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ἀφορίζω (Aphorizō): Set Apart for the Gospel of God · Reformed Thinking

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You know, if you take a stick right now and you just draw a
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line in the dirt, a massive psychological shift happens
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almost immediately. Oh, totally.
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Yeah, think about it. Before you drew that line, you
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were just looking at a patch of ground.
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It was just like neutral territory.
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Right. Just dirt, yeah.
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But the literal second you carve that physical boundary into the
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earth, you create an inside and an outside.
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You instantly create mine in yours.
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You create a zone of safety and a zone of exclusion, and today
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we're looking at 2 ancient Greek words that do precisely that on
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a massive cosmic scale. And they completely redefine how
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we understand who gets to draw those lines in our own lives
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and, you know, in our salvation and in all of human history.
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Welcome to Reformed thinking. We are doing a deep dive today
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into two massive concepts from the original biblical Greek
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lexicons, the verb aphariso and the noun oros.
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Yeah, so our mission for this deep dive is to see how these
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ancient words, one meaning to set a boundary, are separate and
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the other, meaning a towering mountain, reveal this staggering
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picture of God's sovereignty. His divine decrees and His
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absolute authority over earthly kingdoms.
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Right, exactly. Wait, I should not say exactly.
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I mean precisely. We're going to look directly at
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you, the listener, and ask you to consider the sheer scale of
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these concepts. We are setting the stage for a
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really intense theological and historical analysis, one that
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aligns perfectly with the Reformed understanding of a God
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who actively calls his people and reigns supreme over
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creation. OK, so let's unpack this.
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We should probably start with that line in the dirt, the Greek
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word aferiso. That is a great place to start.
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Breakdown where this word actually comes from, like what
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it meant to the ancient mind before it ever even hit the
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pages of the New Testament. Yeah, so the structure of the
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word is quite literal and it gives us a brilliant visual.
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It is built from 2 distinct parts.
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OK, what? First you have the preposition
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alpo which just means away from right, and second you have the
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verb hariso which means to set a boundary or a limit.
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Oh wait, Hariso, that sounds really familiar.
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Yeah, if you listen closely to that second part, Haraiso, you
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can actually hear the root of the English word horizon.
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Oh, wow. Yeah, of course.
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When you stand outside and look off into the distance, the
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horizon is the ultimate visual boundary line.
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It is that visual limit where the Earth meets the sky and it
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dictates, you know, how far human perception can actually
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go. Right, you cannot see past it.
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Precisely so literally, aphariso means to mark off or to set
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apart as if you are drawing a definitive line or boundary.
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That makes total sense. Now, if we look at classical
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antiquity, ancient Greek writers use this term in very tangible,
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like physical ways. How so?
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Well, in the situation which is the ancient Greek translation of
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the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures, the word Afrizo
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frequently translates the Hebrew word my grash.
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My grash OK, what is that? To understand my grash, you kind
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of have to put yourself in the shoes of an ancient citizen.
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That Hebrew term referred to the pastureland or the outskirts
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immediately surrounding a walled city.
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Oh, OK, so like the suburbs? Sort of, but with much higher
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stakes. In the ancient world, the city
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wall was your absolute only defense against, you know,
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invading armies and its wild animals.
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Right. It was dangerous out there.
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Very dangerous. The My Grash was the physical
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boundary zone. It was the designated pasture
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land that separated the absolute safety of the city walls from
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the untamed, dangerous chaos of the wilderness.
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It was. It was the buffer zone.
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So crossing that line was not just a casual afternoon stroll.
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Not at all. You are leaving the jurisdiction
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of safety and stepping right into vulnerability.
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Yeah, you are on your own at that point.
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And that physical sense of property and boundaries it
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carries over into the secular Greek writers too.
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Right, it is, yeah. You see ancient writers like
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Demosthenes and Sophocles and Euripides using aphorizo in
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their texts, but they often apply it to legal or social
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boundaries, not just dirt and stones.
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Right. They used it in a very specific
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legal context. Yeah, they used it to describe
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the legal appropriation of property, like drawing a line
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and saying this land is mine legally and you have no claim to
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it. Even more severely, they used it
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to describe banishment. Oh, like ostracism in Athens.
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Yeah, precisely. In ancient Athens they had the
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practice of ostracism where citizens would vote to literally
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expel someone from the city state for 10 years.
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Wow, they were executing an Afrizo.
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You were drawing a legal and social line, placing a specific
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person on the outside of it and saying you are cut off from the
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community. And that concept of being cut
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off? That introduces the first major
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biblical usage of the word, which deals entirely with
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exclusion or isolation. We see a negative boundary being
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drawn here. Can you give an example of that?
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Sure. For instance, in Luke 6.22,
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Jesus uses this exact word when he says blessed are you, when
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men hate you and when they exclude you.
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He's talking about excommunication there.
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Yeah, the trauma excommunication for a 1st century Jewish person
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being forced outside the synagogue was not like deciding
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to attend a different church down the street today.
