The Macedonian Wars: 214 - 168 BC

The air still carried the metallic tang of bronze and the sweet smoke of funeral pyres when Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 BC. In barely over a decade he had turned Macedonia into the beating heart of the world’s largest empire, its hoofbeats echoing from the olive groves of Greece to the sun-scorched cliffs of Persia and the lotus-choked banks of the Nile. When the king’s fevered breath finally stopped, no heir stood ready. The empire shattered like glass under a hammer.

For nearly half a century the Successor Wars raged—screaming cavalry charges, the wet crunch of sarissas through flesh, cities burning with the acrid stink of pitch and charred cedar. From that furnace of ambition emerged three great kingdoms, each rising like a blood-streaked phoenix:

The Seleucids, ruling the shimmering heat-haze of the eastern plains

The Ptolemies, enthroned amid the green perfume of the Nile and the salt breeze off Alexandria’s harbor

The Antigonids, who kept Macedonia’s pine-scented mountains and the stony hills of Greece

A fourth realm, the Attalid kingdom of Pergamum, would soon rise on the western edge of Anatolia, its acropolis gleaming white against dark cypresses.

The Antigonid kings inherited a land of constant war-drums. From the north came the Gauls—wild, lime-crusted hair streaming, iron swords clanging against bronze shields, their war-cries rolling down the valleys like thunder. In the south the Greek cities erupted again and again, the narrow streets of Athens and Corinth ringing with the slap of sandals, the crack of whips, and the bitter shouts of “Freedom!” Only in 276 BC did Antigonus Gonatas finally hammer the kingdom into shape, his iron grip smelling of sweat, horseflesh, and lamp-black ink.

Macedonia dominated the north. Southward, the old city-states clung to their liberty like men clutching the last spar of a wrecked ship. Afraid of the shadow cast by Macedonian pikes, they forged leagues: the Aetolian League in the craggy west, where goats bleated among limestone cliffs, and the Achaean League across the Peloponnese, where the dry wind rattled through olive branches. These alliances gave the poleis new strength—yet the Achaeans and Spartans still bled each other in petty, vicious border wars, their bronze greaves ringing and their spear-butts thudding into shields while Macedonia watched, amused.

Then Rome’s long shadow stretched across the water.

The First Macedonian War (214–205 BC)

By 214 BC Rome had tasted Cannae—fifty thousand corpses bloating under the Italian sun, the air thick with flies and the reek of blood. Philip V of Macedon, young, restless, and hungry, smelled weakness. He declared war on Rome, dreaming of Illyrian harbors and Greek ports falling under his banners.

The First Macedonian War was a grinding, ugly affair. Philip’s soldiers raided coastal villages, the crackle of burning thatch mixing with women’s screams and the bleating panic of goats. Roman triremes clashed with Macedonian galleys in narrow channels; oar-blades splintered, men gargled seawater and blood. The Aetolians allied with Rome, the Achaeans with Philip. No great pitched battle ever came—just ambushes in mountain passes, the screech of swords on shields, the stink of unwashed bodies and horse dung in summer heat. Both sides grew weary. In 205 BC the Peace of Phoenice was signed.

The Second Macedonian War (200–197 BC)

In 204 BC Ptolemy IV died, leaving a child-king and a rotting court in Alexandria. Philip V and Antiochus III the Great whispered together in secret, their words heavy with the scent of wine and intrigue. They agreed to divide the helpless Ptolemaic lands. Philip turned north and east, toward Thrace and the windy narrows of the Dardanelles. His soldiers sacked coastal towns; the air grew bitter with smoke and the coppery smell of fresh slaughter. Pergamum’s countryside was ravaged—wheat fields trampled into mud, orchards hacked down, the sweet rot of crushed figs rising in the heat.

Rhodes and Pergamum begged Rome for aid. Fresh from victory over Hannibal, Rome had no patience for half-finished wars. Ambassadors sailed east, their cloaks stiff with salt. They warned Philip to leave Athens, Rhodes, Pergamum, and the Aetolians untouched. Philip answered with fire. He ravaged Attica; the olive groves around Athens filled with the crackle of burning trees and the wail of refugees. He laid siege to Abydus. When the walls could hold no longer, Philip gave the defenders three days. The city stank of fear—sweat, urine, fear-loosened bowels. Parents slit their children’s throats with trembling hands; the wet gurgle of blood on stone mingled with mothers’ choked sobs. Gold and silver clinked as they were hurled into the black water below the cliffs. The men swore to die free. When the Macedonians finally stormed the breach, they found only silence, cooling bodies, and the dull glint of abandoned weapons.

War with Rome could no longer be avoided. The Second Macedonian War crawled along for two years—muddy camps, the sour odor of wet wool, the constant rasp of whetstones on iron. Then Titus Quinctius Flamininus arrived in 198 BC. He chased Philip from Greece like a wolf harrying deer. At the mountainous Battle of the Aous, the mountain pass rang with the crash of shields and the screams of the dying.

Picture this: a deep, narrow river gorge slices through the mountains of what is now southern Albania, near the modern course of the Aoös/Aous River between Tepelenë and Këlcyrë. Sheer rock walls rise hundreds of feet on both sides, funneling the fast-flowing, turquoise-green river into a constricted torrent that roars over boulders and rapids. The valley floor is barely wide enough in places for a few hundred men to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Above, steep, scrub-covered slopes and jagged cliffs tower overhead, dotted with sparse pine and oak. King Philip V of Macedon had chosen this natural fortress deliberately. His roughly 20,000-strong army — disciplined Macedonian phalangites in their distinctive bronze helmets and red cloaks, lighter peltasts, Thracian and Illyrian auxiliaries with curved shields and javelins — held the narrow pass like a cork in a bottle. They built field fortifications of earth and stone across the gorge floor and perched on the high ground, sarissas (long pikes) bristling outward. Any Roman attempt to force the position head-on would be suicide: men would be funneled into a killing zone of javelins, arrows, and rolling boulders, then skewered by the long pikes of the phalanx.

