Free Audiobook of Once for All Delivered: 128 Minutes of High-Octane Theology

I love Monster Energy Drinks. The sugary fuel goes down like a bag of liquid Sour-Patch Kids, which I also love. But I only let myself drink one can every couple of weeks or so. They can’t be healthy for you.

Last year I published Once for All Delivered, a short, dense, and high-octane theology book. It’s not as sugary as Sour-Patch Kids, but neither will it rot your teeth or give you caffeine-shakes if you listen on an empty stomach. The audiobook just hit Amazon, and I’d love to share it with you. David K. Martin, who did the narration on my other audiobooks, also narrated this one.

Below is a sample of a key section from Chapter 9 on the return of Christ. If you live in the United States or the United Kingdom, I have free download codes from Audible. (Sorry if you live somewhere else; the codes the publisher gave me only work there.) If you’d like 128 minutes of dense theology, just send me an email at benjamin@fanandflame.com.

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Sample of Once for All Delivered, from Chapter 9

Jesus will return personally and bodily (Mt 24:30; 26:64; Acts 1:11; Rev 1:7). This view stands over and against the view that a “return” of Christ in the hearts of his followers could fulfill scriptural promises. The two major interpretive decisions related to Christ’s literal and physical return are the nature and timing of the tribulation and the millennium. With respect to the tribulation, many Christians interpret this term to refer to a period of intense struggle, calamity, and persecution or a “great tribulation,” as Jesus calls it (Mt 24:21). Historic premillennialism understands the Bible to teach that the church, as a whole, will remain through this tribulation period and after a time (seven years being either literal or symbolic) Jesus will return to set up his millennial kingdom on earth. This understanding of the tribulation isn’t too different from my amillennial understanding of the tribulation, though it obviously differs significantly on the millennium. Amillennialism rightly understood does not deny the existence of the millennium as atheism denies the existence of God; rather, amillennialism understands the Bible to speak of Christ’s millennial reign to be taking place in heaven right now. The amillennial view is consistent with passages that intricately link the timing of Christ’s return with the final judgment and eternal state (Rm 8:17–23; 2 Thes 1:5–10; 2 Pet 3:3–14), not two returns of Christ with a great intervening period of time between the returns, which would make for odd readings of passages like John 5:28–29 (“the hour is coming . . .” where the “hour” would be separated by 1,000 years). True, some passages in the OT, Isaiah 11 and 65 for example, seem to describe a time “better” than the church age but “not as great” as the new heavens and new earth. Yet these passages could be speaking poetically of the new heavens and new earth. In short, what some see as taking place in the millennium can actually be seen as taking place in the final state. A rigid interpretation of Isaiah 65:20, which speaks of those dying after a long life, is odd to me, when v. 19 speaks of no more weeping. How could physical death not produce weeping no matter how long one lives?

Additional consideration, of course, must be given to Revelation 20. I favor the interpretive scheme called progressive parallelism, which understands the book of Revelation to recapitulate similar sequences of events, often with each cycle moving the description of the end a bit further. So, for example, what happens with the seals in chapters 4–7 is roughly parallel with what happens with the trumpets in chapters 8–11, and so on. Space does not allow for much elaboration, but events like stars falling from the sky “as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale” (6:13) push me away from a more chronological reading of the book. Once stars have plopped upon the ground like over-ripe figs, there can’t be much left.

Addressing the classic text of Revelation 20:1–6 directly, a few things should be said. A great case can be made for describing Satan as bound in the church age and unable to deceive the nations, at least to the degree he did in the OT (2 Kg 17:29; Mt 12:28­–29; 28:18–20; Lk 4:6; 10:17–18; Jn 12:31–32; Acts 14:16; 17:30; 26:17–18; Col 2:15; 1 Jn 3:8). Also, the reign of God and Christ upon a throne is frequently (some say exclusively) spoken of in Revelation as taking place in heaven (1:4; 3:21; 4:5; 7:9ff; 8:3; 12:5; and dozens of others). The 1,000 years mentioned in vv. 3, 5, 6, and 7 from which all our millennial views build their name (pre-, -post, a-) could surely be, in such a highly symbolic book, a round number suggesting a long period of time (cf. the figurative use of 1,000 in passages such as Dt 7:9; 32:30; Josh  23:10; Jud 15:16; 1 Sam 18:7; 1 Chron 16:15; Job 9:3; Ps 50:11; 84:10; 90:4; Ecc 6:6; 7:8; SoS 4:4; Is 30:17; 2 Pet 3:8). And it doesn’t feel like a stretch in context to see the “first resurrection” of those reigning with Christ as the believers raised to the intermediate state, whereas unbelievers do not experience this resurrection but only the “second death.” Additional evidence for considering the “first resurrection” as those alive in the intermediate state (not those raised to life on earth during a premillennial reign of Christ) comes from the several parallels of Revelation 20:1–6 with 6:9–11 and the decidedly heavenly locale of those martyrs. The parallels are a little more explicit in the Greek but can still be seen in translations. Revelation 6:9 says, “(A) I saw . . . / (B) the souls of those who had been slain / (C) for the word of God and for the witness they had borne,” and 20:4 says, “(A') I saw / (B') the souls of those who had been beheaded / (C') for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God.” Then add to this that the whole vision in Revelation 20 (“I saw,” v. 1) feels very heavenly; missing from the text are earthly details about Christ reigning upon earth, the temple, the land of Canaan, and the holy city of Jerusalem (although perhaps some infer that the vision takes place on earth because the angel comes down from heaven). For all these reasons, I believe the amillennial view of a single, definitive return of Christ at the end of time cooperates best with the authorial intent of not only the broad witness of Scripture to the end times but the specific witness of Revelation 20.

* Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Free Audiobook Copies of Enduring Grace

Last year my friend Stephen Morefield and I published a devotional book titled Enduring Grace: 21 Days with The Apostle Peter. We’ve been encouraged by the positive feedback the book has received.

The audiobook was recently completed by David K. Martin, who also narrated my books, Struggle Against Porn and Don’t Just Send a Resume. The sample on Audible comes from a section in chapter 16, the famous scene where Peter meets Jesus on the shore of Galilee after the resurrection. I’ve pasted it below.

If you’d like to listen to our audiobook, you don’t have to buy one! I have a dozen to give away. The only thing you have to do is send me a message (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or email: benjamin@fanandflame.com) so I can give you the download code. Please don’t hesitate to ask. We really do want people to have them.

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From Enduring Grace, Chapter 16, “Hope by a Charcoal Fire”

When Peter gets to shore, the first thing he notices is the fire—and not just any fire. The Gospel of John is particular here. It was a charcoal fire, a kind of fire only mentioned one other place in the Bible. In John 13, Jesus asked Peter, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times” (13:38). To this Peter says something along the lines of, “I’m all in. I’m a rock. I won’t fail you.” But as you know, he wasn’t a rock. After the arrest of Jesus, Peter followed until he reached the courtyard where his denials took place. Then John gives us this detail: “Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself” (John 18:18).

It’s funny how smells bring back memories. Peter jumps out of the boat, swims to shore to see his Lord, and when the wet sand under his toes becomes dry, he smells his own denial. Jesus, at first, simply says, “Come and have breakfast” (21:12). This wasn’t the first time Peter and Jesus had seen each other after the resurrection, but you can imagine that if the last time you saw Jesus alive before his death you had denied him, then you’d also know that when Jesus comes back from the grave, eventually he’ll want to talk to you about your sin.

But here’s the thing with Jesus: he doesn’t poke a wound to make it worse. If the risen Lord pokes your wounds, he does it so they will heal. Three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Notice the way Jesus puts it the first time: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (21:15).

More than these? Does Jesus question whether Peter loves Jesus more than the other disciples love Jesus? Perhaps. If we only had the video footage we could see how Jesus gestured and know for sure.

But I don’t think we need the footage. When Peter gets to shore, Jesus told them all to get more fish to eat. They had, after all, just netted 153 of them. Peter was the one who leaped up and grabbed the huge net and dragged it to shore, so happy about his catch. Fish are great . . . if you’re a fisherman of fish.

Jesus looks at this huge catch of fish and says, “Do you love me more than these?” (emphasis added). It’s as though Jesus is asking, “Do you love me more than stuff? Is the calling that I’ve placed on your life to follow me, to fish for men and shepherd my sheep, enough for you?”

Jesus asks one time for each denial—three denials, three questions. The wound is poked, but the risen Lord is reinstating Peter. No longer must Peter pretend that everything is okay around Jesus because now it is okay. No, it’s more than okay. Peter is on mission again. He’s following Jesus. And not only will Peter spend his life as a shepherd of God’s sheep, but he’ll die a death that glorifies God. Jesus tells Peter, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (21:18). Then the narrator John adds, “This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God” (21:19). There’s certainly a heaviness to that. But there’s also gospel to it. After failing the Lord, Peter might have thought, I’ll never do anything again that brings glory to my savior. I love Jesus, I love Jesus, I love Jesus, but now how will I bring glory to him? But he will. In his life and in his death, Peter will glorify God.

In popular culture the story of Easter is about new beginnings: yellow tulips poking through the ground in the springtime sun, bunnies scampering across green grass, and the penitent turning over new leaves. But Easter is only generally about new beginnings because it is first about a particular new beginning—the dawn of a new age, the true spring. Easter is the story of how our sin dies with Jesus and he raises us to life with him. The roller coaster of transitions in our lives can cause us to drift from this, our core identity. But the good work Jesus begins in you, he promises to bring to completion (Philippians 2:6). If you are drifting, as Peter was, come home to Jesus.

* Photo by Frances Gunn on Unsplash