BibleProject - Day of the Lord: Q + R

Episode Date: May 18, 2017

This is our Q+R episode for the Day of the Lord theme. Thank you to all the people who submitted questions! Q's and Timestamps: The Day of the Lord can be a sensitive subject, so how do you have good and respectful conversations with others about the Day of the Lord? (2:40) What is the spectrum of views that Christians have on the Day of the Lord and what is the view the Bible Project is presenting? (12:30) What is the role of divine violence in the Bible? Why does Jesus seem so nice and peaceful in the New Testament but God seems mean and violent in the Old Testament? (17:20) In Revelation 19, The blood on Jesus’ robe is before the battle. This seemed to be a main point in the Day of the Lord video by the Bible Project. Why is this significant? (47:45) What is Jesus talking about in Matthew 24? And what is the deal with people disappearing? (121:13) How should Christians think about staying or migrating in different parts of the world that may be more oppressive than others?(132:25) Links: Original video conversation: youtube.com/thebibleproject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEBc2gSSW04 Additional Resources: Gregory Boyd, "Divine Aikido" chapter 15 in Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Ian Boxall, The Book of Revelation. Leon Morris, The Book of Revelation. Dale Allison and W.D. Davies, The Gospel according to Matthew. Music Credits: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Okay, this is the question and response episode to the Day of the Lord. We did a six-part podcast series on Day of the Lord, six hours of us talking about the Day of the Lord. Holy cow. And many of you listen to it. Yeah. And I think it was really beneficial. It was beneficial for me. I think a lot of other listened to it. Yeah. And I think it was really beneficial. It was beneficial for me.

I think a lot of other people found it beneficial. Yeah, I was really stimulated too. It was great. I learned a lot. But it left a lot of questions remaining. And so we want to spend a little bit of time answering some of those questions. Yeah, like all of life's most significant questions.

There's no way that six hours can scratch a surface. Remember, we're not using that metaphor anymore. Oh, scratch a surface? Oh, yes. I don't like it. Okay. Yeah. I don't remember what the solution was.

I think I replaced it with architectural cave spillunking. Spillunking. Cause when you think you got to the deepest chamber and then you realize, oh, there's more, it's like that. Cool. We haven't spolunked deep enough.

So the reason why we call this Q and R, question and response, why do we call it Q and R? Oh, well, question and answer is who presumptuous. Yeah. For some of these types of questions, like we just said, there are more or less faithful responses. But for some questions like this, there's no way that one simple answer can do justice to a complex, large topic like God's justice on human evil.

It's so multifaceted. And so, yes, we just call it Q and R. We're happy to respond to every question, but that doesn't mean that our response is comprehensive or doesn't leave room for any more questions. Right. I just, I- It's not definitive. Yeah.

I just feel like the more the humble, the road of humility is to say, I have a response the more the the the humble the road of humility. Yeah is to say I have a response And I think it's right, but ask me in five years after I've read and thought some more and I might Actually have a better response and any of these questions could turn into an hour long dialogue. Yes Yeah, so John's gonna force me to not allow that to happen. Oh Well, I better know. Continue to ask questions on behalf of these people, or it'll happen. Our first question comes from Andrew File, and here it is.

Hey guys, Andrew from Fresno, California. Thanks for the video. I've noticed that how you view the day of the Lord has a lot of implications from how you serve and how you engage the world. How do you go about having conversations with folks that have one of the extreme views that the world is going to burn and it's a picture of violence and wrath? How do you go about having conversations and challenging that view with those you interact with?

Thanks guys. Yeah, a really great question, Andrew. I mean, there's one sense in which any any view you hold on the day of the Lord will always be an extreme view. Because it's an extreme claim to make. No matter what your view is of how it will happen, it's a view that says something extreme will happen. Yeah, a crucified Jewish man 2,000 years ago has claimed to be raised from the dead in his invisible presence,

is with his followers for however long, leading up to the day when he's going to come physically again and remove evil and confront it from the world. That's a very extreme view to hold on, whatever, the meaning of life. So it makes sense why everybody's understanding That's a very extreme view to hold on, whatever, the meaning of life. So it makes sense why everybody's understanding of how this goes down is going to create some kind of extreme response.

You certainly can't be milk toast and how you hold that kind of view. Milk toast? Milk toast. What is that? It's just a phrase that means blah. Yeah? Yeah. I don't know that phrase. Lukewarm, I'm trying to think of a non-figure of speech.

Well, I get it now, but where does that come from? Milk toast. No, toast. Sorry, aren't you supposed to keep me from these rabbit traces? Ah, I just need to know now. Urban dictionary. Milk toast was often given to sick people as a bland diet, easy on the digestive tract. Milk toast soaked in milk. It's toast soaked in milk. Yeah, it's given to those who are sickly or weak. So it's the idea of I'm gonna give you a response response that really doesn't have, it won't irritate you.

Yeah, totally. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, wow. That's great. It's a milk toast. Yeah. Anyhow, so, okay, great question.

So your view won't be so soaked in milk. Yeah, so nobody's view is going to be average. It's not average view to hold about how history will culminate. not a average view to hold about how history will culminate. So yeah, some people believe that the world will be engulfed in great violence instigated or connected to Jesus' return or that the cosmos is gonna be dissolved by divine fire or that Jesus' defeat of evil is going to be as equally as creative and surprising

as his robbing evil of its power by the crucifixion, which blew everybody's minds. So I think the point, you said Andrew is really great, is conversation. You relate to people of different views by trying to understand them. Why do they hold that view? Yeah. And nobody, very few people hold a view on something that they don't think there are reasons for. So somebody who has a different view has what in their mind are good reasons. And so, I should try and understand those sympathetically, because I might be missing something. And then, you get to a place where you, if you disagree, you disagree. But the theology nerd term for this whole set of questions and issues in the Bible is eschatology. This means the final things.

The precise doctrine about the details of how history will end and geosophage of turn has never been a matter of core orthodoxy in the Christian tradition. In other words, Jesus, the Son of God, died for the sins of the world, was raised from the dead, he'll return. This is Apostle's Creed, classical Catholics, Protestants, whoever agrees. How and when Jesus will return? And what's the precise manner of him? Christians have disagreed as far

back as we can tell from the earliest centuries going out. There is no Orthodox view. There's just different views that some people think are more faithful or less faithful to the Bible, but those definitions differ from group to group. And so we just need a lot of humility in talking about these types of difficult topics in the Bible. One view that is very prevalent in Western Christianity. It's just the view that many American Protestants have grown up in. Yeah. Something's that what you're thinking.

Yeah, the view that, well, I grew up in, many American Protestants grew up in, is this very clear timeline of apocalyptic events that are gonna happen on the geopolitical stage. And then tied to the earth being destroyed and all this stuff. What's difficult is when you hold a view like that, it really has a lot of implications on your politics.

Yeah. And it has implications on how you decide you're going to live on the planet, take care of the planet or not. You know, so many real life implications. And so I think part of his question is, if this has so many implications for your life, and if you have an extreme view, then it's creating extreme implications. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, totally. It's very difficult to let go of certain conceptions that have really formed your imagination. So I think you're being really generous when you say, you can just talk to someone and just kind of work it out. I think people get really rooted in their ideas. Well, I don't know about work it out. I think most people just stay in whatever tradition formed their ideas about this topic in the first place. Yeah. And so, but switching, you know, listening to different voices that are really seriously engaging the Bible, to different voices that are really seriously engaging the Bible, but that offer a different point of view, it takes a lot of humility to be open, to changing your view, and then

changing your lifestyle, where the tradition of Christianity you associate with because of that. But this goes back to just being a follower of Jesus. I think this is just 101, like Jesus, Following Jesus requires a conviction about who Jesus is, but always recognizing I am probably fundamentally mistaken in many things that I believe about the whole package. And it's not being wishy-washy, it's just saying I should always be open to another point of view, especially if it's a view that's really somebody who's taking Jesus as teachings in the scriptures seriously.

And so, yes, different Christians will come to fundamentally opposite conclusions and ways of life on because of some of these topics. And someone's wrong. Yeah, somebody's wrong. Or everyone's wrong. Yeah, somebody's wrong. Or everyone's wrong. It's always the other person. You know? Yeah, I remember a number of my early professors

showed me this drawing of, there's many ways you can do it, but like concentric circles. And like at the core is what's classic Christian orthodoxy. You know what I just named earlier. Jesus is son of God, God embodied it as a human, lived, died for our sins, was raised, he's bringing his kingdom once for all, amen. That's at the center. And it's the moment you don't hold to any of those things, I don't know why you would want to be

associated with the Christian movement other than it's maybe has good moral teachings, but to hold those things is to be a Christian. But then around that is a whole bunch of really important issues. The fact that you hold this or that view on baptism or how a church ought to be organized, you know, or structured, or how people interact with the Holy Spirit or what's the work of the Holy Spirit right now. It was a really important thing, but they have historically had really diverse groups of Christians with different ideas, and so that's the second tier out, and we should be able to respectively differ. And then you can get a third tier out from there, and actually, I think out there is where this stuff about eschatology and the timing and nature of the return of

Jesus' is. But some people would fundamentally disagree with my tier system. Yeah, totally. I've met, yeah, I've got friends. I've met people who actually think that that's at the center. It's all one package. You can't like separate it out.

