if they repent, He will give them "the right to sit with me on my throne."

There is a pattern, for the churches, in the way Jesus speaks: first, an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses; second, instructions, imperatives, and commands; third, promises of future blessings. Some churches have strengths, others have weaknesses, and some have both. The church in Laodicea, which receives the sternest evaluation, also receives the most powerful promise.

Some of the symbolism here is obscure. The hidden manna may evoke the jar of manna preserved in the ark in the temple; the temple having been destroyed by the time of John's writing, this manna would be in an undisclosed location - known only to God. Whether on earth or in heaven, this manna would be God's alone to dispense; if in heaven, it represents the eternal feast. Banquet imagery permeates the entire text. The white stone on which is written a name may represent the follower's new identity; written in stone, it is permanent, and supersedes all other previous identities. To give the morning star as a gift may mean to impart glory; starlight and sunlight symbolize God's glory throughout Scripture.

A group of cousins and siblings, all bearing the surname Zahn, have contributed greatly to textual scholarship. Citing the work of Theodor von Zahn, Richard Lenski writes:

John had lived and labored in and out of Ephesus since the days of the Jewish War which destroyed the Jewish nation. Domitian died September 18, 96. This date makes it necessary to place the visions of Revelation in the year 95. John was not exiled by the emperor himself; he was condemned to exile by the proconsul of Asia, "who would not have been able upon his own authority to punish in this way a preacher of the gospel and an adherent of the Christian faith if he had not felt himself authorized so to act by some decree issuing from the Imperial Government, or some regulation tolerated by it, by which the propagation of the Christian religion was to be checked by the courts or the police," Zahn, Introduction III, 409. How long the exile continued we do not know. There is nothing to prevent us from dating Revelation in the year 96, the actual year of Domitian's death. Nerva ruled until 98, then followed Trajan. John was released after Domitian's death and died during Trajan's reign.

The challenge for the reader, in examining John's Revelation, is to be vigilant against the all-too-human tendency to read legalism into the text. When Jesus cites the strengths of the seven churches, these are not accomplishments achieved by human effort, but rather gifts which have been given to these churches, given by Jesus through the Holy Spirit. When Jesus cites the flaws of these congregations and commands repentance, He is issuing an imperative which human effort can never satisfy; only the Holy Spirit working inside the believer can create obedience. God is never satisfied with human feats. The promised blessings for the churches are not rewards for their exertions, but rather confirmations for the activity of the Holy Spirit in and among them.

A careless reading of John's Apocalypse will yield works righteousness. But the reader must ever bear in mind that the purpose for which the Revelation was given to John was comfort. Legalism does not comfort. Grace does.

Jesus Uses Irony

Irony is a well-documented and much studied phenomenon. There are many types and definitions of irony. For the present meditation, irony is understood as words being used to indicate something other than their literal meanings, and words being used to refer to something which may even be in tension with their literal meanings.

The New Testament contains irony, and one who fails to recognize the irony will be misled in the task of understanding the text. Some commentators seem to have never entertained the idea that Jesus occasionally speaks ironically.

Consider the following narrative from Matthew. It seems to contain multiple ironies. The man addresses Jesus with the title "Teacher," but perhaps does not want to be taught. He poses the question, "what must I do?" to gain eternal life, yet the mega-text informs the reader that the proper question to ask to Jesus is "what can you do?" that the supplicant might have eternal life.

For an ordinary human to ask, "what must I do to gain eternal life?" is to elicit the answer "nothing." There is nothing he can do to gain eternal life, because it is impossible for him to gain it. God can give it, but man cannot achieve it.

So two ironies already lie in the man's first utterance.

Jesus, seeing through the apparent urgency in the man's question, deflects it with an ironic non-answer. Note that Jesus answers a question with a question. "Why?" - Christ's question goes to motive. Why would the man ask if he already has an answer in mind, if he is not eager to learn, and if his question is so ill-formed that no reasonable answer is possible? The questioner perhaps considers himself to be good; in that case, why bother Jesus with a question? The question would be insincere.

Jesus deflates the man's ego a bit by reminding him that only God is good. Jesus then offers ironic advice. Jesus, and the reader, know from the mega-text that "keeping the commandments" is impossible. Whether one is speaking of the ten commandments, the 613 commandments, or natural law, humans are incapable of perfect implementation. The man, however, is oblivious to the irony, which only heightens the irony.

An absolutely impossible command is ironic; the failure to see such a command for what it is generates humor. Had Jesus issued a command to drink the entire ocean, or draw a square circle, the effect would be the same.

