Portray Christ Crucified

I came across John Piper's comments on Galatians 3:1 in his book Reading the Bible Supernaturally. I want share a few observations. Here's the verse:

Galatians 3:1
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

The are two main verbs in this verse "bewitch" and "portrayed. Strong's Lexicon defines "bewitch" as

βασκαίνω -- I give the evil eye to, fascinate, bewitch, overpower. (Strong's Lexicon)

The Galatian's rejection of the gospel was so surprising that Paul compared their falling away as the Galatians being bewitched or hypnotized. What they were rejecting was spelled out in the following paragraph: they rejected salvation by grace alone. They started to believe that even though they were saved by faith, their continued salvation demanded a righteousness earned by acts of the flesh, which was exemplified by circumcision. They were rejecting the core of the Gospel.

The Galatians surprised Paul because he worked hard at portraying Christ through his preaching and writing. Portray is a powerful word. It is defined in Thayer's Expanded Definition as

προγράφω -- to depict or portray openly ..., before whose eyes was portrayed the picture of Jesus Christ crucified (the attentive contemplation of which picture ought to have been a preventive against that bewitchment), i. e. who were taught most definitely and plainly concerning the meritorious efficacy of the death of Christ, Galatians 3:1. Since the simple γράφειν is often used of painters, and προγράφειν certainly signifies also to write before the eyes of all who can read (...), I see no reason why προγράφειν may not mean to depict (paint, portray) before the eyes; ...

(https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/greek/4270.html)

Two signficant preachers expand upon the application of this verse.

Martin Luther quotes Galatians 3:1c and then comments
"Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you." As if he said, no painter with his colors can so lively set out Christ unto you as I have painted Him by my preaching; yet you remain most miserably bewitched. What did I then paint? Even Christ Himself. How was that that done? In this way, that He is crucified in you or among you."
(Commentary on Galatians: Modern-English Version, p. 128)

John Piper:
This “portrayal” came with words, not pictures. But it was so real, and so vivid, that Paul said it was an appeal to their eyes—“before your eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed." They saw the peculiar glory of Christ in the preaching of the gospel. (Reading the Bible Supernaturally)

In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul wrote:

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.(ESV)

The goal of Paul in his preaching and writing is to make Christ and his cruxification known to his audience. To get the message across, Paul took time to make Christ's life and death on the cross vivid and real. U. S. Presidents hire artists to paint their Presidentail portrait. The goal of the painter is to make the president known to the viewers. However, painters take license, planning, and effort to portray the personality of the president and the perception of the president by the public. A portrait is more than a mere photograph. The painter wants the viewer to interact with the painting in order to clarify the viewers' inderstanding of the person of the president and the meaning of his presidency. The want the viewer to grok the president.

Paul realized that portraying Christ as crucified was necessary to keep the Galatians from heresy. Paul continued in the rest of his letters to carefully explain the beauty of Christ and the work he accomplished on the Cross.

In the modern day, if our preaching does not exalt Christ through portraying Him crucified before eyes, we have diminished the office of preacher. Our preaching needs to be carefully crafted with this intention in mind. As receivers of the Word, we must demand better if the preachers are not preaching with proclaiming Christ alone as their goal. Heresy is a misunderstanding of who Christ is. Preaching is the main weapon to combat heresy.

Spiritual Disciplines and a Godly family

The Question
A prominent christian leader was asked by a young man how did you get such a great and obedient wife and daughter. The leader replied that the questioner should pursue the spiritual disclipines such as prayer, phone fasts, media fasts, reading the word, etc. This sounded reasonable at the time, but as I mulled over the answer, I became dissatisfied with it. The answer fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of spiritual disciplines and of marriage. This blog post is my response to the answer. I have a few caveats before I start.

First, it was an off-the-cuff answer to a random question from an audience member after a speech. The spiritual leader's answer had to be short and to the point. I am not sure I could have done any better. Although, I am sure he was asked this type of question all the time.

Second, as far I as know the leader was not a trained pastor nor did he claimed to be one. What gave his views on the Christian life import was the success of his ministry and marriage. We should double-check anyone who gives this type of advice, but especially leaders who head parchurch ministries or political movements

Third, I am not bashing spiritual disciplines, on the contrary,I strongly encourage them but spiritual disciplines can be practiced with wrong motives or expectations.

