This Is the Day...Wait; What?

"This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  - Ps. 118:24

Of course, fully 95% of you now have that haunting Rick Shelton chorus in your heads, and for that, I do apologize.  Try to push that aside and hope for better things.  No; the reason I bring up this verse is that we all like it, and I hope to convince you to like it still more.  First, though, we have to deconstruct a myth. 

This sort of verse is charmingly self-contained, and we quote it so often, and hang it from so many keychains, that it becomes sort of an exegetical monolith:  it seemingly stands apart from any sort of context, and we can move it about to fit within a situation.  Having an unusually good day?  Perhaps your best friend forever going through a hard time?  Go ahead and say it.  Why would you not say it?  It is certainly true enough - every day is crafted by the Lord and brought to perfect fruition, is it not?  Of course you can say it, just so long as you understand that this sort of free and easy pronouncement is not quite what the psalmist intended.

There is always a context for Scripture, and it is always profitable to explore context; it helps to fend off erroneous suppositions, and it lends us greater confidence in the conclusions of our studies.  It gives greater substance, weight, and reason.  In our present case, three verses in Psalm 118 will give us plenty to think about:  "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone.  This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.  This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." 

We see, then, that the day in question is not at all a random day of felicity, but instead a notable day in which someone was unexpectedly exalted by God Himself.  The broader context of the psalm shows this person to be some national hero, evidently some leader of Israel, who was beset by enemies on all sides (v. 10) - therefore Israel herself was surrounded by danger.  David himself would not be a bad guess - the circumstances fit - although he is not named as the author.  Whatever the case, this impending disaster was brought about as an act of discipline by the Lord (v. 18); however, that same Lord delivered the nation and established the psalmist in one deft move - an abrupt torrent of grace!

The Lord Jesus lays another context upon this original one by naming Himself as the corner stone in question (Matt. 21:42-44), thus injecting this passage with messianic significance.  Read those three verses from Psalm 118 once more in this glorious light.  The specific "day" in Psalm 118:24 becomes, in this case, the day that Christ, rejected by His own people, became the corner stone - the day He was resurrected into that life which all believers share with Him (cf. Acts 4:10-12).

This is the day, brothers and sisters - rejoice and be glad!  This indeed is why we gather as believers particularly on Sundays - the joyful remembrance of that day of unspeakable triumph!  In fact, we see this example throughout the New Testament, in the writings of Luke, Paul, and John - the saints gathered on Sunday, the Lord's day, to celebrate their Savior.  Let these pleasing recollections soak into your mind and heart when next you go to church.

One further note, though.  The psalmist endured the just discipline of the Lord and was graciously delivered from the jaws of death by God; how brightly does grace shine when the recipient knows that he might have rightly received death!  Contrast this, though, with Jesus Christ, who by no means deserved divine discipline, yet suffered at the hands of evil men, and indeed at the hand of His own Father, nonetheless!  Even more than this, though the psalmist did not taste death in that moment of trial, Christ felt the full weight, not only of a brutal and exhausting physical demise, but of the infinite wrath of the Father, for odious sins carried out by lesser hands and sinful hearts.  Amazing.

"This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  There is much in the context here, hidden in plain sight, specific rather than general, to command our attention and our worship, is there not?  When these words come off of our lips, may they be steeped in genuine understanding and in heartfelt joy!

A Painless Pointer on the Greek

WARNING:  If you have a stack of blank flash cards at the ready, please put them aside.  Conversely, if you are pushing away your laptop in disgust, pull it back in.  I did say "painless." 

English sentences are constructed fairly rigidly.  I could say, "Fairly rigidly are constructed sentences English," and you might understand me, but, once you got past the fact that I was speaking like Master Yoda, you would admit that I simply am not being very clear.  It is either confusing or unintelligible, since we derive the meaning of our sentences, in part, from the order in which we arrange the words within them.  For instance, if I say, "He made his friend the captain," it means something completely different than, "He made the captain his friend."  Only the order dictates the meaning here; it determines (for you grammar geeks) what the direct object and indirect object are.

This is not the case nearly so often in the Greek, where nouns and verbs are modified to demonstrate their function in a sentence.  This means they can be moved about within the sentence without impeding clarity. 