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Right, it was not just a preference thing.
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No, it was social and economic death.
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You were completely isolated. The religious authorities in
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that context are weaponizing the boundary line.
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Absolutely weaponizing. It they are drawing a line and
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placing the followers of Christ on the outside of it to preserve
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their own theological well, their own authority structure.
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Yeah, to keep control. But what is fascinating is that
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we see the Apostle Paul doing something structurally similar,
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yet he is taking the initiative himself for an entirely
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different reason. Right in Acts 19.
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Yeah, in Acts 19.9, Paul is preaching in the synagogue in
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Ephesus, and over time a faction within the synagogue becomes
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really hardened and disobedient. They were actively speaking evil
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of the Christian way, right in front of the congregation.
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Yeah, and the text says Paul departed from them and separated
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the disciples. He executed A calculated
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apharizo. He physically removed his people
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from the antagonistic party. He did this to eliminate contact
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and prevent that corrupting hardened influence from damaging
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the new believers. He drew a protective boundary,
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pulling his people out of the line of fire.
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I want to push back on the motivation behind drawing these
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lines. Though.
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OK, let's hear it. Because humans are flawed, we
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sometimes draw these lines out of fear rather than
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faithfulness, and it seems like even the apostles were not
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immune to this. That's a very fairpoint.
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Look at Galatians 2.12. Paul is recounting that infamous
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incident in Antioch involving Peter.
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Oh yeah, the dietary issue. Right.
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Initially, Peter was happily eating with the Gentile
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believers, just enjoying the freedom of the gospel that says
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all those dietary and ethnic divisions are abolished in
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Christ. He was crossing the old
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boundary. Yeah, but then when certain
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influential men from James arrived from Jerusalem, men who
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were associated with the strict circumcision party, the text
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says, Peter shrank back and separated himself.
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He engaged in an aphariso. He did now Peter's the guy who
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walked on water. Yeah, he preached the sermon at
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Pentecost. Why does he suddenly draw an
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artificial, hypocritical line between himself and the
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Gentiles? He did it purely out of fear of
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human opinion. Right.
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He created an illegitimate boundary to protect his own
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reputation among the religious elite.
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The psychology behind Peter's action right there is incredibly
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revealing, actually. How so?
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Well, Peter used the boundary line to isolate himself out of
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cowardice. He was effectively rebuilding a
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wall of division that Christ's crucifixion had already
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demolished. Oh, that is a great way to it.
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Demonstrates really clearly that human beings frequently use
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separation as a weapon. We use it for prejudice,
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tribalism, or just social self preservation.
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We constantly draw lines to protect our own status.
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Right to define who is in and who is out based on our own, you
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know, arbitrary standards. But the biblical text draws a
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really sharp contrast here. It does.
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When human beings draw lines, it is often tainted by sin or fear
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or pride. But when God draws a line, it is
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always executed with perfect righteousness, perfect justice,
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and perfect purpose. God's boundaries are never
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arbitrary, and they are never driven by anxiety.
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Think of God. 'S use of aphorizo like like
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installing a highly sophisticated secure firewall on
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a computer network. Oh, I like that analogy.
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Yeah, Firewall's entire function is to ruthlessly examine
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incoming traffic. It does not negotiate.
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It just acts. Right.
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It looks at the data packets and says you are allowed in, but you
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over there are completely blocked.
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It is engineered to keep certain elements completely isolated
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from the core system. But here's the question for the
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listener right now. Is this divine isolation always
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meant as a punishment, or is it sometimes designed for
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protection? That is the crux of it, really.
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When we analyze the biblical data, we actually see both
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realities operating simultaneously.
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The boundary keeps the malicious code out, which punishes the
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attacker, right? But it also preserves the
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integrity of the network, which protects the inhabitants inside.
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The firewall analogy captures the mechanical reality
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perfectly, Thanks. And the ultimate cosmic firewall
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is detailed explicitly in the Gospel of Matthew, specifically
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regarding the final judgment. In Matthew 13.49 Jesus is
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explaining the parable of the net and he says that at the end
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of the age the angels will come out and separate.
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And there is the word aphraiso, separate the evil from the
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righteous. Even more vividly, in Matthew
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25.32 Jesus describes the day of the Lord.
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He says all nations across all of human history will be
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gathered before his throne. Every single person.
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Everyone and he, acting as the ultimate shepherd, will separate
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people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep
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from the goats. That is intense image.
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It is an exclusive, unchallengeable exercise of
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divine authority. Christ alone possesses the right
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to draw that final eternal line. The righteous inherit of the
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Kingdom prepared for them, and the wicked are banished to
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eternal punishment. Yeah, human beings do not get a
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vote in where that line is drawn.
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And you know, this connects so intensely with the Westminster
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Confessions view of the final judgement and God's righteous
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decrees. It really does.
