My Prophetic Rabbit

The above picture is a photo of our rabbit. Actually we are just foster parents, he belongs to our daughter and her husband, but for practical reasons has been staying with us for the past six months. He is called Bavinck.  A strange name for a rabbit you might think, so where does it come from. The rabbit is named after a Dutch Reformed theologian of the later nineteenth, early twentieth century called Herman Bavink. During his life he made several trips to America, and you can read more in a post by James Eglington, which is where most of my information comes from. In 1909 in a lecture in Rotterdam 1909 he said:

In the future, there truly lurks a danger, and in the future a struggle will doubtless be fought between black and white, a heated struggle, fanned into flame by the strong antipathy on both sides.

Sadly this was all too prophetic. He argued that religion was the only way to avoid this, and that “the whole human race is of one blood”, as the Bible teaches.

All “races” (there is really only one race, the human race, but you know what I mean) are capable of racism, but there does seem to be a peculiarly deep rooted problem in America (see the post by post by James Eglington) which those of us from other countries may find difficult to comprehend. 

In these days we need to be very careful of being swept along by the strong tides that are swirling around in society at present.  At the end of John chapter 2 it says:

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. (John 2:23,24)

We need to beware of entrusting ourselves to the ideas of men. Much of what is going on in America, and in other countries, in reaction to George Floyd's murder is motivated by critical race theory and identitarian politics. Such ideology is destructive and does nothing to help black people, nor to bring peace. The only way forward is to recognise, along with my prophetic rabbit, that we are all of one blood, we are all of one race in Adam. That means we are all sinners. And then to see that the solution is the blood of Christ, certainly not in shedding other people’s blood. Only in Christ can we all be one.

I would also recommend David Robertson's article, which directed me to Bavink!

Matthew 2:19-23 - He would be called a Nazarene

2:19,20

They didn’t have internet in those days, so God sent an angel to tell Joseph when Herod died. So again we angels playing an important role in God’s “economy”. Like the earlier angel, this one appeared in a dream. In God’s dealings with Joseph we see Him respecting Joseph was the head of the household, even though Mary, and especially Jesus, are by far the more important “players” in the plan. 

2:21-23

On the way Joseph learnt that Archelaus was now reigning in Egypt. Archelaus was the son of Herod. Herod’s “kingdom” was split into three after his death. Yet again Joseph was warned in a dream, and he withdrew to Galilee. Why did God not warn him in the first place? Possibly because if he had Joseph might have been too afraid to return at all. God does not tell us everything, and sometimes does not tell us of dangers until the last minute. This is not an oversight on God's part, He tells us everything at the right time.

So they went to Galilee, and Matthew sees yet another fulfilment of what the prophets said, "he will be called a Nazarene". This quotation is problematic as it does not actually appear in the Old Testament! There are various suggestions as to what Matthew was on about, you can find a summary of the main ones here.

Jeremiah 7:5-8 - You are trusting in deceptive words

7:5,6

Instead of relying on empty religious slogans they needed to change their ways and their actions. The Bible is incredibly down to earth. They were to deal with each other justly. God is interested in truth. The Old Testament is incredibly liberal, for they were also to ensure that they did not oppress foreigners, not the fatherless or widows (i.e. the poor). They were not to shed innocent blood, nor to worship idols. And worshipping idols resulted in harm for themselves.

7:7,8

“Then I will let you live in this place”. The Israelites “right” to live in the Promised Land was contingent upon them obeying the Law of God. Today people talk a lot about Israel’s right to the land. Now I believe that it is indeed God’s plan that they live in the land, but it is on His terms. They need to repent and to believe in Christ. Unless and until they do this they will never find peace. See also that at the end of v7 it says God gave the land to their ancestors “for ever and ever”. But this was not a promise without consequences. Instead of trusting God they were “trusting in deceptive words that are worthless”. We need to apply this to our understanding of modern Israel, and also to our understanding of ourselves.

Matthew 2:16-18 - Rachel weeping for her children

2:16

We now come to the slaughter of the innocent, Herod’s order to have all the boys who were two years of age and under. Having failed to find the exact location of the birth of Jesus, Herod tried the blanket approach. There are parallels with Moses, whose own life was at risk at birth because of Pharaoh's edict that all Hebrew boy babies should be killed. We recoil in horror at this, but maybe we should remember the massive numbers of live in the womb that are ended by abortion. Maybe we are not much more civilised after all! It is estimated that Herod’s order would result in about thirty deaths. Herod was a very evil violent man, and this order was on a rather small scale compared to other death orders he issued.

2:17,18 

We then get another quote from Scripture, this time from Jer 31:15. Ramah was a town about five miles north of Jerusalem, and was a place that the exiles would have passed through on their way to Babylon. Rachel was Jacob’s favourite wife, and personified the nation.

Jeremiah 7:1-4 - The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!

7:1,2

Jeremiah was commanded by the Lord to speak to the people, and to do so at the “gate of the Lord’s house”. This was where the people, in particular the religious leaders, went to “worship” the Lord. In reality they were doing anything but worship the Lord. God is about to set them right!

7:3,4

The people thought they were worshipping God. The words from the leaders sounded religious “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord”. But the words were empty. The true message from God was “reform your ways and your actions”. The religious leaders were telling the people they were secure because they came to the “temple of the Lord”. The truth was that they were anything but secure. To be secure they needed to repent. Similar things happen today in so-called progressive churches. They can also happen in some charismatic churches, where there will be a big show, but in reality there is only emptiness. No doubt similar things happen in other branches of the church as well. We all need to examine ourselves.

Matthew 2:13-15 - Flee to Egypt

2:13

We see that angels played a big part in the birth narrative, both here and in Luke. Here one appears to Joseph, telling him to go to Egypt. This was because Herod was going to try to kill the child, and they were to stay in Egypt until they were told by the angel to leave. Egypt played a big part in Israel’s history. They went there to avoid famine in the time of Joseph. They were set free from slavery by Moses. They frequently wanted to go back to Egypt, or looked to Egypt for help, and this was almost always against God’s will, or out of a lack of trust in God. So the relationship with Egypt is complex, a lot of the time Egypt was a snare to Israel, but occasionally it was a place of refuge. 

2:14,15

Joseph obeyed the angel. In fact, we see in all of Matthew that Joseph was a very humble and obedient man. He stayed in Egypt with his family until the death of Herod. Matthew sees the return as a fulfilment of Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt, I called my son”. The original application of this was God calling Israel out of Egypt. In some ways Jesus is representative of Israel, He is what Israel was always meant to be. In Isaiah and the servant songs it is often difficult to say whether something the servant in a particular passage is the nation of Israel or the Messiah. In a sense it is both. And Jesus is also what the whole on mankind was meant to be like. A people living in perfect love, trust and obedience to God.

Jeremiah 6:27-30 - I have made you a tester of metals

6:27

God now addresses Jeremiah, telling him his God-given role. He is a tester of metals. That means that he will test the true quality and nature of the nation. Jeremiah was the tester, the nation was the object being tested. So often people say “do not judge”, well Jeremiah was told to judge! He was to observe the ways of the nation, and to pass judgement on their ways.

6:28-30

Jeremiah was unlikely to find favourable results! The people were “hardened rebels”, they all acted corruptly. Various things had been done to seek to refine the nation, but all this had been in vain, it had had little or no effect. “They are called rejected silver, because the Lord has rejected them.” So the testing was not to tell God anything new, He already knew the state of His people. Rather it was to make it clear to them, to the world, and to future generations what the state of the nation was, so that they could learn. Some might object that God should have done something to change the nation, but this line of thinking takes away human responsibility. God has created us as responsible beings.