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ἀλλάσσω (Allassō): The Great Exchange of Truth for Lies · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reform Thinking. You know, usually when you talk
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about a medical diagnosis, there is this expectation of clinical
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precision. Right, you want it to be clear.
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Yeah, it operates a bit like structural engineering.
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You break your arm, you go into the clinic, the doctor puts the
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X-ray up on the light board and they just point to that jagged
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white line on the screen and say, well, there it is.
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That is the fracture. It is visible and it is
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categorized. Yes, and you can comprehend it
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at a single glance. Because we prefer things to be
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binary, I think, broken or not broken, benign or malignant, we
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want a clean assessment that fits into neat little conceptual
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boxes. It just makes the world feel
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manageable. It really does.
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But then you step out of the realm of physical bone fractures
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and into the world of ancient linguistics, historical
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theology, and human nature, and suddenly that pristine X-ray
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machine just shatters. Oh, completely.
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You look at the diagnostic landscape of the human condition
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across history and it is incredibly murky.
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The lines are not clean. The categories bleed into one
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another. And that brings us to the core
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mission of our deep dive today. We have quite the stack of
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source material to get through. We really do.
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We are looking at a massive stack of text.
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We have standard Greek lexicons like BDAG, theological
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dictionaries like Kittle's massive multi volume set and
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translated historical papyri pulled from the dry sands of
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Egypt. All of that to look into one
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specific thing. Right.
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We're taking all of this dense academic material to investigate
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a single fascinating ancient Word family.
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The root word we are tracking is alas, alas.
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And for you listening, analyzing a single Greek root verb might
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sound like the driest possible academic exercise.
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Oh for sure, it sounds like a textbook.
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But I promise you it is the absolute opposite.
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This specific linguistic route acts as a bridge.
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A really wide bridge too. Yeah, it connects the mundane
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act of changing your clothes to ancient Greek divorce
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proceedings, to the bizarre biological habits of hyenas, all
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the way to the most staggering, earth shattering cosmic events
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in Christian theology. The linguistic map here is
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genuinely extraordinary. When you read through the
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historical sources, both the biblical text and the secular
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writings of the the Greco Roman world, you watch this one verbal
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concept get stretched across an incredibly vast spectrum of
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human experience. So we are going to examine the
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fundamental anatomy of this word today.
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Yes. We will look at how it's meaning
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morphs and shifts when different Greek prefixes are attached to
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the front of it. And most significantly, we will
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analyze how the writers of the New Testament leverage those
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specific shifts to communicate the sheer objective weight of
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what God has done in human history.
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The best way I can think to visualize this for you is to
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compare looking at a root word to looking at a multi
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generational family tree. I like that analogy.
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You start with the patriarch, the original ancestor.
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You get to know his face, his defining characteristics, his
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general temperament. Then, as you move down the
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historical branches of that tree, you suddenly spot the
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family resemblance in completely different cousins separated by
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centuries. Even if they look totally
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different on the surface. Right.
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They might live in different countries, speak different
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dialects and hold entirely different occupations, but they
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share that undeniable core DNA. So let us start with the
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patriarch of this particular family, the root word Elliswell.
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Based on what our lexicon show us, this verb derives from an
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even simpler adjective, ellos, which simply means other.
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Just a basic concept of otherness.
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Yeah, and from that basic concept I'll also develops 2
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primary branches of meaning. The 1st is to make something
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different, to alter its fundamental nature or
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appearance. The second branch is to exchange
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or substitute one thing for another.
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Those two branches give us a solid base for everything that
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follows in the biblical text. But we need to consider the
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secular, everyday usage of this word in the ancient world first.
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That is what grounds are understanding.
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Because the writers in the New Testament, we're not writing in
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some elevated, mystical, holy language, right?
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Precisely, they were writing in Queen Greek, which was the
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street language of the common people.
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So how did the common people use this word?
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Well, Artemedoris, who was a second century professional
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diviner, use this word in his famous work on dream
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interpretation, the Onirocritical.
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I remember reading about that. He was talking about birds, I
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think. Yes, he used it when describing
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Ravens changing their pitch or their tone of voice.
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In his world, a Raven altering its vocal frequency was not just
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biology, it was an omen. Like a superstitious warning.
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Yeah, it was a tactile, physical shift in the air that meant
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something terrifying or auspicious was about to happen.
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That physical, tactile nature is everywhere in the sources.
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I mean. The author of the early
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Christian text the Epistle of Barnabas used this specific word
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to describe a rather bizarre ancient biological myth.
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Oh, the hyenas. Yes, the hyenas.
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They actually believe that a hyena could change its
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biological sex from year to year.
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Now obviously their biology was completely wrong, but the way
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they use the word alash shows us they meant a literal physical
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alteration of a creature's nature.
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It was a very concrete idea for them.
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And you look at apocalyptic texts like The Shepherd of
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Hermes, where the author describes A visionary tower
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being built and the stones making up the tower are
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physically changing colors. And we even have access to
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thousands of ancient papyri from everyday civic life, which is
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fascinating. Oh, like the trash heaps they
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dug up in Egypt. Yeah, things like tax receipts,
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legal complaints, and building contracts.