For over forty days the two armies stared at each other across the river. Roman consul Flamininus, commanding two legions plus allies (roughly 20,000–25,000 men), probed and skirmished but could make no progress. The river itself ran blood-red in places from minor clashes. Dust clouds rose whenever Roman velites (skirmishers) darted forward to exchange missile fire with Macedonian light troops on the heights. Then came the turning point — one of the classic “local guide” moments of ancient history. A Greek or Epirote shepherd (or possibly several local herders) approached the Romans and offered critical intelligence: there existed a hidden, precipitous goat-track snaking high up one of the mountain flanks, invisible from the valley floor. It was treacherous — loose scree, narrow ledges, places where men had to crawl or pass weapons hand-to-hand — but it led to the high ground behind Philip’s position.

Flamininus seized the chance. Under cover of darkness and morning mist, he detached a strong force (several thousand legionaries and allies, led by tribunes) to climb this secret path. The climb was agonizing: soldiers hauled themselves up by roots and rocks, shields clanging against stone, trying not to send cascades of pebbles tumbling down and betray their movement. Dawn light began to spill over the ridges as the flanking column finally reached the crest. Below them, the Macedonian camp and battle line were spread out in the narrow valley — completely unaware. At the pre-arranged signal, Flamininus launched the frontal assault once more. Roman pila (javelins) arced through the air in dark clouds, thudding into Macedonian shields with heavy thunks. Legionaries in segmented armor and red tunics surged forward shouting, shields locked. The Macedonians braced, confident in their terrain.

Then — chaos from above. The Roman flanking force erupted onto the heights behind the Macedonian line. Legionaries charged downhill, screaming war cries, swords flashing. Macedonians on the rear ranks turned in horror to see helmeted figures pouring over the ridge like an avalanche of iron and bronze. Panic spread like wildfire through Philip’s army. The once-impenetrable phalanx formation fractured as men tried to face both directions at once. Long sarissas — deadly when facing forward — became useless liabilities in a swirling melee. The gorge became a slaughter pen. Macedonians were driven toward the river cliffs or crushed against their own fortifications. Many leapt or fell into the rushing Aous, armor dragging them under. Others were cut down as they tried to flee up the steep slopes. Roman swords and pila did terrible work at close quarters; blood soaked the dust and ran in rivulets down the rocks into the river.

Philip V himself barely escaped with his bodyguard, abandoning his camp and much of his baggage. Around 2,000 Macedonians lay dead in the gorge and on the slopes — a heavy but not annihilating loss. The terrain that had once protected them now prevented any serious Roman pursuit; the broken army slipped away toward Thessaly. The scene afterward would have been grim and cinematic: a silent, narrow valley choked with bodies in bronze and iron, broken sarissas jutting from the ground like felled trees, Roman soldiers picking through the Macedonian camp under a hot Balkan sun, the river below still carrying red threads downstream.

The Battle of the Aous was not a massive set-piece field battle like Cynoscephalae or Pydna that followed. It was instead a masterpiece of terrain, deception, and sudden vertical envelopment — a vivid demonstration that even the famous Macedonian phalanx could be undone when its unbeatable frontal wall was turned into a death trap from behind. The battle didn’t bring an end to the war, but it left both armies hunting each other across the rolling plains and ridges of eastern Thessaly, and in the summer next year, 197 BC, they were nipping at each other near the town of Scotussa.

Philip needed grain badly—his men were hungry, their bellies rumbling after weeks of short rations. He marched west along the northern slopes of a low, broken range of hills called Cynoscephalae (“Dog’s Heads”), searching for supplies and level ground where his phalanx could deploy in its full, terrifying glory. Flamininus shadowed him on the southern slopes, the two armies parallel but out of sight, separated by the jagged spine of the hills. The air smelled of dry grass, wild thyme, and the faint salt of the distant sea.

The night before the battle a fierce thunderstorm rolled over Thessaly—lightning cracking across the black sky, rain hammering tents and turning paths to slick mud. Dawn broke gray and heavy with fog so thick it muffled sound and hid the world beyond a few dozen paces. The hills loomed like the humped backs of sleeping beasts, their slopes uneven, rocky, and cut by gullies and scrub.Around first light, both commanders sent scouting parties forward to seize the high ground and find the enemy. Philip dispatched about 800 light infantry and 50 cavalry; Flamininus sent roughly 1,000 velites (skirmishers) and 300 horsemen. In the swirling mist, the two groups blundered into each other on the crest of one of the ridges. For a heartbeat there was stunned silence—only the drip of water from helmets and the snort of horses—then javelins hissed through the fog, bronze clanged on shields, men shouted in Greek and Latin, and blood began to flow.

The skirmish swelled quickly. Messengers galloped back through the murk, horns blared, and both armies began to pour men toward the sound of fighting. Philip, hearing reports of Roman weakness, reluctantly committed more troops despite the unsuitable ground. He ordered half his phalanx—some 8,000–10,000 sarissa-armed heavy infantry—up the slope, along with 4,000 peltasts and light troops. The long pikes rose like a forest of steel; boots thudded on wet earth; the rhythmic tramp echoed off the hills. Flamininus, equally blind in the fog, formed his whole army—about 26,000 men, including two full Roman legions, Italian allies, 6,000 Aetolian infantry, Cretan archers, and 20 war elephants—and advanced to support his skirmishers.

The fog began to lift unevenly, revealing patches of the battlefield. The Macedonian right wing, under Philip himself, crested the ridge first and slammed into the Roman left. The phalanx, though compressed and disordered by the climb and the broken ground, drove forward with terrible force. Eighteen-foot sarissas thrust out in layers; Roman shields splintered, men were impaled or thrown backward with screams. The Roman left buckled and began to give way, blood soaking the grass, the coppery reek mixing with crushed thyme and wet soil. On the opposite flank, however, the Macedonian left was slower—still struggling up the steeper, rockier slope, its formation ragged and incomplete. Flamininus saw the opportunity. He held his victorious right wing in check, then—according to Polybius—ordered an unnamed military tribune to take twenty maniples (about 2,400 men) from the rear lines of his successful right, wheel them across the face of the hill, and strike the exposed Macedonian left in flank and rear.

