De la Muerte a la vida del Reino

El Nuevo Testamento define el Reino de Dios de manera abrumadora como futuro, no como un evento ya cumplido o presente ahora. Jesús manda a sus seguidores orar: “Venga Tu Reino” (Mat. 6:10), y la Escritura mira hacia el día en que “el reino del mundo” llegue a ser “el Reino de nuestro Señor y de Su Mesías” (Apoc. 11:15). Sin embargo, Pablo dice que Dios nos ha “trasladado al Reino” (Col. 1:13), y Jesús dice que los creyentes tienen “vida eterna,” es decir, la vida de la era venidera del Reino (Juan 5:24).

Jesús enfatiza la respuesta del creyente: oír su palabra del Evangelio, creer al Padre que lo envió, escapar del juicio y recibir en promesa la vida de la era venidera. Pablo enfatiza la acción de Dios: el Padre ha rescatado a los creyentes de la oscuridad, los coloca bajo la autoridad —el Reino— de Su Hijo amado, porque ha perdonado sus pecados.

La “muerte” y la “oscuridad” pertenecen a la presente era mala; la “vida” y el “Reino” pertenecen a la era venidera. Pablo habla de “la esperanza reservada para ustedes en los cielos” (Col. 1:5), no como una esperanza de ir al cielo, sino como la herencia prometida que será conferida cuando el Mesías regrese. Colosenses 1:13 no significa que el Reino ya haya comenzado mundialmente, sino que los cristianos están ahora en entrenamiento para ese Reino venidero. Al creer el Evangelio del Reino, los cristianos deben vivir ahora como pueblo del Reino mientras esperan su venida prometida.

En Efesios 1:13-14 Pablo explica que en el Mesías, “cuando oyeron la palabra de la verdad —el Evangelio de su salvación— creyeron en él y fueron sellados en él con el espíritu santo de la promesa, que es un anticipo de nuestra herencia, hasta que adquiramos posesión de esa herencia, para alabanza de Su gloria.” El espíritu es el “anticipo,” no la herencia completa. Los cristianos tienen ahora la vida de la era venidera del Reino como un adelanto, pero todavía esperan la inmortalidad en la parusía del Mesías.

De manera similar, en Juan 5, inmediatamente después de decir que el creyente ha pasado de muerte a vida, Jesús habla de la hora futura cuando “todos los que están en los sepulcros oirán su voz” y saldrán, ya sea a resurrección de vida o a juicio (Juan 5:28-29). Pablo dice lo mismo en Romanos 8:23-25: los creyentes tienen “las primicias del espíritu” mientras todavía esperan la redención del cuerpo.

Hebreos 12:22-24 usa el mismo lenguaje de promesa y perspectiva: los creyentes “han venido” al monte Sion y a la Jerusalén celestial. Hebreos 12:28 luego añade que estamos “recibiendo un Reino inconmovible.” Esto no es teología del Reino Ahora ni amilenialismo. Es la típica esperanza bíblica del Reino: el futuro prometido es tan seguro que se puede hablar de los creyentes como si ya pertenecieran a él.

Así que Juan 5:24 y Colosenses 1:13 enseñan la misma verdad desde perspectivas diferentes. El cristiano ha pasado de muerte a vida y ha sido trasladado de la oscuridad al Reino del Hijo amado de Dios. Sin embargo, el Reino mismo todavía no está aquí pública y mundialmente. Un día futuro, “el reino del mundo” llegará a ser “el Reino de nuestro Señor y de Su Mesías” (Apoc. 11:15). Hasta entonces, los cristianos viven como pueblo del Reino, esperando el día en que “entrarán en el Reino eterno de nuestro señor y salvador Jesús Mesías” (2 Ped. 1:11).

Cuando el Amor Cristiano se Vuelve Demasiado Costoso

La mayoría de los cristianos predican “Dios es amor” como la más alta forma de conducta cristiana, hasta que el amor se vuelve costoso. Es decir, los cristianos suelen detenerse en amar a sus enemigos. Pero Jesús no calificó su mandamiento de amar a los enemigos diciendo: “Amad a vuestros enemigos… a menos que os ataquen a vosotros, a vuestra familia, a vuestro prójimo, o invadan vuestro país”. El mandamiento permanece claramente sin condiciones y está unido a otro mandamiento que refuerza la naturaleza incondicional de las palabras de Jesús:

«Pero yo os digo: Amad a vuestros enemigos y orad por los que os persiguen.» Mateo 5:44

