[07/29/19]
This is going to get long. I suppose it should be obvious that when we come to Him who is the fundamental focus of the entirety of the Bible, and of all history, it’s going to take some time to properly explore the subject. I shouldn’t be too bothered by this, except that thoughts of the eventual website conversion can’t help but enter my thoughts as I look at even the outline of what I think I want to say. None of that, however, has bearing on the proper pursuit of this task I have set for myself, to explore what it is I believe and why. Here, too, it must be said that Jesus, the Son of God, takes His rightful, central and all-encompassing place.
So, then, it is my thought to pursue a similar set of topics as I did with the Father, and in similar order. However, before I feel I am ready to even begin that part, there is a whole separate facet of the subject of the Son that I think needs exploration. For, here in the Son of God we find God become man and stepping into the flesh and bone world of creation. He Who established the course of history by His will and planning stepped into history, became a very real part of it. This smacks of being the stuff of legend, except that unlike legend, there is pretty solid and clear evidence for the historicity of His presence. Men may debate the how and why of Him, but as to His very real being in time and place, there can be no reasonable reason to doubt.
The historicity of the Biblical account of His life has been challenged repeatedly, and those challenges have proven wrong repeatedly. The validity of those who recorded their witness of His life has been accused of inaccuracy only to discover that the actual inaccuracies were not in the gospel accounts, but in the supposed historical knowledge of the accuser. Time and again, the evidence, physical evidence, hard fact and tactile data, has upheld the biblical account. Events have been corroborated, the reality of the existence of this Jesus from Nazareth, as well as His crucifixion are noted by extra-biblical writers, and writers not particularly sympathetic to the cause of Christ.
It is not my purpose in this text to explore those extra-biblical sources, nor to offer an extended apologetic for why one should believe in the Son. Or, perhaps that is a reason for this writing that I am not considering, yet remains necessarily present as an undercurrent. At any rate, I am more concerned with establishing that my own foundations are sound, my own understanding properly in line with the revealed word of the God who revealed Himself to me. That is not, let me stress, a claim to revelation on my part. I have nothing to add to the text of Scripture, nor does the text of Scripture need anything added to it. I am just wrangling with myself, I think, as I contemplate the subject at hand, for it is the chief subject, the very core of Christian faith. How could it not be, with this faith so fully identified with the person of Jesus, the Christ of God?
i. The Person of Jesus
So, then, I suppose the proper place to start is right there. Who is this person? Who is Jesus of Nazareth? We are not left without answer, not at all. We have two accounts of His birth and lineage, one from Matthew’s gospel and one from Luke’s. We might say, then, that we have both the Jewish and the Gentile perspective on just who this man was. I’m not sure that would be quite the proper view, but the respective backgrounds of these two authors is bound to flavor their perspective on Jesus.
What is quite clear is that Jesus was born to a young mother, by our standards certainly, in the north of Israel. Her home was in Nazareth of Galilee, but as the record reveals, her family’s roots were in Bethlehem in Judea. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was betrothed to one Joseph, a carpenter from that same town of Nazareth. Of Joseph, about all that Luke feels it necessary to convey to us is that he was of David’s line (Lk 1:27). He was with Mary at Jesus’ birth, there in Bethlehem (Lk 2:17), and would seem to have been around still as Jesus grew up, for we see that He travelled to Jerusalem with His parents at age of twelve (Lk 2:42). Yet, when Jesus spoke of His Father and His Father’s house, it was clear that He was not thinking of Joseph and their humble abode up in Nazareth (Lk 2:49).
From Matthew’s account, we learn much of Jesus’ lineage (Mt 1:1-16). Much is made of the discrepancies between this account and Luke’s. The general sense of it is that Matthew follows Joseph’s line where Luke follows Mary’s. This might seem a misunderstanding on Matthew’s part, given that Joseph was not the physiological father of Jesus, and that is a rather critical point. But, his record recognizes Joseph as the legitimizing, legal father of Jesus, in human terms, all the while acknowledging that, he ‘kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son, and he called His name Jesus’ (Mt 1:25). Matthew hasn’t lost sight of the critical point, but he also knows the importance of genealogy to his readership, and provides them with a relatively full accounting all the way back to Abraham. He is of the tribe, and most importantly, of David’s line.
