There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
The merit and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we rely upon as our main plea in our petition for the pardon of sin.
I know that as you are gracious and merciful, so you are the righteous God who loves righteous deeds, Psalm 11:7(ESV) and will by no means clear the guilty. Exodus 34:7(ESV) I cannot say, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything,” Matthew 18:26(ESV) for I am like one who is unclean, and all my righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Isaiah 64:6(ESV) But Jesus Christ has become to me righteousness from God; 1 Corinthians 1:30(ESV) being made to be sin, though he knew no sin, so that in him I might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21(ESV)
I have sinned, but I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for my sins, and not for mine only but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:1-2(ESV)
It is God who justifies, who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for me, Romans 8:33-34(ESV) and whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:24(ESV)
I desire to count everything as loss for the sake of Christ, and as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own, but that which comes through faith in Christ. Philippians 3:7-9(ESV)
This is the name whereby I, with your people, will call him, THE LORD IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Jeremiah 23:6(ESV) In him, Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. Mark 9:24(ESV)
Remember, O LORD, in David’s favor, all the hardships he endured; Psalm 132:1(ESV) the Son of David, remember all his offerings and regard with favor his burnt sacrifices; Psalm 20:3(ESV) and do not turn away the face of your Anointed One, 2 Chronicles 6:42(ESV) who by his own blood has entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on my behalf. Hebrews 9:24(ESV)
Have you not yourself put forward your Son, Christ Jesus, as a propitiation for sin by his blood, to be received by faith; to show God’s righteousness for the remission of sins, to show your righteousness at the present time, so that you might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus? Romans 3:25-26(KJV) And so, I now receive reconciliation. Romans 5:11(ESV)
Nehemiah 9:1-37 In this week’s study we see that sorrow for sin and repentance came in response to hearing God’s Word read and preached.
Theme
Genuine Confession and Repentance
In yesterday’s study, we concluded by observing that when the people expressed sorrow for sin, Nehemiah and the Levites directed to people to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
I find two very interesting things about this. First, Nehemiah did not take advantage of the people’s first outburst of sorrow to manipulate them and thus push the revival forward. Moreover, the governor wanted to direct the people’s thoughts to God and not to have them centered on their own feelings, however proper their sorrow and repentance for sin might be. The feast Nehemiah prescribed was a feast of thanksgiving for who God was and for what He had done.
We see the same thing in chapter 9. Here, even after the day of penance is allowed to go forward, the prayer of the Levites, which occupies the bulk of the chapter, is still focused on the greatness of the acts of God.
The second thing I notice is what I have already alluded to, namely, that although Nehemiah delayed the day of public repentance by more than three weeks, it did nevertheless occur. It was as strong and genuine then as it would have been at the beginning. This is a way of saying that this movement of repentance was wholly and genuinely of God. If it had been of man only, or if it had only been something that Ezra or Nehemiah had whipped up, it would have faded away.
The first verses of chapter 9 tell what finally happened. I notice two important things about this movement of repentance. First, the confession of the people was once again linked to a reading of God’s Law. This had happened on the first day of the month (recorded in chapter 8). It happened again here. It was after the priests had been reading from the “Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a fourth of the day,” that the people spent the next fourth of the day (three hours) confessing their sin.
What I am pointing out is more than just an observation, more than as if I were saying merely that this is just what happened. There is a necessary link between the two. Let me explain what I mean by defining sin. What is sin? The Westminster Shorter Catechism answers that question by replying: “Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.” That is right: the important thing being that sin is defined by reference to God’s law. This is what makes it sin, as distinguished from an act which is merely mean or offensive or criminal.
Let me put the definition and relation of sin to revival in a series of linked statements.
1. There can be no genuine forward moral progress for either a nation or an individual without an acknowledgment of, sorrow for and a true turning from sin. In other words, nations move forward spiritually and morally only in times of revival.
2. But there can be no true sense of what sin is or a knowledge of why it is sinful without a hearing of and response to the law of God. That is, we will never acknowledge sin to be sin or grieve over it unless we see it as an offense against God, and the only way we will ever see or sense that it is an offense against God is by seeing our actions as contrary to God’s written law.
3. Consequently, revival must be preceded by sound preaching of the whole counsels of God, particularly the law of God which we have violated.
The second thing I notice about the people’s confession of sin was that it was corporate as well as individualistic. I mean by this that the people not only recognized their own individual sin and confessed it but also understood that they were part of a people or nation and were therefore also collectively guilty. The text expresses this when it says that the people “confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers” (v. 2).
Study Questions
What two important things are observed about the people’s demonstration of repentance?
How does the Westminster Shorter Catechism define sin? What does it mean by this definition?
Application
Application: In your own confession of sin before God, do you express your sorrow in the context of who God is, thanking Him for such attributes as His mercy, grace, and faithfulness in not treating you as your sins deserve?
For Further Study: Download and listen for free to James Boice’s message, “A Psalm of Repentance.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)
I discuss Alisa Childers’ shift toward engaging with false teachers to reach the lost. While some support this view, I warn against the dangers of false teachers, asserting they corrupt faith and lead believers astray. I emphasize the importance of avoiding such influences, offering evidences of biblical warnings regarding sin and temptation.
Yesterday I wrote an essay regarding popular influencer Alisa Childers’ changing stance from her former position of declining invitations to speak at conference or venues where false teachers are present, to her current view that she will be platformed with them, if she can entreat the lost who may be present or to rebuke her fellow speakers if they are false.
I wrote that the Bible, especially in 26 of the 27 books of the New Testament, strongly warn against being with false teachers or false movements.
While some people were confused by Childers’ new view, others were disappointed in it, and still others approved. A typical response on the internet- all over the place and a big ole messy conversation.
But what does the Bible say? I used many verses and examples in my piece. Since so many people do not seem to understand the danger of false teachers, I’ll extend the conversation to focus on that aspect of the issue in this essay today.
First, we all love lost people. We are fervent in wanting God to save them, so we do what we can to show that love. Jesus said in Matthew 22:39 to love our neighbor as ourselves. And we do.
But that is only half the story.
As much as we are called to love the lost, we must hate the false. HATE it. In all the discussions about having love, reaching out, and being compassionate, many times in these discussions people do not show they fear the false nearly enough.
False teachers are the most dangerous people on the planet. I’ll say it again. The most dangerous people on earth are not terrorists, ANTIFA, fascists, rapists, molesters, or murderers. The most dangerous people are false teachers.
False teachers are straight from hell. They are ministers of evil disguised as ministers of righteousness. Since sin was found in Lucifer (Ezekiel 28:15) he entered earth to pollute the garden with his crafty insinuations. He turned a third of the angelic host against God and they followed Satan instead. Then was an irruption (an inflow) onto the earth of all those evil and sinful rebels turned demonic and unholy.
Just think on this- Satan was able to convince a horde of holy angels, who lived WITH God and saw His throne and shouted when He made the worlds and knew His power, turn from all that glory and perfection and holiness, to follow Satan. Do we think we puny humans stand a chance if we dally with the evil ones?
Let’s take a look at just a few of the Bible’s descriptions of false teachers.
Point #1- the evilness of false teachers
They masquerade as helpful ministers with a charming smile and a gentle tone. They use smooth talk and flattery. They do not strut about wearing horns and pitchforks. They disguise, that is what 2 Corinthians 11:14 says. They wear sheep’s clothing to hide their inner character, which is predatory.
They deceive, they spy, they want to take away our freedom in Christ. They lie. They devour. They destroy. They cause division. They take us captive. They pervert the Gospel. They distort. They are antichrists. They are ungodly. They lead people astray. They turn us from truth to myths. They are gangrenous cancers. These are the Bible’s words.
I could go on, those are just a few descriptions from just the New Testament. But you get the idea. False teachers are EVIL. We must hate them. Why? They oppose Christ (the worst sin!) and they devour the unwary (also bad!).
Point #2- the weakness of humans
There is another reason we are warned from the New Testament so many dozens of times to mark and avoid false teachers, which is the opposite of being platformed with them. It is an important point. Some have not only forgotten how EVIL false teachers are, some have forgotten how WEAK weare. There are verses which remind us of that.
Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you are not tempted as well. (Galatians 6:1).
Watch yourselves, the verse says. Even if we are trying to do good in helping another, we are tempted and we are to watch out. This is a warning.
So the one who thinks he is standing firm should be careful not to fall. (1 Corinthians 10:12).
We think we are strong but we can fall too! Another warning not to overestimate our strength in dealing with sin.
Sin is crouching at the door, waiting to have you. (Genesis 4:7). A very clear warning that at all times, sin is present in us and around us.
Why go closer to sin, swim with sin, dally with sin, when it is crouching as a predator wanting to devour us weaklings? Do we really think we can go into a den of iniquity and emerge unscathed? Untempted? Uncompromised? What a ghastly thought!!
Thomas Boston comments on our sin-nature:
They find it present with them at all times, and in all places, even in the most retired corners. If a man has a troublesome neighbor, he may move; if he has an ill servant, he may put him away at the term; if a bad companion, he may sometimes leave the house, and be free from molestation that way. But should the saint go into a wilderness, or set up his tent on some remote rock in the sea, where never foot of man, beast, or fowl had touched, there his corrupt heart will be with him. Should he be with Paul, caught up to the third heavens, it will come back with him, 2 Cor. 12:7. It follows him as the shadow does the body; it makes a blot in the fairest line he can draw.
We are stupid sheep, weak, prideful, and foolish. Approaching the most dangerous people on the planet is warned against many times in scripture. John says do not even greet them! We must not swim in their waters!
Point #3- False teachers are sickening poison
I’ll use a graphic example. You bring a casserole dish of baked brownies to a potluck. There is a cow patty on one side. You tell everyone, ‘eat from this side, they are good. Don’t eat the ones on the other side, they will make you sick’.
