Restoration – I Am the Resurrection and the Life
Nothing Comparable
When a person sets out to think on life and its seasons, they only fathom what they can see. They have a certain point of reference in which to understand the boundaries and properties of their universe. They’ve developed this point of reference over time as a result of their exposure to the unspoken and manifestly evident rules of their existence. Consider the notion of gravity. Long before we attend a science class, in fact, before we even learn to speak usually, we learn of gravities properties. We can’t explain them, we can’t talk about why gravity works as it does but our point of reference develops. We come to understand that the feeling of falling is usually followed by a painful encounter with the ground. Over time we develop an understanding that the greater the height the more painful the fall. So it is that most people learn to take extra care when moving at heights. Most, not all, people will naturally be careful when walking near a cliff for instance. You don’t need to tell sane sober minded people to watch out for the edge. Their point of reference in understanding gravity is well defined. Additionally, their muscles, their skeletal structure and all of their bodies systems attenuate and strengthen to meet the rigorous demands of gravity. They become used to carrying their weight on their own legs, as result of their natural environment. So it is that astronauts struggle physically to even understand how to function in an environment where gravity isn’t a factor. In fact, much of the training and expense that NASA goes to in preparing astronauts for space involves training them in how to cope and to function in weightlessness.
So too, we have many things in our world as we know them now which are invisibly defined for us. There is a certain order at work and we, over time, have developed an understanding that is built around its properties. The order is vast and including gravity, its rules aren’t easily cheated. We learn of what has been termed: “the circle of life” and with sadness and horror we watch as the lioness tackles the baby wildebeest on the African savanna. We come to learn that if animals don’t die, we don’t eat. We observe over time natures cycles in their unbridled brutality and we come to understand the fabric of our reality. We have points of reference regarding the natural order of things, and we also understand that there are few, if any, exceptions to these rules.
We’re born, we grow up, we age, we slow down and we die. Time pounds out an unchanging rhythm for us. We cheat death time and again, knowingly or unknowingly. Yet it lies in sight. These are the rules of our existence. Because of the nature of these rules as unchanging, we assume them to be so and can’t fathom a different set of parameters. We can’t imagine wolves living with lambs. We can’t imagine a child putting their hand in the den of a venomous snake. We can’t comprehend what sort of created order would not include death or the cycle of life and death. When we attempt to think of it, it is much like trying to describe weightlessness to an African tribesman. He might be able to grasp certain aspects of it. His mind might play with the fun notions of it, but he can’t take it in or think through all of the ramifications of an existence without gravity.
So too, we can’t comprehend what the Bible means when it describes for us the resurrection of the dead. We struggle to get our minds around Jesus words when He says things like: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” – John 11:25. And again “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." – John 6:40. We, like our African tribesman toying with the idea of weightlessness, play with the idea of resurrection. But we have no earthly point of reference for what a life without disease or suffering would be like.
Jesus the Healer
I know that when A.B. Simpson spoke of Christ the Healer, what he had in mind was not the resurrection. He was of course speaking of Jesus in terms of His power to heal the physical man in the here and now. Jesus does at times choose to heal and restore on some level our physical condition. There is no disputing this. However, Jesus’ greatest work of healing and restoration lies, for us, up ahead. For those of us who have suffered with disease or watched loved ones suffer and perhaps even die, we often run to Jesus in the hope that He would heal in the here and now. At times He does and we should always run to Him with our desire that He would heal. At times though, He allows us to endure much suffering and much tragedy and often with no apparent resolution in this life. The Bible makes it clear time and time again that our hope is not in the current order, nor in the preserving of our lives in the current order. Our hope lies ahead in the order to come. Let us let Jesus teach us from His word today and let us not super impose our small and finite hopes on top of the wonders that are to be seen in the hope that Jesus has given us in His restoration of the created order and in His resurrection power. For our next two sessions we will be covering Jesus as healer, of all things. This morning, we will see Jesus as He presents Himself as the one who will raise our mortal bodies from the dead, as the conqueror of death. Next week we will see Jesus as restorer of the created order.
Read John 11:1-45
The resurrection of Lazarus
In John 11:1-45 we find Jesus some distance away from the heat of the battle. He’s recently had yet another confrontation with those who would one day see Him nailed to a tree. This time they had picked up stones to stone Him. His ministry is confrontational to the self-righteous order of the Jews and they want Him dead. No longer just a nuisance, He’s now a clear target. End of John 10, He’s across the Jordan and not in Judea. He’s ministering and many are trusting in Him. His disciples are with Him and so we join the story in 11:1.
Two of His disciples, Mary and Martha have journeyed from Bethany in Judea to His location. They have journeyed a long way because they are gravely concerned for their brother, Lazarus. He is very ill. They obviously have a good reason to believe that he will probably die. Mary and Martha believe that if Jesus doesn’t come and do something, Lazarus will indeed die. Jesus does the unthinkable for them and stays on where He is at for two days more. But before He does this, Jesus does something really significant to the story. He gives them the first part of the reason that He is about to raise Lazarus from the dead: “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (4) Following this, Jesus frightens His disciples by telling them that they are headed back to Judea, back into the hands of the Jews trying to kill Him. Jesus tells them plainly that Lazarus has died. Again Jesus says something very significant. He gives them the second part of the reason why He is about to raise Lazarus from the dead: “So that you might believe”. The disciples are in no way happy that they are to return to the heat of the battle. Thomas says: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” He is referring here to the persecution which seems to be waiting for them in Judea.
Martha runs to meet Jesus as soon as she hears that He is coming, and is upset with Him. Mary stays behind, despondent and grief stricken.
Why resurrect Lazarus?
It’s as if three cars are about to collide. Jesus’ disciples are following obediently but with serious and real apprehensions and fears. “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” (8) Initially, when Jesus delayed two days, they thought that Jesus was being smart and not going to tend to Lazarus and they were relieved that they weren’t going to head back towards Jerusalem. Now they’re headed straight for trouble. Then there is Martha, her beloved brother, another disciple Lazarus has died and has been buried. She’s coming and hoping that Jesus will work a miracle in the here and now, knowing that Jesus has the power to move in the midst of such a dire and impossible situation. She’s profoundly disappointed and is struggling to see why Jesus, who loved Lazarus (5) would’ve not come right away to heal him. And all the while Jesus, the Son of God is about to demonstrate to the Jews, to His believers and to us something critical for our faith until His return in glory. He’s moving with purpose towards the stench filled tomb of Lazarus with serious and profound intent. He’s taking a serious risk as He returns to the vicinity of those who are seeking to kill him.
Martha bears the angst, disappointment and deepest desire of her heart to Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” (22) Jesus answer to her points her in precisely the right direction: “Your brother will rise again.” She gets what He means. We often think, when we read this story, that simply because Jesus then resurrects Lazarus, He is indicating to her that He’s not concerned here with final resurrection, but concerned with the resurrection at hand, the resurrection of Lazarus. From the context this can’t be true. Let’s look (23): Jesus says: “Your brother will rise again”. But don’t stop here, her reply is correct: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (24) Can you hear the “but” coming though? It’s as if she wants to say: “I know he will rise again… BUT Jesus, what about now, will you do a miracle and raise my brother?” Jesus doesn’t address what she wants, but completes her first thought when she said: “I know that he will rise again on the last day.” (24) Jesus says: “I am THE resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (25) It’s obvious that Lazarus dies, some years later. So the center of the story of the resurrection of Lazarus is not for us to see that Jesus is capable of resurrecting the dead in the here and now. It’s true He is. It is so that we see that Jesus Himself is the resurrection for all those who believe to everlasting life. That’s what we says: “though, he die, yet shall he live,” It’s as though He is saying: “Martha, I’m going to raise Lazarus from the dead, not so that you have your brother back, but so that you see that I will raise the dead on the last day. So that you see that life everlasting is mine to give, in power! That resurrected life, not this life of suffering and agony and death, but resurrected life is Mine to give.”
Martha understands Him. She says, when asked if she believes (26,27): “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” But remember, when she uses these titles, Lord and Christ, she’s thinking something far bigger than what we think when we hear them. “I know that you are the Christ; the Messiah, the reigning King on the throne of David, the promised redeemer of Israel who will put all nations under His feet (Psalms 2), He who will judge the living and the dead.” “You are the Son of God, who is coming into this world.” You are the great mighty king promised for thousands of years, indeed the one promised in the garden: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” – Genesis 3. You are the one promised in the great covenant with Abraham: “And in your seed, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” – Genesis 22:18. You are the sent one from the Father! You are THE one time anointed one, not lifted up from among men, but sent from God. You are the Son of God. She acknowledges His deity. She understands what He is saying: “And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. DO you believe this?” She says yes!
Martha, maybe in frustration, goes to get Mary. She calls Him “teacher” isn’t that interesting. She calls Him Lord (27) then calls Him rabbi (28). I think that she’s profoundly frustrated. She’s despondent, “Why weren’t you here? Why won’t you do anything?” When Mary gets there, she asks the same thing! "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." (32) She falls at His feet. Her heart has been broken by the death of her brother; by the expectation that Jesus would do something in the here and now and He keeps pushing them back to who He is as the bringer of genuine and final resurrection.
By the way, do you see how much love He has for her and Martha and indeed for you and me? He sees the suffering that the curse has rightly brought and He grieves and is moved. This is so hopeful for you and me. So often Jesus sees us through the fire, not so that we receive the temporal desire of our hearts, but so that we’ll see the deeper and eternal hope that He proclaims in such events as these. Just as Mary and Martha are looking for a temporal solution to their problems, Jesus is directing us not to temporary solutions, but to the greatest solution of all. He directs us to His final defeat of death altogether. Yet in the midst of it all He is moved by the consequence of human sin and He weeps. What sort of mercy is it that the consequence for sin, the punishment that He Himself placed on Adam’s children would then weep at its devastating affect? He’s not weeping regret. He’s not weeping because He made a mistake, He’s weeping because He sees how deeply the race of man cries out for resurrection.
Jesus has already told us why He is about to resurrect Lazarus. Remember in verse 11, He told the disciples that He was going to “awaken him”. Then remember, verse 4, “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Then verse 25: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die!” As Mary and Martha grieve and try to pressure Jesus to do something about Lazarus, He is pointing them to the glorious “THEN”. And those hard hearted people who are mourning with them. They express the same angst too. “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, you opened the eyes of the blind, surely you could have saved him! The scene is heart wrenching, it is raw, hearts are exposed flesh and Jesus is deeply moved. What a merciful Jesus we have!
Jesus does move in power the here and now. He doesn’t proclaim Himself to be resurrection power and then walk away. But for the benefit of those present and for us, that we might know who He is and the power and authority that He has been given, He orders the stone be rolled away. It can’t be overstated what this miracle proclaims to us: I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE! We must see that all who look, by faith to the Son of God, will taste, one day of His resurrection power. That He will one day raise us up, to die no more, to suffer no more.
Death Swallowed Up!
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" – 1 Corinthians 15:52
You don’t need life transformation in the small sense. You don’t need to be changed into a better person, you need to be resurrected. You don’t need your infirmities healed in the here and now, you need all infirmities taken away in the beloved. Lazarus is for us, the promise of the grace that awaits us. Get a view to this promise. Get a view to this beloved Savior who will one day raise you up, just as He was raised up out of the tomb. Find a way where ever you may be, to gaze at this mysterious and wonderful inheritance. That we would get a glimpse of this promise for one second in our hearts. That one day, a sweet trumpet will blow the sweet melody of our God and King Jesus Christ and in as long as it takes for light to reflect off your eye in the sun, all will be changed. All suffering will cease and death, that last enemy will be swallowed up. The picture here is that of an opposing army swallowing up, enveloping and utterly destroying death. Again, like the tsunami that struck the Indian ocean and the horrific pictures of the waves rolling on to the shore. So too, will Jesus’ victory be. The energy and the force of His victory having started on Calvary’s cross, having traversed all nations, having propelled the church in this age to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth in power, will overtake death like a man standing on the beach watching the tsunami roll in. Can you hear the trumpet?
