Category: New Testament

Tim Keller on Pleasing God, Self-Salvation, and Two Lost Sons

The Bible’s most potent depiction of this truth—that there’s more than one way to be lost—is crystallized in Luke 15:11–32.

April 24, 2025 by: Matt Smethurst

Two Lost Sons

The Bible’s most potent depiction of the truth that there’s more than one way to be lost is crystallized in Luke 15:11–32. The broad outline of the parable is familiar: a father has two sons, the younger of whom demands his share of the inheritance and then moves to a far country, where he squanders it on wild living. Eventually, after coming to his senses, the prodigal returns home empty-handed and broken; he simply hopes his father will take him back as a hired servant. But seeing his wayward son from a long way off, the father runs to meet him and requests a party thrown in his honor.

Many people tend to stop there, at least in terms of emphasis, which is why it’s known to history as the parable of the prodigal son—singular. But the returning son isn’t the only prodigal. That’s actually the whole point. Jesus is not addressing the wayward but is aiming the story, like a heatseeking missile, at the religiously devout. Note the context of the chapter:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable. . . . (Luke 15:1–3)

In light of the audience, then, we dare not overlook the dramatic final scene:

Now [the father’s] older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.” But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:25–32)

On September 11, 2005, Keller preached a sermon titled “The Prodigal Sons”—plural—which became the genesis of his 2008 bestseller The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith. This book captures the most distilled essence of Keller’s teaching regarding the heart. Near the beginning he credits a sermon on Luke 15 by his mentor, Ed Clowney, that altered his understanding:

Listening to that sermon changed the way I understood Christianity. I almost felt I had discovered the secret heart of Christianity. Over the years I have often returned to teach and counsel from the parable. I have seen more people encouraged, enlightened, and helped by this passage, when I explained the true meaning of it, than by any other text.1

That last sentence is a remarkable statement. What about the parable is so powerful? If you compare the teaching of Jesus to a lake, Keller says, this parable is “one of the clearest spots where we can see all the way to the bottom.”2 And that’s because what Jesus says about the elder brother is one of Scripture’s most vital teachings.3 We impoverish ourselves, therefore, when we fixate on the younger brother:

The first time I heard the parable, I imagined Jesus’s original listeners’ eyes welling with tears as they heard how God will always love and welcome them, no matter what they’ve done. We sentimentalize this parable if we do that. The targets of this story are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who [think they] do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self-righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them. It is a mistake, then, to think that Jesus tells this story primarily to assure younger brothers of his unconditional love.4

Apart from Jesus Christ, flagrant lawbreaking and fastidious rule keeping are dead ends. In Keller’s words: “Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories.”5

Each brother in the parable represents “a different way to be alienated from God”6—and both ways are strikingly resonant with the latemodern West. Keller dubs the approaches “the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery.”7 In fact, he observes, Western culture is “so deeply divided between these two approaches”8 that it’s difficult to imagine an alternative option:

If you criticize or distance yourself from one, everyone assumes you have chosen to follow the other, because each of these approaches tends to divide the whole world into two basic groups. The moral conformists say: “The immoral people—the people who ‘do their own thing’—are the problem with the world, and moral people are the solution.” The advocates of self-discovery say: “The bigoted people—the people who say, ‘We have the Truth’—are the problem with the world, and progressive people are the solution.” Each side says: “Our way is the way the world
will be put to rights, and if you are not with us, you are against us.”9

But King Jesus is not kind to false dichotomies. Nor is he beholden to natural expectations:

So we have two sons, one “bad” by conventional standards and one “good,” yet both are alienated from the father. The father has to go out and invite each of them to come into the feast of his love. . . .

But Act 2 comes to an unthinkable conclusion. Jesus the storyteller deliberately leaves the elder brother in his alienated state. The bad son enters the father’s feast but the good son will not. The lover of prostitutes is saved, but the man of moral rectitude is still lost. We can almost hear the Pharisees gasp as the story ends. It was the complete reversal of everything they had ever been taught.10

Both sons are lost, but only one knows it. You are lost, Jesus is saying, but you refuse to know it.

Self-Salvation Projects

It’s sobering to notice that when the older son protests, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command” (Luke 15:29), the father doesn’t disagree! His firstborn has been obedient; he has done everything “right.” And ironically, it’s keeping him fromthe feast. His outward goodness—and resultant pride—has erected a barrier between him and the father’s love.

An elder-brother mindset can haunt us all. Keller offers an example:

I knew a woman who had worked for many years in Christian ministry. When chronic illness overtook her in middle age, it threw her into despair. Eventually she realized that deep in her heart she felt that God owed her a better life, after all she had done for him. That assumption made it extremely difficult for her to climb out of her pit, though climb she did. The key to her improvement, however,was to recognize the elder-brother mindset within.

