Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37:1-18; Joshua 3:14–4:7; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 26:1-16 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

Three phrases of remembrance grab my attention today: 

So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial for ever. — Joshua 4:7. 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God… — Romans 12:1. 

… what she has done will be told in remembrance of her. — Matthew 26:13. 

Crossing over Jordan. This second dry-ground-water-crossing completes Israel’s baptism, her journey from slavery to freedom. Stones from the riverbed mark the occasion. For millennia, this narrative has inspired followers of Yahweh to note specific moments of the Lord’s deliverance or protection or presence. We take pictures. We collect things. We tell stories. We remember when God “showed up” for us, sometimes doing the impossible, always doing that which is redemptive. 

In the spirit of this passage, I surround myself with what I think of as “stones of remembrance.” One of my favorites is a piece of granite I brought home (legally) from Crazy Horse Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When I hold it, I am transported back to two family vacations in the Black Hills. And this fist-sized rock puts me in mind of three different, competing expressions of aspiration to freedom in the Black Hills. 

• The first is the granite carvings in Mount Rushmore, memorializing the presidents who worked towards freeing up the West for the expansive American spirit. 

• The second is the granite rendering of Crazy Horse, a protest in behalf of a very different view of freedom: that of the Lakota and other tribes who were robbed of their freedom by American expansion. 

• The third is the granite pulpit that stands on Boot Hill (Mount Moriah Cemetery) in Deadwood, SD, atop the grave of Preacher Henry Weston Smith, the martyred Methodist missionary who sought to bring to the goldmining camps of the Black Hills the liberating truth of the power of God for salvation in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

My little piece of granite always reminds me, above all, of Preacher Henry Smith, and the truth that standing above all the competing aspirations for freedom that emerge from the human breast, there is one that bears ultimate promise of reconciling all the others, the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ. My little piece of granite reminds me to be grateful for God’s call to take my small part in the ministry of that saving truth. 

Paul’s “by the mercies of God.” With that little phrase, Paul pivots from his great telling of the series of manifestations of God’s mercy in Christ, to his exhortation for us to live lives worshipfully reflective of those mercies. 

The entire letter to the Romans is itself a “stone of remembrance” for me, a reminder to recount the grand “mercies of God.” Over the years, I’ve so marked up this letter in my Greek New Testament with colored pencils that it’s become illegible, and I have recently had to change to a third copy. Paul’s remembrances of “the mercies of God” in Romans are precious to me:  

• The mercy of the obedience of the One, Christ Jesus, who counters and undoes the disobedience of Adam (Romans 5). 

• The mercy of the faith in God’s faithfulness that is found in Jesus, and which Abraham’s justifying faith had anticipated, modeled, and now calls forth from us (Romans 4). 

• The mercy of the “setting forth” in Christ’s blood of an effectual, final, and permanent sacrifice for sin that the annual whole burnt offering on the Day of Atonement had only been able to anticipate (Romans 3). 

• The mercy of the bestowing of the Holy Spirit, to lead us all the way into the glory that is to come—and to do so from inside our hearts, not merely from outside the camp as the Spirit had formerly led the children of Israel through the wilderness (Romans 8). 

• The mercy of a King who, “was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead,” thus fulfilling the promise of a scion of David (Romans 1 & 15).   

In view of those mercies, how can I not set my heart on not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of the mind? How can I not offer my body as “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [my] spiritual worship”? How can I not wish to think of myself soberly, and not “more highly than [I] ought”? How can I not long to find my unique place in making the one body of Christ vibrantly alive and healthy? 

A jar of anointing. Utterly humbling is the example of the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus with costly ointment. He receives the anointing as preparation for his burial. Surely it meant the world to him. She violates who knows how many social taboos to make her gift. She joins Jesus in the home of an unclean leper. Here is a woman physically touching a man in a public setting. With her lavish gift she invites the wrath of the disciples and prompts their discovery of social-justice-warriordom (masking, no doubt, their embarrassment at being outshined in devotion to their Lord). 

I keep on my keychain a small vial as one more “stone of remembrance.” Designed to hold anointing oil, the vial was issued to me when I became an elder at Northland, a local non-denominational church, where I served for a number of years before coming to the Cathedral Church of St Luke and eventually becoming a priest. Even though Northland’s theology was not highly sacramental, the church had a sense that if elders were told to anoint (per James 5), they should do so. Now that the Lord has called me to a church that ministers the Sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist) and the so-called “sacramentals” (among which, I would include anointing for healing) with greater intentionality, this precious vial reminds me what we’ve all known ever since Matthew 26’s dear lady saint crossed so many barriers in her affection for Jesus: life and healing flow from him.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Midday Eucharist

Thanks for joining us for Midday Eucharist!