La objeción típica es señalar otros mandamientos, como proteger al inocente o amar a tu prójimo como a ti mismo. El argumento es que a veces el cristiano está obligado, si no es que mandado, a detener el mal, incluso hasta el punto de matar al enemigo. Pero una vez más, el mandamiento incondicional de Jesús de “amar a vuestros enemigos” lo prohíbe rotundamente.
¿Cómo podemos decir que hemos amado a nuestro enemigo si estamos dispuestos a matarlo, o peor aún, si ya lo hemos matado? 
En otras palabras, si tu enemigo yace a tus pies con sangre brotando de su cabeza, ¿puedes honestamente decirle a Jesús que amaste a tu enemigo?
Jesús va más lejos al prohibir la venganza personal, porque eso sería pagar mal por mal:

«No os venguéis vosotros mismos, amados míos, sino dad lugar a la ira de Dios, porque escrito está: “Mía es la venganza; yo pagaré”, dice el Señor. Antes bien, “si tu enemigo tiene hambre, dale de comer; si tiene sed, dale de beber. Pues al hacer esto, ascuas de fuego amontonarás sobre su cabeza”. No seas vencido por el mal, sino vence el mal con el bien.» Romanos 12:19-21

Jesús se presentó a sí mismo como el modelo de todo esto. Cuando fue arrestado injustamente, reprendió a Pedro por usar violencia letal:

«Vuelve tu espada a su lugar, porque todos los que tomen espada, a espada perecerán.» Mateo 26:52

Solo mucho después Pedro entendió plenamente este mandamiento del Nuevo Pacto, y nos recuerda a nuestro Maestro:

«Cuando lo insultaban, no respondía con insultos; cuando sufría, no amenazaba, sino que se encomendaba a aquel que juzga con justicia.» 1 Pedro 2:23

Por último, en Lucas 9, cuando Jacobo y Juan preguntaron si debían hacer descender fuego del cielo sobre sus enemigos, como había hecho Elías, Jesús los reprendió. El momento era equivocado. El método era equivocado. De hecho, ese mismo espíritu del Antiguo Pacto era equivocado. Como algunos manuscritos posteriores explican que Jesús dijo a sus apóstoles:

«Vosotros no sabéis de qué espíritu sois, porque el Hijo del Hombre no ha venido a destruir vidas de hombres, sino a salvarlas.» Lucas 9:55-56

Así que pregúntate a ti mismo: ¿Estás siguiendo el nuevo espíritu que practicó y predicó Aquel a quien llamas Señor y Maestro —el Mesías que nos enseñó a amar incondicionalmente a nuestros enemigos, a rechazar la venganza personal, a vencer el mal con el bien y a encomendarse a Dios? ¿O todavía estás apelando al espíritu del antiguo pacto que a veces permitía que el pueblo de Dios cometiera lo que hoy solo podríamos ver como genocidio (Deuteronomio 7 y 20)?
Hebreos 11 nos recuerda que “cuando Abraham (el padre de los creyentes) fue probado, tuvo fe y estuvo dispuesto a sacrificar a Isaac, porque estaba seguro de que Dios podía resucitar a los muertos” (Hebreos 11:17, 19).
El seguidor del Mesías debe vivir con esa misma fe. Somos llamados a “la obediencia de la fe” (Romanos 1:5; 16:26) y a confiar en el Dios único que resucita a los muertos.

Muhammad and the Arian Monk

Exert from John of Damascus and Islam: Christian Heresiology and the Intellectual Background to Earliest Christian-Muslim Relations by Peter Schadler, 2017

The Arian Monk

One point of clear convergence between the two theologians comes with the assertion that Muhammad studied under an Arian monk for his education in matters relating to theology. As discussed above, the idea that Muhammad had learned from a monk had a wide currency in the Middle East in the eighth and ninth centuries, both among Christians and Muslims.[1] In Christian sources, such as those of our authors, the monk is either made out to be a heretic, sometimes representing one of the competing Christian traditions in the Levant, or he is seen as an orthodox monk who taught Muhammad the truth, and whom Muhammad later ignored or misunderstood. In Muslim sources the monk is most often used to support the claim that Muhammad was a prophet, and his religious affiliation is not expanded on; its importance is not as relevant for Muslims unconcerned with, and often unaware of, intra-Christian disputation.[2] What makes the monk a unique connection between John and Theodore, however, is his status as an Arian, something claimed by virtually no other contemporary sources, Christian or Muslim.

In the course of John of Damascus' and Theodore Abu Qurrah's works on Islam, they report that Muhammad learned about Christianity from an Arian, whom John describes as a monk.[3] Theodore is more explicit in characterizing the Arian's relationship to Muhammad, but does not actually identify the person as a monk, saying only that Muhammad was the “disciple of an Arian”.[4] Given both Theodore's relationship to John, and the ubiquity of the view Muhammad had a monk for a teacher, there is no reason to doubt Theodore has a monk in mind when referring to Muhammad's teacher, and as we shall see in a moment, no reason either to doubt that Theodore received this tradition via John.