The Last Day
Mary and Martha, can’t you see that Lazarus needs what you need? That is He who will in power give you everlasting life. Jesus says 3 times in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel of believers: “I will raise Him up on the last day”. “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I WILL raise him up on the last day.” John 6:40. Verse 44: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I WILL raise him up on the last day.” Verse 54: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I WILL raise him up on the last day.” Jesus says to Martha: “I AM the resurrection and the life. Do you believe?” Is this true of you? Are you like Martha, like me? Have the sufferings and the battles of this life got you so wrapped around the wheels, that you can’t see the forest for the trees? That you would take comfort in these words: “I AM the resurrection and the life!” and that you find them true. So that we would push on to the hope and the destination and the outcome of our walk with Christ: EVERLASTING LIFE.
So we have a Martha faith! A faith that sees the trees and struggles to find a point of reference for the resurrection that Jesus is most certainly bringing. We are upbsurd African tribesman, having weightlessness described for us. We go about our lives toying with the smallest of notions of resurrection incapable apart from the work and grace of the Holy Spirit to even speak the word. We are so dry and unsatisfied, because our pleasures and our dreams and desires and their outcomes, are so much like Martha’s, so temporal and fleeting. May we catch a glimpse larger day by day of our glorious Christ and the power of His resurrection. May God work in us a hope that surpasses all suffering and all doubt and all of our foolish and tiny desires.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. – 1 Peter 1:3
So, let us allow the Spirit of Christ to turn our hearts from the here and now, if only briefly, onto the inheritance that lies ahead for all of us who believe in Jesus. Get a picture for His wonderful work of resurrection.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Week 6 - Part 1 - Christ our Healer - Preparation
One day last fall I was walking near my office enjoying the changing leaves and spending some time in prayer. I was struck by the beauty of the leaves as they displayed a bright and vivid array of color. As I walked and enjoyed the beauty of creation as it was being made ready for the long winter ahead, I thought on something very curious about nature in its fallen state and man's place therein. It struck me that what I was enjoying really was the process of death, at least for the leaves. We are fascinated with death. Though we fight so hard to avoid it.
I thought about friends and loved ones who have gone on to meet their maker. I considered how it seemed as though it were yesterday that we were together, working and enjoying one another. Then I thought about the span of time that had come between us. It seemed as though a rush of melencholy and loneliness blew along with the wind that day. I felt the sadness and the loss as I looked on those leaves. I felt the distance of time between us. I can remember my grandfather's cabin, as I would run down the back porch stairs and bound across the path toward the creek past which he used to love to spend so much of his time. I can remember his smiling and joyous face as he saw me coming. I can even remember the trees around him, they seemed big to me as a child, but they weren't much larger than him. The last time that I saw those trees they were no longer man sized trees, but many had grown to be giants. I remember it seemed the last time that I was there as though a profound and painful loneliness stretched over me as I looked to the place where he had once stood so many years before.
Death is no friend to man. Time and distance shatter once close relationships and render strangers those who were once close friends. Death humbles all men and renders all man's greatest efforts at life useless. Oh that death might be done away with.
Your assignment this week, is to read: Genesis 12:1-5, 49:28 Ponder the span of time between Jacob and his grandfather Abraham and reflect on how time, distance and death have touched your life. Then think on the promise of the resurrection.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I thought about friends and loved ones who have gone on to meet their maker. I considered how it seemed as though it were yesterday that we were together, working and enjoying one another. Then I thought about the span of time that had come between us. It seemed as though a rush of melencholy and loneliness blew along with the wind that day. I felt the sadness and the loss as I looked on those leaves. I felt the distance of time between us. I can remember my grandfather's cabin, as I would run down the back porch stairs and bound across the path toward the creek past which he used to love to spend so much of his time. I can remember his smiling and joyous face as he saw me coming. I can even remember the trees around him, they seemed big to me as a child, but they weren't much larger than him. The last time that I saw those trees they were no longer man sized trees, but many had grown to be giants. I remember it seemed the last time that I was there as though a profound and painful loneliness stretched over me as I looked to the place where he had once stood so many years before.
Death is no friend to man. Time and distance shatter once close relationships and render strangers those who were once close friends. Death humbles all men and renders all man's greatest efforts at life useless. Oh that death might be done away with.
Your assignment this week, is to read: Genesis 12:1-5, 49:28 Ponder the span of time between Jacob and his grandfather Abraham and reflect on how time, distance and death have touched your life. Then think on the promise of the resurrection.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Week 5 - Part 2 - Christ our Sanctifier - Sanctification - Followup
Dayenu
During the modern Jewish observance of the feast of Passover, the Jews will sing a song: Dayenu. The word Dayenu literally means: “Enough for us”. During the song they sing of God's blessings to their forefathers in Egypt. For 15 stanzas, the song progressively sees God's blessings as being layer upon layer of grace to the Jewish people. “If He had brought us out of Egypt, it would've been enough”, “If He had executed justice upon the Egyptians, it would've been enough.” and so on to the end of the song: “He built the temple for us” The idea is that God had redeemed them from Egypt and then blessed and blessed again. While we don't hold that the modern Jews are saved apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ, this song represents an appropriate response to God and His blessings to us in the Savior and King: Jesus. We might sing it with fresh words: “If He had only lived a righteous life, Dayenu” “If He had only hung on the tree to Justify us and forgive us of our sins, Dayenu.” “If He had only taken the wrath that we were due, Dayenu.” “If He had only given us free righteousness, Dayenu” “If He had only granted us adoption by the Father through His righteousness, Dayenu” “If He had only granted regeneration by His Spirit, Dayenu!” It would have been enough for us.
Legal Righteousness, but what about Tangible Righteousness?
In Part 1 of Christ our Savior, we saw as Jesus lived out righteousness and that God has given us that righteousness fully. This, so that when God sees us, He sees the righteousness of His Son Jesus. We saw as Christ's righteousness makes us right. The word that Paul used in Romans 5 was Justification. We were indeed justified by Jesus act of obedience on the cross and we received the righteousness that He Himself had earned.
It is with profound joy and deep conviction that we read John 3 and see how Jesus in His grace sends His Spirit to regenerate us; to grant us new life. It would've been enough for Jesus to Justify us and then to grant us new life in the indwelling of His Spirit. But Paul at the end of Romans 5 says “Where sin increased grace increased.” Everybody celebrates and says: “Well great then, I'm cool sinning then, as I have so much grace given to me freely.” This of course is my paraphrase of Paul's words beginning in Romans 6, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin, still live in it?”
But God's grace in saving us from our sin continues. We find our gracious Savior at work, through His Spirit as He begins the gentle and often painful process as He continues to purify us and grants us what we could never have hoped for: real and genuine righteousness.
It is imperative that we see that if we are in Christ that we have the promise of eternal life. We must see that our relationship is not a relationship contingent on our actions. To say it another way: We don’t earn the relationship. Jesus did in His completed work on the cross and His righteous life. We don’t cause the relationship. Jesus did when He sent His Spirit to take up residence in us. We will see today that Jesus is the one who also sustains us and makes us ready for heaven. The process that God undertakes to make us ready for His glorious consummated kingdom is called Sanctification.
Now to understand Sanctification, it’s critical that we understand what it is not. We must understand how we are saved in justification and in regeneration. Once we understand His grace to us in salvation, we can clearly see His loving grace to us in sanctification.
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 6:1-11
Paul at the end of Chapter 5 of Romans says: “but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” And knowing what the cynics would then say. Thinking they had found a flaw in his reasoning, he responds as they would and many do: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” “Paul, if grace grows and grows to meet the debt of our sin, and grace is free and not bound to our obedience then there is nothing to prevent us from sinning. Why not party on?” Both Paul’s response and what he DOESN’T say are what we need to see. First, he doesn’t say: “You’re right, your salvation is contingent on your perpetual obedience. Oops, I left that part out.” He also doesn’t say: “You’re absolutely right, so go on live like the devil.” He points to the reality of who we are in Christ. This reality demonstrated in the exchange that occurred when we, the believers were regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
Paul points us to the reality that we have in Christ, in our baptism. When we were recipients of the sacrament of baptism, it represented a reality that had occurred for us. This reality is that just as Jesus had died on the cross, so too our sinful flesh was nailed to the tree. We were united with Him, Paul says. His death was our death. Jesus says in Luke 12:50, in regard to His Crucifiction: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” As Jesus died, our old nature also died. That sinful nature was nailed to the cross in Jesus flesh. “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.” When we were baptized, we were celebrating our death. Paul answers the question: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” The flesh that died, was a death to wrath and our bondage to the curse that lead to sin and death. Sin had to be judged in us, and Jesus took that wrath and we likewise died. We were truly united to Christ in His death.
What is Sanctification?
We’ve already seen what joyous news this is in previous weeks. But we need to see it again. If we were united with Him in His death, then we are united with Him in His resurrection. Specifically, Pauls says that “Death no longer has dominion over Him”. Likewise, death no longer has dominion over us. His resurrection is an indicator of what we are to experience fully at the final consummation of the kingdom. However, it is a reality for us now, because of this unity with Christ, that sin (that which brought death) is no longer our master. It doesn’t rule over us as it did. In regeneration we were given a new disposition. Paul says it in verse 17 “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,”
Paul completes the picture for us. If you are a slave, you do as the master says. You are under its dominion and you have no power to escape it. We were under the dominion of sin. It was our master, we were disobedient from the heart. We couldn’t break its chains, we couldn’t be set free until Jesus death. However, when He died, we died. That sin was no longer our Lord. Paul says this in Romans 7 when he draws the analogy of a woman married to a man. If she’s married to that man and leaves him and is joined to another, she is in adultery. However, if she dies, she’s freed from the covenant. So too, when you died vicariously in Jesus, you were set free from the Law. You are no longer bound to your sin.
Sin was your king, but now in Jesus, righteousness embodied is your King. Paul doesn’t tell us these things as a future hope, but a present reality. He says, you are now a slave to righteousness. He is your King and so you are no longer bound to obey the flesh. You are bound to obey Christ. And He doesn’t tell us these things because we are now perfect, but because it is SO important in the war against the flesh that we know that it isn’t our master, that Jesus is. That we were taken from the dominion (or the kingdom) of sin and transferred into the kingdom of righteousness.
But we have a problem: there is a now and a then scenario at work. We have the flesh, which is at opposition with God, it hasn’t been resurrected yet. It still has its tendencies, thus Paul says in Romans 8 “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” We see this in disease, though we are set free in the here and now from the curse, we are still subject to the sufferings and the diseases of this age. So our unity with Christ in His resurrection is in part now and in part then. And the problem for us is that we are now engaged in a battle. The flesh makes war on us. Temptation abounds in this age. Peter says: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” 1 Peter 5:8. Do you remember Job? If we are now under the dominion or the kingship of Jesus Christ, the enemy considers us seditious and would love to besmirch Christ’s work in us even though Romans 8 is true (Nothing shall separate us). Our flesh too is constantly, like the Israelites trying to run back to our former bondage. Remember how they longed for the pleasures of their former land? Isn’t it true that we too at times desire to return to our former ways? Paul in these verses paints the picture of the life long battle of the believer. We are engaged in a war, an armed struggle with ourselves.
This is the picture of sanctification as we do battle, putting the flesh to death; as we DON’T let sin reign in our mortal bodies; as we consider ourselves dead to sin and as we battle to not offer our members as slaves of sin. Now if you’re anything like me, you look at that which remains in you and the battle that goes and you grow weary. The Lord knows this and knew that this was for us, a life long struggle. That’s why we are to be constantly reminded of His grace to us on the cross but also in the gifts that He has given us, His children. Remember Paul “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” – Romans 8:14.