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Deuteronomy 3:1-13; Romans 11:25-36; Matthew 25:31-46

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

A couple of rich truths to take in from Jesus and Paul today.

From Jesus. The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ — Matthew 25:40. Wow! The King so identifies himself with his subjects that he receives service to “even the least of them” as though it were service to Himself. It blows the mind. What a value that places on each and every person who comes into my path today. I can barely take it in. May I, as our baptismal covenant dares to say, “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [my] neighbor as [my]self.” 

From Paul. The apostle Paul wants to inculcate a similar sensibility—seeing Christ in the other— among the Roman Christians, especially the haughty Gentile Christians he has pointedly been addressing in Romans 11: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. … do not boast over the [Jewish] branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. … do not become proud, but stand in awe” (Romans 11:13, 18, 20). 

In today’s paragraph, Paul unpacks something he calls a “mystery,” how God is saving “all Israel” (Romans 11:25). It’s a thorny matter, but it is tremendously practical. It’s a call to a deeper love for Christ in the people he has come to redeem. 

Paul says that “all Israel” will be saved (Romans 11:26). To cut to the chase, Paul’s “all Israel” consists of a full number of Jews (Romans 11:12, “their fullness”), plus a full number of Gentiles (Romans 11:25, “the fullness of the Gentiles”). 

Notice that the second word in verse 26 is “so,” and not, “then.” Grammatically, Paul is saying, “in this manner” all Israel will be saved, not “after this” all Israel will be saved. Some interpreters wrongly—very wrongly, in my view—think that Paul means that after a period of time in which God brings in “the fullness of the Gentiles,” he will reverse course (say, by “rapturing” the Gentile church up to heaven) and begin working again among Jewish people to save “all Israel.” No, that’s not what Paul is saying. What he’s saying is that a partial hardening of Jews is the mysterious means by which God is saving Jews and Gentiles together right now, in an Israel that has been reconstituted in and around Jesus Christ. 

In this Israel, Jew and Gentile are equally members of the “olive tree”—fellow citizens of Israel and members of the household, fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, fellow partakers of the promise (Ephesians 2:19; 3:6). Paul’s “all Israel” is the “Israel of God” that he has also referred to in Galatians 6:15—all the sons and daughters of Abraham: “children of God through faith … baptized into … and clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). Earlier in Romans 11, Paul had put it in terms of natural branches (the Jews’ “fullness”) who simply belong there in the first place, plus the wild branches (“the fullness of the Gentiles”) who are grafted in—both groups belong in the “olive tree” that is Paul’s “all Israel.”

The way in which this “all Israel” emerges is the process that Paul is describing here. “All Israel” comes to fruition through the proclamation of the good news of redemption in Jesus Christ. By the unexpected arms-wide-open reception of the gospel by the Gentiles and the equal-and-opposite closed-hearted rejection of the gospel by Jews, both groups have been put on the same footing. Both are equally in need of God’s mercy: “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:32). 

Both, in a word, have become outsiders who need a way back in. The good news is that the way is open. The way is Jesus Christ. Natural branches that have been broken off can be grafted back in simply by the obedience of faith (Romans 11:23)—and this is Paul’s urgent hope for Jewish nonbelievers. Conversely, wild branches who have been grafted in, but who scoff at those who have been displaced, can be broken off again simply by the lack of faith that their pride expresses (Romans 11:21)—this is Paul’s desperate warning to anti-Jewish Gentile believers. 

This is Paul’s “sheep” and “goats” passage. What’s not always appreciated by interpreters of Romans 11 is the fact that Paul is less concerned to solve a theological problem (what’s God’s big plan for Jews?) than he is to address the lovelessness of the Gentile Christians in Rome. 

Jesus redefines love for the neighbor as love for his own Person. Paul redefines the people of God around Jesus, making the honoring of Jesus all about honoring the fullness of his people—Gentile and Jew alike. 

I pray you and I live in these rich truths. 

Be blessed this day, 
Reggie Kidd+

Midday Eucharist

Thanks for joining us for Midday Eucharist!

Orlando Summer by Angela Griner

Orlando Summer*

Late afternoon and the soaking foliage
heavy, damp, lively and restless;
The tiny plot with a million oak leaves,
layer upon layer, full of vigor and decay.

The burgeoning tropicals, the insistent weeds,
the anxious parents, the restive children,
the overwrought neighborhood street.
Ambitious fire of noonday sun strengthening
the obstinate, unpredictable sky. 