Incognizant of the irony, the man pursues the matter: which commandments must he keep? As if, to the ironic command to draw a square circle, he'd responded with a request for clarification about whether he should draw it with a pencil or a pen. The humorous effect is prolonged by the question.

Jesus patiently begins a list of commandments. It doesn't really matter which ones He mentions, because sinful human nature is incapable of faithfully following any of them, or any set or subset of them.

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

The man's oblivious naivete is matched only by the inflated opinion he has of himself. To claim to have faithfully followed the law, no matter which variation of 'law' is meant, is to claim perfection. The ironies here are multiple: to claim perfection and then request guidance - if the man were really that good, he wouldn't need to ask Jesus for instruction. More basically, there is irony in the claim to have followed the law. It is axiomatic to the mega-text that such perfection is unachievable by human effort.

Having claimed perfection, the man asks what he still needs. This is a self-contradiction. If he were as good as he claims to be, he would need nothing. He undermines his own claim to moral superiority. "I have everything: what do I still need to obtain?"

Christ's answer contains several unspoken premises: "if you would be perfect - but you can't get there by doing things - here's what you must do." Alternatively: "if you would be perfect - but didn't you only now imply that you were morally perfect? - here's what you must do." Jesus is patiently answering the man, but to humorous effect to the knowing reader.

Jesus then gives an ironic imperative: give away all your possessions. If this were truly what was required to obtain eternal life, then the rest of Matthew's text, and the rest of the New Testament, would be useless and futile. Two thousand years of Heilsgeschichte would be unnecessary. Christ's painful suffering and death would be unnecessary.

The three final thoughts in the narrative depart from irony. Jesus tells the man that it is possible to have treasure in heaven. Jesus is not being ironic, but the man's limited imagination and limited perspective create irony. Then Jesus tells the man to follow; the man who approached Jesus and called him 'Teacher' and who asked what must be done is, as Jesus and the reader know even before the man has finished hearing the final imperative, not interested or willing or able to follow Jesus.

No human can, of his own volition, follow Jesus. Rather, people follow Jesus only as the Holy Spirit calls and enlightens them, sanctifies them, and preserves them in faith. All people lack the ability to follow Jesus, or to decide to follow Jesus - but most especially one like this man, who considers himself to be morally perfect.

The denouement reveals that the man, whose moral estimation of himself was so high, is merely a crass materialist. Irony is located in the tension between the high-sounding salutation and question which he first addresses to Jesus at the beginning of the narrative and the man's baseness as the end of the narrative.

If we contrast Mark's version of the narrative to Matthew's, the irony continues, as in Mark's version, the man addresses Jesus not only as "Teacher" but "Good Teacher." While the man addresses Jesus as 'good', he in reality considers, consciously or subconsciously, himself to be good, apparently unaware of both his original sin and his committed sin. Considering the phrase text-critically, if Matthew worked from Mark, he may have felt it sufficient to recount merely an excerpt from the salutation rather than the longer version given by Mark.

Matthew also omits the fact that the man knelt. The greeting, as given in detail in Mark, emphasizes the homage which the man pays to Jesus, a homage made ironic by the fact that the man understands neither his sin or nor his inability to do anything about his sin. Mark gives a slightly different version of the man's question: not, what must I do to "have" eternal life, but to "inherit" it. There is a tension between 'do' and 'inherit' - in order to inherit something, one must do nothing; rather, someone else must die.

Mark's version of Christ's response is also more detailed: again answering a question with a question, Jesus asks "why do you call me good?" Again the question goes to motive. Is the man's act of honoring Jesus sincere? Or does the man seek self-justification? Does the man realize that, despite himself, he has affirmed Christ's divinity?

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Commented on Mark's version of the events, Richard Lenski writes:

The man does not ask how he may obtain life eternal as if he were at a loss as to the way and the means. On the contrary, he thinks he knows quite well how, namely, by his doing something, some one good thing.

Like all humans, he finds it difficult to believe and consistently internalize that salvation is God's action, not man's, in which man is passive and God is active. It is fallen human nature which wants somehow to believe that it at least cooperates with God in salvation, if it does not accomplish the matter entirely on its own. Lenski continues:

In the question: "What shall I do?" there lies, of course, the assumption that the questioner has the necessary ability and may easily reach the goal that Jesus has reached. All he needs is to know the thing that is to be done.