Matthew shows us at least a little bit more of Joseph’s involvement. We find in him a pretty solid young man. He is, not surprisingly, a bit put off to find his betrothed pregnant without his involvement. Yet, even in what must have been a shocking blow to him, he acts honorably, seeking to keep any damage to her to a minimum. Yes, he supposes, he must divorce her, but he can do so quietly. But, it seems Joseph is also a godly man, and when he hears from God, he does not pass it off as nonsense. He heeds. So, he stays with Mary. So, he keeps her a virgin until Jesus is born. So, he takes mother and child off to Egypt for a season, to avoid the ravages of Herod (Mt 2). Even so, beyond these brief mentions, Joseph fades quickly from the scene, and the assumption is that he died during Jesus’ youth, leaving Mary to raise Him. We are not told of a remarriage on her part, yet the number of his brothers and sisters suggest that either Joseph was very prolific or she did indeed remarry at some juncture.
Forgive my vagueness, and any inaccuracies here, but it is something of a side topic and I am not researching it deeply at this juncture. My primary objective just now is to establish the personhood and origins of Jesus of Nazareth.
[07/30/19]
So, then, through the line of Joseph, Jesus is given legitimacy in the eyes of the law. He has an earthly father to give name to Him, though that name is chosen by His Father in heaven. He has lineage in the kingly line of David, the tribe of Benjamin. He has connection to Abraham, to whom the promise of the covenant was given. Luke’s tracing of His lineage has its divergent points (Lk 3:23-38), but again finds its way to David, then to Abraham, and proceeds right along to Adam, and finally to God. As I said, the divergence appears to be a matter of which parent is taken for the starting point, and the general assumption is that Matthew pursues the line of Joseph where Luke follows the line of Mary. Observe that from mention of Joseph there is immediate difference, with Matthew identifying Jacob as father to Joseph, but Luke looking past Joseph who was ‘supposedly’ the father, to Eli. Likewise, once we get past David, the lines diverge, with Matthew’s course proceeding through Solomon, and onward through the royal line. He proceeds through Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Hezekiah, and Josiah, on the positive side of that royal ledger. But we also find Ahaz and Manasseh. Luke, on the other hand, follows Nathan, down a different branch, rejoining after the exile with Shealtiel, father of Zerubbabel. What to make of this? Again, the general conclusion is that we see both parents traced, and that through both parents, there is connection at those critical junctures; at the beginning of the covenant people in Abraham, at the arrival of the royal promise in David, at the restoration of the exiles and the rebuilding of the temple with Zerubbabel.
The sum of this, it seems to me, is that whereas the father’s line lends connection to the line of the promised seed, and gives legitimacy to Jesus in the eyes of the law and of man, removal of Joseph from an active role in the birth of Jesus does not alter the claims of lineage. He is still of the royal line through the line of Mary, and as such, no argument against His legitimate claim to the throne can be made on the basis of Joseph’s lack of paternity.
In keeping with this line of thought, it is to be observed how regularly Luke demonstrates an interest in the involvement of women in the life and work of Jesus. That same interest demonstrates in his tracing of Jesus’ line, as he mentions several of the women connected to that line, and particularly those whose presence in the genealogy of God’s own Son must be rather unexpected. So it is that we find Ruth the Moabitess mentioned, and Rahab, who was a Canaanite prostitute before joining God’s people. We find Tamar, and Bathsheba, upon both of whom men of God fathered children of illegitimacy. And yet, those sons furthered the chosen genealogy of the Seed. It seems clear that whereas Matthew is chiefly concerned with showing the strong royal line, Luke has an eye to accommodating the reader to news of the virgin birth; the rather shocking nature of the Son born out of wedlock, as it were.