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In those documents, Alas details the swapping out of defective
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stones in a local building project, or simply the act of a
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citizen changing their dirty tunic for a clean one.
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Which tells us something crucial about how the ancient mind
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categorized reality. Whether it was the acoustic
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frequency of a bird, the supposed biological mutation of
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an animal, the structural integrity of a brick, or the
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fabric of a garment, this word handled the concrete, observable
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physical alterations of the material world.
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It was not an abstract philosophical construct debated
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by Plato and the Academy. It was that word you used on a
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construction site or at the public laundry.
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And that tactile, everyday quality carries right over into
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the biblical texts. The New Testament writers do not
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suddenly elevate the word into the clouds like in Galatians
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4.20. Paul is incredibly frustrated
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with the church in Galatia. He is very visibly annoyed in
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that letter. Very annoyed.
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He is writing this intense corrective letter and he says he
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wishes he could be present with them and change his tone of
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voice. He uses a lasso.
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He wants to shift from the harsh medium of ink and parchment to a
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softer physical vocal cord vibration.
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That is a great example, and we see it again in Acts 6.14.
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During the trial of Steven, the religious leaders bring an
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accusation against Jesus, claiming that Jesus will change
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the customs handed down by Moses again.
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Alas. Right.
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It is a word about practical, observable sociological and
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cultural alteration. But the tension arrives when you
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look at how the writers apply this mundane vocabulary to
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cosmic events. The writer of Hebrews, quoting
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the Psalms, looks at the vast expanse of the physical
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universe, the stars, the planets, the entire celestial
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structure, and says in Hebrews 1.12 that the heavens will be
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folded up like a mantle, and like a garment they will be
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changed. He uses the exact same word a
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Greek citizen would use for swapping out a dirty toga.
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And then Paul does something even more striking in his first
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letter to the Corinthians in chapter 15, verses 51 and 52, he
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is dealing with the absolute climax of human history, the
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final judgment, and the resurrection of the dead.
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The biggest event imaginable. Yeah, and he writes, we shall
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not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
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The dead will be raised and perishable, and we shall be
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changed. Alas.
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That is where I hit a conceptual wall when reading through these
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lexicons. Me too.
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Because if you are the apostle Paul and you are trying to
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describe the apicalyptic culmination of the universe, the
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dead bursting out of the ground, mortality being swallowed up by
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life, the eschatological horizon finally arriving, why on earth
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would you choose a word associated with swapping a bad
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brick or changing a shirt? It seems almost entirely
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insufficient for the gravity of the event.
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Right. Why would he not pull a highly
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elevated mystical term from Greek philosophy to describe the
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resurrection body? Well, because pulling a
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mystical, ethereal term from Greek philosophy would have
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communicated the complete opposite of what Paul intended.
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You have to look the cultural battleground of the 1st century.
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The early Church was constantly fighting against early forms of
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Gnosticism, right? Yes, Gnosticism and Greco Roman
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dualism. The prevailing cultural thought
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was that the physical, material world was inherently bad,
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corrupt, and gross. The spiritual realm, the
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invisible world of ideas, was pure and good.
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So matter equals bad, spirit equals good.
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That is the basic summary for a Greek philosopher.
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Salvation meant your soul escaping the prison of the
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physical body to float away into an ethereal, ghostly realm.
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Right, the body was just a temporary shell you could not
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wait to discard. Spot on.
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But the biblical worldview violently rejects that dualism.
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God created the physical world and he called the dirt, the
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trees and the human body very good.
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Redemption is not God scrapping the physical universe, it is God
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restoring it. Oh, so the.
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Vocabulary choice is a theological defense mechanism.
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Exactly that. If Paul uses an abstract
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mystical term for the resurrection, he risks his
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audience thinking the resurrection is just a spiritual
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evaporation. By using a lashu, a word rooted
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in the dirt, the laundry, and the construction site, Paul
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insists on the tangible physical reality of the resurrection
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body. The alteration at the end of the
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age is a hard, concrete structural alteration of matter.
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Yes, your current body is the old garment.
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The resurrection body is the new garment.
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The continuity of the person remains, but the nature of the
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physical material is completely altered to become imperishable.
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The mundane vocabulary anchors the eschatological hope in
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physical reality. It tells you that the cosmic
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events of the future will be as real and solid as the clothes on
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your back right now. The ordinary language forces the
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reader to reckon with the physical reality of the
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spiritual promises. God is not running a salvage
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operation where He throws away the material world to save a few
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floating souls. He is executing a physical
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renovation of the material he originally called Good.
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So we are looking at a verbal route that handles the physical
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exchange of goods just as easily as it handles the physical
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alteration of vocal cords. But now we need to track how
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this neutral concept of exchange moves down the family tree into
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a completely tragic application. We are moving to a new cousin in
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the linguistic family. Right.
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So if we take our root word alasha and we attach the prefix
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meta to the front of it, we get the compound verb metalesso.
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And this specific variation takes us straight into the
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darkest diagnostic assessment of human history found in the
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opening chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans.
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The addition of the prefix meta is significant here.