And I just, I disagree. I mean, how can it be a third tier thing when it implicates how you think human history is going to go down? Yeah, I don't mean third-tier in terms of less importance. I'm just talking about third-tier in our degree of certainty about the views that we hold on this very important topic. Yeah. The topic's extremely important. What I'm putting in third-tier is the degree of confidence or certainty that I'm gonna have that I am correct.

And that's the temperament thing, I guess. But I think it's a temperament that all of Jesus followers should have, because that's how Jesus rolled, you know what I say? Be humble and don't take yourself too seriously. That's a Jesus quote. Oh, sorry, that's me paraphrasing. That's me paraphrasing like, don't worry.

Okay. Tomorrow's got enough worries of its own. You worry about being faithful in this moment. I'm trying to summarize this term on the mountain in a sentence. I'm not doing a very good job. Anyway. All right. So this leads us into a good question by Matthew Leedy. Thanks for the work you do. My question is, how orthodox is the information you presented on the day of the Lord? In my post-truth culture, it is hard enough to have an open dialogue with my evangelical friends about topics

like this that have marinated in pop culture for so many years. I am wondering where these general views as you presented them fall along the spectrum of orthodox Christian thought. Are there certain ideas that are more controversial than others? Before you answer that question, let's do a really quick summary of what the view is that's being that we're discussing. Because I don't think there was this one really clear. We really intentionally try and craft all our videos

that they are capable of fitting within many views on most topics. But people listen through six hours of us talking. That's true. Yeah. And they come away going, oh, this is a view. How would you describe the view, do you think? Oh, well, the biblical view. I'm breaking my own rule of not being humble right now. You know, I was introduced to all of this in a class

that I first took in college, you know, on Christian eschatology. And so I learned all about the history of views on the millennium and this thousand years of Jesus reigning and what that refers to, tribulation, rapture, final judgment, all that. So there's views on all of those things. And so I read all those books and had to figure out position papers and all that kind of thing.

And then, and then I took even another class on the graduate level class on the same topic when I got to seminary. But over the years, as I've gone on and just read the Bible, the Bible doesn't fit cleanly into any of these systems. There are some pieces that seem to point towards some of those views and some don't. So there's actually very little of what we talked about in those day of the Lord podcasts that you can't find in almost all commentaries, good commentaries that are engaging the prophetic literature, biblical narrative, the book of Revelation, apocalyptic stuff in the New Testament. Probably the one thing that I

have developed a firm conviction about is the nature of nonviolence in Jesus' mission, which nobody disagrees about in terms of his ministry. Yeah. It was obviously the fact of nonviolence. Where Christians have differed is the role of divine violence in the Old Testament and how that relates to Jesus' conquering or victory and then how that connects to the manner of the day of the Lord coming in the future. And if that will involve more divine violence or divinely sanctioned violence, violence,

the Jesus commits, or if he'll continue on as nonviolent trajectory. Okay, so I think that's a big shift for many people. Yes. Potentially, it might be one of the things I mean with your view. Yeah. Yeah.

Nature of violence. nature of violence. Nature of violence. So yeah, whatever, I don't know Matthew, what specific things you're talking about in eschatology, but I think in terms of how people's views of, if there is some final culminating period of terrible war and tribulation or the rapture and how any of that fits in, what we're doing in the video could fit into any number of those views.

You just plug it in, but we just wanted it to stay really close to the biblical narrative and how the themes developed there. Yeah. I think Violet sets it apart. Yeah. Well, actually, I'd say the other thing was this idea of the archetypal view of Babylon, which again, could read good Old Testament scholarship of all stripes on the prophetic literature and on the revelation. And everybody agrees, yeah, that's what's happening.

Babylon is an image of all of the bad guys, including Israel, through Old Testament up to that point, and that it's John's, that the disagreement in modern views would be about the book of Revelation, is that if it refers to one specific world empire that is to come specifically the one that will be Babylon, that will be the reigning world empire when Jesus returns. Or is it referring to more than what we were trying to say, is play out the archetypal view and it meant for us to see Babylon in any and every human empire

leading up to whatever regime happens to be in power when Jesus does return. So those would be two different views. But again, most of the classic things, people really argue over, rapture and tribulation could fit within any any one of those yeah Tim John, thanks for all you guys do this is Chris from Park City Utah Just trying to figure out the connection between how we see Jesus Laying down his life and giving up his life in order to defeat evil in the new testament not giving into that promise of evil But that same God in the Old Testament seems to bring

plagues and one nation up against another nation where there's a battle or death, and that just seems like it kind of contradicts those two things and wondered if you could help me connect those dots. Thanks so much. Yeah, great question Chris. Yeah, thanks Chris, totally. So this was, we got a number of questions which are great about The nature of violence so non-violence in Jesus's whole mission. Yeah, and then non-violence non-violent confrontation Jesus was anything but passive

So I The word pacifist comes with too many other things that aren't helpful for understanding Jesus's use of non-violence. So Jesus was very confrontational, but he didn't, he clearly rejected violence as a means of doing what he was doing. And so then there are implications you have to think through in light of that, backwards. Right. How then do I think about divine violence. Because you can't get around the fact that there are many stories about people dying because they did something wrong, right? They turned to stone. Well, specifically just being like, yeah, the fact down in the tabernacle. Yeah, like totally. People dying. People get worked over. Yeah That's because of divine violence divine. I haven't mentioned God yet

So the reason why these all these stories are about a person or people who die yeah because of actions attributed to God Yeah divine violence divine so how do we the so it's backwards? Yes How does the divine portraits of divine violence in the first three quarters of the Christian Bible relate to Jesus who not only chooses, advocates, and demands and non-violence of his disciples, but actually says that how he is reflects the heart of God, be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful and gracious and kind to ungrateful and evil men. Compare that to show the canonites no mercy. So as God merciful, or as God shows enemies no mercy. So there's the surface level tension there, backwards, and then there's a there's a tension forwards with how you think which model do you think God's going to use to defeat evil at the

culmination of history? The... Zach people. Yeah, the Old Testament, divine violence model, or the Jesus style. I'm not saying I'm even happy with that way of setting up the question, but that's how it appears to us. Yes. And so typically people will either just say, well, sometimes God chops people's heads off as an act of judgment and he's God, he can do that. Yeah. When Jesus came, he didn't take that route and God's merciful. And so God can do both. Well, I think this is where the wrath, the God's wrath

coming on Jesus solves a problem for people. So you have a God who needs to show his wrath and has been doing that. And then you have Jesus who doesn't deserve it, takes it. And so now you have an opportunity. It's like this moment in time where you can opt out of God's wrath. But at one point in the future, it's gonna be off the table again. And then God's going to unleash more wrath. So that's the logic. Yep, that's right, that is the logic. There's a handful of problems

with that way of framing things. All of those problems have to do with the Bible. Okay. But the Bible itself poses some interesting challenges and doesn't quite say exactly that logical train of thought. You have to take some things out of context and string them together into a new thing. But it's like all of our attempts.

They usually we're not intentionally trying to distort the Bible, but we often inevitably do so. We're trying to make sense of it. We're trying to make sense of it and tie things together. Yeah. So there's a few things. First, just in terms of the wrath, you won't find a sentence in the Bible that says God punished Jesus.

Okay. Where did Jesus suffer the wrath of God? You actually won't. And trust me, I promise you. I've both held that view for a long time until I read the Bible a lot, and then I intentionally went on the search and I couldn't find that. What you find is statements about God handing Jesus over the Father hands over the Son. What you get the most clear statement you get of not that, but the people often mistake it as the Father punishing the Son.

Or God punishing Jesus is in Romans 8. One through four where God says, where Paul, excuse me, Paul the Apostle says that God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful human existence, flesh, so that he could condemn sin in the flesh of Jesus. So what God is punishing is not Jesus, he's punishing evil in Jesus. How? And this all has to, all of this, at least as far as I can tell, goes back to that conversation we had in the podcast about consequence versus punishment. And this is really what it's rooted so much

as this conversation is rooted in, is how does God punish people? What is the nature of God's wrath? And what you discover is that the Old Testament, specifically, has a really sophisticated way of talking about God's punishment. And most often, by most often, eight out of 10, which is four out of five.

Four out of five. And 16 out of 20. It's exactly. It's God handing people over. In fact, this is the phrase to give over in Hebrew, it's the verb natan, to give people over to the consequences of their decisions. So we talked about this in the podcast.