The tribune’s men moved fast—shields locked, short pila gripped tightly, the low growl of centurions urging them on. They poured down into the gap between the Macedonian wings like wolves through a broken fence. The phalanx on the Macedonian left, caught half-deployed, could not turn quickly enough. The long sarissas, deadly in frontal combat on flat ground, became useless liabilities—too long to swing sideways, too awkward on uneven terrain. Roman pila arced in darkening clouds, thudding into faces and necks; then the maniples closed, gladii flashing in short, vicious stabs under the pike line—into groins, armpits, bellies. Men shrieked as iron tore through linen and flesh; blood sprayed hot across bronze greaves; the once-solid formation disintegrated into a chaos of individual struggles. Philip’s right wing, still pushing the Roman left, suddenly felt the pressure ease as news of the disaster spread. Panic rippled through the ranks. The phalanx began to waver, then break. Men dropped their sarissas and ran—shields clattering, greaves ringing, the slope turning into a slaughter as Romans pursued. Philip himself, realizing the day was lost, gathered his cavalry and royal guard and fled the field, dust and screams trailing behind him.

The killing went on until evening. The broken hills were strewn with Macedonian dead—some 8,000 killed, another 5,000 captured, many wounded and crawling. Roman losses were far lighter—around 700 dead, though the number of wounded was higher. The ground reeked of blood, ruptured bowels, spilled wine from broken canteens, and the acrid smoke of trampled campfires. Shattered sarissas lay like broken reeds; bronze shields glinted dully in the fading light. Philip escaped with perhaps a third of his army intact, but the defeat was catastrophic. He sued for peace soon after. The terms were harsh: he surrendered most of his fleet, paid 1,000 talents in indemnity, gave hostages (including his son Demetrius), and evacuated all Greek territories outside Macedonia. The kingdom itself survived—for now—as a Roman buffer state. The kingdom itself was allowed to stand—Rome wanted a living shield against the Balkans, not a graveyard.

The Battle of Cynoscephalae was more than a battle won; it was a demonstration. Polybius, who studied the clash closely, declared it the clearest proof yet of the Roman legion’s superiority over the Macedonian phalanx. The phalanx was a hammer—devastating on flat, open ground when whole and disciplined—but brittle when broken or on rough terrain. The Roman manipular system—flexible, adaptable, built for close-quarters sword fighting—thrived in the chaos of broken hills. A single tribune’s bold decision to strike the flank had turned a possible draw into decisive victory. The long shadow of Alexander’s invincible heavy infantry had begun to shorten. Rome had not just beaten Philip V; it had shown the Greek world that a new military order had arrived.

The Third Macedonian War: 172 - 168 BC

Demetrius returned from Rome speaking Latin, wearing the toga, and dreaming Roman dreams. He undermined his father’s careful defiance. Perseus, the elder brother and heir, seethed. In 180 BC Philip ordered Demetrius’ execution. The axe fell in a stone courtyard; the coppery smell of blood lingered for days. Philip never recovered. He died the next year, some whispered of a heart broken beyond mending. Perseus took the throne in 179 BC—tall, broad-shouldered, eyes burning with hate for Rome. He rebuilt the army; forges rang day and night with hammer on anvil, the air thick with charcoal smoke and sweat. He whispered anti-Roman words across Greece. Pergamum’s king denounced him. Rome listened.

The Third Macedonian War began in 172 BC. Early clashes were small—javelin volleys hissing through the air, horses screaming, the dull thump of bodies hitting dirt. At Callicinus in 171 BC Perseus claimed victory; Roman blood darkened the grass, though the result was murky. For two years the Romans battered against Macedonia’s mountain walls. In 168 BC Lucius Aemilius Paulus arrived. He led his legions through a supposedly impassable pass in the Olympus range—boots slipping on scree, lungs burning in thin air, the metallic taste of fear in every mouth. Perseus panicked and abandoned the position. He fell back to the Elpeus River, then to Pydna.

For months the two armies had stalked each other through the rugged spine of Macedonia. Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the Roman consul, had finally maneuvered Perseus out of his near-impregnable river line along the Elpeus. By clever flanking marches through supposedly impassable mountain trails—soldiers cursing as boots slipped on loose scree, lungs burning in the thin air, the metallic taste of exhaustion on every tongue—Paullus had forced Perseus to abandon strong positions and fall back toward the coastal plain south of Pydna.

Perseus encamped his 40,000-strong army (perhaps 25,000–30,000 in the phalanx core, backed by Thracian and mercenary auxiliaries, and 4,000 cavalry) on flat, open ground ideal for the sarissa-armed phalanx. The air carried the salt tang of the nearby Aegean, mixed with woodsmoke from campfires and the sharp musk of thousands of horses and men. Paullus positioned his smaller force—roughly 25,000–37,000 infantry plus 34 war elephants—on the lower slopes of Mount Olocrus, overlooking the plain. From there the Romans could smell the Macedonian cook-fires and hear the distant clatter of armor being polished. 

The decisive day began not with trumpets, but with a mule. Late in the morning of June 22, a Roman pack animal—perhaps spooked by heat or flies—broke loose and splashed across the shallow Leucus (or Elpeus) stream that separated the two camps. Paelignian allied troops, shouting and cursing in thick Italian accents, dashed after it. Thracian sentries on the Macedonian side jeered, then lunged. Javelins hissed through the air; bronze clanged on bronze; a man screamed as iron bit deep. Within minutes the petty scuffle had swollen into a full skirmish line—shouts, the wet thud of bodies hitting dirt, the coppery reek of fresh blood rising in the hot noon air.