Of course that is ridiculous. But it’s the same but worse with false teachers. We cannot, CANNOT ingest what they peddle even for a moment. We cannot stand next to them and say, ‘listen to me, not them.’ Their evil influence will not only make us sick, they may destroy our witness, capture us, and destroy us.
abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:22-24).
every.form.of.evil.
See that no one deceives you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them (Ephesians 5:6-7).
Matthew Henry said of the Thessalonians verse, “He who is not shy of the appearances of sin, who does not shun it, and who does not avoid the temptations and approaches to it, will not long keep from doing sin.“
The false teachers’ empty words and deceive us. The wrath of God is already on them.
One final verse,
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. (Romans 16:17-18 KJV).
For such people are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
Please do not come near to any sin, including well-meaning but incorrect influencers who think they can dally in it, despite the fact that the Bible says not to.
We can be encouraged that one day the Lord will return in triumph and put to death, sin, death, and evil angels. What a day that will be, to be delivered from our own sin nature and the evil presence of it around us! That day is coming. So, dear sisters, hang on to your wits, be vigilant, and keep battling. Please do not get weary…for Christ is worth a pure Bride. He is worth ALL!
There is a dynamic to-and-fro between the Lord and His people when they are united to each other within the covenant of grace. This means that while the Lord makes promises and gives blessings for His people to grasp hold of, they can in turn with reverence hold Him to His word and remind Him to do what He has said. One believer who had a clear sense of this was Janet Hamilton, Lady Earlstoun (who died in 1696). She suffered persecution alongside her husband, Sir Alexander Gordon of Earlston (1650–1726), for Covenanter principles. At various stages in her life, Janet wrote down her reflections on the Lord’s dealings with her, also taking the opportunity to renew of her personal covenant with the Lord. Janet’s writings were discovered after her death and were published at the request of her friends. In the following updated extract, Janet appeals to the Lord for help with her own family, as well as showing a concern for the wider church and national context.Come to my family
Now, Lord, I desire to enter into covenant with Thee this day, in opposition to all the corruptions of the body of sin that I am mastered with. I desire in Thy sight to protest against all things in me or my family that are not like Thee, and this day to invite Thee back to my house on any terms, and do not break us with Thy long absence. Come, Lord Jesus, and take up Thy dwelling amongst us. We are a heartless company without thee.
Come to the heads, and tell us what is our duty, and put work in our hands. Art Thou passing by us as one that has no work for us to do? O Lord, I cannot contemplate this! Do not let our iniquities put a stop in Thy way. Come over the mountains of oppositions and put us to duty, and keep us at duty, and dwell with us.
Join the crew with guest Voddie Baucham as they tackle the increasingly prevalent attack on truth in today’s culture and emphasize the profound importance of truth and the authority of Scripture.
This clip is from the Living Waters Podcast, hosted by Ray Comfort, Emeal “E.Z.” Zwayne, Mark Spence, and Oscar Navarro. Join us as we explore hot topics, Christian living, theology, and evangelism. You can listen to the full podcast on all major streaming platforms, and now you can also watch full episodes and stream all our content on Living Waters TV.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (4:3–4)
Not everyone has the privilege of looking into the face of Jesus, “for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:14). Only those who have had the veil of spiritual blindness removed in Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 3:14) can look into His face. As noted above, one of the criticisms the false apostles leveled against Paul was that his evangelistic methodology was defective. His approach, which he defined in 1 Corinthians 2:2, was simple and straightforward: “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” He frankly admitted, “My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 2:4). His preaching was a plain, bold, direct presentation of sin, repentance, and faith. Because of that, the false apostles accused him of being offensive and ineffective. His preaching was alienating people; it was “to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23). He needed a better marketing plan to overcome consumer resistance. That kind of thinking is prevalent in today’s church. Contemporary critics argue for a subtler and less offensive approach to presenting the gospel. Preaching sin, repentance, judgment, and hell is out; “user-friendly” churches are in. Worship services give way to entertainment designed to make nonbelievers feel comfortable and not threatened. The thinking is that they will then be open to considering Christ. Underlying much of modern evangelism is the heretical idea that anyone can and will respond to the gospel if it is presented in an ingenious enough way. That view sees unbelievers as consumers, for whom the gospel must be cleverly packaged in order to make the sale. Roy Clements writes perceptively of this trend:
A preacher … is a herald, and a herald is precisely a one-way communicator; he does not dialogue, he announces a message he has received. But if our communication experts are correct, announcements do not change anybody. Where is the flaw in their reasoning?… It lies in the theology. For people who argue like this are assuming that Christian preaching is analogous to a marketing exercise. You have your product: the gospel. You have your consumers: the congregation. And the preacher is the salesman. It is his job to overcome consumer resistance and persuade people to buy.
According to Paul, there is one very simple but overwhelming reason why that analogy is not a good one. The preacher does not overcome consumer resistance. He cannot. Consumer resistance is far too large for any preacher to overcome. All the preacher does, Paul says, is to expose that resistance in its formidable impenetrability. If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded their minds and “they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” … The preacher does not save anybody. He is an instrument whereby people who are being saved become aware of the fact. Evangelism has to be proclamation because preaching is a sacrament of the divine sovereignty. (The Strength of Weakness [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995], 75–76)
Salvation is never the result of human persuasion; it is a sovereign act of God. In John 6:44 Jesus declared, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Acts 11:18 affirms that “God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” Lydia was saved when “the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul” (Acts 16:14). Paul counseled Timothy,
The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:24–26)
The apostle reminded Titus that “[God] saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). The issue is not the skill of the one proclaiming the message, the packaging of the message, or the technique used in proclaiming it. The issue is the condition of the hearer. Jesus illustrated that principle in the parable of the sower. The same message (the seed) is proclaimed by the same individual (the sower); the only variable is the condition of the four soils. What is essential for messengers of the gospel is not cleverness but clarity. Only God can open the sin-blinded eyes of those who are “dead in [their] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1; cf. v. 5; Matt. 8:22; Eph. 4:18). To those who criticized his preaching as irrelevant, offensive, and ineffective Paul replied, Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. Fallen, dead in their sins, and spiritually blind, those who reject the gospel message are headed for eternal doom (cf. 2 Cor. 2:15; 3:14; Luke 13:3, 5; Rom. 2:12; 1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Thess. 2:9–11). Therefore “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). The issue is not contriving nonthreatening church services or developing better marketing skill in pitching the gospel. The issue is that those who reject the gospel message do so because “[they love] the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds [are] evil” (John 3:19). In addition to their own love of sin, unbelievers reject the gospel because the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving. The unbelieving are the same ones described in verse 3 as those who are perishing; the two terms are synonyms. Despite the claims of some, there can be no such thing as an “unbelieving Christian,” since the unbelieving are the perishing. Aiōn (world) is better translated “age” (as it is in Matt. 12:32; 13:39, 40, 49; 24:3; 28:20; Luke 16:8; 18:30; 20:34; 1 Cor. 1:20; 2:6, 7, 8; 3:18; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:21; Col. 1:26; Titus 2:12; Heb. 6:5, etc.). The god of this world or age is Satan, (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Eph. 2:2; 2 Tim. 2:26; 1 John 5:19), who controls the ideologies, opinions, hopes, aims, goals, and viewpoints current in the world (cf. 2 Cor. 10:3–5). He is behind the world’s systems of philosophy, psychology, education, sociology, ethics, and economics. But perhaps his greatest influence is in the realm of false religion. Satan, of course, is not a god but a created being. He is called a god because his deluded followers serve him as if he were one. Satan is the archetype of all the false gods in all the false religions he has spawned. It is that massive and pervasive influence over society by which Satan deludes the unregenerate so that they might not see the light of the gospel. Except in rare cases, Satan and his demons do not directly indwell individuals. They do not need to. Satan has created a system that panders to the depravity of unbelievers and drives them deeper into darkness. In addition to being dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1), veiled from the truth (2 Cor. 3:15), haters of light and lovers of darkness (John 3:19–20), unbelievers walk “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience … [living] in the lusts of [the] flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and [are] by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:2–3). They are “of [their] father the devil, and [they] want to do the desires of [their] father” (John 8:44). All the evil of the human heart—crime, hatred, bitterness, anger, injustice, immorality, and conflict between nations and individuals—is pandered to by Satan’s agenda. The world system he has created inflames the evil desires of fallen people, causing them to be willfully blind and love their darkness. Minds translates noēma, which refers to the ability to reason or think. Unregenerate people cannot think properly about spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14) because they have a “depraved mind” (Rom. 1:28; 1 Tim. 6:5; 2 Tim. 3:8). No matter how slick the presentation is, it will not persuade a depraved mind to respond favorably to the gospel. Only God can turn on the light in the human heart (cf. 2 Cor. 4:6; Luke 24:45; Acts 26:18) so that it can respond in saving faith to the gospel of the glory of Christ. God’s glory is revealed in Jesus Christ, because He is the image of God (John 1:14; Col. 1:19; 2:9; Heb. 1:3). The privilege of seeing God’s glory revealed in Christ is granted only to those to whom God in His mercy grants spiritual sight.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2003). 2 Corinthians (pp. 129–133). Moody Publishers.
