Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom E-Book

Gregory K. Beale

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Short Studies in Biblical Theology
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 310

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

"But many who are first will be last, and the last first." –Matthew 19:30 The Bible is full of ironic situations in which God overturns the world's wisdom by doing the opposite of what is expected—people are punished by their own sin, the persecution of the church is the catalyst for its growth, Paul claims to have strength through weakness, and more. In this book, biblical scholar G. K. Beale explores God's pattern of divine irony in both judgment and salvation, finding its greatest expression in Jesus's triumph over death through death on a cross. Unpacking this pattern throughout redemptive history, Beale shows us how God often uses what is seemingly weak and foolish to underscore his own strength and power in the lives of his people today.

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“The apostle Paul said that the gospel was foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews. The gospel is just as scandalous and surprising today—or to use Greg Beale’s term, ironic. To encounter that irony is to stumble into strong evidence of the gospel’s divinity. Beale does a masterful job of directing us to a powerful internal testimony the Scripture gives of its truthfulness. Furthermore, Redemptive Reversals is overflowing with anecdotal illustrations, pastoral cautions, cultural connections, and practical applications. It’s a refreshing, unique, and important book all serious Bible students should have in their library.”

J. D. Greear, President, Southern Baptist Convention; author, Not God Enough; Pastor, The Summit Church, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

“Greg Beale is one of the most perceptive and fascinating New Testament scholars of our day. He reads texts in their historical context, but he also illustrates how particular verses and passages fit into the larger storyline of the Scriptures. In this wonderfully accessible volume, Beale helps us to see that God often works in ways that we would not expect and uses unlikely and ironic means to accomplish his purposes. We see from Beale’s work that God is sovereignly working out his purposes and his will and that we can trust him with our lives.”

Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“An extraordinary book. It lays out a deeply biblical understanding of how God has reversed sin in Christ and how he judges sin in the world, sometimes in surprising ways. With its acute insights and unique perspective, it is a very helpful study.”

David F. Wells, Senior Distinguished Research Professor of Theology, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

“This book opened my eyes to look for the consistent way that God works ironically throughout the Bible—the way he punishes sinners by means of their own sin, makes life possible through his own death, shows his strength through our weakness, and exalts those who are humbled.”

Nancy Guthrie, author, Even Better than Eden: Nine Ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything about Your Story

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom

Short Studies in Biblical Theology

Edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

The City of God and the Goal of Creation, T. Desmond Alexander (2018)

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Thomas R. Schreiner (2017)

From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation, Sidney Greidanus (2018)

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, Patrick Schreiner (2018)

The Lord’s Supper as the Sign and Meal of the New Covenant, Guy Prentiss Waters (2019)

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, Ray Ortlund (2016)

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom, G. K. Beale (2019)

The Son of God and the New Creation, Graeme Goldsworthy (2015)

Work and Our Labor in the Lord, James M. Hamilton Jr. (2017)

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom

G. K. Beale

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom

Copyright © 2019 by G. K. Beale

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Portions of chapter 2, “People Resemble the Idols They Worship,” was adapted from We Become What We Worship by G. K. Beale. Copyright (c) 2008 by G. K. Beale. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com, and by SPCK, 36 Causton St, London SW1P 4ST England.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2019

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-6328-7ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-6331-7PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-6329-4Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-6330-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Beale, G. K. (Gregory K.), 1949- author.

Title: Redemptive reversals and the ironic overturning of human wisdom / G.K. Beale.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2019. | Series: Short studies in biblical theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019009166 (print) | LCCN 2019022067 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433563294 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433563300 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433563317 (epub) | ISBN 9781433563287 (tp)

Subjects: LCSH: Redemption–Christianity. | Irony. | Irony in the Bible. | Christianity. | Theology.