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For the listener who might not be totally familiar with that
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specific terminology, the confession teaches that God has
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appointed A definitive day wherein He will judge the world
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in righteousness by Jesus Christ.
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That final apheresso that final division between the sheep and
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the goats. It is not God making a last
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minute decision based on how things just happened to pan out.
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No, not at all. It is the culmination of God's
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sovereign justice. The line He draws on that day is
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absolute. It is eternal, and it is
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perfectly just. It is the final public physical
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manifestation of His eternal decree.
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But to truly understand Reformed theology, we have to look past
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the final day and look at the beginning.
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Yeah, you are touching on the core distinction there.
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The final judgement is the culmination.
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It is the public execution of the boundary, right?
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But the mechanism of God setting people apart begins long, long
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before that day. Which brings us to the 2nd and
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frankly far more joyous biblical usage of Afariso.
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The positive boundary. Yes, a positive boundary.
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This is the scenario where someone is separated not for
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exclusion or punishment, but rather they are selected out of
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a broader group for a specific divine purpose.
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Like being drafted for a special mission.
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Exactly. We set a clear example of this
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in Acts 13.2. The prophets and teachers are
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gathered, they are worshipping and fasting in the Church at
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Antioch, and the Holy Spirit speaks directly to them.
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What does he say? He says set apart for me,
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Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
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Set apart, Afrizo. Yes, the Holy Spirit is
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initiating the Afrizo. He is drawing a circle around
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these two specific men and saying these two belong
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exclusively to my mission now. And Paul internalizes this
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reality completely. I mean it becomes his core.
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Identity. Oh, absolutely.
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When he sits down to write the letter to the Romans, which is
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his magnum opus of theology, the very first verse of Romans 1.1
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introduces himself as a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an
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apostle set apart for the Gospel of God.
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He recognizes that his entire existence, his career, his
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suffering, his preaching, it is all defined by this divine
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boundary line. He has been fenced in by God for
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the singular purpose of preaching the gospel.
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Right. But if we want to see the
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absolute bedrock of Reformed theology regarding this concept,
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we cannot just stop at Paul being set apart from ministry as
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an adult. No, we have to go deeper.
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We have to look at Galatians 11 mine.
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In this verse, Paul makes a statement that completely
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shatters any modern idea of human merit or free will
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decision, ISM, or what theologians call synergistic
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cooperation. Is a staggering verse.
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Let's breakdown why that verse is so devastating to human
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pride. Well, the text is devastating to
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human pride because Paul writes that God set me apart from my
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mother's womb and called me by his grace.
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From his mother's womb. Right.
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Let's analyze the timeline of that statement.
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If we connect this to the broader framework of Reformed
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doctrine, this verse is the pure essence of sovereign election
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and effectual calling. God executed the Aphraiso.
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He drew the definitive boundary line around the Apostle Paul
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before Paul had done a single good or bad deed.
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Before he could do anything. Right.
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He drew the line before Paul had any cognitive ability to
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formulate a thought, let alone choose or reject God while he
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was still a developing infant in the womb.
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God drew a line around him and decreed.
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This one is entirely mine. That is math.
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It is, and it completely refutes the popular notion that God
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simply looks down the corridors of time, sees who will
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eventually choose Him using their own free will, and then
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reacts by choosing them back. Right, because that would make
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God's choice dependent on human action.
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Precisely. Instead, the biblical separation
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is an act of sovereign grace occurring entirely by God's
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unilateral decree. Let me stop you there, though,
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and play devil's advocate for the listener who might be
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struggling with this right now. Sure, go ahead.
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Because to a modern ear heavily influenced by Western
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individualism, this sounds incredibly deterministic.
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It can sound that way. Yes, it.
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Sounds robotic if God drew the line before Paul was even born.
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Where does human choice factor in if salvation is not a 5050
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group project where God provides the opportunity and we provide
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the faith? Which is what you meant by
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synergistic cooperation earlier, right?
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How do we process this without feeling like we're just pawns on
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a chess board? That is probably the most common
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and understandable objection to Reformed theology.
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The difference lies in understanding the nature of our
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condition before God draws that line.
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OK, explain that condition. Well, the biblical reality is
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not that there are neutral people desperately trying to
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choose God, but being blocked by a boundary.
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Right. We are not innocent bystanders.
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No, the reality, as Paul lays out in Ephesians 2, is that
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humans are spiritually dead in trespasses and sins.
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Dead. Not sick.
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Dead. Exactly.
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A corpse does not cooperate in its own resurrection.
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It just cannot. Therefore, if salvation even
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required synergistic cooperation, if it relied even
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1% on our inherently flawed rebellious will, no one would
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ever be saved. That makes a lot of sense.
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The fact that God unilaterally draws the boundary line, the
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Afarazzo, is the absolute only reason anyone is saved.