In the midst of all, Grace,
floating like the dandelion seed head, 
soaring with the wind over the flattened roof tops;
Flushing out despair with every breath.

Grace with her unconscionable goodwill,
Her determined presence 
Her steady tutelage
whispering, whispering
out of the chasm of chaos 
out of the stifling heat.

*Homage to Willa Cather’s “Prairie Spring”.

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Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 26 & 28; Joshua 2:15-24; Romans 11:13-24; Matthew 25:14-30

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

We remain focused today on the Old Testament and the epistle readings. For your consideration, I want to offer observations from three ancient Christian interpreters. I realize that in some quarters of the church and the academy, these early voices don’t count for much. But in recent years, I have come to sense that the first generations of interpreters of Scripture are more attuned to the Bible’s own dense symbolic bandwidth.* Again, … for your consideration. 

First, from Clement of Rome, who towards the end of the 1st century AD offers the first post-NT interpretation of the significance of Rahab. Combining perspectives from James 2:25 and Hebrews 11:31, Clement says: “Because of her faith and hospitality Rahab the harlot was saved” (1 Clement 12.1). Then, after recounting the Joshua narrative about Rahab hiding the Hebrew spies, misdirecting the Jericho king’s men, expressing her faith in Israel’s God, and receiving the spies’ instructions to gather her family under her roof when she sees the Israelites coming, Clement adds an extraordinary note: 

And in addition, they gave her a sign (Gk., sēmeion), that she should hang from her house something scarlet—making it clear that through the blood of the Lord redemption will come to all who believe and hope in God. You see, dear friends, not only faith but also prophecy is found in this woman (1 Clement 12:7-8). 

Next, a half century later, in the middle of the 2nd century, also from Rome, Justin Martyr expands upon Clement’s offering the scarlet rope as a “sign” of the blood of Christ. Justin compares Rahab’s scarlet thread with the blood of the Passover lambs that had been sprinkled on the doorposts and lintels of Hebrew households during the exodus—another sign bringing deliverance from death. Justin draws this lesson: 

For the sign of the scarlet thread … also manifested the symbol of the blood of Christ, by which those who were at one time harlots and evil persons out of all nations are saved, receiving remission of sins, and continuing to sin no longer (Dialogue with Trypho 111.4). 

Finally, in the 3rd century AD, Origen of Alexandria sees Rahab not only prefiguring, by the scarlet thread, that “there was no salvation for man, save in the blood of Christ,” but forecasting also that it is only in one particular house, i.e., the Church, that that salvation is to be found. 

She who was formerly a harlot receives this injunction: All who shall be found in thy house shall be saved … if anyone wishes to be saved, let him come into the house of her that was a harlot. Even if anyone of this people [that is, Jewish people] wishes to be saved, let him come into this house to obtain salvation. Let him come into this house in which the blood of Christ is the sign of redemption. Let there be no mistake, let no one deceive himself: outside this house, that is outside the Church there is no salvation (Third Homily 841C-842A). 

This is the first time that a phrase that is to become a hallmark of the early church appears: “outside the Church there is no salvation.” It all goes back, dare one say, to a whorehouse. What an amazing image for a call to church membership! Well, we won’t linger over that.

Then, as though Origen were following our own Daily Office lectionary, he embellishes his point by turning to Romans 11:13-24. Origen asserts that Rahab was one of those “wild branches” who, by God’s mercy and because of her faith, has been grafted into the trunk of the good olive tree, which is to say, she has become a true daughter of Abraham and citizen of the true Israel: 

If you wish to understand more clearly how Rahab was incorporated into Israel, see how the branch of the wild olive is grafted onto the trunk of the good olive tree and you will understand how those who are grafted into the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are rightly said to be incorporated into Israel until this day. We [Origen is himself a gentile], branches of the wild olive tree, who were prostitutes adoring wood and stone instead of the true God, we have been truly incorporated into this root until this day (Preface to the Psalms 860C). 

Origen’s invitation for Jewish people to “come into this house” of which the pagan harlot Rahab’s house is a picture (above), is, then, perfectly in line with Paul’s hope that his fellow Jews will one day no longer “persist in unbelief,” but rather, embrace Jesus as Messiah and see “God[‘s] … power to graft them in again.” 

Lessons for today: 

Whether the Lord originally intended for his church to see the prophecy of Jesus’s blood in Rahab’s scarlet rope, our brothers and sisters saw it there from the earliest days of New Testament interpretation. Regardless, that blood—and that blood alone—saves from a cataclysm even more devastating than the destruction of Jericho: the judgment of the world. 