Classification: LCC BT775 (ebook) | LCC BT775 .B37 2019 (print) | DDC 234/.3–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009166

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2019-10-17 02:39:59 PM

To Lynn, Frank, and Helen Garrott,

pilgrims who have walked the ironic cruciform path of our Lord

Contents

Foreword by Andrew A. White

Series Preface

Introduction

 1  God Judges People by Their Own Sin

 2  People Resemble the Idols They Worship

 3  The Irony of Salvation

 4  The Christian Life: Power Is Perfected in the Powerless

 5  Faith in Unseen Realities Contradicts Trust in Superficial Appearances

 6  The Irony of Eschatology

Conclusion

General Index

Scripture Index

Foreword

A Most Unlikely Revival

I asked my longtime friend Andrew White to write a foreword. Andrew is a medical doctor and former student of mine from when I taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is an excellent doctor and perceptive theologian. The true story he tells here exemplifies many of the ideas in this book.

My story is thirty-seven years old, yet every time I tell it (which is often), my listeners encourage me to tell it to more people, using mass media. Greg Beale and his wife, Dorinda, have been the most persistent and persuasive listeners. So I am finally putting to pen a personal, historical account of a spiritual revival in 1980 among the Khmer Rouge in a refugee camp at the Thailand/Cambodia border called Sa Kaeo. This story is amazing because a revival was so unlikely for two reasons: (1) The Khmer Rouge (many of whom were converted in the revival) had been vicious murderers in the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s. That genocide had a greater percentage of the population killed than in any other genocide in the history of the world. (2) Those who spearheaded the revival were the most unlikely people at best—a murderer, an over-the-hill missionary, and a severely depressed doctor. In spite of these two serious problems, a wonderful revival was clearly authored by God, and it brought him great glory.

In order to set the stage for this true story, I must give you a brief history of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 (the period of time detailed in the award-winning movie The Killing Fields). My main source for this history is from the website Cambodian Tribunal Monitor.1 The Khmer (Cambodian) Rouge (Red), otherwise known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea, ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, took control of Cambodia in 1975 in the wake of a civil war that ousted Prince Sihanouk. Pol Pot wanted to transform Cambodia into a rural, classless society not unlike communist China. People were not allowed to leave their rural cooperatives, and if three or more people gathered together in unapproved conversation, they risked being charged as enemies of the state and executed. Others worked twelve hours a day, and many died from inadequate rest, starvation, and lack of medical services. Cambodian soldiers, military officers, and civil servants under Prince Sihanouk, as well as intellectuals, city residents, and minority groups, were detained, interrogated, imprisoned, tortured, and executed.

Many who escaped execution were members of Prince Sihanouk’s Free Khmer, who fought against the Khmer Rouge. For the most part, the Free Khmer were overpowered by the Khmer Rouge. Many of the Free Khmer fled into neighboring Thailand. When the Vietnamese fought their way into Cambodia to conquer it in 1979, the Khmer Rouge had killed nearly two million of its own people. In the wake of the Vietnamese offensive, the Khmer Rouge, like the Free Khmer, fled into neighboring Thailand. For obvious reasons, the Khmer Rouge and Free Khmer were housed in different refugee camps. One of the Khmer Rouge refugee camps at the Thailand/Cambodia border was Sa Kaoe, where I served as the attending physician on a malaria ward for just two weeks in the spring of 1980. But I am getting ahead of my story.

I was a resident physician in family medicine in Charleston, South Carolina, from 1978 to 1981. My wife and I heard of the genocide in Cambodia at a church service in the winter of 1979, and on our way home from that service, I told my wife that I would really like to help the Free Khmer refugees. That was not possible, however, because I could not be released from my duties as a second-year family medicine resident. My wife and I decided that at least we could pray for the refugees.

When I went to the residency center the following day, I found a remarkable memo in my mailbox. The memo, from the dean of the medical university of South Carolina, said that in response to the refugee crisis in Cambodia, resident physicians could be released from their duties to serve in Cambodia and that the service would be credited to their diplomas. Additionally, all service provided would be financed by the Southern Baptist Church. I immediately called my wife and told her that I had received a handwritten message from God. I could hardly tell God no to what couldn’t have been a clearer calling. Even though we had a six-month-old son, my wife fully supported my decision to help in this potentially dangerous mission.