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It is not cool fatalism. It is a desperate rescue mission
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orchestrated by a loving Creator who reaches into the graveyard
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of humanity and actively pulls his sheep across the boundary
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into life. The choice is real, but God's
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phrase is what changes our heart so that we willingly and
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joyfully choose Him. So applying this to the listener
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right now, this shifts everything about how you view
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your faith. It changes everything.
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It means your salvation is not the fragile result of you
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successfully crossing a boundary line to get to God based on your
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own intellect or your own morality.
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It the rock solid result of God drawing a boundary line around
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you to protect you, claim you, and set you apart for His glory.
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Aphorizo demonstrates God's absolute sovereignty over
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humanity. He owns the pen and he has the
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absolute right to draw the lines.
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And this conceptual reality leads perfectly into how God
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demonstrates that exact same absolute, unquestionable
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authority over the physical earth.
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Right, moving from the conceptual to the physical.
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Specifically, through its most imposing, intimidating, massive
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features. The mountains.
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The mountains, the Greek word or rose.
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We are moving from the invisible lines drawn eternity to half of
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walls of rock thrusting out of the dirt.
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Yeah, and moving from the conceptual boundary to the
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massive physical boundary requires us to shift our modern
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perspective a bit. So the noun oros refers to a
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mountain or a hill. But to understand the biblical
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usage, we first have to really understand the mind of an
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ancient person. In antiquity, the sheer scale of
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mountains demanded religious awe.
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Today, we live in a world of airplanes and drones and steel
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skyscrapers. So our perspective on Hyatt is,
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well, it is artificially altered.
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Right. A mountain is just a scenic
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backdrop for a vacation photo now.
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Exactly. But for an ancient person
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walking on foot, a mountain was the most dominant, permanent,
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unmovable object in their entire reality.
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It was everything. It dictated the weather.
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It blocked travel. It hit enemies facing a
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mountain, provoked a deep, visceral psychological divide.
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Right there is an intense psychological reaction to
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standing at the base of a 3000 foot wall of rock when you only
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have sandals on your feet. It makes you feel very.
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Small. You realize very quickly how
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small and temporary you are. So how did this physical
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intimidation translate into their religious beliefs?
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Well, the physical reality created a conceptual religious
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divide. Ancient people universally
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separated the mountain into two distinct psychological zones.
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What? Were the zones.
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The peak of the mountain, which soared up into the light and was
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often hidden by clouds, was associated with heaven, higher
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consciousness, the day, and the pure upper world of the divine.
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OK, that is the top. But the inside of the mountain,
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the deep caverns or the dense, dark nocturnal forests covering
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its lower slopes, that was associated with the underworld,
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death and the dangerous unconscious.
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The concepts of above and below we're not just spatial
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directions. They were fundamentally opposed
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religious symbols. Let's look at how the
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surrounding Pagan cultures process this terror in awe based
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on our sources. If we travel conceptually to
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ancient Mesopotamia, the region of modern day Iraq where you
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have these vast flat plains, the people there view the distant
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mountains as symbols of absolute security and unyielding might.
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The Acadian word should do literally meant mountain, but it
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was also used interchangeably to mean refuge or even Lord.
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Because of the geography. Right, because they lived on
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flat, flood prone plains, the distant peaks of the Zagros
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Mountains looked like an impenetrable fortress.
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They projected their deities right onto these massive
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geological formations. And the literature and theology
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of Mesopotamia is just saturated with this projection.
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Give us some examples. For example, the deed Ed Dad was
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titled the Lord of the Four Quarters and his worship was
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intimately tied to the high places where storms gather.
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OK, the God Nanib boasted of his terrifying, unstoppable might by
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claiming in their texts the high mountains all flee from me.
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Wow, that is intense imagery. It is.
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His weapons were described poetically as a mountain whose
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crushing force none can escape. And then you have Enlil, one of
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the supreme deities of the Sumerian pantheon, whose very
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name was eventually transferred to mean Great Mountain.
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So the God literally becomes the mountain.
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His primary temple in the city of Napoor was literally known as
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the Mountain House. For the Babylonians, the distant
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mountains that encircled their known world were terrifying,
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remote and divine. And the Babylonians built an
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entire elaborate cosmology around this geographical
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reality. It really did.
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They believed in Twin peak mountains sitting at the extreme
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eastern and western edges of the world, acting as literal pillars
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holding up the physical arch of the sky.
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Like massive columns. Yeah, in the east was the Kamer
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Dooku, the Bright Mountain. This was the place where the sun
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rose every morning, bringing light and warmth.
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And they believed this was where the gods met on New Year's Day
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to fix the destinies of mankind for the coming year.
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But the West was very different. Very different in the West was
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Mount Marshall. That was where the sunset Think
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about the ancient terror of the sun disappearing behind a dark
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Ridge. That'll be terrifying before
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electricity. Mount Masu was the boundary
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where Heaven met the Underworld, marking the terrifying entrance
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to the realm of the dead. The Babylonian connection
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between the western mountain and the realm of the dead provides a
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stark contrast to how the ancient Greeks viewed their
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mountains, though. Oh.