Both commanders reacted swiftly. Perseus, fearing a Roman probe or a chance to crush the disorder, ordered his entire army to form up. Trumpets blared; the ground trembled as 16 ranks of phalangites lowered their 18-foot sarissas in unison, the forest of iron points flashing like a wall of silver under the merciless sun. Dust rose in choking clouds from thousands of hobnailed sandals and greaves. The Macedonian left was anchored by fierce Thracian warriors—lime-streaked hair streaming, curved swords drawn—while the right held lighter troops and cavalry. Paullus, watching from the hill, heard the rising roar and saw the Macedonian line spilling out of camp. He had no choice. Horns sounded; Roman centurions barked orders in clipped Latin. The legions and allies streamed down the slope—shields clanking, pila rattling in their grips, the low growl of men psyching themselves for slaughter. The battle had begun in the mid-afternoon, far later than any sensible general would choose.

The Macedonian phalanx advanced first, a living machine of bronze and wood. The front ranks locked shields; the sarissas dipped forward until five deadly points projected ahead of each man. The formation rolled across the plain like a steel tide, the rhythmic tramp of boots and the low chant of Greek war-songs carrying over the dust. For a terrifying moment it looked unstoppable. The Romans met them head-on. Legionaries hurled their pila in darkening clouds; the javelins thudded into shields and flesh with meaty thunks. Then the lines crashed. The phalanx drove forward, pushing the Roman front back step by bloody step. Men screamed as sarissas punched through mail and linen; the air filled with the iron stench of blood and the sour reek of fear-sweat. Paullus himself later admitted that he had never seen anything so frightening as that bristling wall of pikes bearing down on his men.

the Battle of Pydna

But the plain was not perfectly flat. Low ridges, dry gullies, and scattered scrub broke the ground. The phalanx—designed for level parade-ground discipline—began to lose cohesion. Gaps opened where one file stumbled while another pressed ahead. The sarissas, once a solid hedge, wavered and rose unevenly. Dust hung thick; men coughed and spat grit. The Macedonian formation, so invincible on flat ground, fractured into isolated knots. Paullus seized the moment. He ordered a feigned retreat over the roughest patches—legionaries backing away, shields raised, baiting the phalanx forward onto broken terrain. The Macedonians pressed, overextending. Then the Roman maniples poured into the gaps like wolves through a broken fence. Short gladii flashed in the dust-choked light; legionaries ducked under the long pikes, stabbing upward into groins, armpits, and throats. Blood sprayed in hot arcs across bronze breastplates. Men shrieked as iron tore through muscle and sinew. The once-solid phalanx dissolved into desperate hand-to-hand fighting—individual men hacking, stabbing, slipping in gore-slick grass.

On the Macedonian left, Roman allied troops and war elephants charged. The great beasts trumpeted, ears flapping, trunks swinging; their mahouts goaded them forward through the chaos. Thracians and mercenaries broke before the stench of elephant and the thunder of their feet. The Macedonian left collapsed in panic. Perseus, watching from horseback amid his royal guard, saw the center disintegrate. The phalanx that had carried Alexander across Asia was now a slaughter-pen. He fled the field with his cavalry, dust streaming behind him, leaving his infantry to die.

The killing lasted until dusk. Roman swords rose and fell in a red rhythm. The ground became a churned morass of blood, trampled entrails, and shattered sarissas. The air stank of ruptured bowels, spilled wine from broken canteens, and the sweet-iron reek of massacre. Some 20,000–25,000 Macedonians lay dead; another 11,000 were captured, many wounded and crawling. Roman losses were remarkably light—perhaps a few hundred—though the figure is almost certainly understated.  By nightfall the plain before Pydna was silent except for the groans of the dying and the crackle of Roman campfires. Perseus was hunted down days later, captured, and paraded in chains through Rome. The Antigonid kingdom ended that afternoon. Macedonia was divided into four client republics under Roman supervision. The long sarissas rusted in the dust; the dream of Alexander’s successors died amid the flies and the drying blood.

The Roman legion had proven—not for the first time, but decisively—that flexibility, initiative, and ruthless close-quarters swordsmanship could break even the most storied heavy infantry formation when the ground was uneven and the moment right. The Hellenistic age was over. Rome had become the unchallenged master of the Mediterranean world.

sermon notes: Mark 9.14-23

Mark 9.14-23

An Exorcism

In this passage, Jesus and his three disciples come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, and he exorcises a demon from a boy. His other disciples, who had been given authority to cast out demons, had been unable to do it when Jesus and the three were gone. The disciples ask him why they weren't able to drive out the demon; Jesus responds that "this kind" can only come out by prayer. 

The primary form of spiritual warfare in the NT is primarily focused on truth over falsehood. This doesn't mean that there's no room for demons, possession and oppression, and exorcisms.

Jesus showcases his frustration with "this generation" (his other nine disciples); "How long do I have to put up with this?"

As soon as the father brings the boy to Jesus, the boy is thrown into convulsions. This isn't a display of power, or a taunt to Christ, but an act of desperation; the demon is squirming. All throughout the gospels, the demons are terrified of Jesus. They know who he is and have a grasp on what he is here to accomplish.

The father tells Jesus, "Help my unbelief!" He didn't wait to come to Jesus until he had no unbelief; no, he brought his unbelief to Christ and laid it out on the table. The father believed but also wrestled with unbelief; how often does this plague you and me? We can become worn down my life's trials, by sins in our lives, by our own weak frame. He knows we are made of dust and has pity on us. The boy's father shows us how to approach Christ - honestly and humbly, not pretending we have it all together when we don't. 

Jesus commands the demon, "Don't enter him again." The demon is exorcised, extracted from the boy, but the demon has the ability to reenter, which is why Christ expressly forbids it. The demon is exorcised and left to wander, to find a new host, and has been barred from the boy. 