In preparation for our departure to Cambodia, a group of Charleston resident physicians and faculty from many different medical disciplines met together regularly to plan our mission and create a strong support group. By the spring of 1980 we had bonded and were ready to fly to Thailand. However, when I stepped off the plane in Thailand, I had a panic attack, which rapidly precipitated a severe depression. I have had a history of severe depressions since the age of ten (seven depressions in all, with the seventh lasting thirteen years). I experience depression as terror, searing mental pain, poor concentration, inaccessible memory, mental exhaustion, a seeming inability to do even the smallest tasks, and a longing for death. Needless to say I could not understand why God allowed me to become so depressed when I had been so excited about my six-week mission to the Cambodians in Thailand.

I was initially assigned to a mission hospital in Thailand, for two weeks, to be initiated into the Thailand culture and local medical practice. Fortunately I found some imipramine (an antidepressant) in the mission pharmacy. Unfortunately it takes four to six weeks for the antidepressant to take effect. So despite the medicine, I remained severely depressed. After two weeks I was transferred back to my mission team at a camp for the Free Khmer. When I arrived at the Free Khmer refugee camp, I found that there were too many physicians for the number of refugees, and I was left with nothing to do. With this new reality, I became even more depressed since I couldn’t understand why God had sent me to Thailand if there was no need for my medical services. After two weeks of doing almost nothing except drowning in my depression, our mission group received a memo from Sa Kaeo, a Khmer Rouge refugee camp in northeastern Thailand. The memo said Sa Kaeo was in need of a physician for a malaria ward, since the attending physician had become ill and had to return to the United States. No one in our mission team wanted the assignment because we were such a cohesive group. I, however, experienced a remarkably clear sense from God that I needed to accept the assignment. I knew that from a mental health perspective, leaving my support group was the worst possible choice, but somehow I knew that God would take care of me. I also knew that God would help me get over my well-founded prejudice against the murderous Khmer Rouge.

When I arrived at the Khmer Rouge refugee camp in Sa Kaeo, I was assigned to a malaria ward. Upon being admitted to the medical ward, most patients were too ill to talk to, apart from their medical history. By the second day, however, most were more attentive. God had impressed upon me that I needed to share the gospel with every patient through an interpreter. I was, however, so depressed that the only thing I could communicate was to ask all the patients whether there was sin in their lives. The response was uniformly yes. Given the recent history of the Khmer Rouge, it is not surprising that so many would recognize their sin. Still, I was amazed at the honesty of 100 percent of my patients, and I then told them that I would bring good news about their sin the next day.

As I made ward rounds the following day, many of the patients had big smiles on their faces. They told me they had not been able to wait to hear the good news from me and so had sought out the ward chaplain. The chaplain was a retired Cambodian Methodist missionary. He had had only a small harvest of faithful believers while he was in Cambodia, but he could speak Cambodian fluently and had translated the biblical book of John into Khmer (Cambodian). The missionary chaplain lacked a charismatic personality, but he clearly loved Jesus and was a channel of the Holy Spirit.

There was only one Khmer Rouge patient on my ward who could read. In Cambodia he had been a vicious leader. Somehow, he had escaped death—the majority of those who could read had been killed because they were considered intellectuals. He was very ill, suffering with the most fatal form of malaria, complicated by bacterial pneumonia. His chest X-ray hung over his bed on a clothesline for easy viewing. During the day when this patient felt stronger (a strength I felt was miraculous, given the severity of his illnesses), he stood up on his cot and read aloud in a strong voice from the beginning to the end of John, over and over again. Periodically he would point to the abnormality on his chest X-ray and tell his fellow patients that God was healing him of the pneumonia. While he read, the Holy Spirit was a palpable reality throughout the ward.

When I made rounds the second day, I very briefly shared the good news to those who were not smiling. I simply told them that Jesus Christ had died for their sins, and if they trusted him, they would be completely forgiven. A full half of them accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord. The missionary chaplain had to explain to them in more detail the meaning and necessity of salvation. I was too depressed to do that. Two of my patients died but not before they favorably received the good news of Jesus, the forgiver of their sin and the joy of their salvation.

