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TH E K I N G ’ S BUS I NE S S
This scholarly a n d spiritual study by a well-known Bible teacher will be deeply appre ciated by serious students of the Word of God. The second and concluding part of this article will appear in the August issue of this magazine.
the New Testament. But those who bear this beauty of the Rose of Sharon and Lily of the Valley struggle to blos som and bloom and fragrance in a field or cosmos grown wild with tares. In the Lord Jesus they have peace. In the cosmos they have tribulation (John 16:33). They are in the cosmos, but not of it! . Perhaps luxuriant is more appropriate than wild as descriptive of this cosmos growth. For when Peter (1 Pet. 3:3) speaks of “outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold or the putting on of ap parel,” he incloses this descriptive utterance within an initial THE and a closing COSMOS. One familiar with Greek recognizes in this a literary artifice of that lan guage which eloquently describes a cosmos that is as rich as it is luxuriant with tares. Historically he would know, too, that this patronage of the beautician, this bejewelling, this fashion plate parading here condemned by the Spirit through Peter, were part and parcel of the pagan Roman games. He would be aware that in these Roman provinces of Asia Minor, where lived the re cipients of Peter’s epistles, these stylistic accoutrements of heathenism were more slavishly observed than in the imperial city of Rome itself. An equally colorful description of the cosmos appears in the Epistle of James (3:6). Our “little member,” the tongue, is under discussion. It “boasts great great things.” In fact, “the tongue is a f-ire; a world of iniquity.” In the original this latter phrase reads: “ (The tongue is.. .) the cosmos of unrighteousness." Here is a simile that paints not a cosmos but the cosmos as a field not merely rich, but ripe, in luxuriant tares. No marvel that the Spirit of God, through Paul, speaks of those who are “without Christ” as folk “having no hope, and without God, in the world" (Eph. 2:12). Such, in part, is the cosmos of the third Golgotha. Once the beautiful garden of God, it now bears a rich and luxuriant growth that must one day be reaped to be burned. The third Gol gotha is a cross in a field of tares. When Good Seed Graced the Very Good Cosmos In our Lord’s statement “the field is the world,” the stress is on the cosmos rather than upon field: this latter term dwarfs, the former term magnifies the true dimen sion of God’s world. It is, in truth, “the everything that God had made: and, behold, it”—this everything—“was very good” (Gen. 1:31).6 There is New Testament war rant, too, for this conception of the very good cosmos, graced only with good seed.
The Cross in a Field of Tares E VERY instructed, believer knows' that he is cruci extend the figure and speak of a third Golgotha? A further passage from Galatians conveys to us the scrip tural reply. It reads: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord. Jesus Christ, by which^ the world is crucified unto me; and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). In its original Greek dress the passage is less poetic, but as much more pungent as it seems prosaic. “But to me,” it tells us, “may it never occur to go on boasting except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which, to me, world stands crucified, and I (stand cruci fied) to world." This is the third Golgotha. In the second, the believer is crucified with Christ.3 In the third the believer is crucified to the world. Indeed, and especially if he be a spiritual believer, the world is crucified to him. The third Golgotha is a kind of dual crucifixion! In the sphere of Bible exposition, there is no more interesting pursuit than that of apprehending the scrip tural sense and meaning of this world of the third Gol gotha. Throughout the New Testament our English Ver- sion* renders four different Greek words by the Eng lish equivalent (?) world. They are aion, meaning “age” ; ge, meaning “earth” ; kosmos, meaning “world order” ; and oikoumene, meaning “inhabited world.” The world of Galatians 6:14, cited above, and of all the following passages mentioned, is kosmos or world order. It is our English term cosmos, the term that we shall henceforth employ, except in direct quotation, to indicate the kosmos-world we are examining. The New Testament offers no formal definition for cosmos.® Instead we have description: always colorful; sometimes vivid. We cite several examples. In what the disciples call “the parable of the tares of the field” Jesus describes the field as the cosmos: a field sown with good seed—“the children of the kingdom” ; a field abounding in tares—“the children of the wicked one.” The good seed finds no place in the disciples’ caption for the parable (Matt; 13:36-38)! Good seed, and its growth and fruitage in the cosmos, are given rich mention in
fied with Christ (Gal. -2^0)1; that- this second Golgotha, to use a figure of speech, spoils him as a servant of sin (Rom. 6:6).i By what token dare we
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