Yes, Josh, but what is the point of this?  Why does it matter?  It matters because the syntactical flexibility afforded by Greek grammar effectively emancipates word order from its enslavement to sentence meaning.  The word order does not help to define what the sentence means, so Greek authors used word order for something else entirely:  emphasis.¹  If there were a word or phrase they sought to stress, they would put it at the beginning of a sentence or clause.  Thus word order can be an additional clue as to the author's focus or intent.

The issue we must confront is that in our English Bibles, these emphases are not always elucidated.  Sometimes they do not survive translation, because the English equivalent either would not make sense, or would sound, once again, like Frank Oz's diminutive Jedi creation.  It can be well worth the effort, though, to discover the word order from the Greek.

Consider a few examples which I will quote from both the 2001 English Standard Version and the 1898 Revised Young's Literal Translation (which generally seems to reflect a rather stringent adherence to original word order - I did verify both of my examples in the original Greek, but cannot speak regarding the entire translation.  And of course I do not recommend it as a primary Bible, as it does not account for the legitimate archaeological or lexical advances made by conservative biblical scholarship over the past century or so).

1.  Matthew 7:22

• ESV:  "On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?'"
• RYLT:  "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, lord, have we not in your name prophesied? And in your name cast out demons? And in your name done many mighty things?"

This is familiar - Christ describes how some unbelievers will attempt to convince Him of their sincere deservedness of heaven.  Two major word order differences are evident.  First, the ESV recounts the actions these people supposedly carried out, each followed by "in your name."  However, the original word order has the phrase "in your name" moved out to the beginning of each clause, as seen with the RYLT.  The ESV, then, would suggest that these unbelievers will point to what they did as proof of their deservedness of eternal blessing (prophesying, casting out demons, and mighty works); however, the original Greek indicates that they hang their hopes more on how they did these presumed works (in Christ's name).  This adds a sobering layer of tragedy of their foolish assertions:  not only do they believe they have worked their own way into heaven, but they believe that it was all carried out for the Lord. 

Second, the ESV begins the verse with, "On that day," while the RYLT starts out, as the Greek does, with "many [people]."  It would seem, then, that Christ's concern is not to emphasize that people will voice their own desperate deception on the day of judgment, bur rather that there will in fact be many such people who are deceived.  This is in keeping with verse 21, where Christ begins by saying, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven." (ESV) Not everyone will enter; in fact, many will prove to be hypocrites.  These are nuances, perhaps, but sobering ones that enrich the text; no?

2.  Colossians 2:6

• ESV:  "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him."
• RYLT:  "As, then, you did receive Christ Jesus the Lord, in him walk." 

This one is a simpler example.  There is a subtle shift in the final clause of the sentence; the original Greek, reflected in the RYLT, draws out an emphasis upon Christ:  "in him walk."  There is, once again, a stress not upon the what, but the how.  Everyone walks in some manner or another (cf. Phil. 3:17-19), but our receiving of Christ should prompt us to walk in him.  Don't just walk; walk in him, brothers and sisters! 


As I said, it is often worth the effort to find out the original word order in the Greek as a part of our New Testament studies.  Tools like the more literal Bible translations, or even some online interlinear Bible tools (like this), can help us in this task without requiring us to be fluent in Koine Greek.  However we do it, though, it can help us to get into the minds, and into the hearts, of the biblical authors, and capture just a bit more of the Lord's revelation.

And there's nothing wrong with that at all.


¹ Mounce, William D.  Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar.  2nd Edition.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan. 2003.  pp. 31-32.