What was God's punishment on Jerusalem for centuries of covenant unfaithfulness? Well, you read Ezekiel, and he's first person speech in the mouth of God, I'm gonna bring the sword after you, I'm going to strike you, I'm going to, okay. So God's taking responsibility for what's about to happen to Jerusalem,

but what is it that actually happened to Jerusalem? Like, to divine lightning didn't strike it from the sky. Babylonian armies came and sacked the city. Why did they do that? Well, it's Rezekiel. Or Rejeromaya, King Zedekaya had made a treaty with the king of Babylon. He broke the treaty and was forming secret alliances with other nations, planning to rebel.

King Nebuchadnezzar finds out about it and he won't tolerate it. So what's the explanation for why Jerusalem fell? Well, in one sense, it was just really bad politics on the king's, on the part of the kings of Judah, but the prophets interpret that and speak on God's behalf and say, that is my punishment on you. That's me bringing a sword. It's me. What's that saying? You, the kings of Judah, rejecting the God of Israel

and choosing to form military alliances with their neighbors, instead of trusting that God would keep his people safe. Even if it means the Babylonians come, but because they rejected trusting the God of Israel, he's giving them over to the consequences of their decisions. And the prophets don't view the consequence and punishment as separate things. They're the same thing. And that's right through, it goes all the way back to the garden.

The day that you eat of the tree out of an Eve, you will die. And then the eat of the tree out of an eve, you will die. And then the eat of the tree. And what happens? I mean, everybody, every reader going back to ancient times has noticed what doesn't happen. They don't die.

Well, they don't die, but what they do get banished, they forfeit their opportunity at the first partnership, business partnership, and they're banished from the temple, the garden, which means they're now separated from close proximity to the author of life, and so they die eventually. And so the consequence is the punishment, and that goes just right through the whole testament. And so when Paul says, God handed Jesus over to death. Who's perpetrating the violence against Jesus? Roman soldiers. And as a result of a rigged trial,

pulled by the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem. And so in one sense, it's human violence perpetrated against Jesus. But God takes responsibility for it. God handed Jesus over to die for our sins and to be raised for our justification, like Paul says in Romans 4. And so you see this pattern where God punishes evil by handing humans over to the consequences of their decision.

And what's happening in the story of Jesus is God handing the Father handing over his son. And Jesus not going unwillingly. He hands himself over, read the gospel narratives. He's like, I'm the one in power here. Remember what he says to Pilate? You have no power over me, except what's been given to you. And I give over my life willingly. So Jesus hands himself over.

Jesus becomes the place where God punishes sin by handing himself over to our evil and to let our evil do its work. By bearing the consequences. Yeah, and so Jesus is bearing the wrath of God and what's the wrath of God? It's handing a human over to the consequences of human evil, except that human is God Himself embodied in the person of Jesus. And so it's that our categories of separating out punishment and consequence don't help us understand what's going on in the cross.

That's one layer of the question. So when you go back and you look at the Old Testament, narratives, portraits of divine violence. I went, I said eight out of 10, so 405, portrait of divine violence. God takes responsibility for it, but if you read the actual narrative of the violence, it's humans committing the violence. In other words, it's very rare to find a narrative where in the narrative, God is directly doing the violence. And even the ones that you assume, you think for sure you already know, are God doing it?

There's so interesting, there are little details there that show that the biblical authors themselves are deflecting or trying to show you some deeper truth. For example, in the final plague in Egypt, the death of the firstborn. So Pharaoh kills the firstborn of the Israelites, I for I, two for two, right? And Exodus 12, I'm going to strike the firstborn of the Egyptians. All pass through, all strike, and then you read read Exodus to you read the narrative and then God says I'm going to pass through and I will Give the destroyer to kill the firstborn

The person who actually does the killing or the entity doing the killing is all of a sudden in Exodus 12 We'll just read it to you. It's so fascinating the whole chapter. You're like oh gods Gonna kill babies. Yeah, he says it. It's not. It's so gnarly. Yeah, Exodus 12, 12. I will go through the land. I will strike down the firstborn of Egypt. The blood will be assigned to you in the houses where you live. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. I, I, I, I, I, I, then you actually read the narrative, verse 23, for the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, he'll see the blood and won't allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you.

Who's the destroyer? Exactly. So, dude, are you ready? I'm ready. This is Christmas of way more than you asked for. But it's really fascinating. The destroyer is an evil being who appears in a handful of narratives

where you see plagues spreading, like the strike of a plague. It happens in second Samuel 24, where David does this military census of the people of Israel and God's really angry at him. And so God says, pick your punishment, and David chooses plague on his people instead of a number of his other punishments.

And then God says, I'm going to bring this on you, and then who appears in angelic being, bringing destruction called the destroyer. This one's even more fascinating in the grumbling narratives in the wilderness where God opens like the earthquake that opens up and swallows up that guy Korra and his old crew, the snakes that come, invite people and kill them. So you read the stories and it just seems like direct divine violence. If you read in the New Testament, if you go to

1 Corinthians 10, where Paul's warning the Corinthians of how they're taking the Lord's supper in a way that's dishonoring the poor people in their midst. And he says, you had to stop that. It's a really bad idea. You're going to shame poor people in the name of Jesus. Don't mess. With Jesus, don't mess with the poor in Jesus' name. he'll, he doesn't like that. And then he warns them, he says, don't be like the Israelites, who grumbled, don't grumble like some of the Israelites did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. And you will read the book of Numbers, all seven of the grumbling narratives, and the destroyer does not appear once. So what Paul has done is he's developed based on the appearance of the destroyer does not appear once. So what Paul has done is he's developed based on the appearance of the destroyer. In the Exodus story, he's formed a method

of interpreting divine violence. And where he sees God doing direct divine violence, he assumes that that divine violence was God giving people over to some destructive force that is the thing that killed them. In this case, the plague, the destroyer refers to a plague in almost all the cases where it occurs. So modern Westerners, we think, oh, well, it was just a plague happened, and then the biblical authors were like, that was God. Right. But that's so foreign to the biblical mindset. This is a deep rabbit hole.

This is great. Okay. Keep going. Okay. So flood story. Let's take the flood story, for example. There's direct divine violence. Totally.

Just taking over the whole world. Yes. Okay. So God says the heart of evil is only evil. Heart of humanity. Heart of humanity is only evil all the time. I'm done. I regret making humanity on the earth.

This is the introduction to the flood story in Genesis 6. And so I'm going to wipe the earth clean. So, okay, so God takes responsibility. In all these cases, God takes responsibility. But that what I'm saying is- And when you say that, he's not saying, I'm the one who is at fault,

not that kind of responsibility. He's saying responsibility in that I'm going to solve this. I'm gonna be the one that brings a conclusion to this. Well, yeah, by take, I mean, I like the phrase- Yeah, what do you mean when you say take responsibility? Well, what I like about the phrase God's taking responsibility is in these narratives, the face of how you're reading is God saying, I'm doing this. Yeah.

I'm responsible for this. I'm going to do this. But then you read the story. I'm responsible for this. And it's God. I'm not responsible for how the humans were acting. I'm going to be responsible for what I'm going to do. You're throwing up your hands in the air.

Yeah, I am. I'm just be patient with me. Right. Be patient. So, for God to take responsibility, one, just read the narratives where God judges people. Okay. Four times out of five, eight out of 10,

six out of 20, it's God handing people over to what humans would see is just the natural, let's not use that word. It's just the consequences, not natural consequences, the consequences of a bad, a bad, stupid, selfish, sinful decision. Yeah, cause effect. Cause and effect.

And God takes responsibility for that and says, that's me. That's me, I did that to you. So we're into the worldview of Proverbs here of the moral universe and cause and effect. Right. Okay. So there's that. Then there are other narratives where it doesn't seem like there's any human agent. There's no Babylonian sacking Jerusalem. Yeah. That God can say I did it and you read it's about. So Exodus. But then there when you think that it's God directly, there's these little textual details that

say the destroyer. It's some kind of malevolent, something that is called by a phrase you think refers to some sort of evil spiritual being, but then in other narratives, the destroyer is identified, like in 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2, 2, 2nd, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, second, second, 24 as a plague. And therefore, when Paul reads other narratives of divine violence, he inserts some other agent into the story.

He just assumes that must be what happens. That's right. That's very important for what I'm saying right now. As you can see the biblical Paul doing this, he's making an interpretive... Yeah, what does Paul know? You know what I'm saying? doing this, he's making an interpretive... Yeah, but what is Paul, though? You're not saying. He inserts some other agent doing the actual violence to people in the wilderness narratives

and numbers. So all the way back to the flood, which is a different kind of example, the violence and the undue, the undue, the cause of the death, right, of humans in the flood, it's not lightning. It's the windows of the heavens, start raining. The rakia. Yep, and the springs of the deep burst. Now this goes all the way back to Genesis 1. And you can go through the way the description of the rain starts. And it's it's item by item a disintegration of what God brought into order in Genesis 1.