It would have been enough if God had seen fit to redeem us and then set us on the course, in the battle and left us to our own. But He hasn’t and it’s key that we see this. Unlike Justification and Regeneration, there is definitely an element of Sanctification that is ours, at least from our temporal perspective. We are like it or not in a battle. I think though you may have not seen it this way, as Paul describes the battle I hope that you are thinking two things. First, I recognize this in my own life. I see this battle day in and day out. Second, I am feeling a tension caused by the variance between me now and me then. That is, I see, in some way the magnitude of the difference between my character and Christ’s righteousness and something in me pokes at me. If a man comes up to you in a the middle of a combat zone, with no rifle, not wearing fatigues and is rather wearing shorts and a Hawaiin shirt, with a remote in one hand and a soda in the other, and he says: “I’m a soldier engaged in a war” It’s clear he is not. Don’t misread me! I’m not saying its sin to wear shorts, or a hawaiin shirt or watch tv or drink soda! However, if you don’t see in yourself the markings of battle then you should not be at ease. We won’t camp on this, but if you are in Christ there is a war on. We are each engaged at different levels of intensity and we often fail. There are times that we go dry. But if none of this is true of you, you’re the guy driving down the road never touched by Scripture, God’s holiness and Christ’s righteousness. You know some facts about a man on a cross, but you haven’t been regenerated and you can’t take comfort. However, if you are weak and struggling and the battle rages on, you can take comfort in the promises that you have been given.
A Peek at the Engine – Whose work is sanctification?
So let’s look at sanctification from another view, a very hopeful view. I believe God’s view.
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” – Philippians 1:6
So just as the good work, the salvation work that Jesus began in you in regeneration was empowered by the Spirit, so to Jesus will bring to completion that same work. We see that it is Christ who saves us and it is Christ who brings the work of sanctification to its completed state. Jesus is the one who is empowering you to put the flesh to death. Jesus is the one through the Spirit who is convicting you. Jesus is the one who is ordaining all things together for your good, to bring you to righteousness. (Romans 8:28).
And again:
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” – Philippians 2:12
So here again we see the believer engaged in obedience. We see the believer engaged in effort. Paul uses the words “Work out your salvation”. This can’t mean: accomplish your salvation, much of the new testament argues against that. The word does mean to work a work to completion and it always means a work that is consistent with the nature of what is producing the work. In Romans 7:8 – “But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” Again in 2 Corinthians 4:17 – “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,”
Many think here that Paul when referring to fear and trembling is referring to a fear and trembling related to condemnation. And this word is used at times in that way. It’s the word Phobos. However, it is most often used in another way. A fear that in our world of Jesus is my boyfriend songs and the oft used image of God as being a kindly old accepting grandfather sort, we don’t really even hear about. This fear is a glorious fear. It’s the same fear that the disciples feel all the time when they see that Jesus is God. In Mark 4:40 when Jesus quiets the storm and they ask themselves: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" This is the same fear that the women have in Matthew 28:5 as the angel proclaims to them the glory of the risen Lord and “they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy”. This fear is the same fear that the prophets who were brought into the presence of God Himself, experienced.
Lets go back a few verses to verse 9: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This working out with fear and trembling points directly the glory and the authority and the power that Jesus has been given. When we hear the word Lord, we don’t hear what they heard. When they heard the word Lord, it meant “Supreme in authority”. When they heard the word Lord, they envisioned a mighty victorious and powerful King. That’s what Paul wants us to see here. That this King, Jesus, is working in us, that is He is the power and the ability behind us as we “work out” the salvation that HE has accomplished. Isn’t that good new? And if the mighty King of all things, is He who is working in us and amongst us to bring about His good pleasure, then we ought to have the same fear and trembling that a lowly subject would have for his King. This is a reverence that causes the knees to buckle with the realization that it is Jesus who is working in us.
Now, what is the nature of the work that He is doing in you? It is first, Paul says the will, or the desire, the wish, the hunger to work for His good pleasure. You see in yourself sin and yet it breaks your heart. You see in yourself failure and it makes you long to please Him. This is His work in you! Second, Paul says that the work itself, that is the effort applied, or the power behind our working is His power, his effort. As we are working, as we obey, as we put the flesh to death, it is Jesus through His Spirit that is graciously granting us the desire to do so and the working itself.
Who could take credit for such things? You want to show me your good works, you want us all to see how holy you are? If there is anything lovely in you it is His work in you. This is so hopeful in the battle that is sanctification. King Jesus, at who’s feet all will fall, at who’s name all will confess He is LORD. This same Jesus is working salvation out in us. Are you struggling today? Does it seem like sin is winning? You know what it is and that you desire to please Him. Take courage be strengthened. Fight on! From Jesus’ vantage point, He is doing wonderfully in you, what you could not do. Even if you don’t see it right now, if you are His, He is pouring out abundant grace in sanctification!
In the words of the old Hymn writer, Hallelujah! what a Savior!
The Means of Grace – His tools
Jesus says, in John 17:7, as He prays to the Father for us: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Paul when using the analogy of Christ’s marriage to the church in relation to Christian marriage says: “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.” – Ephesians 5:25 So, you long to be sanctified do you? Let the word of revelation, of Jesus as mighty Savior, as Sanctifier go deep and do its work in you!
I would be remise not to discuss briefly what Godly conviction looks like. The word is full of imperatives and descriptions of God’s holiness and of His righteous requirement. For those of us who are in Christ, whose sin’s have been forgiven and paid for, Law no longer holds us in bondage. Nonetheless, the Law is not without its use. When we come to the Law when we come to imperative in scripture we see our absolute failure. We feel it deep down. Our conscience is stricken. The Holy Spirit shows us our failings, not to rub our noses in them, like dogs. He does this to prod our lazy hearts back to the cross, to be reminded supernaturally of His once for all atonement of our sins. And to take us to sweet gratitude rich repentance.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” Paul is not saying that we declare Jesus’ death to the unbelievers. Though if there are unbelievers present, they will hopefully see the Gospel played out graphically in the distribution of the elements. But Paul is saying that we proclaim Jesus’ atoning work for the sins which we battle against in a real way to ourselves and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. So we return to the cross. We taste and see that Jesus is good. We take the wafer, His flesh on our tongue and experience the reminder, the proclamation of His death, and we take in the cup of blessing and drink deep of His grace.
May Jesus, our life giver continue to shower us in His grace!
Hallalujah! What a Savior!
During the modern Jewish observance of the feast of Passover, the Jews will sing a song: Dayenu. The word Dayenu literally means: “Enough for us”. During the song they sing of God's blessings to their forefathers in Egypt. For 15 stanzas, the song progressively sees God's blessings as being layer upon layer of grace to the Jewish people. “If He had brought us out of Egypt, it would've been enough”, “If He had executed justice upon the Egyptians, it would've been enough.” and so on to the end of the song: “He built the temple for us” The idea is that God had redeemed them from Egypt and then blessed and blessed again. While we don't hold that the modern Jews are saved apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ, this song represents an appropriate response to God and His blessings to us in the Savior and King: Jesus. We might sing it with fresh words: “If He had only lived a righteous life, Dayenu” “If He had only hung on the tree to Justify us and forgive us of our sins, Dayenu.” “If He had only taken the wrath that we were due, Dayenu.” “If He had only given us free righteousness, Dayenu” “If He had only granted us adoption by the Father through His righteousness, Dayenu” “If He had only granted regeneration by His Spirit, Dayenu!” It would have been enough for us.
Legal Righteousness, but what about Tangible Righteousness?
In Part 1 of Christ our Savior, we saw as Jesus lived out righteousness and that God has given us that righteousness fully. This, so that when God sees us, He sees the righteousness of His Son Jesus. We saw as Christ's righteousness makes us right. The word that Paul used in Romans 5 was Justification. We were indeed justified by Jesus act of obedience on the cross and we received the righteousness that He Himself had earned.
It is with profound joy and deep conviction that we read John 3 and see how Jesus in His grace sends His Spirit to regenerate us; to grant us new life. It would've been enough for Jesus to Justify us and then to grant us new life in the indwelling of His Spirit. But Paul at the end of Romans 5 says “Where sin increased grace increased.” Everybody celebrates and says: “Well great then, I'm cool sinning then, as I have so much grace given to me freely.” This of course is my paraphrase of Paul's words beginning in Romans 6, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin, still live in it?”
But God's grace in saving us from our sin continues. We find our gracious Savior at work, through His Spirit as He begins the gentle and often painful process as He continues to purify us and grants us what we could never have hoped for: real and genuine righteousness.
It is imperative that we see that if we are in Christ that we have the promise of eternal life. We must see that our relationship is not a relationship contingent on our actions. To say it another way: We don’t earn the relationship. Jesus did in His completed work on the cross and His righteous life. We don’t cause the relationship. Jesus did when He sent His Spirit to take up residence in us. We will see today that Jesus is the one who also sustains us and makes us ready for heaven. The process that God undertakes to make us ready for His glorious consummated kingdom is called Sanctification.
Now to understand Sanctification, it’s critical that we understand what it is not. We must understand how we are saved in justification and in regeneration. Once we understand His grace to us in salvation, we can clearly see His loving grace to us in sanctification.
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 6:1-11
Paul at the end of Chapter 5 of Romans says: “but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” And knowing what the cynics would then say. Thinking they had found a flaw in his reasoning, he responds as they would and many do: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” “Paul, if grace grows and grows to meet the debt of our sin, and grace is free and not bound to our obedience then there is nothing to prevent us from sinning. Why not party on?” Both Paul’s response and what he DOESN’T say are what we need to see. First, he doesn’t say: “You’re right, your salvation is contingent on your perpetual obedience. Oops, I left that part out.” He also doesn’t say: “You’re absolutely right, so go on live like the devil.” He points to the reality of who we are in Christ. This reality demonstrated in the exchange that occurred when we, the believers were regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
Paul points us to the reality that we have in Christ, in our baptism. When we were recipients of the sacrament of baptism, it represented a reality that had occurred for us. This reality is that just as Jesus had died on the cross, so too our sinful flesh was nailed to the tree. We were united with Him, Paul says. His death was our death. Jesus says in Luke 12:50, in regard to His Crucifiction: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” As Jesus died, our old nature also died. That sinful nature was nailed to the cross in Jesus flesh. “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.” When we were baptized, we were celebrating our death. Paul answers the question: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” The flesh that died, was a death to wrath and our bondage to the curse that lead to sin and death. Sin had to be judged in us, and Jesus took that wrath and we likewise died. We were truly united to Christ in His death.
What is Sanctification?
We’ve already seen what joyous news this is in previous weeks. But we need to see it again. If we were united with Him in His death, then we are united with Him in His resurrection. Specifically, Pauls says that “Death no longer has dominion over Him”. Likewise, death no longer has dominion over us. His resurrection is an indicator of what we are to experience fully at the final consummation of the kingdom. However, it is a reality for us now, because of this unity with Christ, that sin (that which brought death) is no longer our master. It doesn’t rule over us as it did. In regeneration we were given a new disposition. Paul says it in verse 17 “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,”
Paul completes the picture for us. If you are a slave, you do as the master says. You are under its dominion and you have no power to escape it. We were under the dominion of sin. It was our master, we were disobedient from the heart. We couldn’t break its chains, we couldn’t be set free until Jesus death. However, when He died, we died. That sin was no longer our Lord. Paul says this in Romans 7 when he draws the analogy of a woman married to a man. If she’s married to that man and leaves him and is joined to another, she is in adultery. However, if she dies, she’s freed from the covenant. So too, when you died vicariously in Jesus, you were set free from the Law. You are no longer bound to your sin.