To those unbelievers whose minds the god of this age has blinded so that they cannot see the illumination of the gospel of Christ’s glory, who is the image of God. Who are the unbelievers Paul mentions? Are they those Jews who refuse to accept Christ as the Son of God? Or are they those Corinthians who have heard the gospel but reject it? Because the Greek grammar of this verse is infelicitous, we do well to explain the term unbelievers as a synonym of “those who are perishing” (v. 3). The term, therefore, applies to all those who refuse to know Jesus Christ as Son of God. This term appears again in 6:14, where Paul warns believers not to be yoked with unbelievers. Faith stands in opposition to unbelief, and these two can never exist harmoniously. Paul calls Satan the god of this age, not to place the devil on a level with God, but to show that Satan is the ruler of this world. In the first few centuries of the Christian era, Gnosticism promulgated its doctrine that not God but an evil god had created and now controlled this world. Opposing this teaching, many theologians wanted to deprive Satan of the title god and ascribe it only to God. Thus they proposed the translation: “to those unbelievers of this age whose minds God has blinded.” But the Greek word order will not support this version. God does not want the death of anyone but desires that all repent and live (Ezek. 18:23, 32; 2 Peter 3:9). Satan is the adversary of God and his people. On this earth, he exercises the authority that has been given to him (Luke 4:6). Jesus calls Satan the prince of this world, but Paul designates him “god.” The Hebrew plural term elohim is translated in the singular as either “God” or “god.” When the writers of Scripture refer to a god, they usually do so with a qualifying genitive; for instance, “each cried out to his own god” (Jonah 1:5; see also Exod. 20:23; 2 Kings 19:37). When we translate the Hebrew text of Psalm 8:5 literally, we read, “a little lower than God” (NASB). But the Septuagint renders the verse as “a little lower than the angels.” Paul probably had in mind the Hebrew expression elohim, which he translated “god” and applied to the fallen angel, Satan. Satan is capable of transforming himself into an angel of light (11:14) to deceive people. Through counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders, he employs his evil schemes to deceive those who are perishing (2 Thess. 2:9). He prowls around like a roaring lion searching for prey to devour (1 Peter 5:8). And as the spirit (god) of the age, he has the power to blind the minds of unbelievers. The contrast is striking: preachers drive away the darkness of the world with Christ’s illuminating gospel; Satan strikes the unbelievers with blindness so that their minds are unable to see the light of the gospel. A veil covers their minds, much as the Israelites refused to see Moses’ face radiating God’s glory and as the Jews were unable to understand the message of the Scriptures (3:13–15). Conversely, Christians send forth the light of Christ’s gospel and reflect his glory. Satan has no power over the believers who stand firm in their faith, even though he tries to deceive them—if that were possible (Matt. 24:24; Mark 13:22). Believers not only see the glory of Christ through the illumination of the gospel, but also reflect his glory in their daily lives. Paul places three genitives after the noun illumination, namely, “of the gospel,” “of the glory,” “of Christ.” Each genitive explains and emphasizes the noun that precedes it. Hence, we have this sequence: the illumination that the gospel emits derives from the glory that belongs to Christ. The conclusion of this verse is a statement of fact: “Christ … is the image of God” (1 Cor. 11:7; Col. 1:15; compare Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:3). The concept image of God directs our attention to God creating man in his image and likeness (Gen. 1:26–27). Here is a father-child relationship that implies resemblance of the one to the other. While Adam is God’s image bearer only by analogy, Christ is “the exact representation of his being” (Heb. 1:3). More, the Son of God brilliantly reflects God’s glory and so in his essence extends the Father’s glory. Through Jesus Christ the Father’s glory is made visible to the world of mankind (John 1:14b; 14:9). And this is exactly what Paul demonstrates in the succeeding context: “God has shone forth in our hearts to provide us illumination of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ” (v. 6). Did Paul compose the phrase the image of God? Many theologians argue that this line was part of a confessional formula or a hymn that was in use when Paul wrote his epistles. This raises the interesting question whether Paul could have been the author of this formula or hymn.20 It remains to be seen if the evidence is sufficient to show that Paul is not the author. The research on this point goes beyond the scope of this commentary.
Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Vol. 19, pp. 140–141). Baker Book House.
4 “The god of this age” refers, of course, not to God the Father but to Satan, regarded as the one who rules over this present age (Jn 12:31; 1 Jn 5:19), or as the one whom this age has made its god. If dualism is found in Paul, it is an ethical and temporal dualism, not a material or metaphysical one. Satan is not the god of “the age to come.” When Paul calls Christ “the image of God,” he is asserting that Christ is the visible and perfect representation of the invisible God (Col 1:15; cf. Jn 1:18), the precise expression of the unseen God. When used of the relation of Christ to God, eikōn (“image”) implies both personality and distinctiveness.
Harris, M. J. (2008). 2 Corinthians. In T. Longman III &. Garland, David E. (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Romans–Galatians (Revised Edition) (Vol. 11, p. 467). Zondervan.
4:4 / Paul explains the (Satanic) source of the hard-hearted, veiled state of those who have rejected his apostolic message. The full expression the god of this age (ho theos tou aiōnos toutou) occurs nowhere else in the NT; hence, there has been some debate whether the articular noun ho theos refers to God (as usual in Paul) or to Satan (unattested in Paul). It seems to have gone unnoticed that Daniel 5:4 LXX decries those who have praised idols made with their own hands rather than “the God of the age/world [ton theon tou aionos] who has power over their [life-] spirit.” Similarly, Tobit 14:6 (in Codex Sinaiticus) expects that “all the nations in the whole world” will one day praise “the God of the age/world [ton theon tou aionos].” Hence, our passage apparently refers to God himself as the one who has blinded the minds of unbelievers, an idea supported by other Pauline passages (cf. 2 Cor. 3:14; Rom. 11:8). Such a notion, however, is as repugnant to the modern mind as the Markan explanation of Jesus’ use of parables (Mark 4:12, citing Isa. 6:9–10). Therefore, commentators usually prefer to interpret the expression as a reference to Satan, even though such a designation seems to have no parallels. In Paul’s writings, “this age” refers to the present evil age that is perishing (cf. Gal. 1:4; 1 Cor. 2:6, 8; 3:18; Rom. 12:2), as opposed to the age to come that brings resurrection of the dead and consummation of the new creation (cf. Eph. 1:21; 2:7; Rom. 8:18–25; 1 Cor. 15:20–28). The present evil age is governed by “the rulers of this age” (1 Cor. 2:6, 8) and “the prince of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). Hence, the ruler of this age (apparently Satan) could also be called “the god of this age.” In that case, it is Satan who causes people to harden their hearts to the truth. We may compare the many statements about Belial (cf. 2 Cor. 6:15) in Second Temple literature, according to which Belial is the ruler of this world and of this age (Mart. Isa. 2:4; 4:2–6; T. Reu. 4:11; 1 QS 1.23–24; 2.19) and the one who leads people’s hearts astray (Jub. 1:20; T. Reu. 4:7; Sib. Or. 3:63–74; CD 4.12–19). It is not easy to choose between these options, and each has its own plausibility. We may give a slight preference to interpreting the expression as referring to God, who frequently hardens people’s hearts against him (e.g., Exod. 4:21; 7:3, 13; 9:12, 35; 14:4, 8; Deut. 2:30; Isa. 63:17). The unbelievers whose minds are blinded include all those who reject the Pauline gospel, especially the opponents of the apostle in Corinth (cf. 6:14, 15), who are really servants of Satan (cf. 11:12–15). Such people cannot see the light of the gospel. According to Acts 13:47, Paul understood his commission in terms of Isaiah 49:6: “I have made you a light for the nations, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” In our passage, the content of the light of the gospel is further described as the glory of Christ. When Paul met the resurrected Christ on the way to Damascus, God revealed his Son to Paul (Gal. 1:16). At that time, Paul saw Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 9:1), and this made Paul an eyewitness apostle (cf. 1 Cor. 15:1–11). In the previous context of our passage, much has been said about “glory” as the representation of God’s presence. Thus, Moses’ face so shone with the glory of God that the Israelites could not gaze at it (2 Cor. 3:7). The glory of Christ is likewise a manifestation of God’s presence, for the text goes on to describe Christ as the image of God. Paul has already referred to the Lord’s “likeness” in 3:18, presumably alluding to the anthropomorphic appearance of God in Ezekiel’s throne-chariot vision (Ezek. 1:26–27). If God and Christ sit side by side in the divine throne-chariot, that would explain why Christ is viewed here as the glorious manifestation of the image of God that one sees in a merkabah vision.
Scott, J. M. (2011). 2 Corinthians (pp. 85–86). Baker Books.
4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. Paul uses a variety of names and phrases to refer to Satan (“Belial,” 6:15; “angel of light,” 11:14; “ruler of the kingdom of the air,” Eph. 2:2; “evil one,” Eph. 6:16), but only here does he use the term “god.” The expression “god of this age” is striking in that it betokens both power and limitation. Paul ascribes to Satan a kind of sovereignty, but one that is bounded by temporal restrictions: this present age. According to Paul this “present age” is evil (Gal. 1:4); it has its own false wisdom (1 Cor. 1:20; 2:6; 3:18), its own rulers (1 Cor. 2:8), and its own ephemeral perspectives (Rom. 12:2)—but it is passing (1 Cor. 7:31). The day is coming when every dominion and power will be in submission to God and even death itself destroyed (1 Cor. 15:23–28). Satan’s power in the present age, however, is not unlimited or unchecked. Jesus has triumphed over the powers of darkness through the cross (Col. 2:15) and is enthroned at God’s right hand “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion … not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21). Satan’s power to blind is not greater than God’s power to illumine (2 Cor. 4:6). the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. In 3:18 Paul described the transformation of the believer into the “image” of the Lord, and here he identifies Christ as the representation of that image. According to Genesis, Adam was created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27), and according to 1 Corinthians Christ is a type of second Adam, rectifying the failings of the first (1 Cor. 15:45–49). The transformation that Paul depicts in these chapters constitutes a renewal of the imago dei, a “new creation” in Christ (cf. 4:6; 5:17).
Hubbard, M. V. (2017). 2 Corinthians (M. L. Strauss, Ed.; pp. 64–65). Baker Books: A Division of Baker Publishing Group.