Lenski briefly considers the tension between 'do' and 'inherit' in the man's question, but does not extract the full ironic contradiction from it, preferring instead to see 'inherit' as a synonym for 'obtain' and leaves it at that. Further, Lenski sees Christ's imperative to give his wealth to others as a call to internal repentance. Lenski does not see the command as ironic.

Yet, considered as a literal answer to a literal question, irony seems the more plausible reading. The question is already ironic, "what must I do to have eternal life?" - because the action is God's, not man's. Consider the question, "what must I do to ensure the continuation of Jupiter in its orbit around the sun?" - what man would be foolish enough to imagine that he can 'do' anything about that?

But even if we grant the question, Christ's answer remains ironic. Go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor: good and God-pleasing actions, but nobody will find admission into heaven based upon them. Rather, such actions are performed out of gratitude for the salvation which God has already given.

Lenski fails to see the degree and amount of irony in Christ's words, and strives to make literal sense of them.

Luke's version of the matter adds only a generalized comment about wealth. Yet this comment sheds a bit of light on the matter:

Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Those who witnessed the exchange between Jesus and the man understood: taken literally, the words would indicate that salvation is impossible. So they say, "who then can be saved?" - a rhetorical question, roughly, "so, nobody can be saved, right?" Jesus points, as ever, to the fact that God saves; man does not save, but rather man is saved. Man is passive, God is active. Therefore, salvation is 'impossible' with human effort; but it is "possible with God."

Is Wright Right?

The English scholar Tom Wright, better known as N.T. Wright, has attracted both attention and controversy. Jason Byassee describes Wright's aims in publishing:

Wright's goal in his teaching and writing is to massively revise the way Christianity has been articulated for generations. Christian faith, for Wright, is not about going to heaven when you die. It is not about the triumph of grace over the law of the Old Testament. He says its key doctrine is not justification by grace alone, the cornerstone for the Protestant Reformers. The church has misread Paul so severely, it seems, that no one fully understood the gospel from the time of the apostle to the time a certain British scholar started reading Paul in Greek in graduate school.

The reader is faced with a number of interpretive questions: is Byassee's description of Wright accurate? If so, what exactly is Wright presenting as long-lost core of the Christian faith? Is Wright arguing that recent centuries have misplaced the real meaning Christianity? If so, what is that real meaning?

According to Byassee, Wright's examination of the Pauline epistles is a historical one. Wright invented a phrase, the "new perspectives on Paul" approach, to emphasize that he would work from primary documents and historical data, and read Paul in manner which deliberately attempt to avoid two millennia of accumulated commentary and theology. Wright claims to peel back the layers of tradition and find the real historical Paul.

Historians can identify a long line of thinkers, dating back at least to Martin Luther, and arguably as far back as the later prophets of the Old Testament, who have stated that their task was to uncover the original and forgotten meanings in sacred texts. In this way, Wright is not new. Byassee summarizes some of Wright's work this way:

Theology, argues Wright, is something Paul pioneered. Jews and Romans could talk about spiritual matters such as fortune, or unseen powers that require our placating. But theology does work among the earliest Christians (and us) that it never had to do for their predecessors. Theology does the work for Paul that circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath did for the old Paul, the zealous Jew Saul of Tarsus. It marked out a community as distinct from the world. It still does — just not nearly as biblically in most cases as Wright thinks it should.

Arguing that he's uncovered the real Paul, Wright's thoughts become more interesting when he states what Paul's real theses are. According to Byassee's analysis of Wright,

Paul was not worried about where believers' souls would go after death. Christians of the late medieval period were worried about hell and felt they had to earn entry to heaven with works. This is the theology Martin Luther taught and wrote against, helping to ignite the Protestant Reformation.

Luther rejected the notion that individuals had to work and earn salvation. If we accept Byassee's interpretation, Wright rejects the notion that individual salvation is the central topic at all. Byassee continues:

But Jews of Paul's time were nowhere near so individualistic, so obsessed with the next life, so unfamiliar with grace as were the late medieval Christians. Instead of teaching about souls being saved from hell, say Wright and others, Paul is centrally teaching about God's faithfulness to Israel. He is showing that Yahweh is a God who keeps his promises, and so can be trusted to fulfill his promises in history.

Wright and those who've gathered around the rubric "new perspectives on Paul" offer a proposal about what Paul's main point is. Neither the 'individual' nor 'salvation' capture, Wright and his fellows claim, Paul's central topic.