Neither of the two theologians assigns a name to this person in their other works, but given the scarcity with which later theologians in the Christian tradition identified the monk as an “Arian”, it is clear that we are dealing with one of the direct influences John of Damascus had on his spiritual disciple Theodore. Theologians who followed them, and indeed contemporary with Theodore, characterized the monk as proceeding either from the Jacobite, Nestorian, or other tradition.[5] This was the case whether or not the Christian portrayals of the monk depicted him as representative of their own orthodox tradition, or of a heretical tradition. In either case, apart from only one or two later Armenian traditions, apparently no other theologian, Arabic, Syriac, or Greek, made the sole source of Muhammad's knowledge about Christianity a monk of the ‘Arian' tradition.[6] This would become the case even with John of Damascus' text, as it was later circulated in one of the more widespread recensions. Ms Paris gr. 1320 (11th century) gives Jews, Christians, Arians, and Nestorians as influential over the Prophet.[7] The tradition preserved in this manuscript would become more popular in Byzantium than that showing an Arian influence alone, suggesting perhaps incredulity among later scribes that Muhammad's education could have been due to only Arian influence and their desire to attribute further heretical influences to him.

Whatever the reason so few other sources give an Arian as the sole teacher of Muhammad, we should regard the fact that both John of Damascus and Theodore Abu Qurrah refer to an Arian teacher as evidence that Theodore received this idea from John. Further, as I have argued above, whether or not the claim is justified, the two may well have had good reason to have believed the characterization literally.[8] At the same time, the evidence being as weak as it is does not allow us to argue positively for their belief as opposed to the possibility of their use of an Arian as a rhetorical device. For the case here, however, the mention of an Arian by both John and Theodore serves as a valuable link between the two, and for their theological views of Islam.

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[1] See chapter 4 on Islamic and Para-Islamic Traditions for examples.

[2] For examples of how the monk was portrayed as an orthodox monk, whether proceeding from the non-Chalcedonian (Jacobite), Church of the East (Nestorian), or Chalcedonian (Melkite) tradition, see Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Bahīrā, pp. 123–34.

[3] John refers to the monk as “supposedly Arian” (ópolws åpslav@).

[4] Theodore is more explicit, saying that the false prophet of the Saracens was “the disciple of an Arian” ('Apelavoll dxpoatys). Glei and Khoury (eds.), Schriften Zum Islam, p. 118; Lamoreaux (trans.), Theodore Abu Qurrah, p. 225.

[5] For a good summary of the Byzantine polemical accounts of the monk and his relationship to Muhammad, see Khoury, Polemique Byzantine, pp. 76–87. The Medieval western sources seem most often to attribute Muhammad's education to Nestorianism and/ or Sabellianism, although Arianism and other heresies also sometimes feature. See N. Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (rev. edn., Oneworld, 1993), pp. 209–13.

[6] For the Armenian traditions, not all of which portray Bahīrā as an Arian, see Thomson, ‘Armenian Variations on the Bahira Legend. There were to be reports from later Byzantines which attributed multiple influential ideologies on Muhammad, some of which included Arianism, but none exclusively so, and most often these ideas were not identified with Arianism, as much as with Nestorianism and Judaism. For those, see Khoury, Polemique Byzantine, pp. 76–87.

[7] See Kotter, Die Schriften vol. iv, p. 6o. Interestingly, this would also appear to be the case in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, where a cursory look at the main secondary references all seem to be consistent with what I have said about Byzantium; namely that while ‘Arianism' is sometimes described as one of several contributing factors in influencing Muhammad, the idea that the Prophet was ever the disciple of an Arian, or that he learned from an Arian monk seem to be absent, although as I have said, a Nestorian monk is sometimes adduced. See for example, Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 209–13, Tolan, Saracens, pp. 52-53.

[8] See Chapter 4 above on Islamic and para-Islamic Traditions.

Saturday 4/18/26 Baptism Saves

 Throughout the New Testament, water baptism is linked to salvation as an expression of the “obedience of faith.” 

• New Testament faith is not merely intellectual assent; it includes active obedience to the message preached by John the Baptist, Jesus, and his apostles. 
• This is because Jesus became “the source of the salvation of the age to come” for all those who obey him (Heb. 5:9).

READ: Mark 1:1-8

• John came “preaching a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). 
• He also pointed forward to the one coming after him, “more powerful” than he was, who would baptize in holy spirit (Mark 1:7-8). 
• This helps explain Jesus’ words in Mark 16:16: 

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

• In other words, belief and water baptism are joined together in the salvation process.