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In Greek composition, meta often carries the idea of transfer, a
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change of place or a shift in condition.
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Like metamorphosis. Yes, a massive change when
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compounded with our root metal, Lasha intensifies the concept of
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exchanging one thing for another, often implying a
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complete switch of allegiances or states.
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And Paul uses it to describe a massive failure.
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He really does. In Romans chapter 1, verses 2325
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and 26, Paul deploys this intensified word to diagnose the
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fundamental mental fracture in the human condition.
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The text outlines a sequence of disastrous events.
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Right. It starts with humanity knowing
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God. But they did not honor him as
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God. Instead, they took the glory of
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the immortal God and exchanged it in the last for images
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resembling mortal man, birds, animals, and creeping things.
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And verse 25 reiterates the core of this tragedy, saving the
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exchange of the truth about God for a lie, worshipping and
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serving the creature rather than the Creator.
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I want to look at the Old Testament background for a
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second, because the lexicons point out that Paul is not
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inventing this concept of a tragic theological exchange out
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of thin air. Oh right, it has roots in the
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Hebrew texts. Yeah, if you read the
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Septuagint, which is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew
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Old Testament, this use of Mecca lash directly mirrors the Hebrew
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root Mer. That Hebrew word means to
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exchange, to barter, or to trade, particularly in the
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context of idolatry. I think you see that glaringly
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in Psalm One O 6, which recounts the Israelites at Mount Sinai.
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That is the perfect example. They have the literal fiery
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presence of Yahweh on the mountain, the God who just split
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the Red Sea for them, and the Psalm says they exchanged their
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glorious God for the image of a bull that eats grass.
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The sheer absurdity of that visual is intentional.
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You have the infinite sovereign creator of the cosmos, the
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source of all life and reality, and humanity looks at that
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infinite worth and says, well we will trade this for a statue of
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a farm animal. It is insulting, honestly.
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It is the lexicon sources highlight that the truth of God
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in Romans 1 is not just an abstract list of theological
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propositions. It is the self revelation of
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God, the objective reality of who He is as the Creator and
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Sustainer of all things. So the lie is the idolatrous
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system that places created things, whether that is a wooden
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statue, a political system, human intellect, or bodily
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pleasure in the position of the creator.
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It is an economic transaction gone entirely wrong.
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Let us unpack the mechanics of that transaction, because
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calling it an economic failure reveals so much about human
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nature. We are wired as creatures to
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assign value. Right.
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Yes, we are constantly making valuations in our minds.
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This is worth my time, that is not.
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This is worth my money, that is not.
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We are built to trade and we are built to worship.
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But our internal valuation system is entirely broken at the
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factory level. We consistently trade the
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priceless for the worthless. Think of it like a massive
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corporate merger. OK, I am tracking with you.
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Imagine a Fortune 500 company. Right, A company that possesses
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A limitless sovereign wealth fund, total market dominance and
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perfect structural integrity. And the board of directors
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willingly signs a contract to trade all of those assets to a
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competitor in exchange for a condemned toxic landfill that is
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actively on fire. That is exactly the scale of the
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disaster and the terrifying part is not just the trade itself, it
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is that the board of directors sits at the table, signs the
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papers and genuinely believes they secured the better end of
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the deal. That corporate analogy clarifies
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the objective reality of the situation.
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It highlights the absolute irrationality of the fallen
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human mind. The trade is objectively
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suicidal, yet the participants celebrate it.
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And Paul argues that this initial vertical swap, trading
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the Creator for the creature, has severe structural
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consequences for human existence.
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Because humanity altered the natural religious order, the
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natural human order was subsequently fractured.
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This is the explicit logic of Romans one, right?
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It is and it is why verse 26 uses metal ass again.
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Paul writes for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable
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passions for their women. Exchange natural relations for
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those that are contrary to nature.
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The textual analysis here is vital.
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The terrible perversion of the natural, biological and social
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order in human relationships is presented as the direct just
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consequence for the sinful perversion of the facts and the
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religious sphere. The vertical collapse dictates
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the horizontal collapse. Precisely when you barter away
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the Creator, the entire structural integrity of human
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flourishing collapses underneath you.
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Humans are made in the Imago day, the image of God.
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We are designed to reflect His glory.
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And if you shatter the original object of worship, the
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reflection shatters as well. You cannot divorce human
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morality or social order from human worship.
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The idolatry at the top of the chain poisons the water supply
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for everything downstream. The transaction was completely
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disastrous. We traded away the infinite
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glory of God, and we acquired a curse, a state of rebellion, and
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a fractured existence. And the brutal reality about a
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legal or economic transaction is that once the ink is dry and the
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trade is completed, reversing it requires capital.
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If you sell off your corporate assets for a toxic landfill, you
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cannot just wake up the next morning and ask for your assets
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back. The other party holds the title.
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Right, to get it back you have to buy it back.
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But you only hold toxic assets. You are completely bankrupt and
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this leads us to the next branch of our Word family where we
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encounter 2 new, highly specific variations of the root word ET
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alagma and EP Aliso AP Alesso. Let's start by looking at the
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first one and Talagma. OK, so the prefix antolate does
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not just mean against in this context, it means in place of or
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equivalent to. So Anthelogma translates to
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purchase money, an equivalent ransom, or a substitute.