In the long view of the Heilsgeschichte, Wright believes, according to Byassee, that

the works commanded in the law are good gifts from God. Paul doesn't say not to do them because you'll go wrong and think you're earning salvation. He says not to do them because the Messiah has come and the world is different now. All people can worship Israel's God and should do so together without ethnic division.

Wright seems to argue that Paul's message is not about individual salvation at all, and only secondarily about corporate salvation. Wright's Paul presents a type of salvation by belonging - Jews are saved because they are God's chosen people; Gentiles are saved because they have been adopted into the family of Israel. But salvation, of whichever type, is not the main theme of Wright's Paul.

Some readers have accused Wright of denying the immortality of the soul, because he argues that salvation is not the main message of the New Testament. Other readers see Wright as leaving the immortality of the soul intact, but simply asserting that it's not important.

Wright seems to be pointing us toward our calling as God's people, whether we are genetic Israelites or ingrafted Gentiles. Wright's Paul is telling us what our mission is, not how to be saved. Wright emphasizes the corporate, but, he says, he does not exclude individual considerations. Speaking of those readers who accuse him of collectivism, Wright responds that

it is simply not true, as people have said again and again, that I deny or downplay the place of the individual in favor of a corporate ecclesiology. True, I have reacted against the rampant individualism of western culture, and have tried to insist on a biblically rooted corporate solidarity in the body of Christ as an antidote to it. But this in no way reduces the importance of every person being confronted with the powerful gospel, and the need for each one to be turned around by it from idols to God, from sin to holiness, and from death to life.

If we strive for a sympathetic reading, we can note that it's not an either/or matter; it's not a case of binary opposites. Rather, it's a questions of emphasis. God deals with humans as individuals, and He also deals with them as groups. Both are always in play. The question is the mix or balance. When is God dealing individually? When corporately? Commenting on the third chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, Wright notes that

Paul makes what most commentators in the reformation tradition regard as a strange shift in verse 29, when he asks ‘Or is God the God of the Jews only?’ (Notice how the NIV, for instance, omits the word ‘Or’.) If he had been talking all along simply about individual sinners being put right with God, we should indeed regard this as a sudden intrusion of ethnic questions. But he hasn’t. As chapter 4 will reveal, when we allow it to play its full role, he has been talking about God’s faithfulness to the covenant with Abraham, and about God’s creation of a single family from both halves of sinful humanity. God’s declaring that sinners are now in a right relation to himself and God’s declaring that believing Jews and believing Gentiles belong in the same family are inextricably bound up with one another.

Another way to understand the controversies surrounding Wright is to ask, what is the definition of the word 'gospel'? Wright's answer does not deny, but de-emphasizes, the notion of salvation:

When Paul refers to ‘the gospel’, he is not referring to a system of salvation, though of course the gospel implies and contains this, nor even to the good news that there now is a way of salvation open to all, but rather to the proclamation that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead and thereby demonstrated to be both Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord. ‘The gospel’ is not ‘you can be saved, and here’s how’; the gospel, for Paul, is ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’.

The closer one examines both Wright and what others say about him, the more numerous and complex the questions become. If right sees salvation in a corporate light, what does that do to grace? It's possible to formulate a theology of unmerited favor in a corporate setting as well as in an individual setting. A field of investigation lies in the fact that the English words 'you' and 'your' cover, rather than disclose, the distinction between singular and plural, while the Hebrew and Greek words make explicit this difference.

Imagine if English-speaking Christians had to choose between singular and plural versions of 'you' and 'your' when they uttered formulaic expressions like "for you" and "for your sins."

Paul's words to the Ephesians make some of Wright's assertions plausible and perhaps even persuasive:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Note first that the occurrences of 'you' and 'your' are plural in verse eight of chapter two. Note secondly that conjunction 'for' indicates that we were created and saved in order to do good works. Salvation was merely a preliminary move on God's part: first, He saved us; then, He puts us to work. Wright's books and articles are too numerous, too long, and too complex to be easily sorted out. Generations of scholars will probably examine his work for years to come, and endless numbers of debates will be organized to attempt to finalize what Wright meant.

N.T. Wright has authored texts which are long, complex, and numerous. A detailed analysis of his work would take years, and such analysis would itself be long and complex. We can, however, identify two directions in which such analysis would proceed: first, the definitions of 'salvation' and 'gospel'; second, the interplay between individual and corporate. Such an analysis would ask whether Wright sees more than 'entry into the afterlife' as belonging to the definitions of 'gospel' and 'salvation' and, if so, what that "more" might be. An analysis would also ask to which extent each of the two dimensions - corporate and individual - figure in the definitions of 'salvation' and 'gospel' and conceptual framework which each of those words represents.