What does Jesus mean when he says that 'this kind' can only come out by prayer? Two theories:

(1) Remember that the disciples had authority to exorcise demons, but this authority was theirs by virtue of their connection to Christ. It is possible that the disciples were leaning on their own power and authority, which was insufficient to the task at hand; they needed the power and authority of God, and it is by prayer that they connected with that power over the demon. This is why Jesus says all things are possible for they who believe; faith is the linchpin upon which successful exorcisms operate. 

(2) The disciples' early successes at casting out demons may have emboldened them, so that they are going about exorcisms without prayer! Maybe this worked for some, but it didn't work in the demon possessing this boy. Spiritual power isn't something we possess on our own and exercise at will; our spiritual power comes from Christ and is only there if we maintain our connection with Christ. 

There are three modern Christian views on demons:

(1) Charismatic view - demons lie behind every sin, failure, and misstep. Deliverance ministries become the core of pastoral care. 

(2) Minimalist view - yes, demons are real, because the Bible says so, but they don't do much. Most of what has been attributed to demons is mental illness and physical maladies.

(3) Historical view - demons are real, they do stuff, and they do a lot, but they don't do everything. 

 

the Sword, the Rock, and the Land: potent quotables

The Sword, the Rock, and the Land was an excellent little book - maybe a better term would be booklet - that dealt with politics, culture, and the current state of the western world. Here are some potent quotables broken down by subject:

on Conservatism

on Piety

on Civil Government

on Imperium and Dominion

sermon notes: Mark 9.1-13

Mark 9.1-13 

The Transfiguration

Mark has been building the tension regarding Jesus' identity through the first half of Mark. In Mark 8, Peter makes a landmark confession: "You are the Christ." Jesus tells Peter he didn't come to this conclusion himself, but he was enlightened by the Spirit of God. At the Transfiguration, Jesus' identity is made crystal clear; the veil, so to speak, is pulled back. Halfway through Mark, the tension breaks: there's now no denying that Jesus is the Christ. 

The word 'transfiguration' comes from the Greek, and it means a change of form and essential nature, similar to metamorphosis. However, Jesus' nature and form isn't changing. Christ is one person with two complete natures, divine and human. This is an unveiling of his true nature, a revelation to the three disciples (Peter, James, and John) of what has been true all along. Glory isn't being added to Christ; His glory is being revealed.

In Mark 9.1 Jesus says some of those present won't taste death until they see the Kingdom of God coming with power. Then he takes some of them up a mountain - Peter, James, and John - for the experience. Why take three disciples and not the whole bunch? A couple ideas:

(a) Per Mosaic Law, three witnesses are required to verify the truth of something. The three disciples serve as a witnesses to the truth of Christ's glory.

(b) This is to encourage and prepare these specific disciples (Jesus' inner circle) for what's about to happen. The mountaintop experience will be followed by a dark valley.

(c) The Transfiguration reveals Christ's glory, and it contrasts with his prophecy of his humiliation at the end of Mark 8. Peter resists this - the Messiah is to do the opposite of that! - and Jesus identifies Peter as his adversary. The Transfiguration encourages Peter: despite the reality of what's about to go down, Jesus is indeed the Messiah! 

The three disciples were terrified. They were greatly afraid seeing Christ's glory. This was not a pleasant spiritual moment. It was similar to Isaiah's heavenly experience in the throne room of God, in which he was undone and cried out "Woe is me!" The voice of God shatters the stillness: "This is my beloved Son (an echo of Jesus' baptism). Listen to him!"

The Transfiguration connects with the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai in multiple ways:

(a) both take place on a mountain

(b) both have the voice of God speaking

(c) both have a cloud descending

(d) both have incredible radiance

(e) both have terrified witnesses

When Moses came down from Sinai, his face glowed from a borrowed glory; he had been close to the presence God, and his appearance was altered. Whereas Moses reflects God's glory, Jesus' glory radiates off of Him. He isn't reflecting God's glory; He is the source of that divine glory. 

"What's the deal with Moses and Elijah being present?" 

(a) These two represent the Law and the Prophets. 

(b) Moses and Elijah are the only Old Testament figures who had theophanies on a mountain.

(c) Both had unfinished expectations connected to them; Malachi, last OT prophet, mentions both, with roles in Messianic age; them being present with Christ echoes Malachi and informs us that the Messianic Age has come!

The Household and the War for the Cosmos: Potent Quotables

Potent Quotables from Aaron Renn's remastering of John Owen's classic The Mortification of Sin into modern English.

ON PIETAS

I am old enough to remember when preachers promoted piety—particularly those whose vocabulary had been formed by reading 18th century evangelists like John Wesley or George Whitfield. In the old days people believed in the meanings of words, and they stuck with them. And if a person didn’t understand a word, you defined it for them. And if he didn’t like its meaning, you’d try to help him see the value of the word anyway. Imagine that. I can recall when people changed their minds about the word piety. Younger men began to prefer younger sounding terms. The word devotions was popular. Later, more sophisticated people preferred the term spiritual disciplines. Publishers really ran with that for a while. But folksy youth pastor types liked Quiet Time, QT for short. There has been something of a downgrade here, even with spiritual disciplines. Can you detect it? Words retain an aftertaste, even when the old meanings are lost. Originally, piety said something like a mode of life. QT is for your to-do list.

Now, religion is another word that has fallen out of favor. The Latin root, religio, means to bind. Is it any wonder that the apostles to popular culture now insist that “Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship”?... As wonderful as a personal relationship with Jesus is, the people that show the most enthusiasm for it do not give much thought to all the things that have to be in place in order for it to be possible. Take the Bible, for instance, or the sacraments, or the creeds, or even prayer. All of these things must be in place before you can even imagine having a personal relationship with Jesus... No, you cannot reduce Christianity to a relationship; it is bigger than that. Religion really is a better word than relationship for describing what it is.