Elder brothers obey God to get things. They don’t obey God to get God himself—in order to resemble him, love him, know him, and delight him. So religious and moral people can be avoiding Jesus as Savior and Lord as much as the younger brothers who say they don’t believe in God and define right and wrong for themselves.11

The stakes are that high. If you think God should accept you because you’re good, “then Jesus may be your helper, your example, even your inspiration, but he is not your Savior.” How could he be? You are occupying that role.11 Keller concludes,

So there are two ways, not one, to be your own Savior and Lord: you can break all the moral rules and chart your own course, or you can try keeping all the external moral rules and seek to earn heaven’s favor. Both are strategies for avoiding God. Apart from Jesus Christ, every person is “dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways.”12

King Jesus is not kind to false dichotomies. Nor is he beholden to natural expectations.

Equally Wrong, Not Equally Dangerous

By the end of Jesus’s parable, only one son has been reconciled to his father. Why conclude like this? Why not show us a redemptive arc for Tim both brothers? The reason certainly isn’t that elder brothers are hopeless; if they were, the father wouldn’t have gone into the field and pleaded at all. We can’t know for sure, of course, but perhaps Jesus is conveying that while “both forms of the self-salvation project are equally wrong,” they are not “equally dangerous.”13 The younger brother’s rebellion is obvious; the elder brother’s is not. And therein lies the danger:

He would have been horribly offended by the suggestion that he was rebelling against the father’s authority and love, but he was, deeply. Because the elder brother is more blind to what is going on, being an elder-brother Pharisee is a more spiritually desperate condition. “How dare you say that?” is how religious people respond if you suggest their relationship with God isn’t right. “I’m there every time the church doors are open.” Jesus says, in effect, “That doesn’t matter.”14

The takeaway, Keller says, is shocking: “Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God.”15 He often returned to an image of two people sitting side by side in the same pew—hearing the same sermons, singing the same songs, engaging in the same spiritual activities—but for utterly different reasons. One does it all to please God; the other does it to justify self.

And yet on the outside, they look exactly the same.16

The True Elder Brother

When it comes to pleasing God, both the rebellious path and the religious path are dead ends. But Jesus shows us a more excellent way. It is not a comfortable middle option between earthly extremes, for his gospel occupies a transcendent plane.17

In the parable, the older son should have gone into the far country in pursuit of his wayward brother. He should have rejoiced at his return. He should have gladly relinquished part of his inheritance in order to reinstate his brother’s. He should have joined the party. But, as Keller observes, “By putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus is inviting us to imagine and yearn for a true one.”18

Jesus Christ is the ultimate elder brother who didn’t just travel to a far country; he descended from heaven to earth to seek and save the lost. “Who is the true elder brother?” Keller asked in a funeral sermon for his own younger brother Billy. “Who is the one who truly obeyed the Father completely? Who truly has lost his robe so he [could] put it on us? Jesus!”19 He is the “God of Great Expenditure,”20 who, at infinite cost to himself, paid our debt and now binds our wounds and brings us home to the Father.

This message is true, but it’s not tame. The process of reckoning with it is disruptive to idol-ridden hearts. Keller recounts a time when a woman coming to Redeemer was hearing, for the first time, that she could be accepted not on the basis of her behavior but by God’s sheer grace. Keller was intrigued by her response: “That is a scary idea! Oh, it’s good scary, but still scary.” When he asked what was so scary about unmerited free grace, she replied,

If I was saved by my good works—then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace—at God’s infinite cost—then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.

Keller comments,

She could see . . . the wonderful-beyond-belief teaching of salvation by sheer grace had two edges to it. On the one hand it cut away slavish fear. God loves us freely, despite our flaws and failures. Yet she also knew that if Jesus really had done this for her—she was not nher own. She was bought with a price.21

As we wait in hope for the ultimate feast and eternal party, may we never get over what it cost to bring us home. In December 1662, a Scottish minister named David Dickson lay dying when a close friend of over fifty years arrived to inquire how he was. The eighty-year-old man replied, “I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad deeds, and have cast them together in a heap before the Lord, and have fled from both to Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace.”22

That is the message of the gospel, and it is the message Tim Keller loved to communicate. Don’t just flee your bad works. Flee your “good” works, too. Flee them both and collapse into the open arms of Jesus Christ.