Is salvation, for Wright, more than simply getting into heaven? Is the gospel more than simply the information that one is getting into heaven? And does that "more" - whatever it may be - perhaps figure around our corporate identity as much as, or even more than, our individual identity? If being 'saved' means being used by God to work out His plans on earth, could it be that we do that work more corporately than individually? Is eternal life merely the first part of the gospel, in which Jesus tells us that we don't need to worry about getting into heaven and then tells us about how He wants us to live as His people on earth?

The lasting value of Wright's work has yet to be established, but it will depend on this: to which extent does Wright drive his reader back to the actual text of the Old and New Testaments? To which extent does Wright nudge his reader closer to Jesus? These questions will determine the final net worth of Wright's activities.

Conspiracy Theory

History is full of conspiracies, real and imagined. To this day, scholars discuss and debate the extent to which Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, or acted in concert with others, in his assassination of JFK. Much more clearly, and beyond any doubt, is the fact that John Wilkes Booth was part of a large conspiracy to not only assassinate President Lincoln, but also to murder other key figures in the United States and possibly overthrow the government.

Likewise, the execution of Jesus was part of a conspiracy. There was an organized effort to get a guilty verdict and a death sentence for a man who had committed no crime. In his account of the matter, Matthew writes that

the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

The conspiracy was to be carried out with stealth - another translation offers the adverb 'sly' - and among the conspirators, Matthew notes elders and chief priests. This was a conspiracy among the powerful, not among the common people. In his narrative, Marks adds the scribes to the list of conspirators:

the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.”

This conspiracy would seek to have Jesus arrested in a low-profile manner: a public arrest in front of crowds was not their goal. Once arrested, the conspiracy would stir up public opinion against Jesus, and pressure on the Roman governor to issue a death sentence - this, despite the lack of any reasonable or valid charge against Jesus in terms of Roman law.

Now, however, the events take a bizarre turn. The conspiracy is not well thought-out. Governor Pontius Pilate sees that Jesus is innocent, and is not easily swayed to give orders for His execution. At the end, it seems that this conspiracy might fail, until it receives assistance from an unlikely source. Although the conspirators do not know it, Jesus has been aware of their plot since its beginning - indeed, since even before its beginning. And it is Jesus Who will assist the plot and finally bring about its success.

In the final analysis, the conspirators were incompetent. Jesus, seeing their plans unravel, realizes that if He is going to receive the death sentence He is trying to get, will have to intervene on their behalf. Jesus is manipulating His own trial to ensure that He is executed. At several points in the narrative, a few words from Him would have secured His release. He must calculate His words, and His silences, to obtain death. Although the conspirators do not know it, Jesus has become part of the conspiracy.

Just as there was a conspiracy against Jesus 2,000 years ago, so there is also a conspiracy against us today - a conspiracy against you and against me. Who are the current conspirators? Sin, death, and the devil; in addition, the world, and our own sinful natures.

They conspire to cause us to lose sight of Jesus and His central role in our lives and in the world. They conspire to get us to think that life is about getting an education, getting a good job, and being relatively happy and content. They conspire to prevent us from spending time with God; they conspire to prevent us from helping others.

This conspiracy has a number of tactics it uses against us; one of them is busyness. If we are busy, we won't take the time to talk to God, to listen to Him, and to meditate on His Word. Having not done those things, we won't spend time helping others, either.

Against this conspiracy, we are powerless. In fact, we are part of the conspiracy against ourselves. Jesus, however, stands powerfully and effectively against this conspiracy. He rescues us. As John writes, addressing us,

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

There was an organized conspiracy out to get Jesus. It wanted Him dead. It succeeded, but only because He caused it to do so. And in succeeding, it failed, because the conspirators did not know that after killing Jesus, He would rise from the dead, unleashing His amazing power to transform people and transform the world. In killing Jesus, the conspiracy set into motion a process which would ultimately install Jesus as supreme and ultimately erase the conspiracy.

There is an organized conspiracy out to get us. It wants us dead - spiritually dead. Our own sinful nature is part of that conspiracy. But Jesus stops the conspiracy. Jesus breaks into the conspiracy, and into our lives, and shatters the plans which would lead us away from Him. Foiling this conspiracy, Jesus leads us to the truth. Conspiracy is always about deception; Jesus is always about the truth.