Sky, land, sea, the types of creatures that Noah brings on the boat, the types of creatures that then die. And this is not just me. This is people have noticed this for a very long time. The flood story is depicted in the language of the undoing of the order that God brought about. It's de-creation. So God is giving the earth over to back to Tohuvavahu

in chaos. And so even in that example, it's God, so chaos is always crashing at your doors, just like the ocean waves. Yeah. Second law thermo dynamics. Well, yeah. Yeah, we, yeah, we can translate another categories, but like, let's, why is the sea identified with chaos? Well, man, you go to the beach. Oh, it's coming. It's just like, it's always coming at you, but it's God set a boundary for it. My piece says in Job and says, here, your proud way is halved.

No more. So the land is the place of order, except the desert, right? And so the flood is portrayed in this ancient, you know, it's a it's a deep, an inch away of viewing the world that the flood is God letting the waters to go, releasing his imposition of order on creation and giving creation back over to the forces of chaos that are always crashing at the beach.

Yeah, okay. It's a giving over. It's giving, it's another handing over. In Genesis 1, it's him imposing order and that he has to sustain that. Correct. And then in Genesis 6, it's him letting go of that. Correct.

And giving it over. Yeah, this is why in so many of the creation poems, later poems like Psalm 74, where God creating is depicted in his battle of crushing the seven headed dragon, Psalm 74. And it's also not just creation, it's creation and order because he says sun and moon, stars and seasons. So God's, the fact that the world is ordered,

rather than disordered, is because of God's constant sustaining presence. But the moment that he hides his face, which is a common phrase, Old Testament phrase, rejudgment, and hands people over, or hands creation over, and withdraws his presence, chaos descends. So whether that's the flood, whether that's plague,

or whether that's malevolent evil forces, or whether that's giving evil humans over to other evil humans. And so all of this is one thing in the mind of the biblical authors. And so when God hands Jesus over, this is God handing himself over to our evil, and simultaneously taking responsibility for it at the same time. That's why I like the phrase taking responsibility, because on the cross God takes responsibility for human evil.

He allows it to determine his death sentence. You know what I'm saying? I've got a paradox to get your mind around this, but it's God takes responsibility and takes upon himself the death sentence. So if he would have handed over humanity in this way we've been talking, it would have been death for humans. Yes.

And so, let's page three of Genesis, right? Yeah, you'll die. Yeah. Jesus's death on the cross is God handing himself over. Instead of handing us over, you said, I'll hand myself over. I will take that. Yeah.

Myself being the Trinitarian Self, right? Yeah. The Father handing over the Son and the Son's empowered by the Spirit to do so and that kind of thing. And that will be my wrath, my judgment and my judgment. And that is me defeating evil. That's a separate thing. Well I think we, where we landed was we like the phrase robbing evil of its power. Yeah, but man, the New Testament authors don't mix their words. They call it a victory. Yeah, a decisive victory. Yeah, remember Paul. He made a public humiliation spectacle of the powers of evil human and spiritual when he triumphed over them on the cross. Yeah.

Or the whole revelation, book of Revelation is about the victory of the Lamb and the conquering of the Lamb and his followers through dying. So the New Testament authors describe it as God's day of the Lord victory, but stage one that will be completed when Jesus returns. And so this is why, ultimately, I think the readings of the final day of the Lord and the culmination of history that understand Jesus coming back and exerting divine violence, chopping people's heads off and this kind of thing. In my mind, it's just, it's like whiplash. At the end of the story,

because that is in no way consistent with how this is been a wonderful thing. This God has been pushing. Because you've already been seeing, okay, humans have been deserving of death. And retribution as opposed. Because we unleash death on each other. As consequence, yeah. of death and retribution as opposed to as a consequence. And what you actually see is a lot of God being really generous in spite of that.

I mean, even in the Canaan Abel story, like Cane kills his brother and then God marks him and says, but notice the punishment there is banishment. Yeah. God withdraws himself from Cain and his evil. Yeah, so there's still a consequence. Yep. But in spite of the consequences, you find God constantly trying to like,

you know, he's patient, slow to anger. Yes, yes. Loving and so he's bearing people's sin. Yeah. And so you see that and then you get to Jesus and you see his handing over in this now very remarkable and counterintuitive way and then that's tied to not only is he handing himself over instead of handing us over it's also tied to his victory over evil. Correct.

Yeah. And that poses some interesting questions because we still experience evil. Yes. Yeah. So we've used the phrase robbing evil of its power. There was some sort of victory that happened. The victory is that death ultimately didn't maintain its hold on Jesus. Yeah. I mean the cross is in a victory and without the empty tomb. Evil will not be able to keep its hold over.

Evil was unable to keep its hold over Jesus. Therefore he is offered God's ultimate love. It's like the antidote. It's like he came up with the antidote. Yeah. You know, no one had a way to combat evil, right? Evil always won. Like evil's promise of power, the way that it snares you and then leads you to death, it's like this irreversible thing, like a virus. And then Jesus comes and says, nope, not anymore. It doesn't have to lead to death.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a victory. And that's, yeah. That's like a geneticist celebrating that he just came up with a new antidote. antidote. I don't know. That's a good metaphor. Others, there's lots of, lots of good metaphors. I should say, this is all on the top of my head, because I recently had to give a teaching on divine violence and Old Testament. So I have a recent stack of books in my head. Okay, I can spell all of this. Yeah, on the top of my head.

So then you say it's whiplash because you get to then a discussion about the future of creation and humanity and how God's going to make things right. How he'll deal and confront evil once and for all ultimately. Evil and us. And us and the, yes, that's right. Right. Well, that's right.

And the inner twining of us with evil, because evil is crushing at our doors and wants to evolve. Yes. Have a, have his way with us. So it's whip lash because you're saying, We're twining of us with evil, because evil is crushing at our doors and wants to have his way with us. So it's whiplash because you're saying... If all along, even though God has been taking responsibility for our evil, even though he himself, in many of most of these narratives, isn't perpetrating it, he's handing people over to the evil consequences and violence, but God takes responsibility for it

in much of the Old Testament. That's the same pattern that you see displayed in Jesus. Is Jesus takes responsibility for the centuries of covenant rebellion of Israel. Jesus dies as a violent revolutionary against Rome when he himself wasn't. He is a bearing and taking responsibility for his people's evil and for human evil. And what is the result? He eats the consequences. He's handed over to death. And that is God's wrath. That's the biblical pattern of how God punishes his handing people over.

But he puts him, he hand himself over. So he did that with Jesus. Because then the question becomes now in the future. Correct. When he still has to deal with the Babylon's we're creating and the systemic problems and also just people. Why can't he hand over with like plagues and fire and brimstone and those kind of things with the destroyer? Why can't this be the way it goes down? Well, at the end of times. Yeah, well, so the only real depictions we have

are a couple of apocalyptic type passages in the New Testament. Jesus offers one, talking about the fall of Jerusalem in the Gospels, Paul in his letters to the Thessalonians and then of course the book of Revelation. But once again, if you read slowly in context, reading these apocalyptic texts, the way they're designed to be read, which is connecting all this imagery as imagery, the divine judgment on Babylon in the book of Revelation is,

we talked about this in the podcast, it's the ten plagues put in a blender, and with the volume turned up, which doesn't actually answer the question of, okay, well, what do these images refer to? Sure. Because on one level, locusts and plagues and, yeah, you know. So it's got handing creation back over to disorder.

It's got handing creation over to its own evil. Yeah. To self-destruct. So that could still happen in certain ways. And it does today. It happens every day. It happens every day. Okay. Yeah. So it's not, and if you want to say that's violence, divine violence, then okay, then divine violence is still happening, right? Yeah, it's God allowing His creation to sink into chaos. Chaos that's caused, what we would separate it out as modern Western people, natural chaos and human moral chaos, but the biblical authors viewed all as one, intertwined package.

One place that this really comes to a head talking about violence is in the revelation you have the image of Jesus riding in on a white horse and he's got blood all over his ropes and traditionally you would think okay yeah because Jesus is gonna kick some butt and so obviously now he's bloody from battle. But when we talked about that, you made a point of that being his own blood. Yes. We actually have a good question from Robin Reppel about that. Hi, John and Tim.

I'm Robin Rumpel, Haley, and at the moment from North Carolina. My question is perhaps a bit picky, but surfaces are the deeper underlying question about the literary structure of the revelation. Several times in your video, on the revelation, and also in your podcast on the Day of the Lord, you've made a point that in John's vision of Jesus as the hiking city on a white horse in Revelation 19, the blood on his robe is his own and that this vision segment is about Jesus's return. However, the reasons you give seem to me to be confusing and I'm just wondering if somehow your hermeneutics are conflicted. Thanks.

So she actually sent some more information on that question. So when she said your hermeneutics are conflicted, I think what she was referring to is how the revelation, in the way we talked about it, wasn't this chronological sequence of events, but really the hinge for why that wouldn't be the blood of the people he was destroying is because the battle hadn't started yet, so it was appealing to chronology.