While losing words is a big problem you don’t actually need to lose a word to lose a meaning. You can obscure it by the subtle misuse of a word. And over time a new meaning can actually overshadow the original. It can even contradict it. You can see this with the word freedom, for example. Once it meant taking care of oneself. Now it means making other people support your choices.

What we are left with today is heart religion, because now the heart is the only place Jesus can be publicly acknowledged to live.

[The] original Gnostics taught that the physical world was made by a clumsy and malevolent god, and that salvation consists in escaping from his creation by coming to know your true spiritual self. While most people are not Gnostics in this sense, Gnosticism-lite is pretty common. Gnosticism-lite cannot see how the physical world can communicate spiritual truths. Instead, spiritual insight is found within the garden of the heart.

Here’s the scene as described by Bernard Knox, Director Emeritus of Harvard’s Center for Hellenistic Studies, “After realizing the fighting was no longer of use, that Troy was doomed, [Aeneas] carried his father, Anchises, on his shoulders out of the burning city, holding his son Ascanius by the hand, with his wife, Creusa, following behind.”... While they would have admired the picture, I don’t think that this is what the preachers of my youth had in mind when they talked about piety. They talked about Bibles, and notebooks, and being alone with God, preferably in the woods on a summer day. So, what were the Romans thinking of when they called this piety? Here’s Bernard Knox again, The word pius does indeed refer, like its English derivative, to devotion and duty to the Divine; this is the reason cited by Poseidon in the Iliad for saving Aeneas from death at the hand of Achilles. And in the Aeneid he is always mindful of the gods, constant in prayer and thanks, and dutiful in sacrifice. But the words pius and pietas have in Latin a wider meaning. Perhaps the best English equivalent is something like “dutiful,” “mindful of one’s duty”—not only to the gods but also to one’s family and to one’s country.

[The] idea conveyed by the word pietas was not unique to the Romans. For example, Greeks had a word that had almost an identical meaning, and in Acts 17:23, the Apostle Paul used it to commend the Athenians. It is a form of ευσεβεω, and that word means, “to act reverently towards God, one’s country, magistrates, relations, and to all whom dutiful regard or reverence is due.”10 What should impress us about both words is their comprehensive nature. They didn’t promote a withdrawal from the world; they did just the opposite. That’s because people didn’t divide the world into religious and nonreligious categories. For people in the first century the world was a cosmos, a sacred order; and it was filled with other beings, some of whom were people, while others were gods. And you owed them. Piety paid its debts.

[We] practice something novel in the history of the world, what we call the “separation of Church and state.” Romans would have considered that impious. In fact, Romans believed pietas justified their right to rule the world. Here’s Cicero, the great orator and politician in the Roman Senate, making the case: . . . who, once convinced that divinity does exist, can fail at the same time to be convinced that it is by [divine] power that this great empire has been created, extended, and sustained? However good be our conceit of ourselves, conscript fathers, we have neither excelled the Spaniards in population, nor Gauls in vigor, nor Carthaginians in versatility, nor Greeks in art; but in piety, in devotion to religion [sed pietate ac religione], and in that special wisdom which consists in the recognition of the truth that the world is swayed and directed by divine power, we have excelled every race and every nation.

The thing about pietas that you can’t miss is its social character. It didn’t isolate you; instead it bound you to everything else. It was the glue of the world: things divine and human things, matter and spirit, the past and the future, [and] the generations. 

ON COSMOS

Paul and his Roman audience didn’t see the cosmos in the same way that Carl Sagan did. The cosmos was more than matter in motion for them. It was an ordered thing—the largest order of them all. That’s what the word actually meant. It included everything, even invisible things. And it also housed microcosms—little orders that depended on and reflected the larger one. If they didn’t, they couldn’t exist.

With the gods of antiquity, order was called for so that the gods could have a suitable place to live. This captures a valuable insight that is reflected in the Latin word for house—the word domus. Not only is that the root of the word domestic, it is also the root of the word dominion. In the same way, the cosmos is like a great house, one that is divinely ordered.

First, we lost the cosmological basis for the household. Then we lost its economic basis. And now the biological basis is being deconstructed through technology and gender-bending word games. In a world where you can order sperm from a catalog, and it is possible to have three biological parents, can father and mother or male and female mean anything normative?

People once believed that the cosmos was a crowded place, filled with everything from sprites to archangels—a grand, towering structure reaching up and out of sight. And there we were, in the middle of it all. It was an ennobling place to live. But today most of us think of the cosmos as empty space. In our minds it has become somewhat like Detroit—a vacant city, crumbling all around. The old gods are long gone, and even Christians have a hard time believing in angels. And when it comes to Jesus, He lives with us inwardly, in the garden of the heart.

The cosmos has a future. There will be a new Heaven and a new earth. Elements of the original cosmos will carry over, and that is really good news because the redeemed are included in what gets carried over. We live by the light of tomorrow’s sun, and that sun is the Lord God (Rev. 22:5). This is the basis of our piety, the substance of our daily duties.

ON HOUSEHOLD CODES

I never gave the New Testament household codes much thought until I noticed how scrupulously people try to avoid them. That’s when I began to suspect that they could be indispensable... I suspect that [the household codes] embarrass most pastors in the Western world. They are terribly undemocratic, and in the language of our day, they’re definitely sexist and classist. Most contemporary commentators inform us that the codes were a concession to the prejudices of the time. Just why Paul should do this when he could instigate a riot just by showing his face, people don’t care to discuss.