In this blog I will state a short answer to the question, a long answer to the question, and my objection to the leader's view of spiritual gifts.

Short Answer
My short answer would be I thank God for my wife and family. Proverbs 19:14 states that a "prudent wife is a gift from the Lord." A godly wife is a undeserved blessing. You cannot earn a godly wife. A godly wife is not a reward for a life that zealously practices the spiritual gifts or a life given over to sacrificial service to a ministry. If you are single, pray for a godly wife. Use godliness and prudence as qualities you look for in a wife. If you are married, then realize God placed you in this marriage. Praise God for your marriage. Pray for wisdom in how to seek God in your marriage and how to love your wife more.

Long Answer
My long answer would be that the questioner was asking the wrong question. The question should be, "How do I love God through loving my wife more?". The purpose of marriage is not to make the spouses comfortable and happy. The purpose of marriage is to glorify God in their interactions with each other and with God.

Ephesians 5:22–33
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (ESV)

Where people go awry in understanding this passage is that they tie the commands together. They make the command to the wife and the command to the husband dependent on one another. For example, if my husband loves me, I will respect him. Or likewise, if my wife is respectful, I will love her. However, the command to respect their husbands is not just when the husband is loving her; but at all times. Likewise, the husband is to love his wife all the time, not just when she is being respectful. God gives no promise to husbands and wives if they are obedient that their spouses will be come godly. Peter intimates in 1 Peter 3:1 that God may graciously use the humble behavior of the wife to win over her husband, but this is far from a promise. God wants the spouses to love each other sacrifically and unconditionally as Christ loved the church.

To illustrate my point I turn to the Old Testament. There are two examples of godly men having ungodly wives in the Old Testament: Hosea and Job. Hosea's wife was a prostitute who kept cheating on him. Job's wife, urged Job to curse God and die (Job 2:9) after Satan took away their possessions,children, and Job's health. Furthermore, there is an example in the Old Testament where a very foolish and ungodly man had a prudent wife. In 1 Samuel 25, Nabal refused to pay David for David's protection of Nabal's herds. Abigail had to step in to save Nabal's employees and possessions. Nabal was saved from David's retribution, but God struck him dead shortly thereafter. Job, Hosea, and Nabal may be rare examples, but they highlight my thesis that God does not promise a godly wife to a godly man. These examples reinforce the truth that God is sovereign overall and specifically sovereign in your marriage.

Who knows if the aforementioned spiritual leader intentionally implied that the practice of spiritual disciplines would cause God to make one's spouse godly or one's marriage happy. He may not have meant that implication, but his answer leads to that inference. Scripture shows us God designed marriage to glorify Himself. Our pursuit of God involves our treatment of our spouses in our marriage.

Spiritual Disciplines

1 Peter 3:7
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (ESV)

Note prayer is a spiritual discipline. The efficacy of a husband's prayers is dependent on how he treats his wife. There is an interdependency between one's overall obedience and the practice of the spiritual disciplines. The practice of spirtiual gifts is not a deal with God that if I practice these habits, then God will make my life comfortable and provide me with a godly wife and family. On the other hand, God may use spiritual disciplines faithfully practiced to help bring believers through difficult times in the life.

The practice of spiritual disciplines is a grateful response to God for what God has already done for us in Christ's death and resurrection. Godly living will help you escape the snares of foolish living. For example, debauchery does not lead to happiness, pornography does not lead to a fulfulling sexual relationship with one's spouse, and greed does not lead to the joy of abundant giving. Spiritual disciplines are biblically informed habits to guide you into a deeper and more profound relationship with God. A married couple practicing the spiritual disciplines together with the right attitudes will pave a way to deeper relationship with God and with each other.

The Resurrection

The following passage in 1 Corinthians 15 has been used effectively in apologetics: arguments to persuade the unbeliever that the Christian world view is reasonable. However, this approach misses the point of the passage. Paul's intention for the passage seems to be slightly different. Paul is writing to the believers at Corinth that the physical reality of the Christ's resurrection should effect change in every aspect of their lives. Let's look at the passage.

1 Corinthians 15:1-19
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Gordon Fee points out in his commentary that this passage is actually correcting the view of some of the believers in Corinth: they were denying the importance of the resurrection. Gordon Fee points out the importance of historical events that were witnessed on Easter is to reaffirm the importance of Christ's resurrection and thus, confirming our hope of our future resurrection in our daily lives.