Notes:

  1. Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New York: Penguin, 2008), xvii. Clowney’s sermon, “Sharing the Father’s Welcome,” is available in Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003).
  2. Keller, Prodigal God, xvii.
  3. Keller, Prodigal God, xix.
  4. Keller, Prodigal God 12.
  5. Keller, Prodigal God, 13.
  6. Keller, Prodigal God, 9.
  7. Keller, Prodigal God, 34. See also Tim Keller, “The Prodigal Sons,” preached on September 11, 2005, and “The Lord of the Sabbath,” preached on February 19, 2006. He writes, “Each acts as a lens coloring how you see all of life, or as a paradigm shaping your understanding of everything. Each is a way of finding personal significance and worth, of addressing the ills of the world, and of determining right from wrong,” Keller, Prodigal God, 34.
  8. Keller, Prodigal God, 37.
  9. Keller, Prodigal God, 37. As Keller explains in a sermon, “Jesus says, ‘You’re both wrong. You’re both lost. You’re both making the world a terrible place in different ways.’ The elder brothers of the world divide the world in two. They say, ‘The good people are in, and the bad people (you) are out.’ The younger brothers do as well—the self-discovery people also divide the world in two. They say, ‘The open-minded, progressive-minded people are in, and the bigoted and judgmental people (you) are out.’ Jesus says neither. He says, ‘It’s the humble who are in and the proud who are out.’ ” Keller, “The Prodigal Sons.”
  10. Keller, Prodigal God, 40.
  11. Keller, Prodigal God, 48. In a 1992 sermon, Keller remarked, “I’ve seen plenty of people—who have been non-Christians and skeptical and under the influence of the flesh—come on into the Christian faith, and their flesh continues to dominate them, because now they find religious ways of avoiding God, whereas before they were finding irreligious ways.” Tim Keller, “Alive with Christ: Part 2,” preached on November 8, 1992.
  12. Keller, Prodigal God, 44.
  13. Keller, Prodigal God, 45.
  14. Keller, Prodigal God, 51.
  15. Keller, Prodigal God, 53.
  16. Keller, Prodigal God, 54. Keller explains further, “The younger brother knew he was= alienated from the father, but the elder brother did not. That’s why elder-brother lostness is so dangerous. Elder brothers don’t go to God and beg for healing from their condition. They see nothing wrong with their condition, and that can be fatal. If you know you are sick you may go to a doctor; if you don’t know you’re sick you won’t—you’ll just die.” Keller, 75.
  17. Keller, Prodigal God, 43.
  18. See, for example, “Preaching the Gospel,” 2009 Newfrontiers Conference at Westminster Chapel in London, available at https:// vimeo .com /3484464. Elsewhere was a gardener who grew an enormous carrot. He took it to his king and said, ‘My lord, this is the greatest carrot I’ve ever grown or ever will grow; therefore, I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you.’ The king was touched and discerned the man’s heart, so as he turned to go, the king said, ‘Wait! You are clearly a good steward of the earth. I own a plot of land right next to yours. I want to give it to you freely as a gift, so you can garden it all.’ The gardener was amazed and delighted and went home rejoicing. But there was a nobleman at the king’s court who overheard all this, and he said, ‘My! If that is what you get for a carrot, what if you gave the king something better?’ The next day the nobleman came before the king, and he was leading a handsome black stallion. He bowed low and said, ‘My lord, I breed horses, and this is the greatest horse I’ve ever bred or ever will; therefore, I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you.’ But the king discerned his heart and said, ‘Thank you,’ and took the horse and simply dismissed him. The nobleman was perplexed, so the king said, ‘Let me explain. That gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse.’ ” Timothy Keller, The Gospel in Life Study Guide: How Grace Changes Everything (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 17. Keller first shared this illustration at Redeemer on May 5, 1996. Though he attributes it to Charles Spurgeon, I cannot find the original source.
  19. Keller states, “It’s off the scales. It’s not halfway in the middle. It’s something else [entirely].” Keller, “The Prodigal Sons.”
  20. Keller, Prodigal God, 94.
  21. Hansen, Timothy Keller, 218 (emphasis original). As a young man, Keller had, in a sense, embodied both younger-brother and elder-brother tendencies: “Tim was the oldest child who always did the right thing, and yet at the same time when he went off to college he really did rebel, and he rebelled in large part against his [overbearing] mother. He was torn between the dynamics of wanting to do the right thing, but also the pressures of falling far short. . . . Once I saw that [he had demonstrated the proclivities of both sons], all of a sudden Tim’s core message of the transforming power of grace—this gift from God that changes everything about our lives—made a lot more sense.” Hansen, “Collin Hansen on The Making of Tim Keller, Overcoming Loneliness, Tim’s Teenage Rebellion, How He Finished Well, and Why He Wanted People to Know About His Weaknesses,” The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast, July 11, 2023, https:// care ynieuwh of .com/. In his book, Hansen also shares a poignant story about Tim’s literal younger (and only) brother Billy, a gay man who died of complications from AIDS in 1998: “[Over the years] when they visited [Billy and his partner], Tim and Kathy talked to him about the gospel. . . . Tim tried to emphasize the difference between grace and the legalism of their childhood. . . . [Eventually] when Billy entered hospice in December [1997], he said to Tim, ‘My Christian family isn’t going to come with me when I enter eternity, and neither are my gay friends. So I have to figure out what is on the other side of this life.’ . . . [Billy] had thought being a Christian meant cleaning up his life and making himself righteous. But Tim pointed to 2 Corinthians 5:21: ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ Finally, Billy felt God’s love. The transformation was immediately evident. He even called his lawyer and told him to give his money [marked for donation to gay causes] to [a local] ministry instead. . . . When all hope seemed lost, God welcomed this prodigal son home.” Hansen, Timothy Keller, 218–20.
  22. Keller, Prodigal God, xx.