Also remarkable was that God was rapidly raising up a Khmer Rouge evangelist who had been discipled by our missionary chaplain. He had been a Christian for only three weeks. The evangelist was no Billy Graham, but daily he went to the scores of new house churches in the camp (which were really just shacks). There he evangelized and discipled the Cambodians all day at great risk of martyrdom at the hand of the unconverted Khmer Rouge leaders. Those who were part of the house churches were also at great risk. The Khmer Rouge leaders told the people that if they converted to Christianity, they would have to “lay on the ground” when they returned to Cambodia, a euphemism for digging your own grave. At the end of each day the evangelist was exhausted but was unable to sleep and was visibly trembling from anxiety. Each night I would give him a shot of Valium (a tranquilizer and sleep medicine). Each morning he woke up refreshed and continued his vigorous ministry.

I was at Sa Kaeo for only two weeks but participated in a spiritual revival that ultimately led to the salvation of several thousand Khmer Rouge refugees. I heard some time after I left Sa Kaeo that the new Christian refugees asked the Thailand government to allow them to build a Christian church. Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, so the government told the Christian refugees that they could not build a church until there was a Buddhist temple. Seeking the Lord’s guidance, the Christian Khmer Rouge first built a Buddhist temple, which was hardly used, and then a large, thriving Christian church.

As I began this story I recounted the two reasons a revival was so unlikely at Sa Kaeo. First, the converts were among the vilest and most hardened sinners the world has ever known (every bit as evil as the Nazi SS). Second, the leaders of the revival were the least suitable people for participation in a revival. The four leaders of the revival whom God had raised up were (1) a severely depressed doctor (me) of a busy malarial ward who was mentally capable only of sharing the most elementary gospel message; (2) a retired missionary minister who had seen little fruit while serving in Cambodia but knew Cambodian and had translated John; (3) an exhausted, anxious, brand-new Khmer Rouge evangelist; and (4) a rare Khmer Rouge patient who could read and was sick with the most fatal form of malaria, complicated by pneumonia. Nevertheless, he read the Gospel of John over and over again.

These four weak vessels were used by the Lord in an astounding way. During the time I was in Thailand, I had no joy despite the many conversions I witnessed, because I was so depressed. But now I am full of great joy thinking about the way the Lord used weak vessels, including me, in order to maximize his glory. Jesus clearly led this great revival, leaving no doubt that the Holy Spirit was responsible for it.

I continue to have recurrent severe depressions, so I look forward to the day when my feeble mind is completely renewed in the eternal new creation. Even during my deepest depressions, however, I can take some comfort in the way God used me in a Khmer Rouge revival in a refugee camp at the Thailand/Cambodia border in 1980. Over the years I have come to trust God increasingly. If God could use me when I was so severely depressed, how could I not trust him with all other things? God always brings glory to himself, and being a weak vessel is no obstacle to the accomplishment of his will—his good and perfect will.

My life is a testimony that God uses weakness to produce strength and thus accomplish his gracious rule. Indeed, Jesus said to the apostle Paul, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore [Paul says] I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses . . . with distresses . . . with calamities, for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9–10). This is the irony of Christian living, upon which this book by my friend and former teacher, Greg Beale, will elaborate.

Andrew A. White, MD, MATS, 2017

1. http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/history/cambodian-history/khmer-rouge-history/.

Series Preface

Most of us tend to approach the Bible early on in our Christian lives as a vast, cavernous, and largely impenetrable book. We read the text piecemeal, finding golden nuggets of inspiration here and there, but remain unable to plug any given text meaningfully into the overarching storyline. Yet one of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology—that is, a renewed appreciation for the Bible as a theologically unified, historically rooted, progressively unfolding, and ultimately Christ-centered narrative of God’s covenantal work in our world to redeem sinful humanity.