It is indeed into a single house—the church universal that God is building, with Christ Jesus as cornerstone and his apostles and prophets as foundation (Ephesians 2:20)—that the Lord is calling all his people. When we work and pray and teach towards “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5), we are cooperating with one of the Bible’s deepest and oldest truths. 

Finally, we will never exhaust the mercies of the kind of God who redeems spiritual and literal whores, and who has a mysterious way of making the “righteous” as dependent upon the Mercy as are the “unrighteous.” 

Be blessed this day,  
Reggie Kidd+

*Highly instructive in the early church’s interpretation of the Bible are these two books:

Jean Danielou, S.J., From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers. Ex Fontibus Company, 1950, 1960, 2018.

Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church. Baker Academic, 2018.

Noonday Prayer

The Very Rev. Dr. Reggie Kidd is leading Noonday Prayer today. You can follow along on page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer or online at www.ccslorlando.org...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Joshua 2:1-14; Romans 11:1-12; Matthew 25:1-13

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

What a rich juxtaposition in today’s Old Testament and epistle readings! 

Rahab, the pagan prostitute, recognizes that Yahweh, the Israelites’ God “is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below” (Joshua 2:11). She recognizes that he has brought the Israelites out of slavery and is fighting on their behalf to give them a new home. She places herself and her household under his protection. In doing so, she becomes a wonderful picture of sinners who are saved by grace. 

Paul marvels that the descendants of the rescue from Egypt and beneficiaries of the conquest of Jericho and Canaan fail to see the greater rescue from sin and the conquest of death and hell that that same God has now accomplished in his Son Jesus Christ. In doing so, they become a sobering picture of spiritually privileged people who, failing to appreciate the mercy already extended to them, ironically and unwittingly show their need for even greater mercy (looking ahead to Romans 11:28-32).

For her part, Rahab looks for kindness from the Lord’s hand. In today’s reading, she receives verbal assurance that if she does not give the spies away, “then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land” (Joshua 2:14). Her story ends not just with her being spared from Jericho’s destruction, but with a new home: “her family has lived in Israel ever since” (Joshua 6:25). But wait—there’s more! Matthew’s gospel places her in the genealogical line that produces King David (Matthew 1:5). Rahab’s is humbling, inspiring faith. 

For his part, Paul looks for the faithfulness of God. He puzzles through the question of whether God has rejected the people God himself chose for bringing salvation to the world. The first place Paul looks is to his own experience. As a member of the tribe of Benjamin, he himself is evidence that God has not rejected the people he foreknew (Romans 11:1). And if in the present it seems that only a remnant of Israelites “get” what God is doing—well, there’s a long history of God working with “a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). It was that way in Elijah’s day, when God had to remind his prophet, “I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (Romans 11:2-5, quoting 1 Kings 19:18). It was that way for Moses and Isaiah: “God gave [the people] a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day” (Romans 11:8, recalling Deuteronomy 29:4 and Isaiah 29:10). It was that way for King David, who cried out to the Lord, in protest of his many enemies: “Let their table become a snare and a trap…” (Romans 11:9-10, quoting Psalm 69:22-23). 

Paul is saying that if you look really hard you will see a couple of things in Israel’s situation. First, it’s clear that God’s gracious choice—which hearts to harden and which hearts not to harden—means it’s not about “works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Romans 11:6). Our job is not to try to be good enough to merit anything—our job is simply to believe in who God is and what he has done, and is doing. And when we do that, we cannot help but live lives in gratitude for this grace. 

Second, Paul observes that Israel’s “stumbling” over Christ (that language itself recalls Isaiah 28’s “rock of stumbling”) cannot mean an absolute “fall”: “So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means!” (Romans 11:11). Paul’s hope, as Jewish apostle to the Gentiles, is that his fellow Israelites will eventually be provoked to jealousy when they see their spiritual riches in the hands of someone else. He hopes his fellow Israelites will reclaim their place in the storyline. He hopes they will come to believe, as he has come to believe, that God is bringing salvation to the world through the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of David and Son of God. As he will explain in the very next verses, that’s why he works so hard at his ministry among the Gentiles (Romans 11:13-14). Paul’s is extraordinary, inspiring hope. 

I pray that you and I have the grace today to be like the five bridesmaids of Matthew 25, who keep their lamps full of oil—full of a faith like Rahab’s and a dogged, determined hope like Paul’s—in eager expectation of the day when the Bridegroom will return for the great wedding banquet. On that day, faith will become sight, and hope will not disappoint. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+ 

Sunday Worship

Join us as we worship together virtually. The service is led by The Rev. Canon Josh Bales and the sermon is delivered by The Very Rev. Dr. Reggie Kidd. You w...

