2024/08/19

157. The Time is Near

The Apostle Paul told the Ephesian believers: "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father" (Ephesians 5:18-20). He thought that by making it a habit for them, as Gentiles, to speak to each other through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and to sing sincere praise to the Lord, they would not become foolish and, like him, learn the testimony about Jesus Christ from the Hebrew Scriptures and thank God, the Father. The Psalms, said to be David's work, contain a prophecy of the Saviour, and David, who was told by God about his son Solomon, "I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Samuel 7:14), must have had the idea of God becoming the father of men. 

As Paul recalls that he was "a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee, ... as to righteousness under the law blameless" (Philippians 3:5-6), the righteousness of the law based on the Hebrew Scriptures was deeply rooted in his memory. At the bottom of his memory must have lay knowledge that could not be easily verbalised, based on experience, sense and intuition gained in keeping the righteousness of the law. His "righteousness under the law" was changed and oriented to its perfection when he was called by Jesus, who had said, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them" (Matthew 5:17). That righteousness became his guide in approaching Jesus so that he could gain Christ and be found in him. Then, he went so far as to say: "not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith" (Philippians 3:9). 

On the other hand, as a Pharisee who believed in the resurrection, Paul's desire to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to somehow attain the resurrection from the dead must have been ultimate. But he honestly said, "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own" (Philippians 3:12). Continuing, he encouraged himself and gave the community advice then wrote: "But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (3:20). In these words, we can see a Paul who is no different from the man he was before he encountered Christ. 

These words of Paul, which look to salvation as a future event, tell us that the mentality of the people of the Old Covenant, who were still waiting for the Saviour, was alive in his memory. Paul's memory, deep within him, was keeping the memory of the people of the Old Covenant waiting for the Saviour. It was that memory that gave the Ephesians the exhortation, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart". The habit of speaking to each other through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and singing sincere praise to the Lord was something that Paul, a Hebrew, himself had practised. 

Paul's encounter with Jesus enabled him to say, "giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father". But the habit of speaking to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and singing hearty praise to the Lord worked continually in his inmost being, making him a keeper of what was written therein, a keeper of the memory of the people of the Old Covenant, who were waiting for the Saviour. 

Through Jesus Christ, the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures were fulfilled. However, as Paul himself tells us in his letter to the Corinthians, some of the witnesses of Jesus' resurrection had already died (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:6). They had been with Jesus, had been directly taught and had the worldview of Jesus Christ. In preparation for the time when these witnesses would soon cease, the Holy Spirit added the Book of Revelation to the New Testament and wrote in it as follows: "Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near" (Revelation 1:3). 

Maria K. M.