This renaissance of biblical theology is a blessing, yet little of it has been made available to the general Christian population. The purpose of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to connect the resurgence of biblical theology at the academic level with everyday believers. Each volume is written by a capable scholar or churchman who is consciously writing in a way that requires no prerequisite theological training of the reader. Instead, any thoughtful Christian disciple can track with and benefit from these books.

Each volume in this series takes a whole-Bible theme and traces it through Scripture. In this way readers not only learn about a given theme but also are given a model for how to read the Bible as a coherent whole.

We have launched this series because we love the Bible, we love the church, and we long for the renewal of biblical theology in the academy to enliven the hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples all around the world. As editors, we have found few discoveries more thrilling in life than that of seeing the whole Bible as a unified story of God’s gracious acts of redemption, and indeed of seeing the whole Bible as ultimately about Jesus, as he himself testified (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

The ultimate goal of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to magnify the Savior and to build up his church—magnifying the Savior through showing how the whole Bible points to him and his gracious rescue of helpless sinners; and building up the church by strengthening believers in their grasp of these life-giving truths.

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

Introduction

Our life consists of ups and downs. We are usually surprised by both, but we should not be so surprised, since the Bible testifies that such ups and downs are part of the divinely designed warp and woof of life. This is true of both the believer in Christ and the unbeliever. But what may appear for the unbeliever as a positive upturn in life is sometimes really, from God’s view and plan, the beginning of a downturn in judgment. And what appears to be a downturn in the believer’s life is really an upturn in blessing.

These ups and downs involve ironic patterns. What is irony? Irony is the saying of something or the doing of something that implies its opposite. What is said or done really indicates the reverse of the saying or act. This book is about the notion that God deals with humans in primarily ironic ways. The Bible is a record of how God has so dealt with humans. There are two kinds of biblical or theological irony. There is retributive irony whereby God punishes people by the very means of their own sin. We will see this in chapters 1 and 2. There is also redemptive irony whereby the faithful appear to be cursed, but as they persevere in faith, they are really in the midst of being blessed.1 We will see this in chapters 3 to 6. Both kinds of theological ironies are true of humans in general. Everyone is ultimately caught in the matrix of one of these two ironic patterns of living. Christians need to be aware of the ironic nature of life in order that they not become discouraged at bad events in their lives. In fact, we will see that the ironic nature of Christian living is necessary in order that faith be given opportunity to grow.

This book explains how Scripture depicts these two kinds of irony in the lives of people. And how these two ironies reach their zenith points in Satan (through retributive irony) and in Christ (through redemptive irony). As you read this book, you will perceive more of the nature of what irony is. Before I can discuss irony in the Scriptures, however, I must talk briefly about the various kinds of literary ironies.2

At its core, “irony is saying one thing and meaning another.”3 All ironies are composed of three basic elements: (1) two or more layers or levels of meaning (one to the observer and one to the victim). (2) One layer has an opposite meaning to that of the other layer (respectively, what is apparent is the opposite of what is reality). (3) Either the observer or the victim is unaware of this tension or surprised by it.4 Generally, three kinds of ironies have traditionally been recognized in literary studies. There is verbal irony, which is saying one thing and meaning its opposite. Here a verbal statement is aimed at a particular person. Second, there is dramatic irony or an irony of narrated events, wherein narrated events are turned to the opposite of the way that they appeared to be heading. Finally, there is character irony, part of dramatic irony, whereby one’s true character stands in contrast with what he appears to be.5

Luke’s narrative of the rejection of the gospel by the Jews is saturated with irony. In particular, Luke’s narration of the rejection of Jesus is mirrored by the depiction in Acts, where every effort to stand against God’s plan only fulfills it in every prophetic detail (e.g., see Acts 2:23 and 13:27). In Luke, the rejection of Jesus by the Jews is the catalyst for his redeeming death, whereas in Acts the persecution of the church becomes the catalyst for saving evangelism. Luke also develops the principle that “some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30). These programmatic ironies run throughout Luke-Acts.6 Thus, some of the highest forms of biblical irony are where there is narrated an “unexpected reversal of fate and fortune,” which is “the jolting turn of events” wherein “the mighty are brought low and humble exalted.”7