Noonday Prayer

Rev. Dennis Krumlauf is leading Noonday Prayer today! You can follow along on page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer or online at www.ccslorlando.org/noonday-...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 16 & 17; Deuteronomy 31:7-13, 24-30; 32:1-4; Romans 10:1-13; Matthew 24:15-31

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6-11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

The apostle Paul was acutely aware throughout his life that he and his fellow Jews were a people of privilege. They were “entrusted with the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2). They were to provide the bloodline through which God was going to redeem the world: “from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ” (Romans 9:5). They had been bequeathed the pattern of worship that would bring glory and honor to the living God: “to them belong[s] … the worship” (Romans 9:4). It broke his heart to find his people rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah and the world’s Savior. They were failing in that stewardship, just as he had done before the risen Christ came to him personally. Rhetorically at least, he would have given up his own share in the blessing if they could be included in his stead (Romans 9:1-3). Here in Romans 10, Paul comes around to what he actually—not merely rhetorically—wishes for his kin. Here is Paul’s heart for his fellow people of Jewish privilege: “that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). 

It’s fascinating to see how Paul unpacks his desire for his people—and, accordingly, how he has come to understand his own heritage because of, and in, Christ Jesus. 

No righteousness on our own. Blessed with the revelation of just what God’s standard of righteousness is, Paul has come to see—and wants others to see—that it is impossible for any of us to establish a righteousness of our own. Paul would have us look at the perfect standard of righteousness that has now been made clear by the life of Jesus Christ, and confess that none of us could possibly measure up. Currently, we are afflicted with a pandemic of “judginess”—some coming from the left, and some coming from the right. This pandemic is as lethal to our common life as COVID-19 is to our public health. There is no “again” of greatness to which to restore America that was not stained by the flaws of its founders or its people. There is no safe haven of “anti-racism” that frees any of us from the reality that we all pre-judge people.  “There is none righteous, no not one!” (Romans 3:10, quoting Psalm 14:1). 

Righteousness as a gift from God through Christ. But that’s not where things end. When Paul says that “Christ is the end (Gk., telos = goal) of the law” (Romans 10:4) what he means is twofold. First, as we’ve just seen, the goal of the law was to make clear to us that none of us is righteous. But then, second, the goal of the law was to make us aware that there is one exception to the rule. It’s to this end, I think, that Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5’s “the person who does these things will live by them” (see Romans 10:5). I think that Paul is describing a particular Person. Jesus Christ “did these things,” and not only “lives by them,” but has won life for us by his obedience to them. None of us is righteous in ourselves, but there is One who was, and is, righteous for us. 

In him, we are found in a righteousness that comes from God himself (see Philippians 3:9). There is a righteous that comes “from God” and is given to us “by faith.” “Faith” that is, in the first place, the faithfulness of the Son to the Father. And “faith” that is, in the second place, our believing response. Salvation, says Paul, is “from faith to faith” (Romans 1:17). It is from Christ’s faith in the Father’s promise to accept his obedience in place of ours (see Romans 5:12-21) to our receiving that gift with the open hands of receptive, obedient trust (the “obedience of faith”—see Romans 1:5; 16:26). 

Christ is the goal of Israel’s story. Intriguingly, in this chapter, Paul appeals to Deuteronomy 30, where God threatens Israel with exile, but then promises rescue on the far side of exile. In Deuteronomy 30, knowing Israel will rebel against him after he leads them in conquest of the Promised Land, Yahweh lays out both near-term consequence and long-term promise. Exile will come, but it will be followed by rescue and return. 

Even so, the language that Deuteronomy uses to describe the eventual return from exile looks far beyond anything that happened when Israel was brought back into the Promised Land after the Babylonian exile. The Lord told Israel that they wouldn’t have to “ascend into heaven” to bring rescue down (Deuteronomy 30:5). Paul extends the logic: nor would they have to “descend into the abyss” to bring rescue up. Paul wants his readers—and us—to know that as far back as Deuteronomy, the Lord had been pointing to his own plan to send Christ from heaven in the incarnation and to bring him up from the abyss in the resurrection, for the salvation of Israel and of the whole world. All this the Lord would do—and now has done—to secure for us the ultimate return from exile: return from the exile of sin and of death. All this is on his dime, not ours. All this is by his efforts, not ours. All this is by his own merit, not ours. All this is by his own righteousness and faithfulness, not by ours. All this is by his own commitment to keep covenant, not by ours. 

Glory be. What possible response could there be except the one Paul puts before us: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+