In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. The god of this age refers to Satan, who is permitted to exercise a limited rule in the present age (cf. John 12:31), a rule that will be terminated altogether with the coming of the new age at Christ’s return. In the meantime, he is active in blinding the minds of unbelievers to the truth of the gospel. The reason why many rejected Paul’s gospel is to be found not in deficiencies in his proclamation of it, but because their minds have been blinded by the god of this age (= Satan). In 3:14–16 Paul spoke of the veil over the minds of his Jewish contemporaries, which prevented them from understanding their own Scriptures. Here it is implied that Satan was involved not only in the veiling of the minds of Jewish people, but of all unbelievers. Other references in 2 Corinthians indicate that the activity of the god of this age (= Satan) is not restricted to the blinding of the minds of unbelievers, but is directed against believers as well, seeking to deceive them and to move them away from their devotion to Christ (cf. 2:11; 11:3, 14). In each place where Satan (or as here, the god of this age) is mentioned in 2 Corinthians, he is seen to be seeking to hinder the work of God. However, it must be remembered that Satan can do so only with divine permission, and the blindness of mind which he is allowed to impose can at any time be penetrated by a blaze of light if God so wills. This, of course, was Paul’s own experience. In his blindness, he persecuted God’s church until such time as it pleased God to reveal his Son to him (cf. Acts 9:1–19; Gal. 1:13–17). So that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Here Paul indicates that the purpose for which the god of this age blinds people’s minds is so that they cannot see the light. The light is described as the light of the gospel, the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, and Christ is described as the image of God. When Paul says unbelievers cannot see the light of the gospel, he means that when they hear the gospel they do not appreciate its truth. Jesus made a similar point when explaining the parable of the sower. He said of the seed that fell on the path: ‘Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved’ (Luke 8:12). It is unusual for Paul to describe the gospel as that which displays the glory of Christ when elsewhere he frequently says the gospel he preaches concerns ‘Christ crucified’ (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2; Gal. 3:1). However, in the next verse he says that he preaches ‘Jesus Christ as Lord’ (4:5), and in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 he describes the content of the gospel as ‘Christ died for our sins … was buried … was raised’ (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3–4). The gospel includes the fact that the crucified One is the Lord who was raised from the dead, and this is sufficient to justify a description of the gospel as that which displays the glory of Christ. Paul says that the gospel concerns the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. There may be an allusion here to the creation of humankind in Genesis 1:26 (‘Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’), especially in the light of the fact that Paul does speak of Christ as the ‘last Adam’, comparing (and contrasting) him with the ‘first Adam’ (1 Cor. 15:45–49; cf. Rom. 5:12–19). There may also be an allusion here to Israel’s wisdom literature where Wisdom is personified and her glories celebrated: ‘For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness’ (Wis 7:26, NRSV). Strengthening the possibility of such an allusion is the fact that elsewhere Paul ascribes to Christ that role in creation which Israel’s wisdom literature ascribes to Wisdom (cf. Prov. 8:22–31; Col. 1:15–20). Bringing the two possible allusions together, it has been suggested that for Paul, Christ is the image of God after the fashion of Adam as far as his humanity is concerned, and after the fashion of Wisdom as far as his transcendence is concerned.
Kruse, C. G. (2015). 2 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary (E. J. Schnabel, Ed.; Second edition, Vol. 8, pp. 140–142). Inter-Varsity Press.
This is spoken to a childlike believer, who was ready to accept Jesus as the Son of God, the King of Israel, upon one convincing piece of argument. Those who are willing to see shall see; it is because we shut our eyes that we become so sadly blind.
We have seen much already. Great things and unsearchable has the Lord showed unto us, for which we praise His name; but there are greater truths in His Word, greater depths of experience, greater heights of fellowship, greater works of usefulness, greater discoveries of power, and love, and wisdom. These we are yet to see if we are willing to believe our Lord. The faculty of inventing false doctrine is ruinous, but power to see the truth is a blessing. Heaven shall be opened to us, the way thither shall be made clear to us in the Son of Man, and the angelic commerce which goes on between the upper and the lower kingdoms shall be made more manifest to us. Let us keep our eyes open toward spiritual objects and expect to see more and more. Let us believe that our lives will not drivel down into nothing but that we shall be always on the growing hand, seeing greater and still greater things, till we behold the great God Himself and never again lose the sight of Him.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.Matthew 5:8
Purity, even purity of heart, is the main thing to be aimed at. We need to be made clean within through the Spirit and the Word, and then we shall be clean without by consecration and obedience. There is a close connection between the affections and the understanding: if we love evil we cannot understand that which is good. If the heart is foul, the eye will be dim. How can those men see a holy God who love unholy things?
What a privilege it is to see God here! A glimpse of Him is heaven below! In Christ Jesus the pure in heart behold the Father. We see Him, His truth, His love, His purpose, His sovereignty, His covenant character, yea, we see Himself in Christ. But this is only apprehended as sin is kept out of the heart. Only those who aim at godliness can cry, “Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord.” The desire of Moses, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory,” can only be fulfilled in us as we purify ourselves from all iniquity. We shall “see him as he is,” and “every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself.” The enjoyment of present fellowship and the hope of the beatific vision are urgent motives for purity of heart and life. Lord, make us pure in heart that we may see Thee!
because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (5:5b–8)
A fourth marvelous link in the unbreakable chain that eternally binds believers to Christ is their possession of the divine love of God, which has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. When a person receives salvation through Jesus Christ, he enters a spiritual love relationship with God that lasts throughout all eternity. As the apostle makes unambiguous in verse 8, love of God does not here refer to our love for God but to His love for us. The most overwhelming truth of the gospel is that God loved sinful, fallen, rebellious mankind, so much “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And as the apostle proclaims in verse 9 of this present chapter, if God loved us with so great a love before we were saved, when we were still His enemies, how much more does He love us now. As if that were not enough, God even graciously imparts His love to us. For those who accept His offer of salvation, God takes His indescribable and undeserved love and pours it out within the hearts of those who believe, through His own Holy Spirit who he gives to them. Taking the truth of eternal security out of the objective area of the mind, Paul now reveals that, in Christ, we are also given subjective evidence of permanent salvation, evidence that God Himself implants within our deepest being, in that we love the One who first loved us (1 John 4:7–10; cf. 1 Cor. 16:22). Poured out refers to lavish outpouring to the point of overflowing. Our heavenly Father does not proffer His love in measured drops but in immeasurable torrents. The very fact that God gives His Holy Spirit to indwell believers is itself a marvelous testimony to His love for us, because He would hardly indwell those whom He did not love. And it is only because of the indwelling Spirit that His children are able to truly love Him. Speaking to His disciples about the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water’ ” (John 7:38; cf. v. 39). Those rivers of blessing can flow out of believers only because of the divine rivers of blessing, including the blessing of divine love, that God has poured into them. In the same way, our spiritual security is not in our ability to live godly but in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to make us godly. Only God can make men godly, and the Spirit’s leading us into godliness is one of the great evidences of salvation. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God,” Paul declares, “these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). With the longing to love, even the genuine desire to be godly is produced by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we sincerely aspire to righteous living, whenever we have an earnest desire to pray, whenever we yearn to study God’s Word, whenever we long to worship the Lord Jesus Christ with all our hearts, we know we are being led by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we experience the awesome awareness that God is indeed our heavenly Father, it is “the Spirit Himself [who] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:16–17). The natural man has no such desires or experiences, and even Christians would not have them apart from being indwelt and led by the Holy Spirit. Because acknowledging His promises with the mind does not necessarily bring personal confidence to the heart, God makes provision for the emotional encouragement as well as the mental enlightenment of His children. When the Lord is given free reign in our lives, the Holy Spirit will bear fruit in and through us, the first fruit of which is love (Gal. 5:22). But when we grieve Him through our disobedience (Eph. 4:30), He cannot produce what He intends. Therefore, when we live in disobedience, we not only will not feel loving toward God but will not feel His love for us. With perhaps that truth in mind, Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers: “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:14–19). The Holy Spirit strengthens the inner man and enables him “to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” By the gracious work of the Spirit within us, our hearts are able to experience a depth of love that our minds are unable to grasp, “the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” Knowing that his readers would want to know more about the quality and character of the divine love that filled them, Paul reminds them of the greatest manifestation of God’s love in all history, perhaps in all eternity: For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. While men were utterly helpless to bring themselves to God, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, notwithstanding the fact that we were ungodly and completely unworthy of His love. When we were powerless to escape from our sin, powerless to escape death, powerless to resist Satan, and powerless to please Him in any way, God amazingly sent His Son to die on our behalf. Natural human love is almost invariably based on the attractiveness of the object of love, and we are inclined to love people who love us. Consequently, we tend to attribute that same kind of love to God. We think that His love for us is dependent on how good we are or on how much we love Him. But as Jesus pointed out, even traitorous tax collectors were inclined to love those who loved them (Matt. 5:46). And as theologian Charles Hodge observed, “If [God] loved us because we loved him, he would love us only so long as we love him, and on that condition; and then our salvation would depend on the constancy of our treacherous hearts. But as God loved us as sinners, as Christ died for us as ungodly, our salvation depends, as the apostle argues, not on our loveliness, but on the constancy of the love of God” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974 reprint], pp. 136–37). God’s immense love is supremely demonstrated by Christ’s dying for the ungodly, for totally unrighteous, undeserving, and unlovable mankind. In the human realm, by contrast, Paul observes that one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. Paul is not contrasting a righteous man with a good man, but is simply using those terms synonymously. His point is that it is uncommon for a person to sacrifice his own life in order to save the life even of someone of high character. Still fewer people are inclined to give their lives to save a person they know to be a wicked scoundrel. But God was so inclined, and in that is our security and assurance. Saved, we can never be as wretched as we were before salvation—and He loved us totally then. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That sort of self-less, undeserved love is completely beyond human comprehension. Yet that is the love that the just and infinitely holy God had toward us even while we were yet sinners. The God who hates every sinful thought and every sinful deed nevertheless loves the sinners who think and do those things, even while they are still hopelessly enmeshed in their sin. Even when men openly hate God and do not have the least desire to give up their sin, they are still the objects of God’s redeeming love as long as they live. Only at death does an unbeliever cease to be loved by God. After that, he is eternally beyond the pale of God’s love and is destined irrevocably for His wrath. In Christ, we are forever linked to God by His love, demonstrated in (positive) blessings and (negative) mercy.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1991). Romans (Vol. 1, pp. 283–286). Moody Press.