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We find this word sitting at the center of one of the most
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sobering questions in all of ancient literature.
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In Mark 8.37 and the parallel passage in Matthew 16.26, Jesus
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looks at his audience and asks what can a man give in exchange
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for his soul? What is the antilagma for your
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life? Yes, the theological dictionary
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we are referencing points out that this teaching is deeply
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rooted in Psalm 49, verses 7 and 8, which state unequivocally
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that truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price
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of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can
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never suffice. I want to pause on the sheer
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weight of Mark 8.37 because it is so easy to read that as a
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sentimental verse about human value.
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People often read it as Jesus saying, look how incredibly
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valuable you are. You are worth more than the
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whole world. Which is a popular
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interpretation, but it misses the point.
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It totally misses the historical context.
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While there is a truth to human value, the historical context of
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this word points to something far more severe.
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This is not a philosophical musing about the infinite
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abstract worth of a human soul in a vacuum.
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It is about the absolute infinite seriousness of divine
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judgement and legal debt. The historical context of debt
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in the ancient world makes this vivid.
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In the 1st century, if you incurred a massive financial
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debt and could not pay it, you did not just declare bankruptcy
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and restructure your assets. Your physical body became the
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collateral. Yes, your physical body and
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often the bodies of your family members.
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You were thrown into debtors prison or sold into slavery
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until the debt was paid. You were locked in a cell and
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the only way out was if someone on the outside approached the
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creditor with a sufficient antilagma, a ransom, an
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equivalent sum of purchase money to buy your freedom.
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So when Jesus asks what can a man give in exchange for his
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soul, he is setting up an impossible audit.
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An audit you cannot pass. When the Creator requires your
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life, when the Ledger of your existence is opened and the
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infinite debt of your rebellion against an infinite God comes
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due, there is no currency, no bribe, and no substitute you can
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offer to balance the scales. The bankruptcy we discussed in
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Romans 1 means that humanity possesses nothing of sufficient
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value to reverse the transaction.
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We are sitting in the debtor's cell and our pockets are
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completely empty. We lack the antilagma.
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Which leaves humanity in a state of absolute legal jeopardy.
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We are stuck in the binding contract of our own rebellion.
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And that idea of a binding hostile contract leads
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beautifully into the second word in this section.
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Apollisa. Apollis the prefix a Poe denotes
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separation, a moving away from something.
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So this specific variation means to alter by removal, to do away
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with, to liberate, or to legally withdraw.
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You find it utilized in Hebrews 2.15 where the author speaks of
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Christ liberating those who, through the fear of death, were
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subject to lifelong slavery. The secular background of this
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word, however, provides A fascinating, gritty context.
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It really does. According to the translated
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papyri and historical legal records, Apple ass was a
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technical legal term utilized in Greek marriage records for a
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wife's formal withdrawal during a divorce.
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It represented the legal severing of A2 sided
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relationship. Furthermore, it was a standard
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business term for breaking free from a binding legal contract or
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settling a financial dispute out of court.
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The legal and contractual flavor of the word seems to be exactly
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what the biblical writers want to highlight.
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In Loop 12.58, Jesus gives a practical illustration about
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settling with your accuser while you were still walking on the
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way to the magistrate. He advises making an effort to
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settle the case out of court. Yeah, and he uses this specific
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word, appalache, to say make an effort to be free from him or
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break away from the legal jeopardy before you reach the
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judge. It implies severing a hostile
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binding obligation. But the usage that forces me to
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stop and reread the text is found in Acts chapter 19 verse
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12. The narrative surrounding Paul
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and Ephesus, yes. The text describes this
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extraordinary scenario where handkerchiefs or work aprons
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that physically touch the apostle Paul were taken away to
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sick people and the text says their diseases departed from
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them and the evil spirits came out.
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And the Greek word used by Luke for the diseases departing is
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appalache. Now Luke is a physician.
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He understands biology and illness, yet he describes a
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medical condition, a biological disease, using the technical
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vocabulary of a broken business contract or a severed divorce
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arrangement. It is a striking choice of
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words. It is why would a doctor treat a
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virus or an infection like a divorced entity withdrawing from
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the human frame? I am struggling to see the logic
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of applying courtroom vocabulary to a medical healing.
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It is a phenomenal linguistic choice.
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Then reveals the underlying theology of the biblical writers
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regarding the nature of the physical world.
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In the biblical worldview, disease, decay, and death are
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not natural, original components of the human design.
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Right, they came later. When God created the world,
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there was no cancer and no leprosy, no blindness.
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These biological corruptions are the direct penal results of the
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fall in Genesis 3. They are the physical
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manifestations of the curse of sin.
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So they're tied to a legal judgment.
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Therefore, sickness is not just a neutral biological accident.
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It holds a type of legal penal claim over the falling human
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body. It operates like a hostile
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creditor enforcing the terms of a broken covenant upon a debtor.
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Wait, so the disease actually has a contractual right to be
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there based on the rebellion of humanity?