When chronology wasn't that important in other parts of the revelation, so I think that's what she meant by a conflict deterministic. But in general, I think there is a lot of push back with that interpretation of it being Jesus's blood. Yeah, we got a couple of questions about that too. Yeah. So is this a bit of a stretch? Yeah. Have other people interpreted that way? Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, I didn't make up the idea. I've started reading people who were way smarter than me and found like, oh man, there's so many really, really sharp, biblical scholars, present and past, who have argued for that. You actually can't start with that scene of Jesus writing in on the horse to make the full case for that.

It's about the depiction of Jesus and His army as a victorious, as a theme that runs throughout the whole book of Revelation. And so it goes all the way back to the letters to the seven churches, where multiple of people in these churches are being persecuted. He mentions churches being put in prison, some have died, Christians have died as martyrs. But yet every letter he talks about how that each of these communities can become overcomers or conquerors. To the one who overcomes Jesus makes a promise of vindication and stuff like that. So that raises the question of, oh, this is persecuted religious minorities, but John is telling them that they can be the conquerors.

It's like military language. What does that mean? And then in the next vision, Revelation 4 and 5, Jesus is introduced as the conqueror. It's the same word. It as the one who conquers. And it's really important before Jesus is introduced onto the scene, he hears Jesus being announced, like a king entering a throne room. He hears, and the elders in the vision say, is behold, it's the lion of the tribe of Judah and the root of David who is conquering, who has conquered.

And so those are both Old Testament, texts, lion of Judah, Genesis 49, root of David, Isaiah 11. And in both of those cases, it's God raising up the Messianic King as a violent conqueror and destroyer of wicked people. In Genesis it's like the lion tears and slashes and bites off the bad guys' heads. Yeah, lions are brutal, definitely. Yeah, totally. So it's very important, this is the introductory scene of Jesus in the near comes the lion.

Here comes the lion. And so he's introduced as the lion, and as the victorious messianic butt kicking killed the bad guys, Messiah of Isaiah 11, that's what John hears. So that's the announcement made over the love speakers. And then when he looks, the one who walks through the door, what he sees is a lamb, a helpless lamb with its throat slit and dripping covered in its own blood. And that's Jesus throughout the whole rest of the vision of the revelation until the moment on the white horse is the first time Jesus is depicted as not the bloody lamb. So if you read through Revelation 4 and 5 all the way through to chapter 19 where he

appears on the horse, every time Jesus is depicted or referred to as the slaughtered lamb. And so this image of the slaughtered lamb obviously is connected to Jesus' sacrificial death. Yes, that's right. And yeah, it's a metaphor talking about Jesus is the victorious Messianic King that the prophets were talking about, the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 49 as well. But his victory didn't come from being this ferocious lion that could rip people apart. His victory came from being a home sacrificial lamb. And in so doing, they aren't contradicting the Old Testament. What they're doing is picking up another strand of Old Testament promise that becomes all the way back to Genesis 3 when God promised that a seed of the

woman, a descendant of Eve, would come to crush the serpent. But his victory over this, Genesis 3, 15, this descendant's victory will happen by himself being struck by the serpent. And then that gets played out, especially in Isaiah's depiction of the suffering servant king. So within the book of Isaiah, you've got as day 11, but kicking killed a bad guy's king. But then later in the book of Isaiah, you find out that that figure is going to be victorious by giving up his own life.

So there's two ways to deal with that. The first way is to say there's two different modes, gods and warrior mode, and then he's in sacrificial mode, and he's going to go back to warrior mode. Yeah. Yeah, sure. The second way is to say there's some strange interplay between these two, which is the way God actually wages war is through sacrifice. Yes, yeah. You have both those portraits in the Old Testament and what Jesus seems to have done

is as red them in light of each other, but reinterpreted the divine violence as an image of conquering by sacrificial love and giving up his life. And if that's then your position, which is, that's what Jesus did, then do you begin to reinterpret any divine violence as that or is there still room for some butt kicking into the tradition? Let's finish the thread from the lamb to the white horse. Okay. So from that scene where Jesus is called the slain lamb who conquers his enemies by dying for them. That's what that image means. Then from there in chapter 7, the

army of the lamb is introduced and the army of the lamb is introduced, and the army of the lamb is introduced as a crowd of people from all nations who have washed their robes white in the blood of the lamb. So obviously, a beautiful mixing of metaphors, they've become pure. It's impossible to do. That's right.

Try to make a robe white with blood. Yeah, totally. But symbolically, it, the point is the blood using Leviticus purification sacrifice imagery of through the blood they have become the pure ones. And then later in Revelation 12, where it's the battle between the dragon and the army of the lamb. It's such a great line.

In Revelation 12, 10 and 11, our brethren, the army of the Lamb, overcomes the dragon because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of their testimony, because they didn't love their lives even unto death. So not only does the Lamb triumph and conquer by giving up his life, but the army of the Lamb conquers the dragon. Conquer the dragon. Con by the blood of the Lamb. Conquer the dragon. Conquer the dragon in Revelation 12 by the word of their testimony, speaking the truth of the gospel, the good news that King Jesus died for his enemies.

Which is kind of similar to the sword in the mouth. Exactly. Yeah, that's where I'm going. And then they overcome with the blood of the Lamb, which is explained as they gave up their lives. So then you come to the right. So they conquered the dragon by giving up their lives. Giving up their lives and by their words, by proclaiming Jesus as the true king before the dragon. Even if the dragon kills them,

we're dying just like our king died in an act of sacrificial witness against the dragon kills them, we're dying just like our king died in an act of sacrificial witness against the dragon and his violence. And thereby we conquer him. That's what it says, they conquered him through the blood of the lamb. So that lays, there's actually more clues to this puzzle, but those are the main ones. And when you get to Jesus, you're already prepared. Jesus on the white horse. Jesus on the white horse with blood on his robes

and a sword in his mouth. You already know what these images mean. Blood on the robes is an image of purification. Being the pure one who has died on behalf of the testimony or on the message. And so. But it's also polling from that Isaiah image. Okay, yes, you may have.

So there's kind of a dual thing over there. Yeah, so the other thing is in that, okay, now we're in Revelation 19, the writer on the white horse. So Jesus isn't your dude, that paragraph is just a load of old Testament hyperlinks. It's really, it's remarkable. Here, I'll just do it,

because you get the effect. It's Revelation 1911 Here, I'll just do it because you get the effect. It's Revelation 1911. So I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse. And the one who sat on it is called faithful and true. That phrase faithful and true is a play on some things going on in Hebrew and Isaiah 62. In righteousness, he judges and waits as war. That's a quotation from Psalm 96. His eyes are a flame of fire. That's a quotation from Daniel 11. On his head or many diadams, he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself that certainly a lusion back to the

divine name that is unknown, but then God reveals us known to Moses in the burning bush. Okay. And then he's clothed with a robe dipped in blood. And that's an image from Isaiah 63. Of trotting the wine press alone. Yeah, so Isaiah 63, we actually, we talked about it in the day earlier in the podcast. It's an image of God comes on the day of vengeance,

the day of the Lord, stomping grapes, as an image of him stomping his enemies. Yeah, destroying the nations. And it's the stomping, the treading of the wine press of his wrath that spatters their juice all over his garments. It's the stomping that makes the road bloody. And what John has done is he separated the stomping from the how you get bloody. Right. And so he introduces Jesus as bloody before he mentions the treading the winepress of the wrath.

In Isaiah 63, they're closely connected. In this scene, Jesus is bloody before any stomping begins. Before the battle begins. Before the battle begins. Yeah, he's still, again, he's still showing up. Now, how important is that? That's, I think Robyn's question is, is the chronology that important?

Oh, no, I'm not talking about chronology. I'm talking about the sequence of the sentences in the paragraph. So John has hyperlinked to a passage in Isaiah 63 where the sequences God comes stomping on his enemies and that's what makes him bloody. Yes. And John has disturbed that sequence in Isaiah 63 and reversed it. So he comes bloody because he's gonna, but he's gonna stomp. Yes, which redefines what it means for Jesus to stomp, and that's what the whole revelation has been doing.

Stomping is another image for conquering. How does Jesus conquer? How does Jesus wage war? How does Jesus gain victory over his enemies? How does Jesus confront evil? He does it with a sword coming out of his mouth, which we already are prepared for that. It's the testimony. It's the gospel that exposes the truth about Babylon and says no more.

So one, and then two, the means of his conquering is the rogue-tipped in blood, namely the slain lamb who gives up his life. The saints who don't love their lives even unto death. the slain lamb who gives up his life, the saints who don't love their lives even unto death. So John, the revelation is very intentional in how John introduces key words and images, like blood and conquering. And then you watch him, he leaves a trail of breadcrumbs. All you do is read through the book quickly with a highlighter just looking for one or two key words at a time. And you'll see he's left these trails of themes that he develops throughout the book, one by one. And so this image of conquering by blood, by giving up your life as a key one.