God’s Love Commended
Romans 5:6–8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
There are a number of preachers today, some of them quite famous, who do not want to say anything unpleasant about sinful human nature. They describe their approach to Christianity as “possibility thinking” and argue that people are already so discouraged about themselves that they do not need to be told that they are wicked. I do not know how such preachers could possibly preach on our text. They should want to, I think, Romans 5:6–8 (and verse 5, which precedes this paragraph) speak about the love that God has for us. The greatness of this love, which is mentioned here in Romans for the very first time, is an uplifting and positive theme. Besides, it is brought into the argument at this point to assure us that all who have been justified by faith in Christ have been saved because of God’s love for them and that nothing will ever be able to separate them from it. This is the climax to which we will also come at the end of Romans 8. Nothing could be more positive or more edifying than this theme. Yet Paul’s statement of the nature, scope, and permanence of God’s love is placed against the black backdrop of human sin, and rightly so. For, as Paul tells us: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8). How can we appreciate or even understand that statement without speaking about the evil natures of those whom God has thus loved? This is a very practical matter for two reasons. First, since Paul is describing the love of God against the dark background of human sin, he is saying that it is only against this background that we are able to form a true picture of how great the love of God is. In other words, if we think (as many do) that God loves us because we are somehow quite lovely or desirable, our appreciation of the love of God will be reduced by just that amount—just as a beautiful but very vain woman might have trouble appreciating the love of her husband, or of anyone else. If we think we deserve the best of everything, we will not appreciate the love we receive irrespective of our beauty, talent, or other supposedly admirable qualities. The second point is this: If we think we deserve God’s love, we cannot ever really be secure in it, because we will always be afraid that we may do something to lessen or destroy the depth of God’s love for us. It is only those who know that God has loved them in spite of their sin who can trust him to continue to show them favor.
God’s Love for Sinners
I begin with Paul’s description of the people God loves and has saved, and I ask you to notice the four powerful words used to portray them, three in the passage we are studying and one additional word in verse 10. They are “powerless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” and “enemies.” It is important to know that we are all rightly described by each of these words.
Powerless. This word is translated in a variety of ways in our Bible versions: “weak,” “helpless,” “without strength,” “feeble,” “sluggish in doing right,” and so on. Only the strongest terms will do in this context, since the idea is that, left to ourselves, none of us is able to do even one small thing to please God or achieve salvation. One commentator distinguishes between “conditional impossibilities” and “unconditional impossibilities” in order to show that this kind of inability is truly unconditional. A conditional impossibility is one in which we are unable to do something unless something else happens. For example, I might find it impossible to repay a loan unless I should suddenly earn a large sum of money. Or I might be unable to accept an invitation to some social event unless a prior commitment is canceled. An unconditional impossibility is one which no possible change in circumstances can alter, and it is this that describes us in our pre-converted state. What specifically were we unable to do? We were unable to understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14). We were unable to see the kingdom of God or enter it (John 3:3, 5). We were unable to seek God (Rom. 3:11). Paul elsewhere describes this inability vividly when he says that before God saved us we were “dead in [our] transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1). That is, we were no more able to respond to or seek God than a corpse is able to respond to stimuli of any kind.
Ungodly. This word conveys the same idea Paul expressed at the beginning of his description of the race in its rebellion against God: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). In these verses, “ungodly” and “godlessness” mean not so much that human beings are unlike God (though that is also true), but that in addition they are in a state of fierce opposition to him. God is sovereign, but they oppose him in his sovereignty. They do not want him to rule over them; they want to be free to do as they please. God is holy, and they oppose him in his holiness. This means that they do not accept his righteous and proper moral standards; they do not want their sinful acts and desires to be called into question. God is omniscient, and they oppose him for his omniscience. They are angry that he knows them perfectly, that nothing they think or do is hidden from his sight. They also oppose him for his immutability, since immutability means that God does not change in these or any of his other attributes.
Sinners. “Sinners” describes those who have fallen short of God’s standards, as Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” It means that we have broken God’s law and in this sense is probably parallel to the word wickedness in Romans 1:18, which was cited above. “Godlessness” is being opposed to God; that is, to have broken the first table of the law, which tells us that we are to worship and serve God only (cf. Matt. 22:37–38). “Wickedness” means to have broken the second table of the law; we have failed to treat others properly, to have respected them, and to have loved them as we love ourselves (cf. Matt. 22:39).
Enemies. The final word Paul uses to describe human beings apart from the supernatural work of God in their lives is “enemies,” though the word does not appear until verse 10. This summarizes what has been said by the first three terms, but it also goes beyond that. It affirms that not only are we unable to save ourselves, are unlike and opposed to God, and are violators of his law, but we are also opposed to God in the sense that we would attack him and destroy him if we could. Being like Satan in his desires, we would drag God from his throne, cast him to hell and crush him into nothingness—if that were possible—which is what many people actually tried to do when God came among them in the person of Jesus Christ. What a terrible picture of humanity! No wonder the possibility thinkers choose other, more uplifting themes to speak about! Yet it is only against this background that we see the brightness of God’s love. “You see,” writes Paul, “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (vv. 6–8).
Love at the Cross
Any contrast has two sides, of course, and thus far we have looked only at one side. We have looked at the dark side: ourselves. We have seen that God loved us, not when we were lovely people who were seeking him out and trying to obey him, but when we were actually fighting him and were willing to destroy him if we could. That alone makes the measure of God’s love very great. However, we may also see the greatness of the love of God by looking at the bright side: God’s side. And here we note that God did not merely reach out to give us a helping hand, bestowing what theologians call common grace—sending rain on the just and unjust alike (cf. Matt. 5:45), for instance—but that he actually sent his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for us. There is a further contrast, too, as Paul brings these great ideas together and compares what God has done in dying for sinners with what human beings might themselves do in certain circumstances. Paul points out that, while a human being might be willing to give his life for a righteous or, better yet, a morally superior woman or man under certain circumstances, Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, which is the precise opposite of being good, or righteous. In his excellent study of this text Donald Grey Barnhouse gives two illustrations of exceptionally great human love. In one story two men were trapped in a mine cave-in, and poisonous gas was escaping. One man had a wife and three children. He also had a gas mask, but his mask had been torn in the underground explosion and he would have perished apart from the act of the man who was trapped with him. This second man took off his own mask and forced it on the man who survived, saying, “You have Mary and the children; they need you. I am alone and can go.” When we hear of an act like this, we sense we are on hallowed ground. The other story concerns a tough youngster from the streets of one of our large cities. His sister had been crippled and needed an operation. The operation was provided for her. But after the operation the girl needed a blood transfusion, and the boy, her brother, was asked to volunteer. He was taken to her bedside and watched tight-lipped as a needle was inserted into his vein and blood was fed into his sister’s body. When the transfusion was over, the doctor put his arm on the boy’s shoulder and told him that he had been very brave. The youngster knew nothing about the nature of a blood transfusion. But the doctor knew even less about the actual bravery of the boy—until the boy looked up at him and asked steadily, “Doc, how long before I croak?” He had gotten the idea that he would have to die to save his sister, and he had thought that he was dying drop by drop as his blood flowed into her veins. But he did it anyway! These stories sober us, because in them we recognize something of the highest human love. Yet, when we read of the love of God in Romans 5, we learn that it was not for those who were close to him or who loved him that Jesus died—but for those who were opposed to God and were his enemies. It is on this basis that God commends his love to us.
An Argument for Hard Hearts
Isn’t it astounding that God should need to commend his love to us? We are told in the Bible, though we should know it even without being told, that all good gifts come from God’s hands (James 1:17). It is from God that we receive life and health, food and clothing, love from and fellowship with other people, and meaningful work. These blessings should prove the love of God beyond any possibility of our doubting it. Yet we do doubt it. We are insensitive to God’s love, and God finds it necessary to commend his love by reminding us of the death of his Son. So it is at the cross that we see the love of God in its fullness. What a great, great love this is! You may recall that when the Swiss theologian Karl Barth was in this country some years before his death, someone asked a question at one of his question-and-answer sessions that went like this: “Dr. Barth, what is the greatest thought that has ever gone through your mind?” The questioner probably expected some complicated and incomprehensible answer, as if Einstein were being asked to explain the theory of relativity. But after he had thought a long while, Barth replied by saying: “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” This was a profound answer and a correct one. For there is nothing greater that any of us could think about or know than that Jesus loves us and has shown his love by dying in our place.
The Greatness of God’s Love
I would like to close this study by reflecting on the greatness of God’s love for us, but I wonder how anyone can do that adequately. How can any merely human words sufficiently express this wonder? Some years ago I was preaching through the Gospel of John and had come to that greatest of all verses about the love of God: John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I wanted to say that the love of God is great, remembering that Ephesians 2:4 uses that very word: “But because of his great love for us.…” But the English word great is not great enough for this subject. The week before, I had been at Houghton College in New York, and I remembered having said that I thought the work of the college was great, that some of the points the other speakers had made were great, and that I had had a great time. I was sincere in my use of the word great. But what were such uses of the word compared to the use of the word to describe God’s love? Someone once tried to express the greatness of God’s love by printing on a little card a special arrangement of John 3:16, with certain descriptive phrases added. The twelve parts of the verse were arranged down one side of the card, and the added phrases were printed across from them. It went like this:
God the greatest Lover so loved the greatest degree the world the greatest company that he gave the greatest act his only begotten Son the greatest gift that whosoever the greatest opportunity believeth the greatest simplicity in him the greatest attraction should not perish the greatest promise but the greatest difference have the greatest certainty everlasting life the greatest possession
The title placed over the whole was: “Christ—the Greatest Gift.” Let me try to express the greatness of the love of God by the words of a hymn by F. M. Lehman. Lehman wrote most of this hymn, but the final stanza (the best, in my opinion) was added to it later, after it had been found scratched on the wall of a room in an asylum by a man said to have been insane. The first and last verses of the hymn and the chorus, go as follows:
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave his Son to win:
His erring child he reconciled
And rescued from his sin.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho stretched from sky to sky.