This article is adapted from Tim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel by Matt Smethurst.

Matt Smethurst is lead pastor of River City Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of several books, including Tim Keller on the Christian Life; Before You Open Your Bible; Before You Share Your Faith; and Deacons. He also cohosts, with Ligon Duncan, The Everyday Pastor podcast from the Gospel Coalition. Matt and his wife, Maghan, have five children.

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What Does John 3:16 Mean?

We find John 3:16 on billboards, shoes, hats, bumper stickers, t-shirts, and signs at sporting events. But what does the verse mean?

April 18, 2025 by: Douglas Sean O'Donnell

This article is part of the What Does It Mean? series.

A Conversation About Eternal Life

We find John 3:16 on billboards, shoes, hats, bumper stickers, t-shirts, signs at sporting events, and even the greasy “eye black” that quarterbacks use to reduce glare from the sun and bright stadium lights. But what does the verse mean?

John 3 records an interesting and important discussion between Nicodemus and Jesus. In it our Lord reminds Israel’s learned teacher that no one (not even a great rabbi like Nicodemus!) can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again of the Holy Spirit (John 3:3, 5, 7).

Jesus then refers to two passages from the Old Testament to explain that he, the “Son of Man,” has come from heaven to bring salvation. He calls himself the “Son of Man,” a reference to a heavenly figure mentioned in Daniel 7, and compares himself to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness (see Num. 21:4–9), saying that he, too, must be “lifted up” on the cross so that those who believe in him will have eternal life (John 3:13–15).

Then comes one of the most well-known verses in the Bible:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Our Problem

Now, to understand what this verse means, we first need to read what Jesus1 says next: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:17–19).

Notice that there is a worldwide problem. The world is already under judgment (“condemned already,” John 3:18), and people are heading toward destruction because they love to live in the shadows of sin (“people loved the darkness . . . because their works were evil,” John 3:19). So we have a big problem! Thankfully, though, we have a great God, who has made a way for us to be saved.

God’s Solution

God’s solution starts with his love. Jesus often showed compassion during his time on earth2, and the Father, who is also full of love (“God is love,” 1 John 4:8), has acted out of that same compassion. His love is a verb—actually, three key verbs: he “loves” the world by sending (“send,” John 3:17), giving (“gave,” John 3:16), and therefore saving (“saved,” John 3:17).3 Here is a summary of what God has done:

  • The Father sent his Son to rescue us (John 3:17).4
  • The Father gave his Son as a sacrifice for us (John 3:16).5

Of course, our God is a Trinity, so the Father’s sending and giving correspond to the Son’s being sent6 and the Spirit’s work of new life.7

  • The Son willingly came (“he . . . descended from heaven,” John 3:13) to save sinners who are condemned to eternal punishment by dying on the cross (“the Son of Man” was “lifted up,” John 3:14).
  • The Holy Spirit gives us new life (birth from above!) by helping us understand and accept the gospel (John 3:5–8).8

We have a big problem! Thankfully, though, we have a great God, who has made a way for us to be saved.

An Open Invitation

Through this loving work, God—Father, Son, and Spirit—generously offers to all people everywhere at all times salvation from death and damnation (it is an open invitation to “whoever” in “the world,” John 3:16, Jews and Gentiles; see Rom. 1:16).

The invitation is open to all, and it is received by faith. We do not receive the saving love of God through our good works or by having a consistent church attendance record or a baptism certificate. Instead, in utter dependence, we come out of our darkness “to the light” (John 3:21)—Jesus! The word John uses for this is “faith,” in its various forms (belief, believe, believes),9 synonyms (receive, come to), and metaphors (eat, drink, etc.)—all abounding throughout John and especially in John 3:15–18 (5x!). For example, John 3:18 states, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned,” and John 3:16 says that “whoever believes in him should not perish but receive eternal life.” As Frederick Dale Brunner nicely summarizes, “One simply trusts this Giver, this Gift, and this Giving,”10 and continues to trust.11 Of course, as said earlier, we come to believe in and continue to believe in the God-sent Son only because the Spirit opens our eyes to see Jesus as the “light of the world” (John 8:12; John 12:35–36), the Spirit gives us a “new heart” (Ezek. 36:26), and the Spirit breathes life into our dead and dry bones (Ezek. 37:9, 10).12 As John states in his prologue, “All who did receive him, who believed in his name . . . were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13).