Sin was your king, but now in Jesus, righteousness embodied is your King. Paul doesn’t tell us these things as a future hope, but a present reality. He says, you are now a slave to righteousness. He is your King and so you are no longer bound to obey the flesh. You are bound to obey Christ. And He doesn’t tell us these things because we are now perfect, but because it is SO important in the war against the flesh that we know that it isn’t our master, that Jesus is. That we were taken from the dominion (or the kingdom) of sin and transferred into the kingdom of righteousness.
But we have a problem: there is a now and a then scenario at work. We have the flesh, which is at opposition with God, it hasn’t been resurrected yet. It still has its tendencies, thus Paul says in Romans 8 “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” We see this in disease, though we are set free in the here and now from the curse, we are still subject to the sufferings and the diseases of this age. So our unity with Christ in His resurrection is in part now and in part then. And the problem for us is that we are now engaged in a battle. The flesh makes war on us. Temptation abounds in this age. Peter says: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” 1 Peter 5:8. Do you remember Job? If we are now under the dominion or the kingship of Jesus Christ, the enemy considers us seditious and would love to besmirch Christ’s work in us even though Romans 8 is true (Nothing shall separate us). Our flesh too is constantly, like the Israelites trying to run back to our former bondage. Remember how they longed for the pleasures of their former land? Isn’t it true that we too at times desire to return to our former ways? Paul in these verses paints the picture of the life long battle of the believer. We are engaged in a war, an armed struggle with ourselves.
This is the picture of sanctification as we do battle, putting the flesh to death; as we DON’T let sin reign in our mortal bodies; as we consider ourselves dead to sin and as we battle to not offer our members as slaves of sin. Now if you’re anything like me, you look at that which remains in you and the battle that goes and you grow weary. The Lord knows this and knew that this was for us, a life long struggle. That’s why we are to be constantly reminded of His grace to us on the cross but also in the gifts that He has given us, His children. Remember Paul “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” – Romans 8:14.
It would have been enough if God had seen fit to redeem us and then set us on the course, in the battle and left us to our own. But He hasn’t and it’s key that we see this. Unlike Justification and Regeneration, there is definitely an element of Sanctification that is ours, at least from our temporal perspective. We are like it or not in a battle. I think though you may have not seen it this way, as Paul describes the battle I hope that you are thinking two things. First, I recognize this in my own life. I see this battle day in and day out. Second, I am feeling a tension caused by the variance between me now and me then. That is, I see, in some way the magnitude of the difference between my character and Christ’s righteousness and something in me pokes at me. If a man comes up to you in a the middle of a combat zone, with no rifle, not wearing fatigues and is rather wearing shorts and a Hawaiin shirt, with a remote in one hand and a soda in the other, and he says: “I’m a soldier engaged in a war” It’s clear he is not. Don’t misread me! I’m not saying its sin to wear shorts, or a hawaiin shirt or watch tv or drink soda! However, if you don’t see in yourself the markings of battle then you should not be at ease. We won’t camp on this, but if you are in Christ there is a war on. We are each engaged at different levels of intensity and we often fail. There are times that we go dry. But if none of this is true of you, you’re the guy driving down the road never touched by Scripture, God’s holiness and Christ’s righteousness. You know some facts about a man on a cross, but you haven’t been regenerated and you can’t take comfort. However, if you are weak and struggling and the battle rages on, you can take comfort in the promises that you have been given.
A Peek at the Engine – Whose work is sanctification?
So let’s look at sanctification from another view, a very hopeful view. I believe God’s view.
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” – Philippians 1:6
So just as the good work, the salvation work that Jesus began in you in regeneration was empowered by the Spirit, so to Jesus will bring to completion that same work. We see that it is Christ who saves us and it is Christ who brings the work of sanctification to its completed state. Jesus is the one who is empowering you to put the flesh to death. Jesus is the one through the Spirit who is convicting you. Jesus is the one who is ordaining all things together for your good, to bring you to righteousness. (Romans 8:28).
And again:
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” – Philippians 2:12
So here again we see the believer engaged in obedience. We see the believer engaged in effort. Paul uses the words “Work out your salvation”. This can’t mean: accomplish your salvation, much of the new testament argues against that. The word does mean to work a work to completion and it always means a work that is consistent with the nature of what is producing the work. In Romans 7:8 – “But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” Again in 2 Corinthians 4:17 – “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,”
Many think here that Paul when referring to fear and trembling is referring to a fear and trembling related to condemnation. And this word is used at times in that way. It’s the word Phobos. However, it is most often used in another way. A fear that in our world of Jesus is my boyfriend songs and the oft used image of God as being a kindly old accepting grandfather sort, we don’t really even hear about. This fear is a glorious fear. It’s the same fear that the disciples feel all the time when they see that Jesus is God. In Mark 4:40 when Jesus quiets the storm and they ask themselves: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" This is the same fear that the women have in Matthew 28:5 as the angel proclaims to them the glory of the risen Lord and “they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy”. This fear is the same fear that the prophets who were brought into the presence of God Himself, experienced.
Lets go back a few verses to verse 9: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This working out with fear and trembling points directly the glory and the authority and the power that Jesus has been given. When we hear the word Lord, we don’t hear what they heard. When they heard the word Lord, it meant “Supreme in authority”. When they heard the word Lord, they envisioned a mighty victorious and powerful King. That’s what Paul wants us to see here. That this King, Jesus, is working in us, that is He is the power and the ability behind us as we “work out” the salvation that HE has accomplished. Isn’t that good new? And if the mighty King of all things, is He who is working in us and amongst us to bring about His good pleasure, then we ought to have the same fear and trembling that a lowly subject would have for his King. This is a reverence that causes the knees to buckle with the realization that it is Jesus who is working in us.
Now, what is the nature of the work that He is doing in you? It is first, Paul says the will, or the desire, the wish, the hunger to work for His good pleasure. You see in yourself sin and yet it breaks your heart. You see in yourself failure and it makes you long to please Him. This is His work in you! Second, Paul says that the work itself, that is the effort applied, or the power behind our working is His power, his effort. As we are working, as we obey, as we put the flesh to death, it is Jesus through His Spirit that is graciously granting us the desire to do so and the working itself.
Who could take credit for such things? You want to show me your good works, you want us all to see how holy you are? If there is anything lovely in you it is His work in you. This is so hopeful in the battle that is sanctification. King Jesus, at who’s feet all will fall, at who’s name all will confess He is LORD. This same Jesus is working salvation out in us. Are you struggling today? Does it seem like sin is winning? You know what it is and that you desire to please Him. Take courage be strengthened. Fight on! From Jesus’ vantage point, He is doing wonderfully in you, what you could not do. Even if you don’t see it right now, if you are His, He is pouring out abundant grace in sanctification!
In the words of the old Hymn writer, Hallelujah! what a Savior!
The Means of Grace – His tools
Jesus says, in John 17:7, as He prays to the Father for us: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Paul when using the analogy of Christ’s marriage to the church in relation to Christian marriage says: “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.” – Ephesians 5:25 So, you long to be sanctified do you? Let the word of revelation, of Jesus as mighty Savior, as Sanctifier go deep and do its work in you!
I would be remise not to discuss briefly what Godly conviction looks like. The word is full of imperatives and descriptions of God’s holiness and of His righteous requirement. For those of us who are in Christ, whose sin’s have been forgiven and paid for, Law no longer holds us in bondage. Nonetheless, the Law is not without its use. When we come to the Law when we come to imperative in scripture we see our absolute failure. We feel it deep down. Our conscience is stricken. The Holy Spirit shows us our failings, not to rub our noses in them, like dogs. He does this to prod our lazy hearts back to the cross, to be reminded supernaturally of His once for all atonement of our sins. And to take us to sweet gratitude rich repentance.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” Paul is not saying that we declare Jesus’ death to the unbelievers. Though if there are unbelievers present, they will hopefully see the Gospel played out graphically in the distribution of the elements. But Paul is saying that we proclaim Jesus’ atoning work for the sins which we battle against in a real way to ourselves and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. So we return to the cross. We taste and see that Jesus is good. We take the wafer, His flesh on our tongue and experience the reminder, the proclamation of His death, and we take in the cup of blessing and drink deep of His grace.
May Jesus, our life giver continue to shower us in His grace!
Hallalujah! What a Savior!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Week 5 - Part 2 - Christ our Sanctifier - Preparation
Consider a man driving along a state highway. He's driving 45 mph. As you drive past him, then glance at the speed limit, you realize that you are speeding. If you're busy, you think, why is he so stubborn about following rules? Maybe you roll your eyes and then slow down to match his speed and continue. Maybe you think to yourself: “What a good driver!” Now consider the same man, driving down the interstate. He continues to drive 45 mph. Those passing on the right of the man are infuriated by his obstinately slow driving, despite the fact that the minimum posted speed limit is 50 mph, and the clearly posted signs stating “Slower traffic keep right.” Finally, consider our man driving again 45 mph. This time though, the posted speed limit is 35 mph and there are flashing signs stating that school is in session and the speed limit is currently 25 mph. As our man speeds through the clearly marked school zone past countless young children and angry parents, he thinks to mutters under his breath: “What are you looking at?” in response the looks of shock and disapproval coming from the parents.
Consider again our man. When you first met him, he was clearly in compliance with the Law. By all external appearances he was indeed a law keeper. However, our second view of him was he was brazenly and unsafely violating the Law on the highway. Our final view was even more unsafe and utterly disregarding of those around him. Clearly he was NOT a law keeper. So it is with self-righteousness. We are comforted and maybe even encouraged when we read the imperatives of scripture and it seems initially that we've kept them. Yet, as soon as the Law encroaches on our lifestyle or what we believe to be right, despite reality, we scoff at the Law and go about our business. This is our nature.
As we learned from Ezekiel 36:25 last week, the reason for this is that we have in us a stony heart that rejects Gods law and as Paul says: “Can't obey”.
This weeks assignment: read Acts 15:1 – 19. Based upon your reading answer for yourself these questions:
1.The Judiasers desired to see these gentiles living in a way that pleased God. Based on Peter's response to them (7) what was wrong with their view of righteousness?
2.If these gentiles were now made perfect in Christ, then why would the church need to warn them of particularly egregious sin?
3.In what two ways does Peter describe their regeneration?
4.Based upon our reading of Peter's later epistles, is Peter saying that the Law should never be expounded to the gentiles?
Have a Christ-centered week.
Consider again our man. When you first met him, he was clearly in compliance with the Law. By all external appearances he was indeed a law keeper. However, our second view of him was he was brazenly and unsafely violating the Law on the highway. Our final view was even more unsafe and utterly disregarding of those around him. Clearly he was NOT a law keeper. So it is with self-righteousness. We are comforted and maybe even encouraged when we read the imperatives of scripture and it seems initially that we've kept them. Yet, as soon as the Law encroaches on our lifestyle or what we believe to be right, despite reality, we scoff at the Law and go about our business. This is our nature.
As we learned from Ezekiel 36:25 last week, the reason for this is that we have in us a stony heart that rejects Gods law and as Paul says: “Can't obey”.
This weeks assignment: read Acts 15:1 – 19. Based upon your reading answer for yourself these questions:
1.The Judiasers desired to see these gentiles living in a way that pleased God. Based on Peter's response to them (7) what was wrong with their view of righteousness?
2.If these gentiles were now made perfect in Christ, then why would the church need to warn them of particularly egregious sin?
3.In what two ways does Peter describe their regeneration?
4.Based upon our reading of Peter's later epistles, is Peter saying that the Law should never be expounded to the gentiles?
Have a Christ-centered week.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Week 4 – Part 1 - Christ our Sanctifier – Followup
Regeneration – The wind blows
Death – How Serious is it, Really?!?