Gordon Fee
There is a place for apologetics, that is, the defense of Christianity to the unconverted; but Easter is not that place. Easter, which should be celebrated more frequently in the church, and not just at the Easter season, calls for our reaffirming the faith to the converted. The resurrection of Christ has determined our existence for all time and eternity. We do not merely live out our length of days and then have the hope of resurrection as an addendum; rather, as Paul makes plain in this passage, Christ’s resurrection has set in motion a chain of inexorable events that absolutely determines our present and our future. Christ is the first fruits of those who are his, who will be raised at his coming. That ought both to reform the way the way we currently live and to reshape our worship into seasons of unbridled rejoicing. (Fee, p. 760)

Paul's point is that if the reality of our future bodily resurrection is false, then Christ's resurrection did not happen, thus why live for Christ?

Gordon Fee
His point, of course, is that he is indeed crazy to put his life in constant jeopardy for the sake of others, if neither he nor they have hope in the resurrection. But even more, this sentence also indicates the absolute central and crucial place that Christ’s resurrection played in his life. One must remember throughout that to deny the resurrection of the dead meant to deny the resurrection of Christ (vv. 12-19), which meant for Paul the denial of Christian life altogether. Thus everything Christians do a Christians—and especially the labors of an apostle—are an absurdity if there is no resurrection. (p. 768)

The reason we can live sacrificially and boldly for the Gospel is because our physical lives on earth is not all there is. We have eternal reward in heaven if we seek Christ now. We can have joy through suffering because God allows us to know him better through suffering and furthermore, we know will be with God with our physical bodies through all eternity.

The New International Commentary of on the New Testament: The First Epistile to the Corinthians

Favorite Movies

To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962, Robert Mulligan)
Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Wells)
Twelve Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, David Lean)
A Christmas Carol (1951, dir. Brian Desmond Hurst)
King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack)
The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
The Searchers (1956, John Ford)
The General (1926, Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton)
Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)
Shawshank Redemption (1994, Frank Darabont)
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966, Sergio Leone)
Unforgiven (1992, Clint Eastwood)
The Sting (1973, George Roy Hill)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939, Sidney Lanfield)
Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
The 39 Steps (1939, Alfred Hitchcock)
Parasite (2019, Bong Joon Ho)
The Natural (1984, Barry Levinson)
Young Frankenstein (1974, Mel Brokers)
To Be or Not to Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch)
Rashoman (1950, Akira Kurosawa)
My Man Godfrey (1936, Gregory La Cava)
The Thin Man (1934, W.S. Van Dyke)
Lincoln (2012, Steven Spielberg)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971, Norman Jewison)
Singing in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly)
Spirited Away (2001, Hayao Miyazaki)
Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey, Marx Brothers)
Mary Poppins (1964, Robert Stevenson)
City Lights (1931, Charlie Chaplin)
The Gold Rush (1925, Charlie Chaplin)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg)
Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
All the President's Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)
Schindler's List (1993, Steven Spielberg)
Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
The Princess Bride (1987, Rob Reiner)
Gunga Din (1939, George Stevens)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz and William Keighley)
The Great Escape (1963, John Sturges)
Chariots of Fire (1981, Hugh Hudson)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957, Billy Wilder)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959, Otto Preminger)
The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
Moneyball (2011, Bennett Miller)
The Big Short (2015, Adam McKay)
The Graduate (1967, Mike Nichols)
Annie Hall (1977, Woodie Allen)
Shane (1953, George Stevens)
Rocky (1976, Sylvester Stallone)
Goldfinger(1964, Guy Hamilton)
To Sir, with Love (1967, James Clavell)
A Man for All Seasons (1966, Fred Zinnemann)

Equality with God

I have been reading A New Testament Theology (revised edition 1993) by George Eldon Ladd. I am in the section where Ladd is covering the apostle Paul's theology. He is trying to define how Christ, "emptied himself" in Philippians 2:

Philippians 2:5–7
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (ESV)

Ladd highlights the difficulty of understanding what "emptying himself" means. He points out that "a guideline may be found from the implicit comparison between Christ and Adam" (p. 744). Here's the key passage in Genesis 3:

Genesis 3:1–6
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Adam and Eve chose to take what is not theirs to obtain equality with God. Compare this approach with how Christ lived on earth, "Christ emptied himself by taking the the form of a servant." Christ's example is proclaiming God's glory through faithful, humble service. Humans try to obtain equality with God by trying to obtain glory for themselves by grabbing glory that is not theirs.