Embrace God’s Love!

John 3:16 is not just a famous verse about what God has done for us—it’s a call to action! What we do with Jesus determines our future:

  • If we believe in him, we receive eternal life.
  • If we reject him, we remain in our sins—dead (without “eternal life,” John 3:16) and damned (“already condemned,” John 3:18).

What we make of Jesus is a matter of life and death! “Oh world, embrace the love of God!”13

Notes:

  1. For a short summary of the view that the narrator/evangelist (John) in John 3:16–21 is offering his “own commentary, which provides a theological summary of the implications of the first three chapters” (Grant R. Osborne, “The Gospel of John,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary [Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2007], 57) and “a necessary interpretation of the dialogue that has just taken place,” see Edward W. Klink III, John, ZECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 204–205. However, I find Hamilton’s rationale for arguing that Jesus is speaking in John 3:16 more convincing: “Jesus then offers further explanation to Nicodemus in verses 16–21. Because a clear break comes in verse 22, it seems that Jesus continues to speak through verse 21, and thus verses 16–21 are a clarification and elaboration from Jesus for Nicodemus.” James M. Hamilton Jr., “John,” ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 75.
  2. E.g., Matthew 9:36, 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Mark 6:34; 8:2; 9:22; Luke 7:13.
  3. “For this is how God loved the world” (ESV marginal reading). “‘Love’ is a major theme in John, with three related terms occurring 116 times in his writings (56 in the Gospel).” Osborne, John, 57.
  4. God’s sending the Son is a prevalent theme in John, with the word “sent” used for this purpose over forty times and the clause “The one who sent me” nearly thirty times! The concept (notably connected to the language of “love,” “world,” “only Son,” and life [“live”]!) is found also in 1 John 4:9: “In this the love of the God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”
  5. “God loved the world by giving Jesus to die in its place. There was nothing the world needed more than for God’s wrath to be assuaged, nothing more valuable to the Father than Jesus. There was no greater length to which anyone could go to show love, no way for greater love to be more convincingly demonstrated, than for ultimate value to be sacrificed for ultimate need to accomplish ultimate salvation.” Hamilton, “John,” 76.
  6. Jesus is the “only son of God,” v. 18; cf. “God the only Son,” 1:18.
  7. “The measure of the love of God is the gift of his only Son to be made man, and to die for our sins, and so to become the one mediator who can bring us to God.” J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 114.
  8. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again [that is, “born of water and the Spirit,” v. 5] he cannot see [and “enter,” v. 5] the kingdom of God” (v. 3; “You [plural] must be born again,” v. 7).
  9. “The verb [believing] occurs ninety-eight times in John’s gospel and is found, strategically, at the pivot of the introduction (John 1:12–13) and in the purpose statement (20:30–31).” Andreas J. Köstenberger, A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters, Biblical Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 2009), 292.
  10. Bruner, John, 203.
  11. “The word ‘entrusting’ is a wonderful present-tense participle [an -ing ending word] which means that it is an ongoing trust, like breathing, continually resting in the divine Love.” Bruner, John, 202–203.
  12. “Jesus explains the new birth to Nicodemus in terms of the cleansing and renewing work of the Holy Spirit described in Ezekiel 36:24–27 (John 3:5) and the resurrection of the dry bones by the blowing of the Holy Spirit wind in Ezekiel 37 (John 3:8).” Hamilton, “John,” 74.
  13. Klink, John, 209.

Douglas Sean O’Donnell is the author of Daily Liturgy Devotional: 40 Days of Worship and Prayer.

Douglas Sean O’Donnell (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is the senior vice president of Bible editorial at Crossway. Over the past twenty-five years he has helped train people around the world to read and teach the Bible clearly. He has pastored several churches, served as a professor, and authored or edited over twenty books, including commentaries, Bible studies, children’s books, and a children’s curriculum. He also wrote The Pastor’s Book with R. Kent Hughes and The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition with Leland Ryken.

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10 Key Bible Verses on Sabbath

So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

April 05, 2025 by: Crossway

This article is part of the Key Bible Verses series.

All commentary notes adapted from the ESV Study Bible.