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In the broader theological sense, yes, the curse carries a
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legal weight. By using Apalassa, Luke frames
22:22
the physical healing not simply as a biological repair, like
22:25
fixing a broken bone, but as a legal liberation.
22:28
The disease is essentially being served an eviction notice from
22:31
the highest court. That is a perfect way to phrase
22:33
it. It's contractual right to occupy
22:35
that specific of a human body is being terminated by a higher
22:39
sovereign authority. The illness is divorcing the
22:42
patient. It is legally withdrawing its
22:44
claim because the objective force of the Kingdom of God,
22:47
breaking into history through the ministry of Paul, has
22:50
severed the legal bond of the curse in that specific moment.
22:53
It shows you that God's restoration addresses both the
22:56
physical reality of the suffering and the underlying
23:00
legal liability of the curse simultaneously.
23:02
That reframes the entire concept of healing.
23:05
The disease acts as a collection election agent for the curse,
23:07
and the authority of God tears up the contract, forcing the
23:10
agent to leave the premises. So to summarize the diagnostic
23:13
trajectory for you, listening humanity made a devastating
23:17
trade, exchanging the glory of the immortal God for dead idols.
23:21
We incurred an infinite legal debt.
23:23
We cannot pay because we possess no antilagma, no substitute of
23:26
equal value. We are completely insolvent.
23:29
And we are in desperate need of an Appalachia, a legal severing
23:33
of this hostility, A tearing up of the debt we owe.
23:36
And that leaves humanity in a state of absolute, objective
23:39
alienation from the Creator. The gap between US and God is
23:42
wide open, and the relationship is defined by hostility and
23:46
wrath. This leaves us directly to the
23:48
absolute core of the Christian message.
23:50
How is that hostility resolved? How do we get peace?
23:54
This brings us to a crucial linguistic fork in the road
23:57
where we analyze 2 incredibly distinct words for peace and
24:00
reconciliation, dia lasso and cataliso Catalasha.
24:03
Let us start with the horizontal piece, the human level, which is
24:06
dia Lasha. The prefix dia often means
24:09
through or implies a crossing over between two points, a
24:12
mutual exchange. Dia lasha refers to mutual
24:15
horizontal reconciliation between two parties.
24:18
We see it used once in the New Testament in Matthew 5 .24,
24:21
where Jesus is teaching about anger and human conflict during
24:24
the Sermon on the Mount. He says if you are offering your
24:27
gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has
24:30
something against you, leave your gift there before the altar
24:33
and go first be reconciled to your brother and then come and
24:37
offer your gift. That action of being reconciled
24:40
to your brother is Diolasu. The historical papyri provide a
24:44
wonderful, incredibly human context.
24:46
Here we have access to an ancient papyrus letter written
24:50
by an errant, rebellious son to his angry mother.
24:53
Oh, that letter is fascinating. In the letter he is begging her
24:57
for dial loss. He's asking for a mutual laying
24:59
down of arms. The mechanics of that ancient
25:02
letter mirror exactly how our human conflicts work today.
25:06
It describes A2 way St. In a horizontal human
25:09
relationship, whether it is a son and a mother or two Co
25:12
workers or a married couple, both parties have to overcome a
25:15
degree of hostility. The son has to repent of his
25:18
wandering and adjust his behavior, and the mother has to
25:20
renounce her anger and adjust her posture.
25:23
It is a mutual movement toward the center to establish a
25:26
treaty. Even if one person is 90% at
25:29
fault, both people have to contribute to bridging the gap.
25:32
Both people have to lay down their weapons to achieve
25:34
genuine, lasting peace. Right.
25:37
There's a mutual contingency to the peace, but that is Diolasu.
25:41
When the Apostle Paul says down to describe the peace achieved
25:44
between God and humanity, he does not use Diolasu.
25:47
He reaches for a different, significantly heavier
25:50
theological term, catalasu. The prefix kata in Greek
25:54
composition often intensifies a word indicating A definitive
25:58
downward motion or something comprehensive, final, and
26:01
absolute. We see this massive, heavily
26:03
weighted word deployed in Second Corinthians chapter 5 verses 18
26:07
through 20 and in Romans chapter 5 verse 10, and the contrast
26:10
between the mutual human piece of Diolasio and the divine piece
26:13
of Catalasio is absolute. The contrast is jarring,
26:17
especially when you look at the religious context of the 1st
26:19
century. Oh, the Pagan religions.
26:21
Yeah, and the Pagan Greek and Roman religions of the time, the
26:23
gods were notoriously fickle and frequently angry.
26:27
If a river flooded or a plague hit, the assumption was that the
26:30
local deity was furious, therefore.
26:32
Human beings had to offer sacrifices, pour out libations
26:36
and perform rituals to reconcile the angry gods to themselves.
26:40
The humans initiated the peace process in order to change the
26:43
deities mood from wrathful to favorable.
26:45
The human action manipulated the divine reaction.
26:48
But Paul's use of Catalas completely flips this Pagan
26:51
paradigm on its head. The reversal is the bedrock of
26:54
understanding the gospel in the New Testament.
26:56
God is never the object being reconciled.