Like Living Stones -- 2 Peter 2:5

1 Peter 2:1–6
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (ESV)

There are five things to put away (or "put off" as Paul would say): mailice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. Let us look at the words in the Greek.

English	Greek	Definition
malice	κακίαν	It is antonym of the greek word for virtue
deceit	δόλον	It is derived from the verb, "to catch with bait."
hypocrisy	ὑποκρίσεις	pretense
envy	φθόνους	the envy which one man grudge another something which he himself desires, but does not possess
slander	καταλαλιάς	"to run"down," "to disparage"

Karen H. Jobes comments on the passage.

Karen H. Jobes
The vices listed in 2:1 that must be put off are those that destroy relationships and hence that destroy community. Peter is explaining in this letter how social alienation that the Christian experiences from society is to be remedied by genuine fellowship found within the community of believers, the nature of which he describes in 2:4-10. Peter's readers have been given a new birth as the people of God and therefore are to exhibit an ethical transformation in their relationships that is characteristics of the Father. (p. 131)

As Karen Jobes comments, these five vices destroy community. They are the evils one does to someone else. I read a lot of mysteries by British writers. A favorite plot device they use often is "poison pen letters." The letters indicate to the readers that some deeper, hidden, mischief is afoot. In these stories, the authors spell out, often in excruciating detail, the damage the letters do to the communal relationships. The letters disrupt trust, raise suspicions, and increase fear. They cause even more gossip to spread. Likewise in the local church, although these vices may not be expressed through poison pen letters, the evil will grow and if not opposed, it will eventually destroy a church.

The apostle Peter already addressed how to address these evils earlier in the letter.

1 Peter 1:22
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

The answer is pursuing loving one another with a pure heart that has been transformed by the Gospel. Peter then writes about why pursuing love is so dear to God's heart. He is building us into His house: a holy temple. Christ is the cornestone and we are the building blocks. The building material of the cornerstone and the living stones has the same attributes: human nature. Again, Karen Jobes provides some insight.

Karen H. Jobes
The placement of the Living Stone with living stones in the temple implies the close relationship of Christ with believers and their common nature as human beings. The Cornerstone is called "living" by virtue of his resurrection; the same resurrection life enlivens the stones that come to him and take their place in the new temple. The image of the living stones of the new temple also has implications for the conception of the Christians relationship to other believers. Notably, these living stones are not lying about in idle isolation or disorder in Peter's description. They are not heaped in a pile or scattered across a field. Christians are not individually temples of God in the image Peter presents. They are each put in place in a spiritual house for the purpose of being a holy priesthood that offers acceptable sacrifices to God. (1 Peter, pp. 148, 149)

John Calvin agrees, but stresses even more the role love has in fitting believers together.

John Calvin from commentary on the Catholic Epistles
We must further observe, that he constructs one house from the whole number of the faithful. For though every one of us is said to be the temple of God, yet all are united together in one, and must be joined together by mutual love, so that one temple may be made of us all. Then, as it is true that each one is a temple in which God dwells by his Spirit, so all ought to be so fitted together, that they may form one universal temple. This is the case when every one, content with his own measure, keeps himself within the limits of his own duty; all have, however, something to do with regard to others.
(https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom45/calcom45.iv.iii.i.html)

The apostle Paul uses this analogy as well in Ephesians.

Ephesians 2:19–22
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (ESV)

Notice to "build up" (οικοδομεισθε) in 1st Peter and to "build together" (συνοικοδομεῖσθε) in Ephesians are both in the present/passive/indicative. This means the action is being done to the members of the church and is an ongoing process.

There is an interesting verse in the Old Testament about how Solomon had his temple built is 1 Kings 6:7.

1 Kings 6:7
When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built. (ESV)

It is not easy to find out why Solomon prepared the materials to fit together before bringing them to the construction site. The following verses from the Exodus and Deuteronomy, gives us a hint, but not the full story.