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Did you know that the love of God seemed so great to the biblical writers that they invented, or at least raised to an entirely new level of meaning, a brand-new word for love? The Greek language was rich in words for love. There was the word storgē, which referred to affection, particularly within the family. There was philia, from which we get “philharmonic” and “philanthropy” and the place name “Philadelphia.” It refers to a love between friends. A third word was erōs, which has given us “erotic,” and which referred to sexual love. This was a rich linguistic heritage. Yet, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek and when the New Testament writers later wrote in Greek, they found that none of these common Greek words was able to express what they wanted. They therefore took another word without strong associations and poured their own, biblical meaning into it. The new word was agapē, which thereby came to mean the holy, gracious, sovereign, everlasting, and giving love of God that we are studying here. Alas, I feel that even yet I have not begun to explain how great the love of God is. There is nothing to be done but to go back to our text and read again: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Perhaps I should say one more thing on this subject: If you do not yet fully appreciate (or perhaps have not even begun to appreciate) the greatness of the love God has for you, the explanation is probably that you have never really thought of yourself as God saw you in your fallen state. Perhaps you have never thought of yourself as someone who was utterly without strength or powerless before God saved you. Perhaps you have never considered yourself to have been ungodly. Nor a sinner. Nor God’s enemy. But that is what you were—and still are if you have never come to Christ in order to be justified. It is only if you can recognize the truth of these descriptions that you can begin to appreciate the love that God holds out to you through the death of his Son. If you have never responded to this great overture of the divine love, let me encourage you to do that, assuring you that there is no greater truth in all the universe. Can you think of anything greater? Of course, you can’t. How could anybody? God loves you. Jesus died for you. Let those truly great thoughts move you to abandon your sin, love God in return, and live for Jesus.
Boice, J. M. (1991–). Romans: The Reign of Grace (Vol. 2, pp. 535–542). Baker Book House.
Trump’s Redistricting Gambit Could Defy History and Save the House More than a year before the first votes are cast in the midterm elections, the fight to elect the next Speaker of the House of Representatives is already raging. But this time, the battlefield isn’t just in Washington, D.C. or on the airwaves – it’s in state capitals from Austin to Sacramento. The redistricting fight is critical because control of Congress is determined not just by who wins the votes, but by how district lines are drawn in the first place.
PATEL: More than 200 Plainclothes FBI Agents Among Crowd on January 6 According to a new 50-page report delivered to the House Judiciary Committee by FBI Director Kash Patel last week, 274 plainclothes FBI agents were among the crowd that entered the U.S. Capitol building on January 6th, 2021. The shocking revelation confirms the years-long suspicions of online skeptics after former FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to tell Congress about the agency’s involvement in the riot. “That’s right, as it now turns out, FBI Agents were at, and in, the January 6th Protest, probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as ‘Law Enforcement Officials,’” “This was the failure of a corrupt leadership that lied to Congress and to the American people about what really happened.”
Israel’s hostages to return within 72 hours ‘if Hamas accepts,’ Trump declares after Netanyahu meeting Taking the podium alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump presented the outline of a plan to end the Gaza War. Hailing “a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the biggest days ever in civilization,” Trump said there was a chance to achieve “everlasting peace.”
Iran hangs ‘top Israeli spy,’ Tehran claims Iranian authorities on Monday executed a local man accused of spying on behalf of Israel’s Mossad agency, a state news agency reported. The man was identified as Bahman Choubi-Asl, an Iranian national whom state officials accused of “corruption on earth” for his alleged work with the Mossad. Mizan, the official outlet of the Iranian judiciary, claimed Choubi-Asl was “one of the most important spies for Israel in Iran.” The execution was carried out after Iran’s supreme court rejected an appeal, upholding the capital punishment order.
Sen. Lindsey Graham: ‘I don’t support ending war if it means Hamas is not defeated’ GOP Senator and Trump ally responds to reports the US is now pressuring Israel to accept greater compromises on its war goals in order to end the war quickly. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, stated that he opposes forcing Israel to end the war before Hamas is fully defeated
Ben Gvir’s demand to PM: ‘Hamas defeat and full control over Gaza’ Ben Gvir made his position clear: he wants the total defeat of Hamas. “Not just a superficial action, like what happened in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah continued to control the area. We need the collapse and dismantling of Hamas from the ground up, with no partial control or oversight left in the Gaza Strip.”
Those Who Reject The Rapture, Tribulation, Or Millennial Kingdom Perform A Great Disservice To The Body Of Christ I believe that of all the future events of Bible prophecy, Satan hates Jesus’ Second Coming the most. Because he cannot erase Jesus’ return from Scripture, he fervently attacks the pre-Tribulation Rapture. If he can make that seem ridiculous, along with belief in a seven-year Tribulation with a real antichrist oppressing Israel, he effectively diminishes the spectacular and glorious nature of Jesus’ return, at which time He destroys Satan’s reign on the earth through the man of lawlessness
Trump finds new leverage in Ukraine fight with Tomahawk threat and long-range strike authorization President authorizes long-range strikes into Russia while considering Tomahawk cruise missiles for Kyiv. Ukraine supporters are cheering the shift, noting that after months of frustration over the grinding conflict, Trump appears to be changing tactics. From a combative February meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to his declaration last week that Ukraine could reclaim all of its original territory, the president is signaling a harder line on Moscow.
Gold Revaluation Imminent? US Treasury Hoard Tops $1 Trillion For First Time On the back of a 45% surge in the price of gold this year, the US Treasury’s hoard of the barbarous relic has surpassed $1 trillion in value for the first time in history. That means, as we detailed previously, that an update of the reserves’ value in line with today’s prices would unleash roughly $990 billion into the Treasury’s coffers, dramatically reducing the need to issue quite so many Treasury bonds this year.
Ships Running Blind: How GPS Spoofing Is On The Rise There has been a big increase in the number of Global Positioning System (GPS) spoofing or jamming attacks, aimed at messing with the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) data, which is standard on all international shipping. Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, told The Epoch Times they had recorded 400 GPS spoofing and jamming incidents in their database—25 percent of which related to actual vessels—but he believed it was the “tip of the iceberg.”
The Big Lebowski Civil War It appears that many of these nihilists, especially the ones amalgamated as Antifa, are straight-up mentally ill – crazed young women too untamed to find a mate, many obese and self-mutilated like tattooed savages with steel bones in their noses. . . young men, hormones afire, likewise frustrated, escaping into sexual fetish and psychotic obsessions with demons, violence, blame, enmity. They are warriors for their own deformed ids.
Europe hails Trump’s plan to end Gaza war as ‘turning point’ for the region Praise rolled in from around the globe for US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza on Monday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed in a press conference at the White House that Israel had accepted the proposal.
HHS looks to bar Harvard from receiving federal funding over antisemitism The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on Monday announced it is seeking to end federal funding for Harvard University over its alleged inaction on campus antisemitism. The Trump administration froze $2 billion in federal funding for Harvard as part of the battle between the Ivy League school and the federal government. But Harvard claimed that the freeze had impacted programs unrelated to antisemitism. The department said it is referring Harvard for suspension and debarment proceedings after the school failed to address its violation of Title VI.
ALERT: Multiple States Declare State Of Emergency A state of emergency has been declared in North Carolina and South Carolina, with a tropical storm on the horizon. Tropical Depression Nine became Tropical Storm Imelda this weekend. However, Imelda isn’t expected to make landfall in the United States. The storm is projected to move close to the Southeast coast, bringing heavy rain, high surf, strong winds, and possible coastal flooding.
Tornadoes spawned by Typhoon Bualoi kill at least 9 in Kim Son District, Vietnam Tornadoes triggered by Typhoon Bualoi struck Kim Son District in Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam on September 29, 2025, killing at least 9 people and flattening homes. Bualoi made landfall earlier the same day in northern Vietnam, leaving at least 11 people dead, 17 missing, forcing the evacuation of more than 28 500 residents, and damaging nearly 1 400 ha (3 460 acres) of crops.
9 Signs That The United States And NATO Are Both Preparing For War The only way that Russia could possibly be defeated in Ukraine would be if western forces get directly involved in the conflict. Sadly, it appears that events are rapidly taking us in that direction. When long-range missiles that are provided by western countries and that are guided to their targets by western countries start slamming into Moscow, it is likely that the Russians will respond with overwhelming force. That will give western countries all the justification that they need to officially enter the war, and then we will be just one step away from a nuclear apocalypse. The following are 9 signs that the United States and NATO are both preparing for war…
Vance: US Heading Toward Govt Shutdown After Lawmaker Meeting Vice President JD Vance after a White House meeting with congressional leadership on Monday said he thought the U.S. government would shut down due to lack of agreement between Republicans and Democrats. “I think we’re headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing. I hope they change their mind, but we’re going to see.”
Climate madness: Australian Human Rights Commission demands that speech about climate change be censored The Australian Human Rights Commission (“AHRC”) has recently submitted to a Senate inquiry that regulation is necessary to stop “misinformation” and “false narratives” about climate change. The AHRC wants to prevent the spread of climate-related “misinformation,” citing the need to protect the human right to a healthy environment. This will lead to censorship of legitimate debate and views that do not align with the official narrative, and the removal of a fundamental human right – free speech.
How many migrants are living in Europe, and which country has the most? …Liechtenstein tops the list of European countries with the most immigrants. 70% of its 40,000 residents were born abroad, and roughly two-thirds hail from outside the EU. Meanwhile, Germany tops the list with the most immigrants by absolute numbers alone. 16.9 million people, equal to one-fifth of Germany’s population, were born abroad, of which one in eight are EU-born.