26:59
Let me state that with absolute clarity based on the grammatical
27:02
structure of these texts. God does not reconcile himself
27:05
to us. God reconciles us to Himself.
27:08
The supremacy, the sovereignty, and the unchangeable nature of
27:11
God are maintained entirely. He does not change His mind or
27:14
alter His character. We were the enemies.
27:16
We were the ones standing under the objective, just reality of
27:19
divine wrath due to our idolatrous rebellion.
27:23
Yet God is the sole initiator, the sole architect, and the sole
27:26
financier of the peace treaty. He crosses the line into enemy
27:29
territory to establish the peace that the enemy could not and
27:32
would not establish. Represents A staggering paradigm
27:36
shift for the human mind to grasp.
27:38
The offended party, the one who holds all the legal rights, all
27:41
the capital and all the moral high ground, is the one who
27:45
bears the cost to establish the peace with the offender.
27:48
And the source material makes a point to explain that this
27:51
concept of reconciliation is more comprehensive than just the
27:54
legal concept of justification. Justification is a legal term.
27:58
It means the removal of guilt, the clearing of the Ledger in
28:01
the courtroom. It means the debt is cancelled.
28:04
But you can have your debt cancelled by a bank and you
28:06
still do not invite the bank manager over for dinner.
28:09
Cancel Dead is not friendship. Catalasso reconciliation is a
28:13
total state change. It moves us from being hostile
28:15
enemies to being adopted family. That distinction between the
28:18
legal clearing of guilt and the relational kindling of love is
28:22
essential to grasp. Romans 5 says that while we were
28:25
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
28:28
It changes the total state of the individual's life.
28:31
It moves a person from standing under the shadow of divine wrath
28:35
to having the love of God poured into their heart through the
28:38
Holy Spirit. The Theological Dictionary notes
28:40
a fascinating nuance. While faith is inherently tied
28:44
to justification, Paul does not explicitly mention human faith
28:47
when he is defining the objective accomplishment of
28:50
reconciliation in Romans 5 or Second Corinthians 5.
28:53
Really, he leaves the human action out entirely in those
28:56
definitions. He focuses heavily on the
28:58
objective historical work of God in Christ that brings about a
29:02
completely new creation. The sinful self seeking that
29:05
defined the old nature is overcome by a new nature.
29:09
The hostility is replaced by a living, breathing communion.
29:12
This is a present, objective reality achieved entirely by the
29:16
death of Jesus, who stood as our representative substitute.
29:19
God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.
29:22
That is how the unpayable debt from Romans 1, the lack of an
29:25
antalagma, is legally and relationally handled.
29:28
This brings up a massive theological paradox that I
29:30
constantly wrestle with, and I know our listeners do too.
29:32
If God is the sole architect of this piece, if he initiates it,
29:36
pays the infinite debt, and does all the reconciling work
29:39
objectively at the cross, then how do we handle human agency?
29:43
Because right after Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5 that God
29:45
reconciled us to himself through Christ, he turns around in verse
29:49
20 and begs the readers. We implore you, on behalf half
29:52
of Christ, be reconciled to God. If God already did all the
29:55
reconciling, why is Paul begging people to do it?
29:58
It feels like a contradiction. It is a phenomenal question that
30:01
strikes the heart of how God interacts with the human will.
30:05
The source material provides a very precise grammatical nuance
30:08
to answer it. Man is not a passive block of
30:11
wood in this transaction. We do not receive reconciliation
30:14
the way a stone receives rain. Because God is dealing with
30:17
conscious human persons, He engages our will.
30:20
The insight here is that God's sovereign action makes man
30:23
active through the ministry of reconciliation.
30:26
Through the outward preaching of the gospel, God grants humans
30:29
the internal capacity, the right, and the spiritual life to
30:32
accept this new reality. The grammar Paul uses in 2nd
30:35
Corinthians 5.280, Zero is critical, is a passive
30:38
imperative verb. It literally translates to let
30:41
yourselves be reconciled to God. You are not being asked to
30:44
generate the peace, you are being asked to drop your weapons
30:47
and accept the peace that has already been objectively
30:50
achieved, financed and secured by God.
30:53
You cannot create the reconciliation, but you must
30:56
enter into the experience of it. Let your cells be reconciled.
31:00
That passive grammar is the key that unlocks the paradox.
31:05
Let me try a different analogy here.
31:06
Go for it. Think of a defector trapped deep
31:09
behind enemy lines during a brutal Cold War.
31:12
The defector is stuck under heavy guard, completely
31:15
incapable of saving himself. His home country decides to
31:19
rescue him. OK, the state initiates the
31:21
action. Yes.
31:22
The sovereign government plans the extraction.
31:24
They finance the operation. They send a covert team across
31:27
the border, they neutralize the hostile guards, they secure the
31:29
perimeter, and they land a helicopter right in the
31:32
courtyard where the defector is standing.
31:33
The extraction has been objectively achieved by the home
31:36
country. The pilot opens the door and
31:38
yells to the defector. Get in.
31:39
The defector did not plan the mission, did not fly the chopper
31:43
and did not neutralize the guards, but he still has to
31:46
physically step onto the helicopter.