READ: John 3:24; 4:1-2

• Jesus himself taught the necessity of being “born from water and spirit”:

“On the authority of God I tell you that unless a person is born from water and spirit, he will be unable to enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

• Entry into the Kingdom is therefore linked to responding obediently to the Gospel of God.
• Addendum: John 3:22 says that Jesus “was baptizing,” while John 4:2 clarifies that “Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were.” 

This reflects the biblical principle of agency: what Jesus’ authorized disciples did under his direction could rightly be attributed to Jesus himself.

READ: Acts 2:14-21

• At Pentecost, when the people asked what they should do to be saved, Peter answered: 

“Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of holy spirit” (Acts 2:38).

• Peter then continued urging them: 

“Save yourselves from this crooked society!” (Acts 2:40).

• The point is that repentance and baptism mark a person’s break with the present evil age.

Apostolic SOP

Church of Acts 

• 8:12 Philip baptized both men and women;
• 8:36-39 Phillip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch
• Acts 9:16 Paul himself was baptized in water (Acts 9:16) to have his sins washed away (Acts 22:16). 
• Acts 10:44-48 Peter baptized the Gentiles of the house of Cornelius, after receiving the holy spirit gift of speaking foreign languages.
• Acts 16:14-15 Paul baptized Lydia and her household in Philippi.
• Acts 16:32-34 Paul baptized the jailer and his household.
• Acts 18.8 Paul baptised some people in Corinth.
• Acts 19 Paul baptized followers of John.

READ: 1 Peter 3:18-21

• Peter repeats this same emphasis later in his first letter. 
• 1 Peter 3:21 says that “baptism now saves you,” not as a mere outward washing, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience.
• As the Amplified Bible puts it:

“Baptism [which is an expression of a believer’s new life in Christ] now saves you, not by removing dirt from the body, but by an appeal to God for a good (clear) conscience, [demonstrating what you believe].”

• Peter’s point, again, is that baptism is part of the saving response to the gospel.

Apostle Paul

• Paul also connects salvation with washing and renewal: God “saved us . . . through the washing of rebirth and renewal of holy spirit” (Titus 3:5).
• Paul repeatedly ties baptism to the death and resurrection of Messiah. 

Colossians 2:12:

“You were buried with him when you were baptized in water, and with him you were also raised from death, so to speak, through belief in the creative energy of God, the One who raised him from the dead.”

Romans 6:3-4:

“Do you not understand that all of us who were baptized into Messiah Jesus were baptized into his death? So then we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Messiah was resurrected from the dead through the glory of the Father, we also can live a new life.”

• Baptism, then, is not optional symbolism only. 
• Baptism is the God-ordained act that identifies the convert with Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Salvation in the NT

• This does not cancel the New Testament teaching that salvation is spoken of in three tenses:

1. we have been saved,
2. we are being saved,
3. we will be saved.

• Still, baptism belongs to the beginning of that saving journey as the expected response of faith.

Summary

• AB, Acts 8:38

Water baptism is of course one of the easiest and most fundamental practices of NT Christianity. It is simply a matter of obedience to Jesus, who was himself baptized and who baptized others using his agents. Water baptism is mandated in the Great Commission until the end of the age (Mt. 28:19-20). Today many decide to get rebaptized when they come to understand that God is one Person, that Jesus is the Son of God as defined by Luke 1:35 and that the Gospel involves a firm, clear belief in the Kingdom of God as well as the substitutionary death of Jesus for our sins (Mk. 10:45) and his resurrection on the Sunday following his Friday crucifixion.

• As Dan Gill wrote "Water Baptism in Jesus’ Name: From Heaven or from Men?"

https://focusonthekingdom.org/Water%20Baptism.pdf

“No one today can say that he is being faithful to the kingdom message preached by the apostles if he is not preaching that same water baptism.”

• The overall New Testament pattern is clear:
• hear the gospel,
• repent,
• believe,
• be baptized,
• receive holy spirit,
• walk in newness of life.
• The normal apostolic pattern is that Christians are baptized.

Addendum: What About? 

Questions about exceptional cases, such as someone dying before baptism (for example, the thief on the cross), should be treated as just that: exceptions, not the rule.

These theoretical questions are distracting and take away from the clear New Testament teaching on baptism and the conversion process. Christians should not build doctrine on imaginary “what about” or “what if” scenarios. Focusing on rare exceptions instead of the normal New Testament pattern of baptism distorts biblical teaching.

Simply put, in the New Testament, a person generally could not be considered fully converted to Christianity apart from baptism.