U.S. Farmers Are Facing The Worst Economic Downturn In At Least 50 Years The agriculture industry in the United States is deeply broken. Farmers are the foundation of it all, but they are being financially squeezed from every direction. They are being squeezed by the giant monopolies that control the seeds, fertilizer and machinery that they need. And they are also being squeezed by the giant monopolies that purchase most of what they produce. Meanwhile, demand from overseas has dried up thanks to the global trade war. U.S. farmers really are facing a “perfect storm”, and as a result most farms are losing money and bankruptcies are surging.
Second Massive Population Study Finds COVID-19 “Vaccines” Increase Risk of 6 Major Cancers About a month ago, the first-ever population cohort study reported increased cancer risks following COVID-19 vaccination. In Italy, nearly 300,000 residents were tracked for 30 months, showing that mRNA shots significantly increased the risk of overall cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, and colorectal cancer.
Is It Just A Coincidence That Comet “3I/ATLAS” Is Storming Through Our Solar System Just As “World War III” Is Ramping Up? “Does anyone else think that it is odd that a giant comet named “3I/ATLAS” has suddenly appeared at the exact same time that “World War III” has arrived? Another way that “3I” can be rendered is “III”. And according to Wikipedia an atlas is “a bundle of maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth”. In other words, it is a collection of maps of the world. On top of everything else, it is interesting to note that the planet that “3I/ATLAS” will come closer to than any other is the planet Mars. On October 3rd, it will pass Mars at a distance of just 0.19 AU. Needless to say, Mars was the Roman god of war. Perhaps all of this is just a coincidence, but if it is, it sure is a very strange one.”
Hezbollah’s Qassem vows terrorist group won’t disarm “Hezbollah will not lay down its arms, Naim Qassem the secretary-general of the Iranian proxy, said on Saturday, in a public show of defiance of the Lebanon army’s plan to dismantle the terrorist group.”
Tony Blair is embroiled in a digital ID scandal Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is embroiled in a scandal concerning his alleged secret lobbying on behalf of Oracle, a tech giant considered a frontrunner to provide the UK’s new digital ID cards, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced would be required for employment.
“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” —James Madison (1816)
New details in Michigan attack: More has been learned regarding the perpetrator who attacked a Mormon church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, on Sunday, in which four people were murdered and at least eight others were injured. The victims range in age from six to 78 years old. The 40-year-old assailant appears to have been motivated by hatred of the Mormon religion. A council candidate who had encountered the attacker the day prior observed that he was at first “extremely friendly,” but their conversation took “a very sharp turn” when he referred to the Mormon religion as “the antichrist.” This appears to be the view of the FBI as well. “Based on my conversations with the FBI director,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, “all they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith.”
Trump beats YouTube: Donald Trump has now closed out his lawsuits against major tech companies for removing him from their platforms. YouTube and its parent company, Alphabet, have agreed to pay a total of $22 million that will go to the Trust for the National Mall, where it will be used for the new White House State Ballroom. Other plaintiffs in the filing, including author Naomi Wolf, will receive $2.5 million. This was Trump’s third win against Big Tech over this issue, having previously resolved cases against Meta and X. Trump’s lead attorney, John P. Coale, emphasized that had Trump not won the 2024 election, these cases would’ve dragged on for “1,000 years.”
Shutdown looms: The United States government will most likely shut down at midnight as no funding bills seem likely to pass by the end of the day. One Senate bill that would have effectively ended government shutdowns — and introduced myriad other problems — failed late on Monday, 37-61. Top Democrat and Republican congressional leaders met with the president yesterday and failed to reach any agreement. Vice President JD Vance concluded afterward, “I think we’re headed to a shutdown.” The Republicans’ proposed budget is merely a continuing resolution of the previous budget; in other words, it’s the same budget signed by Joe Biden in December, but with a date change. Democrats who control no levers of power insist on more funding for their pet projects, including healthcare for illegal aliens.
Trump’s Gaza plan: On Monday, Donald Trump announced a 20-point “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict,” which the visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to. Among the prominent points of the plan is the establishment of Gaza as a “deradicalized terror-free zone” to be “redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza.” Should Hamas agree to this plan, the war would come to an immediate end, with Hamas given 72 hours to return all remaining 48 Israeli hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive. Hamas militants will be given “amnesty” if they peacefully surrender their weapons and commit to a peaceful coexistence. Should Hamas not agree to the plan, Israel will continue its operations against Hamas. At the same time, the territory in Gaza currently held by IDF forces will be administered by a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) as Israel withdraws. More here from our Michael Swartz.
Tyler Robinson “proceedings will be open to the public:” Tyler Robinson appeared in court on Monday — virtually, at the request of the defense — to face charges for assassinating Charlie Kirk. The preliminary hearing, wherein Fourth District Court Judge Tony Graf will determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed, will likely be delayed so that the public defender can review the “voluminous” evidence that has been gathered. Graf issued a gag order on this case, which prevents anyone associated with it from speaking to the media. Since there may be 2,000-3,000 witnesses to the event, the gag order will be imposed on those witnesses after they are identified to the court. Graf, who was sworn in two months ago, promises to uphold the presumption of innocence and ensure justice in this case.
VA Dem candidate fuels rage: In a tight Virginia gubernatorial battle, Republican candidate and current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is exposing her Democrat opponent, Abigail Spanberger, over her inflammatory campaign slogan. “Let your rage fuel you” has been Spanberger’s often-repeated message to her supporters. Now, in light of recent examples of leftist-motivated political violence headlined by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Spangberger is struggling to deflect criticism and defend her troubling slogan. Indeed, Virginia Delegate Kim Taylor has tied death threats she has received to a recent Spanberger rally in which she told supporters to let their rage fuel them. Spanberger’s campaign has responded by playing redefinition games, falsely claiming that her “rage” statement is taken out of context. She says she was using it in a civil way, calling for action, such as voting and contacting elected officials.
Planned Parenthood swindling: Planned Parenthood may have to pay $1.8 billion to Texas and Louisiana. In 2015, the two states ended Planned Parenthood’s eligibility for Medicaid after undercover reporting showed that the organization was selling the body parts of aborted babies. From 2016 to 2020, while lawsuits were ongoing, Planned Parenthood continued to collect Medicaid from Texas and Louisiana. After the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Planned Parenthood, a lawsuit was filed to recover that money. Planned Parenthood allegedly collected the money while under review in the courts, which amounted to fraud. The Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case on Thursday. If that court once again rules against Planned Parenthood, the organization will be in dire financial straits after being effectively defunded by the Big Beautiful Bill.
House Republicans accuse NEA of exploiting members’ retirement benefits: House Republicans on the Education and Workforce Committee investigating the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, have uncovered what they believe to be a scheme to exploit members’ retirement benefits. The NEA exclusively uses Security Benefit as its retirement services provider, maintaining that it receives “no dividends, royalties, profit, or licensing fees” for exclusive rights. Yet records show that the NEA received $4 million in annual “base fee” from Security Benefit, as well as more than $61 million in “service level agreement” or “advertising revenue” since 2005. The NEA is disregarding “the interests and concerns of their own members to enrich union leaders or promote political agendas that do nothing to help America’s teachers and students,” says Committee Chair Tim Walberg (R-MI). The NEA “is choosing to enrich itself at its own members’ expense.”
Headlines
Trump to attend today’s gathering of U.S. military commanders (Fox News)
Trump administration scores fifth release of American citizen from Afghanistan so far this year (NY Post)
Missouri governor signs new House map targeting Democrat seat into law (Newsweek)
Justice Department files lawsuit under the FACE Act against violent protestors at synagogue in New Jersey (DOJ)
Mamdani proposes massive amount of legal defense funding for immigrants (Fox News)
For once, The New York Times played it relatively straight, revealing a 20-point Gazan ceasefire proposal jointly presented on Monday by both President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with only the comment that Hamas has previously rejected some points of the proposal. Fair enough: The terrorist leaders of Hamas have been a tough nut to crack for nearly two decades since seizing power in 2006. So getting them on board would always be considered the hard part.
But the proposal has some interesting carrots to go with the big stick of Trump’s threat, should Hamas say no to the deal. “Bibi, you’d have our full backing to do what you would have to do,” the president told the Israeli leader.
In return for freeing the hostages and laying down arms, Hamas fighters would enjoy a sort of amnesty as well as free passage to any other nation that would take them, according to the proposal. (However, they’re being encouraged to stay and assist in the rebuilding.) Gazans would be governed by a “Board of Peace” led by Trump, along with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other unspecified “high-profile participants.”
While the Israeli leader talked tough in a speech before the United Nations last week, vowing to “finish the job” with Hamas, he was far more conciliatory in the meeting with Trump. A somewhat chastened Netanyahu delivered a formal apology via a phone call from the White House to Qatar’s prime minister for Israel’s recent raid on what they believed to be a Hamas headquarters in Doha. A White House statement indicated that Netanyahu “expressed regret that, in targeting Hamas leadership during hostage negotiations, Israel violated Qatari sovereignty and affirmed that Israel will not conduct such an attack again in the future.”
In joint remarks with Trump, the Israeli leader endorsed the prospective deal and explained why he had pursued it. “This can be done the easy way, or it can be done the hard way, but it will be done,” said Netanyahu. “We prefer the easy way, but it has to be done. All these goals must be achieved because we didn’t fight this horrible fight, sacrifice the finest of our young men to have Hamas stay in Gaza and threaten us again and again and again with these horrific massacres.” Unfortunately, that’s been the end result of all the previous ceasefires and peace deals with Hamas, meaning they have to be eliminated as a participant one way or the other. The hard way would certainly lead to more misery in Gaza.
Trump acknowledged that Gaza civilians have borne the brunt of the fighting. “They don’t want the life that they’ve had. They’ve had a rough life with Hamas,” he said. “If the Palestinian Authority does not complete the reforms that I laid out and my vision for peace in 2020, they’ll have only themselves to blame.”