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Really. How so?
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Well, the topography dictates the theology.
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Greece is a land heavily dominated by forested peaks and
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rugged terrain. The Greeks lived among the
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mountains not far away from them on a flat plain.
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Right. They were right in the middle of
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them. Therefore, they did not
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reflexively associate the mountain with the underworld or
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death. Instead, they looked at Mount
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Olympus, soaring up into the pure ether and fire of what they
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considered the divine realm. And they saw it as the ultimate
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pristine home of the gods. Yes, the mountains were the
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untouched realms of nymphs and muses.
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Olympus was the symbol of natural perfection, completely
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disconnected from the dark subterranean death focused
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judgments of the Babylonian Moshu.
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And if you move geographically over to Asia Minor, you find
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something completely different again, right?
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You find the widespread worship of Sybil, known throughout the
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ancient world as the Mountain Mother.
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Oh yeah. Her followers did not look up in
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the sunny, peaceful peaks like the Greeks did.
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They focused on the dark, chaotic, terrifying side of the
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mountain. It was a very different kind of
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worship. Yeah, her worship involved
22:08
ecstatic, frenzied night dancing through the dark mountain
22:12
forests, and she was heavily associated with deep, cavernous
22:16
mountain caves. It was a religion based on the
22:19
raw, untamed, chaotic forces of nature.
22:24
To put this in perspective for the modern listener, contrast a
22:27
quiet, orderly Sunday morning church service with an ancient
22:31
torch lit rave inside a mountain cave driven by the fear of
22:35
chaotic nature gods. It was a completely different
22:37
psychological universe. Would be different.
22:39
Furthermore, moving down into Syria, right on the northern
22:42
border of Israel's consciousness, we have the
22:45
archaeological discoveries of the Rashamra texts from the
22:48
ancient city of Ugarit. What do those texts reveal?
22:51
They reveal the intense worship of Mount Zafan, A literal
22:54
physical peak north of Rashamra, which the Canaanites believed
22:58
was the literal throne of their storm God, Bail.
23:00
OK, Bill, we see him in the Bible a lot.
23:02
Right. They believed the entire
23:04
pantheon of gods assembled on Mount LL, and that the physical
23:07
entrance to the underworld was located among these specific
23:10
peaks. What makes this highly relevant
23:12
for our biblical analysis is that the Hebrew word for the
23:15
compass direction, N, is cephon. Really.
23:18
Yeah, This strongly links to the ancient Near Eastern cultural
23:22
idea of a divine threatening northern peak where the gods
23:27
supposedly met and plotted. OK, here is a mass question that
23:31
arises from looking at all of this historical data.
23:33
OK, lay it on me. If the Israelites were
23:36
completely surrounded by all these cultures, the Babylonians
23:40
to the east, the Greeks to the West, the Syrians to the north,
23:43
the people of Asia Minor. Right surrounded on all sides.
23:46
Cultures that practically worship the dirt and stone of
23:48
the mountains themselves. How did the biblical writers
23:51
talk about mountains without falling into the exact same
23:55
Pagan trap? That's a great question.
23:56
How did a Hebrew farmer look up at Mount Hermon and not
24:00
instinctively invent a localized mountain God like his Canaanite
24:04
neighbor did? That is the pivotal question,
24:06
and the answer showcases the unique divine origin of the Old
24:10
Testament perspective. The biblical writers completely
24:13
and utterly subjugated the physical mountains to the
24:16
absolute sovereignty of Yahweh. They did not worship them at
24:19
all. No, they aggressively stripped
24:21
the mountain of its Pagan mythological status.
24:24
Israel, instructed by divine revelation, knew that God was
24:28
not a product of the mountain. God was the sovereign creator of
24:31
the mountain. Right?
24:33
But before we look at the theology of that, we really have
24:35
to look at the physical reality of Palestine that influence
24:38
their writing. Let's analyze that physical
24:41
reality based on our sources. OK?
24:42
The mountains of Palestine were generally around 3000 feet tall.
24:46
By the later periods of Israel's history, they were mostly
24:49
denuded of trees due to logging and agriculture.
24:54
They were bare. Yeah, they were highly practical
24:56
places. Psalm 147 mentions them being
24:59
used for grazing pasture. Isaiah 13.2 talks about lighting
25:03
massive signal beacons on the Bear Hills to communicate
25:06
military threats across the land.
25:08
So they use them for communication.
25:10
They did. They offered wide strategic
25:13
views of the surrounding territory, but make no mistake,
25:17
they were also incredibly lonely, dangerous places filled
25:21
with predators and bandits. Very risky to be out there
25:24
alone. To die and lie unburied in the
25:26
Lonely Mountains was considered a supreme disgrace for an
25:29
Israelite. And yet, despite their massive
25:32
physical presence and the very real physical dangers they
25:35
posed, the Old Testament writers constantly use them to showcase
25:38
God's absolute supremacy right to the human eye.