1. Genesis 2:2–3

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. Read More

These verses bring to a conclusion the opening section of Genesis by emphasizing that God has completed the process of ordering creation. The repeated comment that God rested does not imply that he was weary from labor. The effortless ease with which everything is done in ch. 1 suggests otherwise. Rather, the motif of God’s resting hints at the purpose of creation. As reflected in various ancient Near Eastern accounts, divine rest is associated with temple building. God’s purpose for the earth is that it should become his dwelling place; it is not simply made to house his creatures. God’s “activities” on this day (he finished, “rested,” “blessed,” “made it holy”) all fit this delightful pattern. The concept of the earth as a divine sanctuary, which is developed further in Gen. 2:4–25, runs throughout the whole Bible, coming to a climax in the future reality that the apostle John sees in his vision of a “new heaven and a new earth” in Rev. 21:1–22:5. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy (Gen. 2:3). These words provide the basis for the obligation that God placed on the Israelites to rest from their normal labor on the Sabbath day (see Ex. 20:8–11). There is no evening-followed-by-morning refrain for this day, prompting many to conclude that the seventh day still continues (which seems to underlie John 5:17; Heb. 4:3–11).

2. Exodus 20:8–11

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Read More

Israel is to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy (Ex. 20:8). The Lord had already begun to form the people’s life in the rhythm of working for six days(Ex. 20:9) and resting on the seventh day as a Sabbath (Ex. 20:10) through the instructions for collecting manna (see Ex. 16:22–26). Here the command is grounded further in the way that it imitates the Lord’s pattern in creation (Ex. 20:11; see Gen. 2:1–3). Every aspect of Israel’s life is to reflect that the people belong to the Lord and are sustained by his hand. The weekly pattern of work and rest is to be a regular and essential part of this (see Ex. 31:12–18). In Deut. 5:15, Moses gives another reason for observing the day: it recalls their redemption from slavery in Egypt.

3. Psalm 92:1–4

It is good to give thanks to the LORD,
     to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
     and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
     to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work;
     at the works of your hands I sing for joy. Read More

Weekly Sabbath Worship Is Good. One of the most basic features of worship on the Sabbath day is celebrating God’s greatness in presiding over his creation and his goodness toward his faithful. The words give thanks, sing praises, declare, and sing for joy all describe the significance of the songs sung in gathered worship, along with musical accompaniment (lute, harp, lyre). The songs honor God for what he has revealed about himself, recalling Ex. 34:5–7, where God explained his name (Ps. 92:1), especially his benevolence toward his people (he is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness).

4. Isaiah 56:2

Blessed is the man who does this,
and the son of man who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it,
and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Read More

The Sabbath is a covenant sign that represents a lifestyle of devotion to the Lord, for it requires the practical reorganization of every week around him (cf. Ex. 31:12–17; Ezek. 20:18–20). True observance of the Sabbath entails not just refraining from work but also refraining from doing any evil.

5. Romans 14:5–6

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. Read More

The weak thought some days were more important than others. Given the Jewish background here (Rom.14:14), the day that is supremely in view is certainly the Sabbath. The strong think every day is the same. Both views are permissible. Each person must follow his own conscience. What is remarkable is that the Sabbath is no longer a binding commitment for Paul but a matter of one’s personal conviction. Unlike the other nine commandments in Ex. 20:1–17, the Sabbath commandment seems to have been part of the “ceremonial laws” of the Mosaic covenant, like the dietary laws and the laws about sacrifices, all of which are no longer binding on new covenant believers (see also Gal. 4:10; Col. 2:16–17). However, it is still wise to take regular times of rest from work, and regular times of worship are commanded for Christians (Heb. 10:24–25; cf. Acts 20:7).

Whether one observes a special day, or eats all foods, or abstains from some foods, the important thing is the honor of the Lord and to give thanks to God.

6. Matthew 12:5–8

Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath. Read More

The fact that priests, in carrying out their duties, had to work on (and thus “profane”) the Sabbath, but were guiltless in doing so, shows that God made allowances within the law.

something greater. The Sabbath points to Christ (see Matt.12:8) and to the “rest” he gives from the impossible task of earning salvation by good works (Matt. 11:28).

the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath. Jesus does not challenge the Sabbath law itself but rather the Pharisees’ interpretation of it. As Messiah, Jesus authoritatively interprets every aspect of the law (Matt. 5:17–48) and here points out the Pharisees’ blindness to the actual intent of the Sabbath—to bring rest and well-being. This final argument in response to the Pharisees’ challenge (Matt. 12:2) is the decisive argument—that because of who Jesus is, he has the authority to interpret the law.

7. Mark 2:27–28

And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Read More

The Sabbath was made for man. Jesus next emphasizes that man is not to be confined by the Sabbath but rather that the Sabbath is given as a gift to man (for spiritual and physical refreshment). Again Jesus emphasizes his authority as Son of Man. If the Sabbath is for the benefit of mankind, and if the Son of Man is Lord over all mankind, then the Son of Man is surely lord even of the Sabbath.

8. John 5:16–17

And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” Read More

Jesus’ Jewish opponents were putting their merely human religious tradition above genuine love and compassion for others, which the OT commanded (e.g., Lev. 19:18) and Jesus exemplified. It was Jesus, not these Jews, who was truly obeying the Scriptures.