Biblical scholarship sure isn’t what it used to be. At its highest levels it is entirely captive to feminists and their allies. I can recall when they began to assume their chairs at various schools. At first things were not too bad. They had their opinions and you had yours. Now you’re not allowed to have yours. There is a tendentious character to their research. The goal isn’t so much to discern the meaning of a text, but instead to uncover hidden agendas. Some have labeled it the hermeneutic of suspicion. Hermeneutics is the practice of interpretation. And there are different schools of thought when it comes to how to go about it. The hermeneutic of suspicion assumes the worst about people, especially when it comes to the role of ancient texts in antiquity. Instead of demonstrating that someone in the past was preoccupied with securing his own interests at the expense of others, it assumes he was... any defense that is proffered by others that is based on the exigencies on the ground is just kicked aside as rationalization. Some scholars go along with this because they’re afraid to lose their jobs. But many scholars are not so pusillanimous: they enjoy pillorying the dead.

[The] real problem people have with the household codes: they don’t believe that the sacrifices that they call for are worth making. They don’t believe that households serve a higher purpose than the personal goals of the individuals that live in them.

What we really need is a recovery of a way of life. The codes outlined a way to order our households so that they can serve as microcosms of the largest order of them all... Our households need to recover what made them strong in the past. And to do this you must have a man of the house and a code to guide him so that he can order his house.

In the Ten Commandments the command to honor parents implied the duty to care for them in their old age. This isn’t a matter of debate. Commentators as far back as you can go all agree.

Today an inheritance is whatever is left in the bank when your parents’ assets are liquidated and the bills are paid. Most people do not inherit a farm, or an apartment building, or a business. But in old-fashioned households, property bound the generations together. No wonder honoring parents made for a long life; when you served them you served yourself—and hopefully your children would do the same.

[A] household ordered by the household code in Ephesians reflects the rule of Christ.

Let’s admit it, submission can be very disagreeable no matter who the man is; even when he is the image of the invisible God. But submission is required. It is always required. Every human institution in the history of the world has been held together by it... [But] you can’t build anything on rebellion. Submission will eventually be called for: armies can’t win without submission, and football teams can’t score without submission, and children can’t learn math without submission, and businesses can’t make a profit without submission. We can be honest about it, or we can try to hide it—this is life. And it is true for the house of God, and for the households we live in.

ON CHRISTENDOM

Heaven had not come to earth; that civilization had its faults, its sins—but on the scale of relative goods, it was the best there ever was. But it was destroyed by a new way of seeing. No, the invention of the telescope didn’t destroy that civilization. Atheism should get the blame for undermining it—atheism, that way of seeing that doesn’t see. Atheists tell us that there is no intrinsic meaning to things because there is no God to give them meaning.

First we lost the gods, then we lost the one true God, and now we’re losing ourselves. We’re dying.

What becomes of people when they turn away from the light? They deform. Things lose proportion; little things swell grotesquely, while other things that were meant to be large and vigorous, shrivel. At least the old pagans had things to focus their minds upon; today we stare into the void.

One of the things that conservatives should conserve is the belief that history has a Governor. As awful as things can be, Someone is ordering things to their given ends. Even the age that we live in serves a purpose in the great scheme of things. This means that we are the true progressives.

ON SLAVERY

Western civilization did not invent slavery. It can’t even claim to have perfected it. The only claim that Western civilization can make when it comes to slavery is that it is the first civilization that figured out a way to live without it.

There were two sources for slaves: debt and displacement. Debt is fairly easy to understand. Sometimes people need things that they can’t pay for, so they borrow what they need and promise to pay the debt back later. Later arrives, and they can’t pay for one reason or another. What to do? A lender could forgive the debt, that’s true. But if he does that, he has effectively paid the debt himself. What if he doesn’t want to, or simply can’t forgive the debt for one reason or another, what then? If the debtor put up no collateral, then the lender must put the debtor to work.

returning to displacement, apart from man-stealing—something condemned in the Old Testament, by the way—people could be displaced in a variety of ways: warfare, natural disaster, pestilence, the death of a father, and so on. When these things happened relatives would take you in, ideally. But what if they couldn’t, or just wouldn’t?.. Just try to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone who has lost everything. Your choices might be beggary, crime, or being taken into a household as some form of servant, either on a temporary basis, or permanently. Which would you choose?

Xenophon condemned the harsh treatment of slaves... even Aristotle could longingly speculate about a world with robots, and other forms of automation, that would make slavery obsolete.

GUERILLA PIETY

Christians have been given suits of armor and they are duty-bound to fight for the household of God. But like Christians in the first century we are hopelessly overmatched on the ground. The principalities continue to rage against the Lord of the Cosmos. Their inhuman machinery menaces us, particularly in the West. The state continues to grow and centralize, technology tracks us (and increasingly it is used to manipulate us), progressive multinational corporations standardize us and commodify us, popular media seek to indoctrinate us and addict us, and state-run education and healthcare are eliminating private rivals so as to make us ever more dependent on government largess. All of these things and more are arrayed against us. In spite of all of these things, Christ has already won. He is our Lord and we are engaged in a long obedience. We wrestle with His enemies.

Word and sacrament serve as a stairway to Heaven, as well as a virtual time machine. When believers worship they rise to heavenly places where they are seated with the risen Lord. They are also sent into the past to sit at the feet of the prophets and the apostles, and they are also flung into the future, where by faith they dimly discern, as though a glass, a day when all things will be done on earth as they are in Heaven.

[Fight] the good fight. Go home, build a house, and if you do it in the right way, you will give the world a glimpse of things to come. There is nothing more terrifying to the principalities than this. Because in the end, the principalities will bow and confess the Lordship of Christ, and if your house is ordered well, it is a reminder of that glorious day (Phil. 2:10–11). And, as hard as it is to imagine, when, at the end of the war for the cosmos, the tribunal for war-crimes is impaneled, you and I will have our seats behind the bench (1 Cor. 6:3).

sermon notes: Mark 8.1-38

The Feeding of the 4000: Mark 8.1-21

Jesus has compassion on the crowds. Jesus has compassion and care for people. The people are hungry, and he's worried they will faint - so he provides for their need. Jesus' compassion is practical; he doesn't just care about our spiritual health, but the little mundane things as well. 