And it comes to its culmination right here. So my point would be, yes, he's reading Isaiah 63, but he has fundamentally transformed the images in light of his depiction of Jesus as the wounded victor. And I know, and I'm totally not the only person who reads the revelation this way. Leon Morris, classic, down the line, Orthodox, Protestant commentator. He makes a whole case of this. Ian Bauxhall, a lot many commentators. Some don't. Some think that you should import the divine stomping

from Isaiah 63 and that overrides. Yeah. Right? But in my mind, you can't just say, he's quoting Old Testament, you have to ask, what's he doing with these Old Testament images? And I think you can make the best case that accounts for the whole book is that he's transformed

the divine violence of the Old Testament images In light of the cross. Okay, so we've talked about this for a while now, but let me try to summarize please do the whole violence thing. Yeah I came with this constructors saying hey look isn't it as simple as God Can have divine violence against people and he has in the Old Testament. That's kind of his typical mode. That's like default mode.

And, but here comes Jesus. And it's this kind of like one time only special of get out of God's divine wrath because his wrath was put on Jesus instead. There's a little opportunity for switch. But that's not gonna be on Jesus instead. There's a little opportunity for switch, but that's not going to be on sale forever right? And the day of the Lord is coming and

Got it. If you haven't signed up, you're gonna get back to what was the default mode, which is the bug kicking Jesus getting stopped and This time by Jesus. Yeah, so there's that construct. When you have that construct, you get to a passage like Jesus, bloodied with battle that comes from an image of God stomping the wine press. And you can see, like, okay, cool. This is Jesus.

Mm-hmm. You can bump. No more Mr. Nice guy. No more Mr. Nice guy. And you can see like okay cool. Yeah, this is this is Jesus You can know more mr. Nice guy no more mr. Nice guy. Yeah Okay, so what you've done is you said okay? Let's let's start again first of all divine Justice divine violence, I should say in the old testament. Testament. It's actually pretty nuanced. Yes. Four to five times, eight out of ten, sixteen out of twenty, thirty two out of forty times. It's not actually God doing it. It's nature, it's natural consequences. Just consequences. It's consequences.

For which God takes responsibility. That's the phrase you've been using. It's consequences. For which God takes responsibility. Yeah, that's the phrase you've been using. Takes responsibility. He's like, hey, no, no, I was behind that. Even though it was betrayed as just a normal consequence. And you brought out the Exodus passage that also, well, and so even on those times where you're like, well, this is obviously God, those one out of five times, even those are often. Yep.

Some other agent of the violence is introduced. Yeah, even the destroyer. Even the disinterested. Mysterious agent. Yeah. Okay, and remember, we're not making this up. Paul the Apostle was tracking with this trend. Yes, and he himself inserted.

Imported the destroyer into the numbers. Other stories where the destroyer doesn't appear. Yeah. Which means that he's worked out of theology that even when God does direct divine violence, it's still him handing people over to something other. And that becomes the key term is handing over. And I loved that idea of God is sustaining the creative, created order. And he's, he is actually making things.

He's giving order. He is his own power 24, seven imposing order. Yeah. So the crazy doesn't implode. And so the consequence is him just saying, I'm going to let unfold what will naturally unfold because of the disorder you're trying to create. Mm-hmm I'm not going to create more order out of your disorder. I'm just gonna let the disorder be. Yeah Yeah, and so you want tohuvahahu? Yeah, you want formalist and void. Yeah, then have it Yeah, then Jesus comes there's this weird thing where... Well, sorry, but I back up and say, but also within the Old Testament itself, there is another strand, another theme of that the real victory over evil at its root, Genesis

3, 15, is going to come by a wounded victor. That's true. So you have within the Old Testament multiple strands or ideas about how people get ultimately defeated. Yeah. So, okay, so here's my question then. Well, and then to finish the loop, Jesus comes, he is handed over on our behalf.

That is God's wrath. Jesus taking the consequence that should have been ours. And so then the question becomes, but that consequence is humans doing violence to Jesus. Yeah. So it's still human violence perpetrating the evil. Yeah. Is God's wrath?

And God takes responsibility. Jesus takes responsibility. He intentionally puts himself in the place of a violent Jewish rebel against Rome to take responsibility for Israel's violence and all humanity's violence. And the followers of Jesus then, empowered by the spirit are called to live this type of life,

of surrender, of sacrificial love. And then where it becomes really clear as in the revelation, John is trying to make a point is like, this is how you have victory. This is how you conquer. It seems completely backwards, but this is the message is how you conquer. Yeah. And he's not the only one who did that. Think of some famous lines and pausletters like Ephesians. First of all, our enemies are not flesh.

There is a war on, there is a conflict against evil, but the enemy is not human. It's a darker, spiritual evil that makes humans commit violence and evil against each other. And therefore the armor and the sword and the shield of Christian warfare is truth. You don't write salvation, the scriptures, the armor of God is another way of both of those themes of the the the enemy isn't human so don't kill humans thinking that you're solving the real problem and two the armor and weapons are all metaphorical for Christian virtues or for the gospel so Paul the Apostle is totally on the same wavelength as the author of the revelation. This John who wrote the revelation had a more creative imagination.

Yeah, with his symbolic imagery. Yeah. That he mostly derived from the Old Testament. From the Old Testament. Yeah. Okay, with all that in mind, does God still kick some butt sometimes? Right? The sheep in the goats, right? Yeah. Or the wheat in the

tares. It's like God's going to come and he's going to say, you guys are cool. You guys are not cool. And the images you get are of weeping. So the sheep in the goats, it's like... Well, both of those just have to do a separation. There's coming a moment when God will separate out evil from His creation. But it's pretty violent and... Like... There's a variety of images. The Jesus uses in His own teachings. There's a variety of images that Paul uses and that's used in the revelation.

And many of them conflict on the literal level, fire or darkness. Well, which one is it? Well, that's not the wrong question, because they both are meaningful depictions of what happens to evil if it is contained and left to itself eternally. So darkness is the image of isolation and blindness. Fire is an image of obviously destruction.

And decomposition. Disintegration. Obviously weeping and gnashing of teeth is our images of resentment and grief. Sorrow, grief. And then containment or separation, the image of being outside the city. And then Paul's image in First Sessalonians 1 is away from the face of the Lord, which actually is a phrase that he borrowed from Isaiah chapter 2.

But it's the garden banishment image. It's if I don't want to be a part of God's creation where the key value is love for The other is more important than myself, which is what Jesus embodied. If I don't want to be a part of a world where the Economy of relationships and all other relationships on all levels is the other is more important than me and all other relationships on all levels is the other is more important than me. If I don't want to live in that world and the high demand that it places on me, then God won't allow anyone or anything to spoil that world that he's going to create. And so he contains evil and the only references to its ultimate destiny and those who choose it are these images that we just surveyed. I don't need anything more than those images personally. To make you want to not be...

Yeah, I don't need any more information. I don't want to know. That's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to love my neighbor and not kill people thinking that I'm accomplishing something, right? Something that's actually going to solve the real problems of the human condition. So one thing you can say then from this construct that you're saying, which you're calling biblical. And it's again, it's not just mine, it's me reading lots and lots of other people,

but it seems to me, it's more consistent with what I see going on in the Bible than the first contract. Oh, yes. You've made a very good case. It seems like what the Bible is saying about how God is gonna deal with evil. The problem of evil and in us, but also in the created order is to conquer it through

sacrifice. And that, it just boggles the mind because, okay, that worked maybe at one point and maybe that'll work for me, but that can't work on a universal scale. Like, you're not going to change the whole world that way. Don't you have to come and finally just impose some divine biceps, you know? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not about being passive, passiveism. Jesus was anything but passive.

But the means of his confrontation was enemy love and self-sacrifice. And so, as far as what this ultimately refers to, how God deals with and contains and separates out evil and those who choose it, to me it's just so fundamentally inconsistent with who Jesus is, not just was, but who he is and continues to be. Everything I can see in the New Testament, I can't see one text that points to me in the direction of God chopping people's heads off at the end of days. I just, that's so, to me, fundamentally inconsistent with everything that Jesus reveals about God's ultimate character. But he won't deal with evil and he will give you what you want.

Yeah, he will deal with evil. Or he won't put up with evil. He won't put up with evil. Yeah, I'm not saying that it's all gonna be rosy and we're all gonna dance with daisies. He's not like, it's okay. You know, like- Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, for God to say, it's fine. Yeah. Let's just start with a very new deal. Yeah, that's itself., for God to say, it's fine. Yeah, let's just start with a little bit of energy. No, the deal. Yeah, that's that itself. He's an enabler. Correct, yeah, that would be a horrible overlooking of the train wreck of human evil. So what it shows is that we as humans,

we're like trained, our bodies are rigged to fight. Yeah. Right. I just think about this all the time. Oh man, I've got young boys. Totally. Yeah, we both have little boys. Yeah. It's very clear watching like the aggression that's just in their bodies. And then when I think about moments, the things I think about is I go to sleep, my fears and so on of like somebody attacking my kids or something. Like,

you know, those little bad dream scenarios that you make up, you know, they don't happen to you, you make them in your mind, and then you're like, oh, why did I do that? But yeah, and then I end up in these little imaginative scenarios where I'm like fighting people to protect my family or something. So our imaginations are captive to that framework. And it's so difficult for us to think about how God could confront and remove and deal with evil, and people who choose evil in a way that doesn't involve violence.