In John 19 the Roman soldiers mock the bleeding Jesus by saying their “Hail to the King!” The soldiers do not believe that Jesus is any kind of king, and they intend their sarcastic words to be a direct attack on Jesus, whom they believe is an imposter. A reader perceives that the “lower” level of the mocking is false, whereas the irony becomes apparent at the “higher” level, where it is evident that the soldiers are the real victims of their own mocking, since they are crucifying the one who is, in fact, the true divine king of the universe.8 Another example of this kind of irony is Paul’s claim in 2 Corinthians 12:10: “When I am weak, then I am strong.”9

So now we turn to the substance of the book.

1. Warren Austin Gage first formulated these two kinds of theological irony in a personal conversation, which has helped me to clarify better these kinds of ironies in the Bible.

2. I am grateful to my research assistant, Tyler Milliken, for his research into literary irony, of which the brief remainder of this chapter is a summary.

3. Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, Irony in Mark’s Gospel: Text and Subtext (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 60, citing Cicero.

4. Camery-Hoggatt, Irony in Mark’s Gospel, 61, citing D. C. Muecke, The Compass of Irony, 1st ed. (London: Methuen Young, 1969), 19–20.

5. See InHee C. Berg, Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 79–80, 88, 95, for discussion of these three ironies.

6. E.g., see Jerry L. Ray, Narrative Irony in Luke–Acts (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), 109–11. For brief definition of dialectical irony (or programmatic irony), see p. 38; on Acts 2:23, see pp. 109–10; on the negative consequences of Jewish rejection and positive Gentile consequences in Acts 13:27–52, see pp. 110–11.

7. Paul Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985), 11.

8. Cf. similarly on John 19:1–3 in Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel, 132.

9. Karl A. Plank, Paul and the Irony of Affliction (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 21n13.

1

God Judges People by Their Own Sin

[The Nazi War criminal Josef] Mengele did not entirely escape punishment. . . . The aging fugitive . . . “lived apprehensive and afraid, fearful of being found by Jews.” . . . He suffered migraine headaches and slept with a Mauser pistol by his bed. . . . Though there was never a punishment that would fit the dimensions of Mengele’s crimes, is it not peculiarly appropriate that he was condemned to a lifetime of fearing his own victims, and that his punishment should be inflicted by himself?

—Otto Fredrick, Time, June 24, 1985

One of my favorite pastimes in graduate school, after completing a big paper or final exam, was to go to the local ice cream shop and reward myself with a huge bowl of chocolate mint ice cream. This was the height of culinary delight. In reality, I found many excuses to reward myself with such treats. A few years later when I went to my doctor for a physical, he informed me that were I to continue over the years with this ice cream binge, my health would be seriously affected. I realized that the very thing in which I was finding great pleasure could at the same time be causing me, quite literally, “heartache” in the long run. But perhaps my biggest mistake was telling my wife what the doctor had said. I should have known that forever afterward, she would remind me of this sober truth. I have never been able to enjoy my huge bowls of chocolate mint ice cream since. Most of us are familiar with this kind of omnivorous irony. There are so many delicacies that do our taste buds good but simultaneously “do in” our bodies.

On a more serious note, punitive ironies transcend culinary bounds. There are many things people do purely for pleasure or self-interest even though they know it may hurt them in the long run.

A former student of mine, while taking a final exam on the subject of biblical ethics, tried to get a good grade by cheating. During the exam she approached me at the front of the room in order to get clarification about one of the questions. As she pointed her finger to the question on the exam paper, I saw answers written on her hand. The very way she attempted to succeed—through cheating—was the very way in which she failed.

From the political realm, many can probably recall the Machiavellian irony involving former President Richard Nixon. He attempted unjustly to become one of the most famous presidents in American history. He hoped to ensure his success by having all his conversations in the Oval Office recorded. Indeed, Nixon became our most infamous president because these very tapes exposed his underhanded attempts to defeat his political opponents.