Jesus is a good shepherd; he gives people what they need. He will provide the masses with food and then, in the next breath, directly and intentionally offend them! The church, as Christ's body, must always be reminding people of their sin and call them to faith and repentance. The church cares about the practical things, like Jesus; but also cares about the ultimate things (again: like Christ).

Signs and wonders (miracles) are a form of communication: a sign pointing to something wonderful! Jesus isn't a showman; he isn't doing miracles for popularity. The point of miracles isn't just to help people, or show his power; miracles confirm the authenticity of his teachings and point the way to the in-breaking Kingdom of God. 

In the Reformed world, we like to pat each other on the back and point to all the problems outside us: Arminianism, charismatic Pentecostalism, Catholicism, transgenderism, Zionism - but we ignore the sins in our own camp. We pride ourselves on being "right" (or so we think) and speak and think poorly of those with other convictions or practices. This breeds a form of legalism - "You must be a five point Calvinist or you're going to hell!" - and results in an anemic and fragile Christian life. 

The leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod refers to their pride and unbelief; yeast (or leaven) spreads through a whole loaf of bread and makes it rise. Similarly, pride and unbelief in one's heart will spread until our hearts are darkened, and we can't perceive and understand spiritual things. This results in a hardened heart that is closed off to the reality of the gospel. Jesus asks the people "Do you not see? Do you not understand?" in an echo of the OT prophets, putting the people in the place of the Israelites who rejected the messages of the prophets.

A Blind Man Healed and Peter's Confession: Mark 8.22-30

Jesus heals a blind man in two stages: first, he spits in the man's eye. The man says he can still somewhat see, but it isn't great. Jesus then touches the man's eyes, and he's healed completely. We know Jesus can heal someone immediately, so what's this about? One explanation is that this is an intentional picture of sanctification: our sanctification doesn't happen all at once but comes in stages. The onward march of sanctification is herky-jerky. 

Another explanation is that this is a picture of the revelation happening with the disciples: they are dull but slowly coming around to perceive Christ, in bits and pieces, as the divine Messiah. This second explanation makes sense with the next episode, in which the disciples talk about how people are debating who Jesus is - a prophet? John the Baptist? Elijah? - but it is Peter whose eyes are opened and who exclaims, "You are the Christ!"

The Cost of Following Christ: Mark 8.31-38

Jesus explicitly tells his disciples that he will be rejected by Israel's leadership and will be killed - but he'll rise again after three days. Jesus rebukes Jesus to his face and is in turn rebuked and called "Satan." The name Satan can mean Adversary, and here Jesus identifies Peter as his adversary. Peter had a moment of clarity just before, acknowledging his Messiahship, but now his vision is clouded again. He expects, like most good Jews, that the Messiah will lead a political revolution and establish Israel as the world's imperial ruler.

Jesus then begins talking about beating the cross: following Christ will cost you friends, family, comfort, worldly opportunities, and much more. Peter expected that following Jesus would put him on the front lines of a politically triumphant movement; Jesus clarifies that it involves bearing one's cross, carrying one's own execution stake. Having just established that he would die, Jesus now hints at what that entails: Roman crucifixion. In legendarium foreshadowing, Peter would indeed carry his own cross (Peter was allegedly crucified upside down). 

Those who follow Jesus must be willing to lose "their life." This means we need to be willing to lose prestige and popularity. We need to be willing to be hated by those who are deceived by sin and the Devil, whose hearts are hardened; we need to be okay with being a loser. If we cannot stomach that, we cannot be saved. Jesus says that those who are ashamed of him and his words will be put to shame when he comes in glory with the angels.

The Children's Westminster Catechism: Question 3

Question: Why did God make you and all things?

  

Answer: For His glory. 

In the previous lessons learned that God made us and all things. Here we learn why He made all things: for His glory. This is important, because God has given us a mission in life: to glorify Him. As the Apostle Paul puts it, ‘So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.’ (1 Corinthians 10:31) And this isn’t just what we are here for; it’s what all of creation is made for! The heavens are designed to declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1); the whole earth is filled with His glory (Isaiah 6:3), and in the future the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of God’s glory (Habakkuk 2:14). 

God’s glory is a big deal in the Bible, but what is the glory of God? One way to understand God’s glory is that it is His greatness, character, presence, and power put on display. It is the full potency of God for all to see. When the Bible tells us that all of creation glorifies God, it’s telling us that the world reveals God’s greatness, character, presence, and power. We already know creation does this, because in the previous lesson we learned about how the natural world tells people about God’s existence and what He is like (Romans 1:20). Because the glory of God is the public display of His attributes, it isn’t surprising that Jesus Christ is pictured as the glory of God, because He is a full revelation of God and His attributes. John 1:14 says, ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’ The Apostle John continues and writes, ‘No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared him.’ Hebrews 1:3 puts it this way: ‘[Christ] is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’ Jesus is the fullest revelation of God that we have! When we listen to the gospel stories and hear about Jesus doing miracles, and casting out demons, and teaching in parables, we are seeing the Living God at work among His beloved creatures. It’s a wonderful perspective to have when hearing Jesus stories!

The glory of God is God’s full potency – His existence, His greatness, His character, His presence, and His power – put on display.

However, though all of creation tells us about God, not everyone listens to the message; in Romans 1.21-22, just after establishing that creation is a megaphone announcing God’s existence and power, Paul says that people ‘did not glorify [God], nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.’ Instead of glorifying God, sinful people reject what creation plainly tells them, and by doing so their foolish hearts are darkened. As a result, we live in a world that shouts God’s glory while some people acknowledge that glory and others refuse to see it. This won’t always be the case, however; as the prophet Habakkuk promised, a day is coming not only when the whole earth will be filled with God’s glory (for it already is!) but with the knowledge of that glory; in other words, a day is coming when all people everywhere will listen to what creation is saying and acknowledge God’s glory and bow down to Him.