31:48
The home country achieved the rescue.
31:50
The defector must actively step into it.
31:52
He cannot sit in the courtyard, refuse to board the chopper and
31:56
experience the rescue. That analogy tracks beautifully
31:59
with the biblical data. The defectors act of stepping
32:02
onto the helicopter adds 0 objective value to the
32:05
extraction mission itself. He cannot take credit for the
32:08
rescue just because he lifted his foot.
32:10
The mission was already perfect and complete, entirely funded
32:14
and executed by the Sovereign authority, but stepping onto the
32:17
chopper is the necessary active experience of the rescue.
32:21
God uses human messengers, Paul, the apostles, the church, to
32:25
deliver the terms of the treaty to the courtyard.
32:28
The reconciliation of the individual is a concluded fact
32:31
in the mind of God achieved at the cross, but it is applied in
32:34
time and space when the messenger speaks the Word and
32:37
the hostile rebel is awakened by the Spirit to drop their weapons
32:41
and step onto the chopper. We have tracked this linguistic
32:44
family tree from the mundane act of changing clothes in an
32:47
ancient laundry, to the horrific economic exchange of idolatry in
32:51
Rome, to the unpayable debt requiring debtors prison, to the
32:56
magnificent asymmetrical peace God establishes with hostile
33:00
rebels. But the writers of the New
33:01
Testament were not done stretching this word.
33:04
They had one more conceptual boundary to push, and that
33:07
brings us to the longest, most comprehensive variation of our
33:11
root word, Okatuleso apocateulas.
33:15
This word is massive, both in its literal spelling and its
33:18
theological scope. You only find it in the letters
33:20
written by Paul to the Colossians and the Ephesians,
33:24
specifically Colossians chapter 1 verses 20 and 22 and Ephesians
33:28
chapter 2 verse 16. And when you look at the
33:30
historical lexicons, they suggest something incredible.
33:33
You do not find this specific compound word anywhere in Greek
33:36
literature before Paul. He appears to have coined this
33:39
massive neologism himself. The standard vocabulary of the
33:42
entire Greek language was insufficient for what he needed
33:44
to. Articulate, which tells you
33:46
something about the sheer scale of the concept he is trying to
33:49
communicate. In Greek, when you stack
33:52
prefixes, you multiply the force and the scope of the root verb.
33:56
We already discussed Catalasu, the definitive downward moving
34:00
asymmetrical reconciliation initiated by God.
34:03
By adding the prefix aft to the very front of it, Paul creates a
34:07
term that suggests A reconciliation that brings
34:09
things completely back from a state of deep alienation into an
34:13
original state of pristine harmony.
34:15
The linguistic analysis of this specific word reveals 2 massive
34:18
conceptual expansions from everything we have discussed so
34:21
far. The 1st is an expansion of the
34:23
subject doing the reconciling. In our previous discussions of
34:26
Catalasu, God the Father alone is the subject who reconciles,
34:30
but in Epochalasu, Christ is explicitly brought in as the
34:34
active subject alongside the Father.
34:36
Colossians one notes that God was pleased to have all His
34:39
fullness dwell in Christ and through Him to reconcile all
34:41
things. The peacemaking work is
34:43
perfectly, harmoniously shared between the Father and the Son
34:46
in the Hypostatic Union. The first expansion is
34:48
structural, but the second expansion is just breathtaking
34:51
in its scope. It is the expansion of the
34:54
object being reconciled. Throughout this entire
34:56
conversation, we have been focused on individual human
34:59
beings. The rebel in the cell, The
35:01
patient with the disease, The defector in the courtyard.
35:04
We tend to think of salvation as a highly individualized,
35:07
localized rescue mission. But with a bucket of alas, Paul
35:11
completely blows the walls off our localized theology.
35:15
The object of this reconciliation is no longer just
35:17
individual human souls, it is the entirety of the created
35:21
cosmos. Colossians one point, Tuno says.
35:24
And threw him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on
35:27
earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
35:30
This encompasses the entire physical universe.
35:33
Ephesians 2 uses the exact same word to describe the breaking
35:36
down of the ancient dividing sociological wall of hostility
35:40
between Jews and Gentiles, merging them into one new
35:43
humanity. It even extends to the Super
35:45
terrestrial realm, the invisible powers, authorities and
35:48
municipalities. We must be incredibly careful to
35:50
define what this cosmic reconciliation means according
35:54
to the parameter set by the text itself.
35:57
Throughout history, some scholars have tried to interpret
35:59
this cosmic scope as just the forced subjection of all things
36:03
to Christ, a sort of military surrender where the rebellious
36:06
angels in the broken universe are just pinned to the ground
36:09
under the boot of a conqueror. But the lexical data explicitly
36:13
refutes that limitation. The text explicitly defines this
36:16
action as making peace. It is not just the establishment
36:20
of a rigid chain of command over a resentful populace.
36:23
It is the total structural restoration of all fractured
36:26
elements of the universe. We have to remember that the
36:28
fall of man in Genesis 3 did not just introduce sin into the
36:31
human heart. The curse fractured the ground,
36:34
bringing forth thorns and thistles.