25:42
The mountains are the oldest, highest, and most solid things
25:45
on Earth, but before Yahweh they are structurally nothing,
25:48
nothing at all. Isaiah 40.1 provides A stunning
25:51
image. It says God weighs the mountains
25:53
and scales and the hills in a balance, like a merchant
25:56
weighing a few grains of sand. That is massive.
25:58
Nahum 1.5 declares that the mountains physically tremble
26:01
before him, Micah 1.4 gives the vivid, almost apocalyptic image
26:06
of the mountains melting like wax under the feet of the Lord.
26:09
And Isaiah 41.15 says God makes Israel a threshing sledge to
26:14
grind the mountains into dust. God is entirely outside of
26:18
nature, exercising total violent command over its most imposing
26:22
features. The theological shift here from
26:24
the surrounding cultures is stunning.
26:26
It is night and day. In Canaanite culture, the high
26:29
place, the Bama, was the supreme cultic site.
26:32
They believed elevation brought you physically closer to the
26:35
deity, right? And additionally, Israel fell
26:37
into this trap utilizing high places like Gibeon for
26:40
sacrifices. But eventually God completely
26:43
rejects the localized Pagan high places in favor of specific
26:48
historical places of revelation. He deliberately chooses Mount
26:51
Sinai and Mount Zion. The distinction between a Pagan
26:54
high place in Zion is vital. Sinai and Zion are not
26:57
inherently magical or mythical mountains like Olympus or
26:59
Zaphon. No, they're just hills.
27:01
Right, There's nothing geologically special about the
27:03
dirt in Jerusalem. They are significant purely
27:06
because the God of history sovereignly chose to reveal
27:08
himself there in space and time. We see the definitive historical
27:12
proof that Yahweh is not a localized mountain deity in
27:16
First Kings chapter 20. Oh, the story with the Arameans.
27:19
Yes, the Aramean army attacks Israel, and they mistakenly
27:23
assume, based on their Pagan worldview, that Israel's God is
27:27
merely, well, just a God of the hills, right?
27:29
So their military strategy is to draw Israel down and fight them
27:33
in the flat plains, assuming Yahweh will have no jurisdiction
27:36
there. That was a huge mistake.
27:38
A massive mistake. God is highly offended by this
27:41
Pagan limitation on His sovereignty.
27:43
He speaks through a prophet and delivered the massive army and
27:47
army into Israel's hands specifically to prove that his
27:50
jurisdiction covers the plains, the valleys, and every single
27:54
inch of creation. He cannot be contained by
27:56
geography. Because God has so thoroughly
27:59
subjugated the literal physical mountains, the biblical prophets
28:03
naturally begin to use mountains as massive metaphors for
28:05
political empires and earthly rulers.
28:07
Oh yeah, that makes sense. The physical height, the
28:09
unyielding rock and the sheer intimidation of a mountain
28:12
became the perfect literary symbol for a stubborn human
28:16
empire. Can you give a specific example
28:18
of that? Sure.
28:19
In Jeremiah 51.25 God directly addresses the massive world
28:24
dominating empire of Babylon and calls it a destructive mountain.
28:28
He promises to roll Babylon off the cliffs and make it a burnt
28:32
mountain. Wow.
28:33
And in Zechariah 4.7, the Prophet looks at the massive
28:36
political and logistical obstacles facing the rebuilding
28:39
of the temple and says, Who are you, O great Mountain?
28:43
Before Zerubbabel you should become a plane.
28:45
God looks at human authority, no matter how entrenched, and
28:48
flattens it. The most breathtaking example of
28:50
this metaphorical use, and the one that really sets the stage
28:53
for the New Testament, is found in Daniel chapter 2.
28:56
Oh, the statue dream, Yes. King Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a
28:59
terrifying massive metallic statue representing the
29:02
successive human empires of history, Babylon medal, Persia,
29:05
Greece and Rome. Then, in the dream, a stone cut
29:09
out by no human hand strikes the statue on its feet, crushing the
29:12
entire history of human empire to powder.
29:15
And that stone, representing the Kingdom of God, grows into a
29:19
great mountain that fills the whole earth.
29:22
It is the ultimate eternal authority, displacing every
29:25
single earthly Kingdom. It is God establishing a
29:29
mountain that can never be shaken.
29:30
We even see this deeply ingrained metaphorical language
29:33
bleeding into the writings of the rabbis in the
29:36
Pseudepigorapha during the intertestamental period.
29:39
Really like where? Well, the Babylonian Talmud in
29:42
tractate took a 52A compares the internal evil impulse of a human
29:47
being to a great mountain that the righteous must somehow
29:50
overcome. Yeah, in the book of Enoch, the
29:53
fallen angels who rebelled against God are described as
29:55
burning mountains of iron and gold.