My Father suggests a far closer relationship with God than other people had (see 20:17). When Jesus says, “My Father is working until now, and I am working,” he implies that he, like the Father, is lord over the Sabbath. Therefore this is a claim to deity. These Jews recognize what he is claiming (see John 5:18). While Gen. 2:2–3 teaches that God rested (Hb. shabat) on the seventh day of creation, Jewish rabbis agreed that God continually upholds the universe, yet without breaking the Sabbath. (In John 7:22–23 Jesus makes a different argument about healing on the Sabbath.)

9. Colossians 2:16–17

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Read More

food and drink . . . a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. The false teacher(s) were advocating a number of Jewish observances, arguing that they were essential for spiritual advancement.

a shadow of the things to come. The old covenant observances pointed to a future reality that was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Heb. 10:1). Hence, Christians are no longer under the Mosaic covenant (cf. Rom. 6:14–15; 7:1–6; 2 Cor. 3:4–18; Gal. 3:15–4:7). Christians are no longer obligated to observe OT dietary laws (“food and drink”) or festivals, holidays, and special days (“a festival . . . new moon . . . Sabbath,” Col. 2:16), for what these things foreshadowed has been fulfilled in Christ. It is debated whether the Sabbaths in question included the regular seventh-day rest of the fourth commandment, or were only the special Sabbaths of the Jewish festal calendar.

10. Hebrews 4:8–10

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Read More

For if Joshua had given them rest. One could conceivably argue that the “rest” that the exodus generation sought was their entrance into the Promised Land. However, that entrance occurred in the days of Joshua, and Psalm 95 (with its promise of “today” entering into God’s rest) is subsequent to Joshua’s day (referred to as “so long afterward” in Heb. 4:7). Therefore, the Sabbath rest remains possible for God’s people to enter even now, in this life (Heb. 4:9). The promise of entering now into this rest means ceasing from the spiritual strivings that reflect uncertainty about one’s final destiny; it means enjoyment of being established in the presence of God, to share in the everlasting joy that God entered when he rested on the seventh day (Heb. 4:10).

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Why Must We Read the Old and New Testament as a Unified Body of Scripture?

We need to recognize that the one God who spoke in the Old Testament also speaks in the New Testament.

April 01, 2025 by: Daniel Stevens

Old Points to New

I would say that the two fundamental things that we need to do is first recognize and then notice. We need to recognize that the one God who spoke in the Old Testament also speaks in the New Testament. We should expect, then, that he knew what he was doing all along, and he knew what he was going to say when he was giving his earlier revelation.

Because all Scripture is God-breathed and because the God who spoke in the prophets to the fathers also speaks to us in the Son, we can be confident that things in the Old Testament do correspond to and do point to the things in the New. We can be sure that it’s a possible project, that reading the Old and the New together isn’t going back in time in a way that’s inappropriate, but is indeed what we were designed to do.

Second, we need to notice. For this I’m going to say we need to notice both parallels and resonances. We need to be able to see where the words of the Old Testament are used in the New Testament. This isn’t an accident or something that happens by chance, rather the New Testament authors, guided by God, were carefully reading and interpreting the Old Testament Scriptures.

Whenever we’re using their words, we should stop and ask Why? and How? What point is this citation being used to make? In what ways are these themes being developed in this new setting in the New Testament books? What context is brought in that we wouldn’t expect or that we might? And then beyond the actual exact words of the Old and the New, we should see resonances. Look for ways in which things in the Old Testament look like things in the New Testament.

God structured history and inspired the Old Testament to point forward to greater realities in the New.

In the book of Hebrews, it is commonly referred to as shadows or types—things in the way that God structured history and inspired the Old Testament that point forward to greater realities in the New. So we can see the tabernacle and see the ways in which that points to the place where Jesus ministers in heaven before the presence of God for us.

We can see the Levitical priesthood and the sacrifices on the day of atonement, and we can use that resonance to see the way that Jesus offers himself once and for all to atone for the people.

So if we have these things in mind—the one God who spoke in the past still speaks in all of his word, and if we see how the words are used again and the themes correspond—we will be able to read the Old and the New alongside one another for our good.

Daniel Stevens is the author of Songs of the Son: Reading the Psalms with the Author of Hebrews.

Daniel Stevens (PhD, University of Cambridge) is assistant professor of New Testament Interpretation at Boyce College, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Daniel lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife, Hannah, and two children.

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How the Author of Hebrews Reads the Book of Psalms

If we look to the way the New Testament uses the Psalms, we will discover that in addition to an emotional outpouring to God, the New Testament authors find a rich theology of God in the Psalter.