36:36
It fractured the animal Kingdom, introducing predation and fear.
36:39
It tore the very fabric of the physical universe, subjecting
36:42
all of creation to futility, as Paul writes in Romans 8.
36:46
So the damage was cosmic, meaning the repair has to be
36:48
cosmic. Exactly.
36:50
Apocadelas declares that the cross of Christ is not just the
36:54
place where individual sins are forgiven.
36:56
It is the epicenter of a cosmic shockwave that will put the
37:00
entire fractured universe back together.
37:03
Every atom, every biological ecosystem, every sociological
37:07
relationship, every spiritual boundary that was broken by the
37:10
introduction of sin is going to be brought back into perfect
37:14
singing harmony under the headship of Christ.
37:16
That answers my earlier question of why Paul had to invent a
37:19
brand new word. If you are a 1st century writer
37:22
staring at the entire catalog of the Greek language looking for a
37:26
way to describe an event that reaches all the way back to the
37:28
dawn of time, reaches up to the highest invisible spiritual
37:32
realms, reaches down into the dirt and bedrock of the earth,
37:35
and stretches forward into the eternal future to fix every
37:38
broken thing everywhere all at once, Well, a word used for
37:42
changing your shirt at laundry just is not going to cut it.
37:44
Even a word used for a human political treaty falls
37:47
incredibly short. The sheer terrifying scale of
37:50
the cross required breaking human language to fit the
37:53
reality. Paul had to step into the
37:55
linguistic forge and hammer out a new tool to carry the weight
37:58
of a reconciled universe. It is the linguistic equivalent
38:02
of astronomers realizing they have to build an entirely new
38:05
massive telescope because the old lenses simply cannot handle
38:09
the scope and spectrum of the light coming from a newly
38:11
discovered Galaxy. The cross demands a vocabulary
38:14
of total cosmic repair. It tells you that the salvation
38:17
secured by Christ is not a narrow, localized evacuation
38:20
plan. He is not abandoning the ship of
38:23
the universe. He is reclaiming it.
38:25
The physical world matters. The stones, the birds, the human
38:28
body, the structural order of society, all of it is caught up
38:31
in this massive, unstoppable movement of a pocket to lawsuit.
38:34
The original material of creation will be maintained, but
38:37
its nature will be fundamentally altered and renovated to reflect
38:41
the indestructible life of the resurrected Christ.
38:43
We have covered an immense amount of conceptual ground
38:46
today, moving from the microscopic to the macroscopic.
38:49
We started by looking at a simple everyday root word, alas,
38:53
which the ancients used for the physical alteration of everyday
38:55
objects. Swapping out cracked stones in a
38:58
wall, Changing garments, altering a tone of voice.
39:01
We watched that neutral word turn incredibly dark when
39:03
humanity utilized Metal Lass to exchange the glory of the
39:07
Creator for dead idols, bankrupting our nature in a
39:11
catastrophic economic trade. We hit the brick wall of our
39:14
inability to pay the antilagma, the equivalent ransom price for
39:17
our soul, leaving us in desperate need of a legal
39:20
eviction notice and Appalachius to sever the contractual claim
39:24
of a rebellion and disease. And then we witnessed the
39:26
breathtaking grace of God, who did not wait for us to negotiate
39:30
a mutual horizontal peace, but unilaterally enacted Cadalassa,
39:34
paying our infinite debt, crossing enemy lines and
39:37
granting us the capacity to receive his pardon.
39:40
And finally, we saw how Paul stretched human language to his
39:43
absolute breaking point with out pocket lawsuit, revealing that
39:47
God's peacemaking ambition will not stop until the entire
39:50
fractured cosmos is brought into perfect harmony.
39:54
The trajectory of the single Word family is a perfect,
39:56
flawless mirror for the trajectory of biblical history.
39:59
It tracks the narrative arc from creation to the fall to
40:03
redemption, and finally to complete cosmic consummation.
40:06
It shows us that every aspect of our existence is defined by
40:09
exchange and alteration, and that our only hope is that God
40:13
is the Sovereign Architect orchestrating the final
40:16
permanent exchange. And that leaves us with a final
40:19
thought for you to carry with you today.
40:21
We have spent this entire deep dive analyzing A linguistic map
40:24
of how God handles hostility. Our entire spiritual reality,
40:28
our very existence, has reconciled.
40:30
People who can breathe and have hope relies on a unilateral
40:33
exchange where God traded His perfection for our hostility
40:36
without asking for our prior permission.
40:39
He stepped across the line while we were still active, enemies
40:41
gripping our weapons. So if that asymmetrical grace is
40:45
the bedrock of your reality, how does that dictate how you
40:49
approach the people in your own life whom you consider your
40:51
enemies? If the entire cosmos is being
40:55
actively and aggressively brought into peace by the blood
40:57
of the cross, how can we possibly justify clinging to
41:01
petty horizontal hostilities if. God has initiated the grand
41:05
cosmic reconciliation at infinite cost to Himself.
41:08
Perhaps we are called to be the ones who take the first step,
41:11
bearing the cost in our smaller ones.
41:13
Keep questioning, keep reading, and keep learning.