Like we just don't even know what that scenario could look like, but it's using me, that's the whole point of the cross. Is that it broke open a whole new way of everything, especially with how God confronts evil. Well to do that successfully would require true power, to be able to be vulnerable, but still conquer means you're really powerful, right? Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. You're really powerful, right? Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, huh. You have a different kind of power that is more powerful than picking a fight because by nature being vulnerable means you're going

to get destroyed and that then that's it. Yeah. But if being vulnerable and sacrificial means, yeah, you might get worked over, but you will actually conquer in the end. That means there's a deeper power that works. Yes, yeah. Yeah, and that's why I think the apostles in the New Testament don't abandon military language. Paul, they use the language of conquer, fight, battle, armor.

Cause it is. Weapons. Yes. It requires an enormous amount of activism. Yeah. Right. Like if you think about somewhat like a sword fight, and if one guy is trying to kill the other guy, and the other guy is trying to fight him, but not kill him.

Who's got the harder job? Whoa. That's a really good, yeah. You know, there's an author, a theologian, with a recent book out on Divine Violence in the Bible in Jesus, his name is Greg Boyd. He has a chapter called Divine Ikeido. Oh. And Ikeido is this ancient martial art. Yeah.

Where the whole point, it's entirely defensive. Yeah, but what you do, it's about learning how to redirect the momentum and energy coming at you aggressively and disarm it. Yeah. By turning that momentum back on them. Yeah. So you somehow somehow they're running at you You find a way to leverage it so that their energy flips them upside down with you on top

And then they're trapped in their own and the purpose isn't then to pound on their face Yeah, it's to like immobilize them. It's to make it so the fights over so the fights over Yeah, yeah, so I really love that metaphor divine divine act, the cross, the crucifixion, that's divine, Ikeeto, that's a great voice phrase, not mine. Ikeeto. Ikeeto. It's a jujitsu move. Yeah. It's Jesus putting you in a super role. Oh, is it a move? It's not a martial art, it's a move. Oh, no, that jujitsu is probably another form. Yeah. But that's when when someone does something, so like a really crafty statement or something that just kind of disarms you or like just, oh yeah, yeah.

Just wins with ones like clean swoop, people tend to say like, whoa, that was like some verbal jujitsu, you know. Yeah, that's right, yeah, redirecting. But yeah, your way of putting that was really, click my imagination. Right, yeah. In a sword fight, who has a harder job?

Who has a hard job? The one trying to chop off the head or the one trying to win, but not killing the opponent. Yeah, which one's more of a battle? Which one requires more creativity? Yeah. More power over your muscles and your movement. Mm-hmm. Wow.

It was really interesting, so my son's six, and he watches a lot of cartoons, and you know, there's always good guys and bad guys in cartoons. We were in the car the other day and he goes we're talking about good guys and bad guys and he goes you know the best way to beat a bad guy and I'm like ready for like flamethrowers or whatever and I go what and he goes making them a good guy. And I was like whoa dude! He came up with it. Yeah, it came from like one of the shows. I don't know. I see sure. Like they made one of the bad guys a good guy. Yeah, and somehow for him, I think we've talked about this a little bit before, but for him,

he just connected the dots. He was like, that's the most, that's the best way. And I was like, yeah, that's the gospel. It's crazy. We were enemies and God. Yes, died for us. Yeah, God's own love is demonstrated in this. Well, we were sinners. The Messiah died for us. That's exactly right.

I've had this conversation many times, both in classroom discussions, working through the Bible and you get to these portraits of divine violence. And there's a strand of American culture that's extremely aggressive and violent, and get the bad guy and drop bombs and kill him, you know, that kind of thing. But then there's also this real popular type of non-violence, you know, that's out there, even in pop culture and that that

approach is the morally superior way or more noble. And so of course like we're trying to treat children over culture. But ultimately I'm trying the best I can to not let that drive what I see in the Bible. And so this everything that we just went through to me comes from a face value, just simple look at the text of the Bible in all of its details. Don't leave out the like look at the details and what you'll find is a lot of nuance when it comes to violence. And ultimately I think what you discover is this theme that breaks our categories, that God's way of winning is by divine a quido. And so anyhow, we might be wrong about this.

I don't think I'm wrong. But it certainly invites more conversation. Things are not as simple as many people think. Okay. We've been rambling, but we're supposed to be answering people's questions. But actually, we have been, as I'm looking over these questions. We touched on almost all the stuff. The idea is raised by almost every question people sent to us. There's just a couple other more detailed ones that we'll hit on before we close. So there's one by Shaely Taylor and she wrote, I've been listening to the podcasts on the

day of the Lord and was wondering about Jesus' teachings in Matthew 24. What is he referring to here? I just don't understand it. Is he talking about a singular event when he returns? And what does he mean about people disappearing? So Matthew 24. What disappears? Larry Norman. Anyway.

I wish we'd all be. If you don't know what we're singing. I don't know I'm singing with a twang. To 1970s Christian Folk song about the rapture. Yeah, which is, I was gonna say traditional, but it's not traditional. It's a modern way of interpreting Matthew 24. It's the way that it's an idea that some Christians

have embraced. Matthew 24 is Jesus talking about the fall of Rome and the day of the Lord. Jerusalem. I mean, Jerusalem. Yeah. Yeah. So Matthew 24, Jesus disciples come up to him.

He's already pulled this stunt in the temple of clearing the money changers, his symbolic prophetic protest and announcement of the temple would be destroyed. Yeah. So he's already done it symbolically, and it got him into a heap of trouble. And then he's walking outside of the temple complex, and the disciples say, wow, look at the nice buildings, Jesus. And he kills the buzz of the party, of celebrating how awesome the temple looks.

And he says, you see all these things? The truth, I tell you, not one stone will be left on another. Yeah. It won't be torn down. And so then they go to Mount of Olives and the disciples in Matthew asked two questions, since the question was about Matthew. They ask, tell us, when will these things happen? Yeah. When's the temple going to get destroyed? Exactly. So what they're asking is what he just talked about. When is the time? I would want to know. The temple is going to be destroyed. Yeah. The center of everything. It's like next week. Yeah. Is that going to be in a couple of

years? And then the second related question is what and what is the sign of your presence or your coming and the conclusion of the age. So there's two questions. But then in their minds are totally related. The fall of Jerusalem and... Must be the end of the age. The end of the age. And we're back in the same territory as with the prophets and the fall of Babylon. Why did Isaiah depict the fall of Babylon in the language very similarly,

almost indistinguishable from the end of the age? So Matthew 24 fits the same pattern that we've been talking about here. And Jesus' response, he goes on to talk about what's going to be leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, which is going to happen, you know, 35 plus years from Jesus having this conversation. So he talks about there's going to be lots of wars, famines, earthquakes, and namely, in average day on planet Earth. Average a year. In average year, yeah. There's going to be lots of false leaders, false messiahs. That's all rabbit trail. But in other words, people who will come

claiming to be the king from the line of David who's going to kick the enemies but save us from Rome. And there were those figures. That's the ones who started the war against Rome in the 60s in 30 years from Jesus saying these words. Then he talks about how when you see Jerusalem attacked by the Romans, and the phrase he uses to describe it is for Daniel. Does he say by the Romans? What he says is, when you see the abomination of desolations, and standing in the holy place, which in both Daniel and in the passages in Isaiah, in Isaiah it's referring to Assyrian King. Assyrian King.

Assyrian King. He's coming to Jerusalem. And then after that the Babylonian King and his armies coming to destroy and defile Jerusalem in the temple. For Jesus, he's picking up on this motif, talking about the marching of Gentile soldiers into the temple to destroy it. And we know that that's what he meant was fascinating. Luke, and the gospel of Luke has a parallel to this speech of Jesus. And at precisely this point, he takes out the abomination of desolation and replaces it with an image. His readers could understand more easily. And he says, when you see

Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you'll know that its desolation is near. So there you go. So he's talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, but then he goes on to start using apocalyptic imagery from the prophets about it. So great tribulation like the world's never seen. It's really. It sounds like the end of the world. It sounds like the end of the world,

but it's doing exactly the way Isaiah envisioned. Which, if you had listened to the previous six hours of conversation, especially towards the beginning, you talked about the mountain range. Correct. That's right. And so looking straight on, not straight on. From the side, it's hard to distinguish each hill cascading upwards. Yeah, that's looking straight on. Looking straight on towards the mountain with the foothills in the foreground. Right in front of you.