Andrew McCarthy, who spent much of his career as a federal prosecutor dealing with radical Islamic terrorists, understands the blame all too well. “There is no deal with sharia-supremacist Islam,” he writes. “Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is conducting a jihad to destroy Israel — not to reach a more favorable arrangement with Israel, to destroy Israel — based on sharia-supremacist principles, which are 14 centuries old and steeped in Jew hatred that goes back to Muhammad’s wars of conquest. What’s more, while Hamas has been hollowed out by Israel’s combat operations, the problem in the region is sharia supremacism, not Hamas; if what is today called Hamas disappeared tomorrow, a new jihadist entity would rise quickly to take its place, and the objective would not change.”
Nevertheless, the theme for the meeting was optimism. “I believe that today, we’re taking a critical step towards both ending the war in Gaza and setting the stage for dramatically advancing peace in the Middle East, and I think beyond the Middle East and very important Muslim countries,” Netanyahu added. If Trump and Netanyahu can pull this off, it’s a good first step toward Middle East peace and the vaunted “two-state solution” that our allies seem to be rushing to embrace, even before a pact has been reached.
Out of the 20 steps to stopping the conflict, though, perhaps the most important one to create a truly lasting peace is one that’s buried near the end. Point number 18 states, “An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence to try and change mind-sets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.” Since Israel was created in 1948 — and almost immediately was attacked by its Arab neighbors — there have been three or four generations of “Palestinians” who have been inculcated from birth that Israeli Jews are their sworn enemy and blamed for their issues. That same Jew-hatred was used to justify the Holocaust.
Economic aid and the building up of war-torn Gaza into a sustainable economy is an admirable goal that will take several years and billions of dollars’ worth of aid from around the globe to accomplish, similar to our rebuilding of Europe and Japan after World War II.
All the rebuilding will come to naught, however, without realizing that the real road to peace will only begin when hearts and minds are changed.
Emmy Griffin: Leftists Mourn a Cop-Killing Fugitive — When you honor the life and legacy of an unrepentant murderer, that says more about the moral degeneracy of your party than anything else could.
Nate Jackson: Say Her Name: Logan Federico — “BANG! Dead. Gone. Why? Because Alexander Devante Dickey — who was arrested 39 g*d*** times, 25 felonies — was on the street.”
Douglas Andrews: The NFL Flips Us the Middle Finger — By choosing a Trump-deranged, pro-illegal-immigration homosexual activist for its Super Bowl LX halftime act, the NFL is betting that its viewers will once again ignore the insult.
Michael Smith: Retribution and Revenge — Democrats have relentlessly accused Donald Trump of breaking political norms, casting his actions as assaults on democracy. It’s all hypocrisy.
Jack DeVine: Déjà Vu — When you take a look at headlines and the rampant political violence overtaking our nation, do you ever get the feeling that we’ve been down this rocky road before?
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Illegal Immigrant Superintendent Story Just Got Worse — An illegal alien with weapons charges was just hired as superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools — and the school board is doubling down with “radical empathy.”
Apology Rejected? — Emma Watson broke her recent silence about J.K. Rowling, seemingly walking back her previous hostility toward the Harry Potter creator over trans issues.
The Overton Window Has Been Shattered — Forcing the concepts of “Right” and “Left” onto modern American politics is getting more confusing with each election.
A Demonic War — How courageous faith is changing our nation.
“We are ready and willing to find a bipartisan path forward and reach a spending agreement that keeps the government open but meets the needs of the American people. What we will not do is support a partisan Republican spending bill.” —House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling a clean spending bill partisan
Straight From the Horse’s Mouth
“We will subpoena the Department of Justice, but also private actors who have done these drug deals with the administration. … Accountability is coming. … I hope that deters people from doing more of these deals … with the president.” —Rep. Eric Swalwell announcing plans to weaponize the government
Braying Jenny
“Using [Charlie] Kirk’s knack for vigorous argument to excuse the re-emergence of unabashed bigotry in mainstream politics feels both frightening and perilous.” —The New York Times’s Nikole Hannah-Jones
A Broken Clock Is Right Twice a Day
“Unchecked extreme rhetoric, like labels as Hitler or fascist, will foment more extreme outcomes.” —Sen. John Fetterman
Re: The Left
“The conclusion is unavoidable: SPLC’s fingerprints are all over the culture of targeting that fuels political violence. If the Trump administration is serious about dismantling Antifa, it must also expose and confront the SPLC’s role.” —Tony Perkins
“My favorite genre of [social media] post is where a lib tries to prove that some sh*t-hole city isn’t a sh*t-hole by taking a picture of a random .05-acre space of land where someone isn’t currently being raped or murdered.” —Matt Walsh
Then and Now
“Funny to think that Bill Clinton’s policies when he was President were essentially MAGA.” —Elon Musk
“And then they changed the electorate with immigration from the third world, so now Democrats don’t have to lie anymore.” —Ann Coulter
Political Futures
“The best that can be said about [Kamala] Harris’s step back into the spotlight is that it’s happening now. Democrats have a real shot at victory in 2028, but they won’t have time to waste on someone like the former vice president.” —The Washington Post editorial board
“Remember, [Zohran Mamdani] needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises. He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him? This ideology has failed, always, for thousands of years.” —Donald Trump
Insight
“Terrorism is the cynical, remorseless enemy of peace, and it strikes most viciously whenever real progress seems possible.” —Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
ON THIS DAY in 1949, the Berlin Airlift came to a successful end. It began 15 months earlier when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin created a blockade in Berlin in an effort to take the whole city. The Americans and British started flying supplies to the starving residents and continued until Stalin lifted the blockade.
Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray for the protection of our uniformed Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Lift up your Patriot Post team and our mission to support and defend our legacy of American Liberty and our Republic’s Founding Principles, in order that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports President Trump’s plan for peace in the Middle East, saying it fulfills Israel’s goals in its war against Hamas by disarming the terrorist group and freeing all of the remaining hostages, living or dead; the Trump plan calls for reform in the Palestinian Authority, which could create the conditions for a possible Palestinian state, but Netanyahu says the reforms must be deep; now the world waits to see if Hamas will sign on to the deal; Chris Mitchell talks about the reaction to the plan from the Israeli government and public, concerns Hamas might sign on to the deal just to give it a chance to rebuild, the possibility Hamas will reject the plan and Israel will go after Hamas with the full support of the Trump administration, Netanyahu’s denial that this plan permits the establishment of a possible Palestinian state, how such a state could be a threat to Israel in the future, and more; Christian leaders in the Philippines join protests in the streets against corruption in the government; a free Christian-based recovery program for men dealing with substance abuse problems; and more than a thousand accept Jesus as their Savior at a “Unite Us” Gospel event at the University of South Florida.
Partnership with the US is essential for bringing stability to the region, the statement reads
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has said it welcomes US President Donald Trump’s “sincere and determined efforts” to achieve peace in Gaza, after Trump unveiled his roadmap to stop the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
The 20-point plan, released by the White House during Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, calls for an immediate ceasefire and the exchange of all hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. It envisions turning Gaza into a “deradicalized, terror-free zone” after the withdrawal of the Israeli forces, with Hamas excluded from governing the enclave.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, said in a statement on Tuesday that it has confidence in Trump’s ability to find a path toward peace in Gaza. Partnership with the US is essential in bringing stability to the region, it added.
The fighting must end “through a comprehensive agreement that ensures the sufficient delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the release of hostages and prisoners, the establishment of mechanisms to protect the Palestinian people… prevent annexation of land, stop the displacement of Palestinians, end unilateral actions that violate international law, release withheld Palestinian tax revenues, and lead to a full Israeli withdrawal,” it said.
“This would… open the path toward a just peace based on the two-state solution, with the independent and sovereign State of Palestine living side by side with the State of Israel in security, peace, and good neighborliness, in accordance with international legitimacy,” according to the PA.
Hamas has said it will study the US proposal “in good faith.” According to NBC’s sources, the group is leaning toward accepting the plan and will present its response to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Wednesday.
However, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is fighting along Hamas, rejected Trump’s roadmap, calling it “a recipe to blow up the region.”
West Jerusalem launched its military operation in Gaza in October 2023 in response to a deadly assault on southern Israel in which Hamas killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages. Over 66,000 Palestinians have since been killed and more than 168,000 others injured in the enclave, according to the local health authorities.
As assassination culture continues to fester in America, Senator John Fetterman is calling out his own party’s culpability in the issue, denouncing Democrats’ “extreme rhetoric.”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) shared a study that showed that left-wing terrorism had reached a “30-year high,” and criticized Democrats for using rhetoric such as “Hitler” or “fascist.”
In a post on X, Fetterman included a screenshot of an Axios article titled “Study: Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-year high.” Fetterman noted that “political violence is always wrong,” and called for everyone to “turn the temperature down.”
“Unchecked extreme rhetoric, like labels as Hitler or fascist, will foment more extreme outcomes,” Fetterman said. “Political violence is always wrong — no exceptions.”
You can see Senator Fetterman’s post below:
Unchecked extreme rhetoric, like labels as Hitler or fascist, will foment more extreme outcomes.
According to this post, far-right violence, which the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) reports is usually “more frequent,” decreased significantly in the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, left-wing violence has been on the rise during the same period.
According to CSIS, 2025 has already seen “at least five left-wing plots or attacks” compared to just one right-wing attack.
This post is yet another example of the Senator’s unorthodox beliefs, which are becoming increasingly disconnected from both parties day by day. As other lawmakers are fanning the flames of violence in our nation and defending personal attacks, Senator Fetterman is calling his party higher. Let’s pray he would be able to change hearts and minds on the left!
Are you encouraged by this post from Senator Fetterman? Share your prayers and praises below.
Random, brute force, or tyrannical violence destroys society. However, a society will also be destroyed if it remains passive in the face of destructive violence.
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