Exodus 20:24–25
An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. (ESV)

Deuteronomy 27:5–6
And there you shall build an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build an altar to the LORD your God of uncut stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the LORD your God, (ESV)

I have two observations. The materials were pre-selected and pre-formed before they were brought to be placed in the building. This practice seems to point not just reverence to God, but the honoring God as the builder of the temple. Josephus, a historian born in A. D. 37 of a priestly Jewish a family, wrote the following about the ancient temple.

Now the whole structure of the temple was made, with great skill, of polished stones, and those laid together so very harmoniously and smoothly, that there appeared to the spectators no sign of any hammer, or other instrument of architecture, but as if, without any use of them, the entire materials had,naturally united themselves together, that the agreement of one part with another seemed rather to have been natural than to have arisen from the force of tools upon them.
The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 8 Chapter 3, p. 216) (Translated by William Whiston, New Updated Edition, Hendrickson Publishers, 1987)

The physical temple is a type of the "temple to come". The builders of the physical temple tried to minimize the role man has in creating the temple. Ultimately, God will build the final temple himself. God has selected believers to be the building stones and Christ is to be the cornerstone. He is shaping believers so they fit together seamlessly and beautifully when he is done. He uses believers to shape each other (Proverbs 27:17). The Holy Spirit has given each of us a unique set of gifts that we may serve one another in the body of Christ. Through Christ's example of his life and death, we learn how to serve one another sacrifically through love and humility.

Bibliography

Karen H. Jobes, Baker Exegetical Commentary in the New Testament (ECNT): 1 Peter , (2005)

Secret Codes in Jeremiah

I found this interesting. Jeremiah or Baruch (his scribe) disguised names of rival countries in the book of Jeremiah for various reasons. One obfuscation technique that Old Testament writers used is called, "atbash".

In his commentary, J. A. Thompson, defines what an "Atbash" is:

"Atbash" is a device in which the letters of a name counted from the beginning of the alphabet are exchanged for letters counted from the end: Zimki would be 'Elam in the Hebrew alphabet, and bbl (Babel) would be ssk (Shesak, in v.[25:]26). In these ciphers aleph is replaced by by taw (t), beth (b) by shin (s), etc. (p. 518)

Old Testament scholar, Walter Kaiser, calls "atbash" a cryptogram. The cryptogram technique is used in Jeremiah 51:1.

Jeremiah 51:1-4
Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer against Babylon, against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai, and I will send to Babylon winnowers, and they shall winnow her, and they shall empty her land, when they come against her from every side on the day of trouble. Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not stand up in his armor. Spare not her young men; devote to destruction all her army. They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and wounded in her streets. (ESV)

Kaiser's commentary on Jeremiah 51:1

God calls Babylon “Leb Kamai” (…), which means “the heart of those who rise against me.” But this is also a cryptogram, known as an atbash (see 25:26 for an explanation), so that the Heb. consonants lbqmy are reversed to spell instead kysdm, a disguised form of Chaldea/Babylon. It is employed here not because the name of Babylon is a secret for Jeremiah has already revealed the name (v. 1b), but so that the citizens of that land might realize that they are those who were opposing Yahweh from their hearts. (Kaiser, p. 565)

Earlier in Jeremiah (Jer. 25:26), Kaiser comments on a different passage using this same technique. The following is Kaiser's translation.

"all the kings of the north, near and far, one after another-- all the kings of the earth. After all of them, the king of Shesach will drink it too."

Here is Kaiser's comment on the passage:

Babylon is finally mentioned in v. 26b; however, it appears in cryptic fashion in a figure of speech knows as an atbash cryptogram. The word used here is “Sheshach” (v. 26b; 51:41). In this cryptogram, the alphabet is divided in halves so that the letters corresponding to the word “Sheshach” are read from the opposite half of the alphabet in reverse order. “Sheshach yields “B(a)b(e)l.” (Kaiser, p. 302)

Conclusion

I have no idea of the spiritual significance of the encryption. In the passage in Jeremiah 51, Baruch referenced both the name "Babylon" and its atbash "Leb-kamai." Baruch was not just encrypting names to protect himself. The original readers must have known its significance. The care the writers used in writing Jeremiah is displayed in details like this. To plumb scripture's depths and beauties is a lifelong pursuit.

Bibliography

1. Walter C. Kaiser, JR., Tiberius Rata, Walking the Ancient Paths: A Commentary on Jeremiah, (2019)

2. J. A. Thompson, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Jeremiah, (2019)