29:57
So whether the writer is describing an external world
30:00
dominating empire or an internal, deeply rooted sin, the
30:03
mountain consistently represents an imposing, seemingly
30:06
unbeatable force standing in opposition to God.
30:09
Having analyzed that the Old Testament views mountains not as
30:13
deities but as created objects entirely subject to God, and
30:16
metaphorically as earthly authorities that God will judge
30:19
and dismantle, we can logically follow this concept right into
30:22
the New Testament. Yes, we'll go there.
30:24
We need to look at how Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, interacts
30:28
with the physical hills of Judea and how that interaction
30:32
ultimately signals the end of all earthly dominion.
30:35
Looking at the physical reality of mountains and the Gospels,
30:39
they maintain that Old Testament sense of danger, isolation and
30:43
ruggedness. They do not suddenly become
30:44
safe. No.
30:46
We know historically from sources outside the Bible about
30:49
the flight of the early Christians to the mountains in
30:51
Pella around 66 AD when Jerusalem was surrounded by the
30:55
Roman legion. Right.
30:56
They fled to the mountains for physical survival.
30:58
In Mark chapter 5, we meet the terrifying demoniac who lives
31:02
among the tombs and the desolate hills, completely isolated from
31:05
human society, howling in the night.
31:08
And in Matthew 18.12, Jesus tells the famous parable of the
31:12
shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep in the mountains to go search
31:16
for the one that is lost. That was a famous one.
31:18
Right. But to a modern reader, leaving
31:20
sheep in the mountains sounds scenic.
31:22
To a 1st century shepherd, it implies leaving them in a place
31:25
of extreme vulnerability, rugged terrain and lurking predators.
31:30
The mountain is not safe. The gospel writers frequently
31:33
use a specific Greek phrase aise to orals, meaning he went up
31:37
into the mountains. It is crucial to note how Jesus
31:41
uses the terrain. He is rarely depicted standing
31:44
on an isolated pointy peak, meditating like some Eastern
31:48
guru. Right, he's not just seeking a
31:50
scenic view. No.
31:51
He goes into the hills for specific functional reasons,
31:54
goes to seek extreme solitude. He goes to pray away from the
31:58
crushing, exhausting demands of the multitudes who just wanted
32:01
miracles and free food. And significantly, he goes into
32:04
the difficult elevated terrain to force the crowds to decide
32:08
whether they are truly willing to expend the physical effort to
32:10
follow him and hear his teaching.
32:13
Like a test. Yeah, think about the Sermon on
32:15
the Mount. The elevation requires A
32:17
deliberate physical choice from the followers.
32:21
You have to sweat to hear the sermon.
32:23
Wow. Yeah, he uses the mountain as a
32:25
physical filter to separate the passive consumers from the
32:28
active disciples. The Transfiguration is perhaps
32:31
the most famous and doctrinally significant mountain scene in
32:36
the entire New Testament. Absolutely.
32:38
While ancient church tradition claims that happened on Mount
32:41
Tabor, the gospel writers themselves do not seem to care
32:44
at all about the specific name of the mountain.
32:46
No, they do not mention. It they only cared that it was a
32:49
high mountain. The specific geographic name is
32:52
irrelevant to their theology. The physical elevation was meant
32:56
to bring the disciples thoughts closer to God's world, stripping
33:00
away the distractions, the noise, the religious debates,
33:03
and the faithlessness of the valleys below.
33:05
It was a place of clear, unobstructed, terrifying divine
33:09
revelation where the veil of Christ's humanity was briefly
33:13
pulled back. We see a contrasting dark use of
33:17
the mountain concept in the account of the mount of
33:19
temptation in Matthew chapter 4. Though the devil takes Jesus to
33:22
a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the
33:26
world and their glory in a single moment, geographically
33:30
and physically speaking, there is no physical mountain anywhere
33:33
in Judea, or the world for that matter, high enough to literally
33:37
see all the kingdoms of the earth.
33:39
No, that is impossible. This was a supernatural
33:42
spiritual vision utilizing the ancient the concept of the
33:45
mountain as a place to survey the totality of earthly
33:48
dominion. Satan is offering Jesus the
33:51
authority over all the metaphorical mountains of human
33:54
empire. He is offering the crown of
33:56
global rule without the suffering of the cross.
33:59
Which brings us to the breathtaking climax of the
34:01
entire biblical narrative in the Book of Revelation.
34:04
Yes. The end of it all.
34:06
This is where we bring our two Greek words, afrizo, the drawing
34:09
of a sovereign boundary line of separation, and oros, the
34:13
towering mountain of human authority and pride, together
34:17
into a single, unified theological vision of the end of
34:20
the world. The apocalyptic symbols in
34:22
Revelation are staggering in their scope.
34:24
They really are. In Revelation 8.8, the apostle
34:27
John sees a great mountain burning with fire cast violently
34:31
into the sea. In Revelation 6.12 and again
34:34
during the bold judgments in 16.20, we see the earth
34:38
convulsing so violently that every mountain and island flees
34:41
away and completely disappears. Completely gone.