The 1-2 Punch of Scriptural Authority - Second, Universal Authority

(Continued from Part 1 of the series found here)

Let us extract another truth about the Bible's authority from 2 Timothy 3:16-17, this one a bit less obvious.  First, a reminder of the passage itself:  "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

We see that God's Word is "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" for the "man of God."  Note the communicative quality of these four actions; these actions are visited upon a person by another person.  In the case of the Bible, of course, the person originating these actions may well be the Holy Spirit, but it is important to establish that people, God's subjects, are called in the Word to carry out these sorts of things as well.  Says Paul to Titus, "But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine" (Titus 2:1), and the word translated "doctrine" is the same is Paul's word for "teaching" in 2 Timothy 3:16.  We all recall, of course, how Paul urged fathers to raise their children "in the discipline and instruction [training, in 2 Tim. 3:17] of the Lord." (Eph. 6:4b)

The import of this line of thought is that we cannot approach 2 Tim. 3:16-17 without understanding that people, God's people, do this teaching and reproof and so forth.  To be sure, the Holy Spirit is behind all such endeavors, and He does work directly from scripture to the believer's soul, but He is also present and active as the preacher preaches, as the brother admonishes, and as the sister encourages, if these actions are founded in God's Word.  If this were not so, there would be no call for spiritual gifts, and no commands in scripture to exercise them. 

Here is the substance of the matter, at long last.  There are those for whom the Word of God is to their hearts like a cloud is to their eyes, whose vaporous form may be regarded as any of a thousand distinct shapes.  To such people as these, scripture may whisper one word of truth to one person, and quite another, perhaps even the opposite, to a different person, and how could we name either as untrue?  Who are we to suggest that this could not be the case?  Do we dare set up ourselves as experts on how God uses His own divine Word? 

Fortunately, we need not be experts at all; we need only read what His Word actually says.  If, as we have discussed, believers are to teach and correct and train one another, and if indeed scripture is useful for all of these purposes (as it has purported itself), then, quite plainly, scripture is universally authoritative.  It does me no good to try to teach my fellow believer from the Bible if he can in turn deftly repudiate my words merely by saying, "Yes, but this is not what the Word means to me!"  It must bear precisely the same significance and meaning for all of us, or else we cannot employ it for any useful purposes with one another, and it becomes, then, nothing but a sad lie.  To take things still further, if we cannot utilize the Bible for useful purposes with one another, then neither can we utilize it for loving purposes!  Consider this for a moment.

There are two key conclusions from the Bible's universal authority. 

First, it shapes our hermeneutics.  I find, all of a sudden, that my own opinions have absolutely no bearing on the meaning of scripture, because I have stopped working to unlock its personalized meaning just for me, myself, and I, and I have begun instead to think about what it means to its divine Author.  There must be some common basis by which all of us might unlock the meaning of scripture, and our quest to find this out tends to evict fanciful intruders from our thinking. 

This is the reason we lean so completely upon such ideas as the literal interpretation of scripture.  While a literal understanding establishes itself on the immovable bedrock of the text, any sort of figurative approach languishes in the mirey muck of human opinions, and so is endlessly debatable.  This is not to suggest that some figurative approaches are not superior to others, or that no portions of scripture are figurative, but we will permit our literal understanding of the Word inform us when it is being figurative.

We also must consider the human authors of scripture - how they used vocabulary and grammar, and how they developed their ideas.  We also examine the original intended audience; what would this letter have meant to them?  We look at the whole of scripture, of which God is the superintending Author; we know it must be in total accord with itself.  Context, language, history, theology - we cannot divorce scripture from these crucial components and expect to come away with a right or complete understanding of God's Word.  Beware, then, of any preaching that pointedly ignores these - many a pastoral hobbyhorse has been ridden across this very terrain, and it is an arid terrain indeed.

Second, it changes our accountability.  I do not maintain that the hermeneutic upheld above clothes us in scholarly invincibility, but this approach makes it clear that we are endeavoring to allow God to speak through His Word, not ourselves.  Thus conviction, but not pride, should be our familiar companion as we hold to our understanding of God's Word:  we believe what we believe with clear reasoning and humbly-sought certainty, but we are ready to unflinchingly amend our understanding if careful study of scripture shows it necessary. 

On one hand, a passionate, assured, humble, literal hermeneutic should help to prevent us from jealously guarding ideological strongholds which the Lord has never even entered.  On the other, as we discuss the things of the Word with those who hold to different hermeneutics (and so maintain very different beliefs), it tends to turn every biblical disgreement into a discussion on how we interpret scripture, which is, of course, the more fundamental issue - the one that must be resolved if certainty and steadfastness are to come.