We can never escape, temporally speaking, the truth that death stalks each one of us. Each one of us has an appointed time in which we will face the termination of our physical existence here on this earth. We fight to prevent it. In fact, I don't think that any generation or people group in history has ever spent so much time and money in the truly futile effort of avoiding death. We know what death means to us. In our youth it sits far outside of the perimeter of view. We don't even see it. Then as time goes on and it touches our lives, we experience its coldness second hand, in the loss of a loved one, perhaps. As we mature, death begins to become more evident a reality as we encounter it in middle age. We lose a few friends to disease. We see generations that precede us going on. Though for the believer we have hope beyond the grave, death is still dark, mysterious and deeply troubling. It should be.
The Bible describes death as the curse that befell the sons of Adam as a result of his covenant violation in the garden. So all men face death. Not one of us will escape our destiny. But death's black kiss is far worse than this. The Bible describes us as being “Dead in our sins”. We weren't born alive and then sin killed us. We were, spiritually speaking, still-born. Like the sadness of a miscarriage, we were born in such a condition that there was no hope of life, naturally. We were born, we learned to crawl, then to walk. We had a shadow of life. But true life, as God had taken away in the curse isn't even imaginable to us. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” - 1 Corinthian 13:12
If life in the greatest sense of the word, is far bigger than what our tiny minds can see and taste, then it stands to reason, that in our condition as dead men, we don't understand what we are missing. The Bible makes it clear that this condition of spiritual death is far worse, far darker than the moment the spirit leaves the body. If life can best be described in the condition of direct relationship to the creator, then what we are missing in our condition as “the living dead” is something far more important than the consistent beating of our hearts, or our ability to draw breath.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” - Ephesians 2:1-3
To understand spiritual death we must understand what sin is. At the heart of all violations of God's law is a violation of the first commandment: you shall have no other gods besides Me. We are bound by commandment to love God, as the Bible defines love, obedience, having the will and the entire person directed to and committed to the glory of God. We have lost this ability. We are spiritually dead.
Disposition
The Bible describes mans inherited disposition as being one that is consistent with its condition, dead. Disposition is defined as: the tendency of something to act in a certain manner under given circumstances. Our disposition is the way that we would most likely respond given the right conditions”. Like a bacteria growing in a petri dish, if given the ripe medium of real life, we don't grow closer to God, but we will always oppose Him. Our disposition is not to seek after God. That is to say that every opportunity that in a dead condition we had to follow God, led only to our NOT following God. As Paul says, we walked according to the course of this world. We were, no matter how good we thought that we were, followers of the Devil. We were obedient to our bodies. We sought to obey its sinful lusts. Our minds were corrupted by the fall and we did whatever seemed right to us, no matter how self serving and wicked. Rather than loving God by default, we hated God even when we pretended to be His friend. Our disposition in death was to capitulate to temptation. Every chance that we had we gave in to temptation. Paul says of our disposition: “as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." - Romans 3:12
But it can't be stated enough, sin isn't merely drunkenness and violence. Do you remember the rich young ruler? He had a shallow view of his sin. Honor thy father and mother, don't steal, don't murder, don't commit adultery. “All these I have kept he says.” And then it rips his heart out when Jesus points out that he worships his money and not God. He, having an appearance of goodness was still a dead man serving his disposition. The self-righteous, self-reliant professing Christian is as much hell-bound as the serial killer.
Jesus confronts the pharisees shallow view of their sin, not to encourage them to do better, but to point out their absolute poverty before the Law. He says: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” Matthew 23:23
Our disposition leads us “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” - Romans 1:18. We are powerless to fight this disposition.
A Second Chance?
So if our natural and default position is antipathy and hatred towards God and a rejection of God's authority. Then under the best of circumstances, what could a second chance, hope to provide us? The answer is: not much. If all that we get is the clean sweep of our lives, then it wouldn't take long for sin to take root yet again. We would be wiped clean and then within moments, invisible sins like the sin of pride and others would soon leave us yet again a mess and most likely worse than before. The last thing that you and I need is a second chance. A second chance to be just as dishonoring to God as we were before. To be just as much a God hater as we were previously, only this time with a taste for klov, a fish on our car and McCain bumper sticker.
You Must Be Born Again
So we find in John 3, a learned teacher of the Jewish people. A real covenant man: Nicodemus. He's a teacher, so he has training in the word of God. He's a ruler, sitting on the ruling Jewish council. He clearly has a respected position of importance as a pharisee. He comes to Jesus late at night. He comes because he knows that there is something to Jesus. “For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with Him.” SO he even understands the real purpose behind the signs that Jesus was doing. He gets, on some level the weighty and profound nature of Jesus and of His ministry. Is it possible that there are those among us now, who like Nicodemus have many markings of a covenant child, a church member, a good person, a contributor and yet something just seems to be missing. Hopefully, like Nicodemus, you are willing to go to great lengths, to endure shame, to endure mocking but to come and to seek Him knowing that something just isn't right.
Nicodemus doesn't actually ask the question, does he? It was once told to me that a young man will yammer incessantly at his father with meaningless questions all with the purpose of getting the nerve up to ask the significant question that is so profoundly important to him. I remember as I would go fishing with my oldest son and he would begin the process. He would ask about whatever was around. He would ask about the water and about the fish. He would ask about the trees and the rocks. Maybe for hours. I would wait for the real question, for his heart to come screaming out of him. Then, if I was patient, Joe would knock me back on my heals with some important question about life, or eternity or many other things. Maybe like Joe Nicodemus, only half way knowing the question that deeply concerned him, was prepared to ask question after question until he finally got the nerve up to ask Jesus: How can I know that I will see the kingdom of God? “Jesus, I know the law and it doesn't look good for me. My conscience nags me all the time, am I OK? I was so convinced that I was doing so well, and now I'm not so sure. There is something so profoundly lifeless in me. I try, I put on the show, but at the end of the day, my heart is as dark and as rotten as it was before.” Jesus cuts right to the heart of the matter and answers the unasked question. The most important question.
“Truly, truly, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” We hear these words as those who have heard these a thousand times. We sort of mock Nicodemus. He's not stupid, but just uninformed. But listen again, as someone who was convinced of his own goodness, yet doubted and came to Jesus. “Truly, truly, unless YOU are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Unless, Nicodemus, you are made new... Unless the curse is broken and you are recreated, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You mighty pharisee, learned man, you know the words of Ezekiel in the 36th chapter verse 25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness's, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleanness's.” And this is what Jesus says to him isn't it? “Unless you are born of water and the Spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (5) Unless, Nicodemus, the Spirit of God has removed your stony wicked dead heart and replaced it with a living heart, a beating heart a soft heart, you are no where near the kingdom of God. You're not OK with God.
That's why Paul says: “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him!” Romans 8:9. Nicodemus can't see his own need. Jesus cuts right to the quick and says: “Dead man, you must be made alive.” And “Dead man” you are not the one to do it. That's why He says: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (8) It looks odd to you Nicodemus, when someone is given rebirth. You perceive the affect of the wind, on the leaves, maybe you see the grass in the field as it moves and parts for the wind. You don't know where it came from or where it goes. So is the regenerating work of the Spirit of God. For no explicable reason, you see the wicked broken by their sin and given forgiveness, peace and grace and new life. They know that their sins are taken away and that they have peace with God. You can't control this Nicodemus. You can't push all the right buttons and open the gates to the kingdom of God.
The Spirit of God must come upon you and make you alive. “The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” - 1 Corinthians 15:45 “The first man Adam is from the dust, a man of dust... you Nicodemus are a man of dust!” The second man is from heaven.” You sit there with your bag of tricks and your ways of justifying your sin and you're pushing down on the conscience which keeps welling up with the venom of your sin. I have to get it back in the box. You suppress the truth and look for the next thing to fix you. Maybe its worse than that, maybe don't even know it any more. You've been lying there so long having silenced the voice of conscience that you even believe that you're OK. You weren't arrested for tax evasion, you've never hit your kid or missed a Sunday, Nicodemus.
But, like the Israelites in the book of Numbers, God has sent the law like fiery serpents and you Nicodemus bear the holes of the viper's fangs. I can see it in you, there's two holes and you lie dying, puffed up and rotten. And you somehow think that you can get up there high enough to reach heaven and you can't. You think that you know and you don't. Heaven has to reach down and it did. Jesus says: “No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes on Him may have eternal life.” Do you remember Numbers, when Moses was commanded by God to raise up the serpent staff and all those who would gaze upon it would live? Nicodemus, do you remember? DO you see the bite mark? Look to the Son and live!
Then Jesus says it again, more fully this time: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish have eternal life.”
You can't regenerate yourselves! You can't make yourself new. You can't reenter, as it were, your mother's womb and come out 9 months later a new person. You're of the dust, you are a dead person who keeps moving. It has to be Jesus work. Unless Jesus makes you alive. Unless He makes the Spirit to dwell in you (James 4:5), you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
All that you can do is to believe. That is trust, you have no control, merely look to the Son and live. You're not able to stop the gang green that has so corrupted you. Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be given life. Don't believe and no matter how right with God you think that you are, you stand judged already.
The Effects of the Wind
This gift of regeneration, is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the believer. You must see that the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church is Jesus' and the Father's work. It's not something that you do. Regeneration, rebirth, you being made alive is part of God's gift to you in Christ. As was Justification, Jesus' propitiation and the Father's adoption of you, so is the gift of the indwelling Spirit in regeneration, a glorious gift from God.
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” - John 16:7
Jesus sends the Spirit.
“He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” - John 16:14
Jesus is glorified to His people by the Holy Spirit. This communication is something that occurs in the hearts of Jesus people, in that the Holy Spirit causes us to behold Jesus as wonderful and marvelous, by faith. He takes the word and causes it to dwell in us.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” - John 14:17
And again: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” - 14:20
The Father sends the Spirit to be with us forever. The indwelling presence of the Spirit is permanent in the life of the believer. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the exact means by which we as Christians have real relationship.“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” - Romans 8:16 The Spirit testifies to us that we are not orphans but children by adoption.
“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” - Romans 8:23
So you see the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as believers is the first offering of deep relationship that we will one day experience fully.
A New Disposition
Again Ezekiel 36:25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness's, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleanness's.”
In the indwelling of the Spirit. We are given the promised grace that God would remove our old nasty dead disposition and replace it with a new and functional one. One that desires to please God, one that longs for the glory of God, one that love's God. What grace it is that Jesus has given us new life in the Holy Spirit. Paul says it like this: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” - Romans 8:13.
If you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in you, to give you a reflective love for the almighty God of the universe. If you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit testifies to you that you are a child of the Father. If you are in Christ, you have the power of the Spirit, to walk obediently and to put to death the old man.
Death – How Serious is it, Really?!?
We can never escape, temporally speaking, the truth that death stalks each one of us. Each one of us has an appointed time in which we will face the termination of our physical existence here on this earth. We fight to prevent it. In fact, I don't think that any generation or people group in history has ever spent so much time and money in the truly futile effort of avoiding death. We know what death means to us. In our youth it sits far outside of the perimeter of view. We don't even see it. Then as time goes on and it touches our lives, we experience its coldness second hand, in the loss of a loved one, perhaps. As we mature, death begins to become more evident a reality as we encounter it in middle age. We lose a few friends to disease. We see generations that precede us going on. Though for the believer we have hope beyond the grave, death is still dark, mysterious and deeply troubling. It should be.