It just looks like one long string hills up to the tallest one. And that's how it feels when you're reading these Friday's. That's right. That's right. Yeah. But if you look at the course of history, obviously. Which is the other vantage point. The other vantage point.

Jesus looking back could tell the fall of Babylon You know in 539 BC wasn't the end of the world But it was one step it was a manifestation of the day of the Lord Yeah, I guess the ultimate Babylon which is why right go back to Matthew 24 right after this He quotes from Isaiah 13 Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the son will be, this is a quote, the son will be darkened, the moon won't give it slight, the stars will fall from the sky. He's quoting from Isaiah 13's depiction of the fall of

Babylon, and he's applying those words to the fall of Jerusalem. but which again goes to show, he believes that Jerusalem has become his converted to become Babylon. And so what he's predicting is the fall of another Babylon, Israel become Babylon, which isn't the first time Israel has become Babylon. So that goes on. So her question is he talking about a singular event when he returns.

How would you answer that question then? I'd say he's talking about the fall of Jerusalem, which is a singular event. Singular event within the framework with apocalyptic Babylon prophetic language. But because when you get down to a certain point, he says truly in verse 34, he says this generation won't pass away

until all these things take place. Right. So he just says it, till the guy is standing, you guys are going to see this in your lifetime. Yeah. He says it. Right. And then, I think in verse 36, with a large number of Matthew scholars and interpreters, then verse 36, he then moves to talk about the ultimate day. Which was the second part of their question?

Yes, the second part of the question is the end of the age. Jesus separates them out. At least he addresses the question separately. In verse 36 he says, but of that day and hour, yeah, nobody knows. Not even the angels, he says, I don't even know. And so that's an ultimately going to be a surprise. And that moves him into a saying about the flood. He compares it to the flood. It's very intentional. Handing world over to its chaos, handing Jerusalem over to the chaotic flood waters. And so he says,

handing the whole world. Hand in this case, handing the whole world using the image of the flood to talk about the destruction of Jerusalem, which Jesus didn't make up that idea, go read Isaiah 54, Isaiah himself described the destruction of Jerusalem as the flood water of the known. You said now he's talking about the end of the age, not just the destruction of Jerusalem. Ah, correct. It would be the fall of the ultimate Babylon. Okay. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Jerusalem is the new Babylon. But sorry, in the flood, comments of Jesus, he says, for in those days before the flood, people were having a great time eating, drinking, marrying until Noah entered the ark. They didn't understand until the flood came and took them away. So the images of the flood waters of Tohu-Vahuv, of chaos, people being handed over a judgment

and surprise, you're going about your daily life. Now you're gone. Got right? When God hands the world over to its own evil, and so that he can overcome evil and bring about the new creation. Interesting. It would be like the flood that takes the wicked away.

And then he uses two other images of daily life. One was when people in the days of no eating, drinking, marrying, yeah. And the flood came and took them away. Right. So there's going to be two guys working in the field. One taken. So it's the wicked being taken away. I think that's the most makes the most sense of those sayings and context. So like the flood. It's actually the exact opposite of the rapture interpretation. Right. Yeah. Because that's saying you're taken away positively. Yeah. In context, I don't see how that makes any sense of what Jesus is getting at. Interesting. So it's like like the flood wiped people away and handed them away. Took them away. Mm-hmm. So when God

hands over the big bad Babylonon. But what's interesting is a flood, it's a weird flood that could take, that goes over two guys in a field and only one gets taken away. Oh, right. That's right. Yeah, the flood comes and takes away like the group as a group. The way that. Yeah, something. But then, yeah, then he's using the images of other images of daily life. But then talking about, yeah, it's selective. Right. It's not everybody's. It's not going to drown everyone out. Yeah. Some people think also that here in these two things, two in the field, two grinding at the mill, one taken one left. He's using the takeaway language from the flood, but that he's also using images. I forget this was blood, but that he's also using images. I forget this was Dale Allison in his commentary. Thinks that here he's also alluding to the fact that just in daily life and galley, Roman

soldiers can just come and seize people, haul them away, that he's alluding to that experience of just surprise taking by the enemy. So that would have been a normal kind of image. People are like, oh yeah, taken away, I get that. Yeah, my uncle was out with my cousin in the field yesterday and the wrongful just came and just like, they took him away. We haven't seen him since. Yeah.

That kind of thing. Interesting. So either way, what Jesus is doing with Jerusalem and the end of the age is very similar to what we talked about in the first podcast of the day of the Lord of that kind of like bifocal view of the near and the far but viewing the myths together. Okay, here's the next question. Hello, Tim and John.

This is Kristal from South Africa. My question is, if you know that you stay in a Babylon where there is state capture and corruption and a lot of violence going on, should one immigrate or should one stay put and just recognise it as the day of the Lord? Thank you. It's a great question, Crystal. I'm not sure one person can answer that for another. So yeah, we're talking about Babylon as this biblical image

for just unjust, corrupt human societies. Yeah, what if you look around one day and you're like, man, I'm in Babylon. This is so corrupt. Everything. Do you take off? Is that a smart move? Yeah.

Do you like just move to the countryside and kind of create your own little Commune and just be like guys we can't babble on out there. Yeah Do you go to another country that is less babble on? Yeah, and it's so funny like right now because we're more of a global community Yeah, you have an option now to live anywhere in the world that you want to. I mean, pretty much. Yeah. We can't go live in North Korea, but there's a service out there where it's for like, especially

for like programmers and people who can kind of work from wherever. And they match you with cities that really fit your personality. Wow. And they'll then try to relocate you there. Help you find a job or just help you just live there. And so you take this like survey of like what you're looking for in life and they'll be like, oh, you want to live in Amsterdam.

Whoa. Like that's probably the best option for you. Or you want to live in Vienna. And Julia, I took the quiz and I don't remember what city it was. I didn't even know it, what it was. Huh. I think it was in Italy somewhere. Ha ha ha ha ha.

That's amazing. I have to be good with that. But anyways, it just made me think of that because it's like, if you have that quiz for Christians, like, okay, which country is the most, what city should you live in if you want to not deal with Babylon? Yeah, it's interesting. Right?

Or where the anti-Babalon is most at work, should all the Christians get up and be like, well, let's go move there. And like, that's not really what she's asking, but so let's start with what she's really asking. Yeah, totally. Well, there's one sense in which I think the viewing the profits as a lens to look through would mean that we probably will find portraits of Babylon in every human society just by nature. That's the human condition. The human condition is Babylon. I think that's the point of Babylon in the Bible. So there's one sense in which you can't escape it.

Yeah, go set up shop somewhere else and it will become bad. Yeah You're a commune with your friends will become some kind of Babylon peak out Peekets nasty head. Yeah Whatever it's just I think that's this part of the human condition So I think there's just different biblical images or texts that are relevant to the conversation so One is Jeremiah's letter to the exiles and bablon. It's a famous passage. Literally in bablon. They're in bablon. Literally an ancient bablon. And he says, yeah, you guys are going to be there a while until the day of the Lord on bablon. Get comfy. So get comfy, build houses,

and seek the shalom of bablon for its wellbeing, its your well-being, plant gardens. So that's the image of, own your identity as exiles and seek the common good. That seems to be the portrait that Peter draws on in the letter of first Peter. We're in the end, I just remembered, He talks about the one who is in Babylon together, chosen with you, sends greetings. Seems like he's talking about the church community in Rome, but he uses Babylon. That's the code for Rome. Nice. And...

Wink wink. Yeah, and chosen together with you. And he's writing to church communities in what would be modern day Turkey, Asia Minor. And he calls them exiles and immigrants and wanderers in chapters one and two. So Peter conceives of the whole of Christian existence as life and exile in Babylon. And he doesn't tell them to move. He just says, bear witness to Jesus, seek the common good if people hurt you or kill

you, bless them in the name of Jesus, and trust that God will vindicate you. So that's the image of stay put and bear witness to the true king of the world, even if it means hardship. Plant gardens and carry on. Plant gardens and carry on. So, but there probably would be other more specific situations where, you know, moving out. There are many, for example, many Middle Eastern Christians, Arab Christians that have immigrated out of their ancient communities, Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan, really old, like from the first five centuries of the church, Bethlehem, and just because it's become so unlivable there. And so you can't make, that's why I said earlier,

you probably can't make that decision on behalf of somebody else. Right. Because until you've lived through their hardship in a city or place, you can't know why they made the decision they made. So plant gardens and carry on, but don't judge people who do move out.

Move out of Babylon. Move out of Babylon to a less terrible version of Babylon. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good question. That's a good question. Yeah. It's a good place to end things.

We didn't get to all of your questions, but in a way we kind of did. Yeah, we kind of covered the topic. Most of the most questions. and we also went on, hold it out. It's long. This is like a whole separate part of the podcast. Yeah.

Thank you for your questions, you guys. It was really stimulating. Yeah, thanks for engaging with us at this level, and we will do it again. I don't know on which topic but yeah David would all right signing off thanks you guys 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1%, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, you