These illustrations reflect an ironic moral principle, that when a person unethically schemes to succeed, often the scheme is discovered by the potential victims before it can be accomplished. The very way by which people attempt sinfully to get ahead often becomes the very means by which they fail.

This principle is at work in every level of life. An article in Time magazine some years ago made this observation about drugs: “People addicted to cocaine are out of control. . . . So it is a mean, symmetrical irony that cocaine’s effect is to mimic will and emotional focus, permitting the user to feel he is blessed with precisely the virtues he lacks.”1 I know a woman who drank excessively so that she would feel less inhibited when she socialized. This appeared to work for awhile until she had to quit drinking permanently because of a liver ailment. In her later years, because of the deadening effects of alcohol, she had no personality but sat and stared blankly in the midst of social gatherings. The very things in which people wrongly attempt to find liberation frequently become the things that bring them into harsher bondage.

This ironic principle of judgment is expressed well in the proverb, “There is a way which seems right to man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 16:25). When we set out to succeed at something in an unethical manner, circumstances often have an uncanny way of reversing so that we are forced to fail.

In the light of what we have already discussed, we can define irony generally as the doing or saying of something that implies its opposite. What is done or said is really the reverse of what at first appears to be the case. God frequently deals with humanity in an ironic way. This is true in his acts of judgment and salvation, so that irony is one of the major thematic threads tying together the whole of Scripture. God repeatedly drives the events of history in the reverse direction from which they first appear to be moving. We look first at how God carries out his work of ironic punishment.

It’s a Turn-Around World

There was once a Persian prince named Haman and a Jew of low status called Mordecai. Mordecai had saved the king of Persia by revealing a plot to kill the king, although the king was unaware that it was Mordecai who had made the plot known. Haman hated Mordecai because he would not bow down and pay homage to him as vice president of Persia (Est. 3:1–5). As a result, Haman vented his childish anger by persuading King Ahasuerus to decree that all Jews in the empire be annihilated (Est. 3:6–15), and he plotted to have Mordecai hanged on the gallows (Est. 5:14).

As providence would have it, the night before Mordecai was to be hanged, the king could not sleep, so he ordered his servants to read to him for pleasure’s sake the recent records of the affairs of the kingdom. In these records the king heard it read that it was Mordecai who had revealed the assassination plot against him. Upon discovering that Mordecai had not been honored for this, he desired to make things right. Now at this very time Haman happened to be entering the king’s court to request permission to hang Mordecai. Before Haman had the opportunity to discuss Mordecai, the king asked him, “What is to be done for the man whom the king desires to honor?” (Est. 6:6). Haman, thinking the king was referring to him, answered,

For the man whom the king desires to honor, let them bring a royal robe which the king has worn, and the horse on which the king has ridden, and on whose head a royal crown has been placed; and let the robe and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s noble princes and let them array the man whom the king desires to honor and lead him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, “Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king desires to honor. (Est. 6:7–9)

Haman was shocked and humiliated when the king commanded him to “do so for Mordecai the Jew” (Est. 6:10), especially since Haman was required to lead Mordecai’s horse through the city square. This was certainly an unexpected turn of events, but it was only the beginning of an even greater ironic reversal.

After the king had authorized Haman’s plot (Est. 3:8–11), Queen Esther, Mordecai’s step-daughter, informed the king about Haman’s plot to exterminate all the Jews (which included Esther) and to hang Mordecai. The king angrily declared that Haman should be hanged on the very gallows upon which he had planned to hang Mordecai (Esther 7), and he made it possible for the Jews throughout his land to destroy Haman’s allies who were planning to exterminate them (Esther 8–9). Therefore, “when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, it was turned to the contrary so that the Jews themselves gained the mastery” (Est. 9:1), and “it was a month which was turned for them from sorrow into gladness” (Est. 9:22). The Lord had designed that Haman’s wicked scheme “which he had devised . . . should return on his own head” (Est.