The Bible describes death as the curse that befell the sons of Adam as a result of his covenant violation in the garden. So all men face death. Not one of us will escape our destiny. But death's black kiss is far worse than this. The Bible describes us as being “Dead in our sins”. We weren't born alive and then sin killed us. We were, spiritually speaking, still-born. Like the sadness of a miscarriage, we were born in such a condition that there was no hope of life, naturally. We were born, we learned to crawl, then to walk. We had a shadow of life. But true life, as God had taken away in the curse isn't even imaginable to us. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” - 1 Corinthian 13:12
If life in the greatest sense of the word, is far bigger than what our tiny minds can see and taste, then it stands to reason, that in our condition as dead men, we don't understand what we are missing. The Bible makes it clear that this condition of spiritual death is far worse, far darker than the moment the spirit leaves the body. If life can best be described in the condition of direct relationship to the creator, then what we are missing in our condition as “the living dead” is something far more important than the consistent beating of our hearts, or our ability to draw breath.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” - Ephesians 2:1-3
To understand spiritual death we must understand what sin is. At the heart of all violations of God's law is a violation of the first commandment: you shall have no other gods besides Me. We are bound by commandment to love God, as the Bible defines love, obedience, having the will and the entire person directed to and committed to the glory of God. We have lost this ability. We are spiritually dead.
Disposition
The Bible describes mans inherited disposition as being one that is consistent with its condition, dead. Disposition is defined as: the tendency of something to act in a certain manner under given circumstances. Our disposition is the way that we would most likely respond given the right conditions”. Like a bacteria growing in a petri dish, if given the ripe medium of real life, we don't grow closer to God, but we will always oppose Him. Our disposition is not to seek after God. That is to say that every opportunity that in a dead condition we had to follow God, led only to our NOT following God. As Paul says, we walked according to the course of this world. We were, no matter how good we thought that we were, followers of the Devil. We were obedient to our bodies. We sought to obey its sinful lusts. Our minds were corrupted by the fall and we did whatever seemed right to us, no matter how self serving and wicked. Rather than loving God by default, we hated God even when we pretended to be His friend. Our disposition in death was to capitulate to temptation. Every chance that we had we gave in to temptation. Paul says of our disposition: “as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." - Romans 3:12
But it can't be stated enough, sin isn't merely drunkenness and violence. Do you remember the rich young ruler? He had a shallow view of his sin. Honor thy father and mother, don't steal, don't murder, don't commit adultery. “All these I have kept he says.” And then it rips his heart out when Jesus points out that he worships his money and not God. He, having an appearance of goodness was still a dead man serving his disposition. The self-righteous, self-reliant professing Christian is as much hell-bound as the serial killer.
Jesus confronts the pharisees shallow view of their sin, not to encourage them to do better, but to point out their absolute poverty before the Law. He says: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” Matthew 23:23
Our disposition leads us “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” - Romans 1:18. We are powerless to fight this disposition.
A Second Chance?
So if our natural and default position is antipathy and hatred towards God and a rejection of God's authority. Then under the best of circumstances, what could a second chance, hope to provide us? The answer is: not much. If all that we get is the clean sweep of our lives, then it wouldn't take long for sin to take root yet again. We would be wiped clean and then within moments, invisible sins like the sin of pride and others would soon leave us yet again a mess and most likely worse than before. The last thing that you and I need is a second chance. A second chance to be just as dishonoring to God as we were before. To be just as much a God hater as we were previously, only this time with a taste for klov, a fish on our car and McCain bumper sticker.
You Must Be Born Again
So we find in John 3, a learned teacher of the Jewish people. A real covenant man: Nicodemus. He's a teacher, so he has training in the word of God. He's a ruler, sitting on the ruling Jewish council. He clearly has a respected position of importance as a pharisee. He comes to Jesus late at night. He comes because he knows that there is something to Jesus. “For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with Him.” SO he even understands the real purpose behind the signs that Jesus was doing. He gets, on some level the weighty and profound nature of Jesus and of His ministry. Is it possible that there are those among us now, who like Nicodemus have many markings of a covenant child, a church member, a good person, a contributor and yet something just seems to be missing. Hopefully, like Nicodemus, you are willing to go to great lengths, to endure shame, to endure mocking but to come and to seek Him knowing that something just isn't right.
Nicodemus doesn't actually ask the question, does he? It was once told to me that a young man will yammer incessantly at his father with meaningless questions all with the purpose of getting the nerve up to ask the significant question that is so profoundly important to him. I remember as I would go fishing with my oldest son and he would begin the process. He would ask about whatever was around. He would ask about the water and about the fish. He would ask about the trees and the rocks. Maybe for hours. I would wait for the real question, for his heart to come screaming out of him. Then, if I was patient, Joe would knock me back on my heals with some important question about life, or eternity or many other things. Maybe like Joe Nicodemus, only half way knowing the question that deeply concerned him, was prepared to ask question after question until he finally got the nerve up to ask Jesus: How can I know that I will see the kingdom of God? “Jesus, I know the law and it doesn't look good for me. My conscience nags me all the time, am I OK? I was so convinced that I was doing so well, and now I'm not so sure. There is something so profoundly lifeless in me. I try, I put on the show, but at the end of the day, my heart is as dark and as rotten as it was before.” Jesus cuts right to the heart of the matter and answers the unasked question. The most important question.
“Truly, truly, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” We hear these words as those who have heard these a thousand times. We sort of mock Nicodemus. He's not stupid, but just uninformed. But listen again, as someone who was convinced of his own goodness, yet doubted and came to Jesus. “Truly, truly, unless YOU are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Unless, Nicodemus, you are made new... Unless the curse is broken and you are recreated, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You mighty pharisee, learned man, you know the words of Ezekiel in the 36th chapter verse 25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness's, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleanness's.” And this is what Jesus says to him isn't it? “Unless you are born of water and the Spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (5) Unless, Nicodemus, the Spirit of God has removed your stony wicked dead heart and replaced it with a living heart, a beating heart a soft heart, you are no where near the kingdom of God. You're not OK with God.
That's why Paul says: “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him!” Romans 8:9. Nicodemus can't see his own need. Jesus cuts right to the quick and says: “Dead man, you must be made alive.” And “Dead man” you are not the one to do it. That's why He says: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (8) It looks odd to you Nicodemus, when someone is given rebirth. You perceive the affect of the wind, on the leaves, maybe you see the grass in the field as it moves and parts for the wind. You don't know where it came from or where it goes. So is the regenerating work of the Spirit of God. For no explicable reason, you see the wicked broken by their sin and given forgiveness, peace and grace and new life. They know that their sins are taken away and that they have peace with God. You can't control this Nicodemus. You can't push all the right buttons and open the gates to the kingdom of God.
The Spirit of God must come upon you and make you alive. “The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” - 1 Corinthians 15:45 “The first man Adam is from the dust, a man of dust... you Nicodemus are a man of dust!” The second man is from heaven.” You sit there with your bag of tricks and your ways of justifying your sin and you're pushing down on the conscience which keeps welling up with the venom of your sin. I have to get it back in the box. You suppress the truth and look for the next thing to fix you. Maybe its worse than that, maybe don't even know it any more. You've been lying there so long having silenced the voice of conscience that you even believe that you're OK. You weren't arrested for tax evasion, you've never hit your kid or missed a Sunday, Nicodemus.
But, like the Israelites in the book of Numbers, God has sent the law like fiery serpents and you Nicodemus bear the holes of the viper's fangs. I can see it in you, there's two holes and you lie dying, puffed up and rotten. And you somehow think that you can get up there high enough to reach heaven and you can't. You think that you know and you don't. Heaven has to reach down and it did. Jesus says: “No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes on Him may have eternal life.” Do you remember Numbers, when Moses was commanded by God to raise up the serpent staff and all those who would gaze upon it would live? Nicodemus, do you remember? DO you see the bite mark? Look to the Son and live!
Then Jesus says it again, more fully this time: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish have eternal life.”
You can't regenerate yourselves! You can't make yourself new. You can't reenter, as it were, your mother's womb and come out 9 months later a new person. You're of the dust, you are a dead person who keeps moving. It has to be Jesus work. Unless Jesus makes you alive. Unless He makes the Spirit to dwell in you (James 4:5), you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
All that you can do is to believe. That is trust, you have no control, merely look to the Son and live. You're not able to stop the gang green that has so corrupted you. Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be given life. Don't believe and no matter how right with God you think that you are, you stand judged already.
The Effects of the Wind
This gift of regeneration, is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the believer. You must see that the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church is Jesus' and the Father's work. It's not something that you do. Regeneration, rebirth, you being made alive is part of God's gift to you in Christ. As was Justification, Jesus' propitiation and the Father's adoption of you, so is the gift of the indwelling Spirit in regeneration, a glorious gift from God.
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” - John 16:7
Jesus sends the Spirit.
“He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” - John 16:14
Jesus is glorified to His people by the Holy Spirit. This communication is something that occurs in the hearts of Jesus people, in that the Holy Spirit causes us to behold Jesus as wonderful and marvelous, by faith. He takes the word and causes it to dwell in us.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” - John 14:17
And again: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” - 14:20
The Father sends the Spirit to be with us forever. The indwelling presence of the Spirit is permanent in the life of the believer. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the exact means by which we as Christians have real relationship.“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” - Romans 8:16 The Spirit testifies to us that we are not orphans but children by adoption.
“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” - Romans 8:23
So you see the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as believers is the first offering of deep relationship that we will one day experience fully.
A New Disposition
Again Ezekiel 36:25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness's, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleanness's.”
In the indwelling of the Spirit. We are given the promised grace that God would remove our old nasty dead disposition and replace it with a new and functional one. One that desires to please God, one that longs for the glory of God, one that love's God. What grace it is that Jesus has given us new life in the Holy Spirit. Paul says it like this: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” - Romans 8:13.
If you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in you, to give you a reflective love for the almighty God of the universe. If you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit testifies to you that you are a child of the Father. If you are in Christ, you have the power of the Spirit, to walk obediently and to put to death the old man.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Week 4 - Part 1 - Christ our Sanctifier - Preparation
We have been seeing how Christ has been our Savior. As Justifier, He won for us legal right standing. As Propitation, He took all of God's wrath for us. As older brother, He attained for us Adoption as children of God. This week, we will transition to a different aspect of what Jesus has and is doing for us as Sanctifier.
What does it mean to be "Sanctified"? This word comes up less and less these days. It is to our peril that this is true. Sanctification is God's process for making us holy. That is for setting us apart and preparing us for heaven. During part 1, we will see the glorious work of regeneration. How Jesus makes us alive towards Him, by the ministry of the Spirit.
I remember when my Grandmother died. My children cried, and so did I as we looked at the open casket. As we gazed on her lifeless body. She was a constant, powerful and loving presence in our lives. As I stood there the memories flooded my mind. Her soft and gentle mannerisms, her soft grandmotherly voice, all of these things were so alive to me. And yet there she was, motionless... lifeless. I knew better, yet I longed that she would get up and that I would go and give her a hug and talk to her, I loved to make her laugh. How I longed to hear her laugh.
The Bible describes us being spiritually dead. Ephesians 2:1 We are incapable of life. We are incapable of genuine, God honoring life. We are incapable of the life that Adam and Eve lost in the garden. It is, as it was for my grandmother, an impossibility that we rise ourselves out of the casket.
This weeks assignment:
Read John 11:1 - 45 Notice how much effort Lazerus puts into the miracle that Jesus does. Spend some time meditating on the time when you trusted in Jesus as Savior. Is there sweet joy as He who you once hated or to whom you were indifferent came strikingly and beautifully into such prominence in your heart, mind and life?
Secondly, read John 3:1 - 9 and consider Nicodemus' error. In Jesus dealings with Nicodemus and description of being "Born Again" who is the one acting? What metaphor does Jesus use to describe how someone is born again?
Have a blessed week.
What does it mean to be "Sanctified"? This word comes up less and less these days. It is to our peril that this is true. Sanctification is God's process for making us holy. That is for setting us apart and preparing us for heaven. During part 1, we will see the glorious work of regeneration. How Jesus makes us alive towards Him, by the ministry of the Spirit.