34:44
To understand the gravity of this, we have to decode the
34:47
symbols using the Old Testament cipher we just discussed right
34:50
in the prophetic literature. Islands frequently represented
34:53
the distant Gentile nations living in false security far
34:57
away across the sea. And Mantons, as we established
35:00
from Daniel and Jeremiah, represented entrenched human
35:04
political authority and arrogant earthly empires.
35:07
So when the text says the mountains and islands flee away
35:10
from the presence of God, it is not just talking about a massive
35:13
geological earthquake. No, it's much bigger than.
35:15
That it is saying that every false human security, every
35:19
arrogant political structure, every corrupt government and
35:22
every earthly empire is completely obliterated before
35:26
the throne of God. They have nowhere to hide.
35:28
We see this confirmed explicitly in Revelation 17.9, which talks
35:32
about the terrifying beast with 7 heads, and the text explicitly
35:35
states that the seven heads are 7 mountains on which the woman
35:39
sits. Historically, this is a clear
35:41
reference to the seven hills of Rome.
35:43
Yeah, the seat of the empire, persecuting the early church.
35:46
Yes, the immediate historical context is Rome, right, But
35:50
because 7 is the consistent biblical number of completeness
35:53
and totality, those seven hills represent far more than just the
35:58
physical geography of the capital city of the Roman
36:00
Empire. What do they represent?
36:02
They represent the absolute totality of world empires across
36:05
all of human history, upon which the seductive, worldly,
36:09
rebellious system of Babylon sits.
36:12
Is the complete summation of human rebellion against God's
36:15
authority concentrated into the metaphor of the ultimate
36:18
unscalable mountain range? This leads us to a staggering
36:23
theological conclusion that ties this entire deep dive together.
36:26
Yeah, it all comes together here.
36:28
Think about the physical return of Christ when he returns to
36:31
execute the final judgement, when he initiates the ultimate
36:35
eternal aphraiso, separating the sheep from the goats with a
36:39
single word. What happens to the physical and
36:42
political stage upon which human rebellion played out for
36:46
thousands of years? It is gone.
36:48
Every single earthly mountain and island, representing every
36:52
human empire, every billionaire's corporation, every
36:55
corrupt politician and every false authority completely melts
36:59
away into nothingness. The boundaries of human pride
37:01
are permanently erased by the righteous decree of the Creator,
37:05
and we have to ask what replaces that fractured, mountain filled
37:08
landscape? Good question.
37:10
In the description of the New Jerusalem detailed in Revelation
37:13
21 and 22, there is a fascinating deliberate omission
37:16
by the Apostle John. What is missing?
37:18
There is no Temple Mountain at all.
37:20
The entire ancient, Pagan and even Old Testament concept of
37:24
needing a localized high place to reach up to God is gone.
37:27
It vanishes because the separation is fundamentally
37:29
over. The aphorizo is done.
37:31
Yes, God dwells directly, physically and intimately with
37:35
his people on a renewed earth. The imposing barriers, the
37:38
unscalable cliffs and the rigid boundaries are removed forever.
37:42
We have covered an incredible scope of material today.
37:45
Think about where we started. A line in the dirt.
37:48
Right. What begins as a simple thought
37:50
experiment about a line drawn in the dirt, the aphraiso in a
37:52
physical pile of rocks, the Auros unfolds chronologically
37:56
through Scripture to reveal the entire framework of Reformed
37:59
theology. It is an amazing progression.
38:02
We see God's sovereign, unconditional choice to set His
38:05
people apart from the womb, requiring 0 synergistic
38:09
cooperation from us right. We see His total, unquestioned
38:13
dominion over the proudest human empires, crushing them like dust
38:17
under a threshing sledge. And we see His absolute
38:20
exclusive right to draw the final boundary line of eternity
38:24
separating the righteous from the wicked.
38:25
It demands a massive perspective shift from the modern Christian.
38:28
It really does. It forces us to look past the
38:31
imposing political, social, and economic structures of our
38:35
current world. It forces us to recognize the
38:38
invisible yet unbreakable decrees of a sovereign God who
38:42
commands both the lines we cannot cross and the mountains
38:46
that cannot stand before Him. I want to leave you, the
38:48
listener, with a final question to Mull over as you go about
38:51
your week. Head to work or watch the
38:53
Evening News. If God's ultimate design for
38:56
eternity is a reality where every massive mountain of human
39:00
authority is completely leveled and there are no more boundaries
39:03
keeping you from His presence, how does that shift the way you
39:07
view the intimidating mountains and dividing lines in your own
39:10
life today? That is the question.
39:12
Are you terrified of a political outcome, an economic shift, or a
39:15
medical diagnosis, treating it like an unyielding Babylonian
39:19
mountain God? When you see the boundary lines
39:21
drawn in the dirt of your own circumstances, remember who
39:24
actually holds the pen.