March 12, 2025 by: Daniel Stevens

The Psalms

The Psalms have always been at the heart of Christian worship. Believers sing, pray, and meditate on the words of the Psalms week in and week out, and they have done so since the foundation of the church. This frequent devotion, however, is often only partially formed. We go to the Psalms looking to find ourselves, to put words to the emotions we already feel or hope to feel. We go to the Psalms as a voice for our heart, as a counselor, as a comfort. None of this is wrong—it is part of why God gave us the Psalms—but it is incomplete.

If we look to the way the New Testament uses the Psalms, we will discover that in addition to an emotional outpouring to God, the New Testament authors find a rich theology of God in the Psalter. The Psalms, in the New Testament’s reading, are the songs of the Son. The Father speaks to the Son, and the Son speaks in return.1 It is not just that some psalms predict things about Jesus; it is that in many of the psalms, we hear the voice of Jesus speaking and the Father speaking to him. The Son speaks in his preincarnate glory. He speaks in his earthly life and suffering. He even speaks in the role of his people, taking their sin and their suffering onto himself.

Paul, the unknown author of Hebrews, and Jesus himself all go to the Psalms to find Jesus, the Son of God, speaking and being spoken to. In earlier eras, the church has been more conscious of this, singing the Psalms regularly and finding the words of Jesus in their mouths even as they saw Jesus singing their own thoughts, emotions, and confessions through the Psalter. More than any other book of the Old Testament, the Psalms presents us with the unity between Christ and his people as the psalmists quickly shift between speaking of the Son in his glory, in his humility, and in his representation of his people. Theophylact, a medieval Greek bishop whose New Testament commentaries proved influential in both the Western and Eastern churches, would generalize from specific quotations and claim that Paul read entire psalms as being about Jesus. This was likely uncontroversial. This is not to say that an interpretation is right because it is old or was widely accepted; but in this case, those Scripture-saturated Christians were more sensitive to the Bible’s own way of reading itself. The Psalms are, in their fullness, the songs of the Son, the hymnbook of the greater David.

This is plain throughout the New Testament, but it is particularly poignant in the epistle to the Hebrews.

Read by the Author of Hebrews

In the book of Hebrews, we are presented with the God who speaks. He speaks to us in his word and in his Son. But this is not all we see. The Father speaks to the Son, and the Son speaks back. The author finds throughout Scripture, but particularly in the Psalms, this call and response within the Trinity. A divine conversation plays out before our eyes as the world is made, as salvation is accomplished, and as all things are made new in the Son of God. Our God is a speaking God, and before he ever spoke to us, God has always been the one who speaks within the Trinity. As this speaking God turns to that which is not himself, all creation bursts into being and is sustained by that same word. Within history, God speaks again and again, until at last that Son comes in whom God communicates perfectly and finally. By grace, Hebrews gives us glimpses of this divine conversation. To do so, the author turns to the language of the Psalms.

Within history, God speaks again and again, until at last that Son comes in whom God communicates perfectly and finally.

While any book of the New Testament could be used to help us understand God’s revelation in the Old, few books offer as extended, deep, and explicit an interaction with the Old Testament as does the epistle to the Hebrews. In particular, in this one letter, we are shown time and again how the Psalms form our understanding of Jesus: his nature, his work, and his relationships. Through paying close attention to how Hebrews reasons with the Psalms, we will see Jesus more clearly and learn to read the Psalms the apostles’ way, as the songs of the Son.

More than any other inspired writer, the author of Hebrews develops his argument by reasoning with the Scriptures of Israel and particularly with the Psalms. Far more than simply quoting the Psalms as illustrations or proof texts, the author of Hebrews composes his entire letter as a series of arguments from the Psalms and other Old Testament texts in light of Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, ongoing work, and coming return.

Nowhere else do we have such a dense and sustained interaction with one book of Scripture by another. While the author weaves together texts from all of the Old Testament canon, deftly synthesizing the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings as he demonstrates the superiority of Christ, it is to the Psalms that he returns again and again. At crucial points in his argument as he explains or applies or clarifies, the author of Hebrews reaches consistently for the Psalms. Since this is the case, it is particularly helpful for us to explore how the author reads the Psalms.

It is my conviction that if we read the Psalms with the author of Hebrews, we will learn to read the Psalms for what they truly are. Their meanings will unfold as we see precisely how they witness to Christ: not only as predictions to be fulfilled but also as testimony to the very voice of God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In the voice of the psalmists, the Son reveals his nature, his mission, and his relationships with his Father and his people.

Notes:

  1. While this type of observation is common in the older theological tradition, in modern scholarship on Hebrews it has been most clearly argued in Madison Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: The Recontextualization of Spoken Quotations of Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

This article is adapted from ​​​​Songs of the Son: Reading the Psalms with the Author of Hebrews by Daniel Stevens.

Daniel Stevens (PhD, University of Cambridge) is assistant professor of New Testament Interpretation at Boyce College, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Daniel lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife, Hannah, and two children.

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