I remember when my Grandmother died. My children cried, and so did I as we looked at the open casket. As we gazed on her lifeless body. She was a constant, powerful and loving presence in our lives. As I stood there the memories flooded my mind. Her soft and gentle mannerisms, her soft grandmotherly voice, all of these things were so alive to me. And yet there she was, motionless... lifeless. I knew better, yet I longed that she would get up and that I would go and give her a hug and talk to her, I loved to make her laugh. How I longed to hear her laugh.
The Bible describes us being spiritually dead. Ephesians 2:1 We are incapable of life. We are incapable of genuine, God honoring life. We are incapable of the life that Adam and Eve lost in the garden. It is, as it was for my grandmother, an impossibility that we rise ourselves out of the casket.
This weeks assignment:
Read John 11:1 - 45 Notice how much effort Lazerus puts into the miracle that Jesus does. Spend some time meditating on the time when you trusted in Jesus as Savior. Is there sweet joy as He who you once hated or to whom you were indifferent came strikingly and beautifully into such prominence in your heart, mind and life?
Secondly, read John 3:1 - 9 and consider Nicodemus' error. In Jesus dealings with Nicodemus and description of being "Born Again" who is the one acting? What metaphor does Jesus use to describe how someone is born again?
Have a blessed week.
Week 3 - Part 2 - Christ our Savior - Followup
Week 3 – Christ our Savior – Part 2:
Wrath and Adoption
The Wrath of God
I have been involved in a number of confrontations with other men. Man more than woman, but not exclusively man, has a propensity to a particular form of anger. The scene can play out something like this: two people are having a conversation. Perhaps even a strong disagreement about something. As the two converse one party begins to intensify their tone. No longer a dialogue, that party begins to interrupt and begin forcefully driving the exchange. As the second party pushes back, after some time, the first party, angry at the lack of capitulation on the part of our second party, explodes with rage. Their face turns red, maybe they begin to shake. Their face without their knowledge expresses an absolute and indescribably hostility. They may begin yelling or worse. The effect on the second party is profound. They are, like it or not driven to fear. The firey rage of the first party may never play out, and rarely does, into violence. The effect of this rage is dehumanizing to the second party.
The epistle writers warn us of this anger. James tells us “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Anger implies that transgression has occurred. That a violation of some rule, boundary or parameter has occurred. It implies that justice is demanded for the violation. The problem with this anger as it is demonstrated in man is that it does not accomplish God's justice. When someone sins against another person, they have preeminently sinned against God. The party who's possession's have been stolen in robbery is the victim of the robbery. But it is God who's law: “Thou shalt not steal” has been violated. Man does not have the innate objectivity to pour out wrath on his fellow man. However, in certain cases, God grants authority among men, to accomplish some level of justice here on this earth.
This anger, the Bible calls wrath. The Bible warns us against such wrath within ourselves, yet clearly teaches that wrath, orders of magnitude greater than our impure and unrighteous “feeling” occurs with God. The word most often associated with the wrath of God occurs 33 times, in context, in the new testament, alone. God is righteous in His wrath towards man. His wrath sometimes occurs temporally. That is to say that it occurs partially in the here and now, as nations rise and fall; as wicked men suffer at times the consequence of their sin, for example.
The Psalmist describes God's wrath as being derisive, furious and terrifying in Psalms 2:4: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury”. And again, speaking of Jesus in 2:12: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.”
But the Bible says that God's wrath will occur ultimately and finally on the last day. When Jesus returns.
Of His anticipation of His role in judging the earth, Jesus says: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!” - Luke 12:49
Paul describes that day: “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints.” - 2 Thessalonians 1:18
Of those at the end, who will stand in the judgment for their wickedness, John in Revelation says: “he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night...” - 14:10
It is indeed true that we are rightly condemned before God, that is we stand correctly in a position of guilt. We spoke of this last week. There is nothing but condemnation for us sinners, unless God does something. Unless, the righteous wrath of God is satisfied and done away with, for us. We can never put away God's wrath. Because of our condition, because we are dead in our sins, we have no ability to put away His wrath. Another way to say it is that we have no way to pay for our crimes other than our own eternal damnation. We need Him to do it. We need Him to satisfy this wrath. In act of ultimate mercy, God must be the one that does away with His own wrath towards His people.
Jesus Drinks the Cup of Wrath - Propitiation
In the garden Jesus says: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” Luke 22:42. He knows that what He is about to face on the cross for His people, is the very wrath of God. Paul says in Romans 8:3 “By sending His own Son in the likeness of human flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” As Jesus hangs on the cross He experiences that which we ultimately deserve from Him, the wrath, hostility and utter forsaking of God. He cries out “Eloi, Eloi lama zabachtani, that is: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” God in Jesus condemns sin, Paul says here in Romans 8. He pours out wrath without mercy on Jesus. Because that is what we deserve. Jesus endures the torment of the cross to satisfy the anger of the Triune God against man. Of Jesus, Paul says in Romans 3: “... whom God put forward as a propitiation, by His blood” In so saying Paul makes it clear that Jesus was God's satisfying sacrifice to put away His wrath. The word propitiation means to completely satisfy wrath.
Jesus took the cup of wrath and drank it to the bottom for His people. In so doing, the Father condemns sin IN Jesus flesh. He pours out ultimate wrath and fury.
There is therefore no more condemnation, for those who are in Christ Jesus. - Romans 8:1
A New Relationship – Covenant Adoption
Many, speak rightly of having a relationship with God through Jesus. However, it is perhaps wrong to say that those who aren't in Christ, have no relationship with God. We are indeed as Ruth was, outside of the grace covenant relationship with God. We were in an adversarial relationship with God. He was our enemy. Just as the gentiles in the story of Ruth were not at peace with God. So too, we were under the condemnation of God and had, whether we knew it or not, a terrible expectation of judgment.
John in his first epistle writes: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” - 1 John 4:10
But then as an expression of God's love towards His people, He sends Jesus to pay the full and complete price of the sins of His people.
The ramifications of this are huge. If God does away with His wrath for you then what is the relationship? The relationship can't remain the same. There is no neutral relationship with God. You are either “For Him or you are against Him” as Jesus says in Matthew 12:20. So again, what if God in His love for you takes away His wrath? What remains? We were outside of the family, then the hostility and separation were done away with. The division was removed and we were brought within the covenant confines of the family of God. The most beautiful picture we have for this is adoption. So this is how Paul describes this new relationship. He says to us, Romans 8:15, that we have received the Spirit of adoption.
But we have to go back though, and see as Paul describes what it was to have “the spirit of slavery”, before we can understand the Spirit of Adoption. Paul describes the relationship that we with the old covenant Law as the Law of sin and death (8:2). The law, puts us to death, because we are sinful. It is the debt that we owe, that prevents us from paying this penalty. Slavery in ancient Jewish times, was most often a relationship defined by debt. You were bound to your debtor. If the debt became so large, that there was no way to pay it. Or the owner of the debt demanded an immediate resolution, then all that one had to pay was themselves. Paul's readers understood this. Slaves were most often slaves because of the debt that they owed and not slaves because they were products of conquest and war. Unlike the slaves in our history, they were not stolen from their homes. But their debt defined the slave relationship. This is the slavery that Paul refers to. Our relation to the law is as debtors. We can't escape it. Then Jesus, hangs on the cross and as He prepares to draw His last breath He says: “It is finished”. And so as the Jews who, under debt would sit by the side of the road with signs pleading for someone to pay their debt, Jesus used the same very words that one who had in mercy, paid the debt of one of these slaves would write on their sign: “It is paid in full”.
So we've seen the contrast of the law of sin and death. And that the very breath we breathed was in bondage, and that Jesus came in perfect mercy and love and paid the debt for us. It's now our sweet joy to look on the relationship which took its place.
It is an adoptive relationship. The slave has no rights and no inheritance in the house of the Master. Yet, the son belongs in the home of the Father. Now to verse 15: The child finds his natural place with the Father and in ultimate need he cries out, not to the Master, but he uses the most affectionate term that a Jewish child could ever use of his Father: Abba... daddy... pappa. This word means to cry out, the same word in Matthew 14:30 as Peter is walking on the water, sees the wind and begins to sink. And he cries out: “Lord save me”. So too, we cry out. And Paul says that His response through the Holy Spirit's proclaiming to our spirit is: “that we are children of God”.
Do you ever feel like you aren't His child? Does life ever overtake you, with work, concerns, pains, struggles, sin? Do your failings in your battle against the flesh ever leave you wondering: “am I His?” Let this word speak deeply to your spirit today. Let it become a part of who you are. He proclaims to you from this word, that you are His child. I don't know what your struggle or battle is today, but let His word go deep so that you know that you are an adopted child. Once an enemy and now beloved child of God. Without being irreverent or trite, He is your daddy. What grace this is.
Covenant Blessing
The covenant relationship, is not simply an external relationship in which we remain given over to our former ways. We were Hostile to God (7) and we didn't, couldn't and refused to submit to God's law. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it doesn't submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.”
The covenant blessing becomes real and tangible in that Jesus has sent His Spirit to dwell in us (9). In fact, there is no covenant adoption, no relationship if the Spirit doesn't dwell in us. Apart from the empowering work of the Spirit we have no capacity to place our minds and our affections on the things of the Spirit: On Jesus our Savior, our Sanctifier, Healer and King. The Holy Spirit being made to live in us, is a key gift of Jesus' covenant grace to us. It is He, the Spirit, that convicts us of unrighteousness and empowers us to put the flesh to death. To see our sin as sinful, to desire to please the Father and the ability to say no to sin and to resist temptation. We've all hopefully experienced the sweet convicting work of the Spirit and His empowering and leading work as He guides us and disciplines us and strengthens us to glorify God.
It is He, who grants us, real tangible life (6). It is He, who will one day resurrect us, just as He did Jesus: “ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (11)
Paul continues in (17): “If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” The covenant that He has given you makes you a full child. Entitled to the inheritance that Christ earned. Oh what a wonderful older brother that we have. The firstborn from the dead. And as He was resurrected out of the tomb, we catch the most brilliant glance of the glory which is ours in the beloved. When we the resurrected Jesus, we see the inheritance beginning to take shape.
Three weeks from now, we'll come briefly back to these same verses and speak of Jesus restoration on that final day. But today we'll see that this covenant of adoption that He has given you is actually the beginnings of the very relationship which one day will be made complete in the resurrection: “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Verse 23. This adoption though real, though permanent, is not yet complete. How is this so?
First, in that we haven't been resurrected. We remain in these seed like jars of clay, for a time. Verse 10: “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” There remains in us a battle with the flesh. If this weren't so, Paul would not say: “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (13) So we look to the hope of the resurrection, that one day this battle will end and Christ will be the victor through the Spirit, in transforming us.
Secondly, in suffering. If the curse that fell on Adam, brought death and sin into the kingdom of man. Than likewise the man Jesus, who stood up mid stream, and with perfect obedience, suffered all of the consequence of Adams sin. Than we also can expect the same as take up His cross. We will indeed suffer, the natural sufferings that one would expect in a fallen and sinful world. But more importantly, as we are children of the God that this world hates and rejects, we too will be hated and rejected. Not for being obnoxious, not for insisting on unbiblical things. Not for isolating ourselves from our fellow brothers in Adam. But for proclaiming both a rightful wrath from God against sinful flesh and a mercy which demands an admission of guilt and which demanded a sacrifice of ultimate price.
Paul knows that suffering would span the entire age between his writing and our time. And he knows that because of the flesh which remains and the volume of the suffering that at times these things would prevent us from seeing the depth of the love of Christ for us in our adoption, in the putting away of wrath. It would at times lead us to doubt His love for us. And even, as horrible as it sounds, to wonder if He had abandoned us, in our suffering and in our sin. So he exhorts us to see the nature of our relationship as being ultimately strong and indefeatable. He wants us to see the rigor of Christs love for us. We need to be reminded of His love daily. If we are cold, if we are dry, if we hunger for God, if we are hardened, this is where we are to come. To be reminded of our adoption as children of the Father.
An Undying and Unbreakable Love and Covenant
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (29)
Paul's reasoning here is this, if the very judge of all things the one who will, in righteousness judge the entire world, is the very one that predestined you for salvation; called you to Himself; made you right with Himself and gave you the hope of Glory, then who remains to judge you? Then who is that is of any consequence who could impact this grace?
In fact, this Judge now makes intercession for you at the right hand of the Father. He is not your judge, but your Savior.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38
Wrath and Adoption
The Wrath of God
I have been involved in a number of confrontations with other men. Man more than woman, but not exclusively man, has a propensity to a particular form of anger. The scene can play out something like this: two people are having a conversation. Perhaps even a strong disagreement about something. As the two converse one party begins to intensify their tone. No longer a dialogue, that party begins to interrupt and begin forcefully driving the exchange. As the second party pushes back, after some time, the first party, angry at the lack of capitulation on the part of our second party, explodes with rage. Their face turns red, maybe they begin to shake. Their face without their knowledge expresses an absolute and indescribably hostility. They may begin yelling or worse. The effect on the second party is profound. They are, like it or not driven to fear. The firey rage of the first party may never play out, and rarely does, into violence. The effect of this rage is dehumanizing to the second party.
The epistle writers warn us of this anger. James tells us “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Anger implies that transgression has occurred. That a violation of some rule, boundary or parameter has occurred. It implies that justice is demanded for the violation. The problem with this anger as it is demonstrated in man is that it does not accomplish God's justice. When someone sins against another person, they have preeminently sinned against God. The party who's possession's have been stolen in robbery is the victim of the robbery. But it is God who's law: “Thou shalt not steal” has been violated. Man does not have the innate objectivity to pour out wrath on his fellow man. However, in certain cases, God grants authority among men, to accomplish some level of justice here on this earth.
This anger, the Bible calls wrath. The Bible warns us against such wrath within ourselves, yet clearly teaches that wrath, orders of magnitude greater than our impure and unrighteous “feeling” occurs with God. The word most often associated with the wrath of God occurs 33 times, in context, in the new testament, alone. God is righteous in His wrath towards man. His wrath sometimes occurs temporally. That is to say that it occurs partially in the here and now, as nations rise and fall; as wicked men suffer at times the consequence of their sin, for example.
The Psalmist describes God's wrath as being derisive, furious and terrifying in Psalms 2:4: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury”. And again, speaking of Jesus in 2:12: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.”
But the Bible says that God's wrath will occur ultimately and finally on the last day. When Jesus returns.
Of His anticipation of His role in judging the earth, Jesus says: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!” - Luke 12:49
Paul describes that day: “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints.” - 2 Thessalonians 1:18
Of those at the end, who will stand in the judgment for their wickedness, John in Revelation says: “he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night...” - 14:10
It is indeed true that we are rightly condemned before God, that is we stand correctly in a position of guilt. We spoke of this last week. There is nothing but condemnation for us sinners, unless God does something. Unless, the righteous wrath of God is satisfied and done away with, for us. We can never put away God's wrath. Because of our condition, because we are dead in our sins, we have no ability to put away His wrath. Another way to say it is that we have no way to pay for our crimes other than our own eternal damnation. We need Him to do it. We need Him to satisfy this wrath. In act of ultimate mercy, God must be the one that does away with His own wrath towards His people.
Jesus Drinks the Cup of Wrath - Propitiation
In the garden Jesus says: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” Luke 22:42. He knows that what He is about to face on the cross for His people, is the very wrath of God. Paul says in Romans 8:3 “By sending His own Son in the likeness of human flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” As Jesus hangs on the cross He experiences that which we ultimately deserve from Him, the wrath, hostility and utter forsaking of God. He cries out “Eloi, Eloi lama zabachtani, that is: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” God in Jesus condemns sin, Paul says here in Romans 8. He pours out wrath without mercy on Jesus. Because that is what we deserve. Jesus endures the torment of the cross to satisfy the anger of the Triune God against man. Of Jesus, Paul says in Romans 3: “... whom God put forward as a propitiation, by His blood” In so saying Paul makes it clear that Jesus was God's satisfying sacrifice to put away His wrath. The word propitiation means to completely satisfy wrath.
Jesus took the cup of wrath and drank it to the bottom for His people. In so doing, the Father condemns sin IN Jesus flesh. He pours out ultimate wrath and fury.
There is therefore no more condemnation, for those who are in Christ Jesus. - Romans 8:1
A New Relationship – Covenant Adoption
Many, speak rightly of having a relationship with God through Jesus. However, it is perhaps wrong to say that those who aren't in Christ, have no relationship with God. We are indeed as Ruth was, outside of the grace covenant relationship with God. We were in an adversarial relationship with God. He was our enemy. Just as the gentiles in the story of Ruth were not at peace with God. So too, we were under the condemnation of God and had, whether we knew it or not, a terrible expectation of judgment.
John in his first epistle writes: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” - 1 John 4:10
But then as an expression of God's love towards His people, He sends Jesus to pay the full and complete price of the sins of His people.
The ramifications of this are huge. If God does away with His wrath for you then what is the relationship? The relationship can't remain the same. There is no neutral relationship with God. You are either “For Him or you are against Him” as Jesus says in Matthew 12:20. So again, what if God in His love for you takes away His wrath? What remains? We were outside of the family, then the hostility and separation were done away with. The division was removed and we were brought within the covenant confines of the family of God. The most beautiful picture we have for this is adoption. So this is how Paul describes this new relationship. He says to us, Romans 8:15, that we have received the Spirit of adoption.
But we have to go back though, and see as Paul describes what it was to have “the spirit of slavery”, before we can understand the Spirit of Adoption. Paul describes the relationship that we with the old covenant Law as the Law of sin and death (8:2). The law, puts us to death, because we are sinful. It is the debt that we owe, that prevents us from paying this penalty. Slavery in ancient Jewish times, was most often a relationship defined by debt. You were bound to your debtor. If the debt became so large, that there was no way to pay it. Or the owner of the debt demanded an immediate resolution, then all that one had to pay was themselves. Paul's readers understood this. Slaves were most often slaves because of the debt that they owed and not slaves because they were products of conquest and war. Unlike the slaves in our history, they were not stolen from their homes. But their debt defined the slave relationship. This is the slavery that Paul refers to. Our relation to the law is as debtors. We can't escape it. Then Jesus, hangs on the cross and as He prepares to draw His last breath He says: “It is finished”. And so as the Jews who, under debt would sit by the side of the road with signs pleading for someone to pay their debt, Jesus used the same very words that one who had in mercy, paid the debt of one of these slaves would write on their sign: “It is paid in full”.
So we've seen the contrast of the law of sin and death. And that the very breath we breathed was in bondage, and that Jesus came in perfect mercy and love and paid the debt for us. It's now our sweet joy to look on the relationship which took its place.
It is an adoptive relationship. The slave has no rights and no inheritance in the house of the Master. Yet, the son belongs in the home of the Father. Now to verse 15: The child finds his natural place with the Father and in ultimate need he cries out, not to the Master, but he uses the most affectionate term that a Jewish child could ever use of his Father: Abba... daddy... pappa. This word means to cry out, the same word in Matthew 14:30 as Peter is walking on the water, sees the wind and begins to sink. And he cries out: “Lord save me”. So too, we cry out. And Paul says that His response through the Holy Spirit's proclaiming to our spirit is: “that we are children of God”.
Do you ever feel like you aren't His child? Does life ever overtake you, with work, concerns, pains, struggles, sin? Do your failings in your battle against the flesh ever leave you wondering: “am I His?” Let this word speak deeply to your spirit today. Let it become a part of who you are. He proclaims to you from this word, that you are His child. I don't know what your struggle or battle is today, but let His word go deep so that you know that you are an adopted child. Once an enemy and now beloved child of God. Without being irreverent or trite, He is your daddy. What grace this is.
Covenant Blessing
The covenant relationship, is not simply an external relationship in which we remain given over to our former ways. We were Hostile to God (7) and we didn't, couldn't and refused to submit to God's law. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it doesn't submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.”
The covenant blessing becomes real and tangible in that Jesus has sent His Spirit to dwell in us (9). In fact, there is no covenant adoption, no relationship if the Spirit doesn't dwell in us. Apart from the empowering work of the Spirit we have no capacity to place our minds and our affections on the things of the Spirit: On Jesus our Savior, our Sanctifier, Healer and King. The Holy Spirit being made to live in us, is a key gift of Jesus' covenant grace to us. It is He, the Spirit, that convicts us of unrighteousness and empowers us to put the flesh to death. To see our sin as sinful, to desire to please the Father and the ability to say no to sin and to resist temptation. We've all hopefully experienced the sweet convicting work of the Spirit and His empowering and leading work as He guides us and disciplines us and strengthens us to glorify God.
It is He, who grants us, real tangible life (6). It is He, who will one day resurrect us, just as He did Jesus: “ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (11)
Paul continues in (17): “If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” The covenant that He has given you makes you a full child. Entitled to the inheritance that Christ earned. Oh what a wonderful older brother that we have. The firstborn from the dead. And as He was resurrected out of the tomb, we catch the most brilliant glance of the glory which is ours in the beloved. When we the resurrected Jesus, we see the inheritance beginning to take shape.
Three weeks from now, we'll come briefly back to these same verses and speak of Jesus restoration on that final day. But today we'll see that this covenant of adoption that He has given you is actually the beginnings of the very relationship which one day will be made complete in the resurrection: “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Verse 23. This adoption though real, though permanent, is not yet complete. How is this so?
First, in that we haven't been resurrected. We remain in these seed like jars of clay, for a time. Verse 10: “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” There remains in us a battle with the flesh. If this weren't so, Paul would not say: “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (13) So we look to the hope of the resurrection, that one day this battle will end and Christ will be the victor through the Spirit, in transforming us.
Secondly, in suffering. If the curse that fell on Adam, brought death and sin into the kingdom of man. Than likewise the man Jesus, who stood up mid stream, and with perfect obedience, suffered all of the consequence of Adams sin. Than we also can expect the same as take up His cross. We will indeed suffer, the natural sufferings that one would expect in a fallen and sinful world. But more importantly, as we are children of the God that this world hates and rejects, we too will be hated and rejected. Not for being obnoxious, not for insisting on unbiblical things. Not for isolating ourselves from our fellow brothers in Adam. But for proclaiming both a rightful wrath from God against sinful flesh and a mercy which demands an admission of guilt and which demanded a sacrifice of ultimate price.
Paul knows that suffering would span the entire age between his writing and our time. And he knows that because of the flesh which remains and the volume of the suffering that at times these things would prevent us from seeing the depth of the love of Christ for us in our adoption, in the putting away of wrath. It would at times lead us to doubt His love for us. And even, as horrible as it sounds, to wonder if He had abandoned us, in our suffering and in our sin. So he exhorts us to see the nature of our relationship as being ultimately strong and indefeatable. He wants us to see the rigor of Christs love for us. We need to be reminded of His love daily. If we are cold, if we are dry, if we hunger for God, if we are hardened, this is where we are to come. To be reminded of our adoption as children of the Father.
An Undying and Unbreakable Love and Covenant
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (29)
Paul's reasoning here is this, if the very judge of all things the one who will, in righteousness judge the entire world, is the very one that predestined you for salvation; called you to Himself; made you right with Himself and gave you the hope of Glory, then who remains to judge you? Then who is that is of any consequence who could impact this grace?
In fact, this Judge now makes intercession for you at the right hand of the Father. He is not your judge, but your Savior.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)