But, this Jesus was very real, and very much born into real life as a real human being in real history in the reality of Roman occupied Israel. Though of the royal line, He was born in the least respected districts of Israel, so far as Jewish thought went, for the region of Galilee was the land of the northern tribes, and not of faithful Judah. Then, too, it was a land with many Gentiles resident, and this must have rendered the populace a tad suspect in the eyes of the Pharisees and company. Nathanael’s question, one suspects, reflected a common mindset in Israel. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (Jn 1:46). Having asked Nathanael’s question, I will offer Philip’s reply. “Come and see!”
ii. The Christ, Messiah
[07/31/19]
It is common enough to see the words Jesus and Christ in conjunction, whether as Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, and as such the term Christ begins to be treated as if it were a proper name. But then, the very fact that these position of the term may be either before or after the proper name of Jesus suggests otherwise. I would not, for example, ever expect hear myself referred to as Wilcox Jeff, except it be with a comma inserted betwixt. They are, together, a proper name and they are used in a proper order. But, as concerns Jesus, either order is to be observed, and that is precisely because Christ is not a proper name, but more properly a title. Indeed, though we see it but rarely in written form, it really ought to be understood as always preceded by the definite article. It is Jesus the Christ, or the Christ Jesus.
But, this term, for all our Christian upbringing, is somewhat obscure to us. We recognize the One to whom it applies, but as to its meaning, we can be a bit hazy. Well, Christ is Messiah. True, but while that supplies us with another word, it really doesn’t add to our body of meaning. The Messiah is the Anointed One. And again, that is true, but while marginally expanding our vocabulary, it doesn’t really provide any useful data for our understanding of the Christ.
Anointing, after all, really doesn’t apply much to our day to day world any more. We may see ritual observations of such an act on occasion, primarily to do with prayers for healing in particularly severe cases, and even there the application of an anointing with oil is based on a rather suspect understanding, I think. But, we have some idea of this being a marking out for office. We have that idea because we see it repeatedly in Scripture.
We see that Aaron, for example, was anointed with oil, him and all his clothes, as a consecration for service. (Ex 28:41). This same action was taken with all the equipment of the tabernacle, and for the same reason: To ordain and consecrate for service to God. Still, it seems we are piling up terms whose meanings are at best vaguely understood. Perhaps we had best try and make a start at defining terms.
a. What is it to ordain?
At root, to ordain is to make one’s office official, typically with accompanying ceremonial acts. Thus, for a pastor or for an elder there is the laying on of hands by the current elders and pastors. There is indeed deep spiritual significance to this act, as will be attested by those who have undergone such an ordination. But, observe that the act confirms what is already the case. It is commonly the practice that the one who is being ordained as a pastor has in fact been serving in such capacity for some time, and with good reason. It provides opportunity to both train and assess the one who would take such office, to do our best to ascertain whether indeed this one is called to the office. For elders, it may or may not be so thoroughgoing a process, but there is, one hopes, a validation of calling even there, and an assessment of qualification to serve in that capacity. More to my immediate point, the elder did not become an elder in that moment of ordination, but was already an elder, and may very well have already been serving in that office for a period before arrangements could be made to perform this more ceremonial, confirming act.
If I return to the Hebrew underlying this action, however, I may find some additional significance to the term. I note, for example, that the KJV speaks of anointing conjoined with consecration and sanctification in this verse. Sanctification, qadash, considers a marking out as ceremonially or morally clean. This gets right to the root of anointing in its most original application, for the oils and such were matters of hygiene, if not in this specific formulation. The anointing oil for the priesthood was a very specific mixture and to be used for no other purpose. But, the symbolic point of the act was not so different from the normal activity of washing, either as to its form or as to its purpose. This is presented to us in the causative Pi’el form, it is a declaration of cleanliness or making clean. It is also in the Perfect tense, indicating a completed action.
This is not an aspect of ordination we ordinarily consider, and yet it seems to me to be the chief point and purpose of the action. By ordination, one is declared to have been made clean, washed of sin and of sin’s guilt. It can be argued that as sanctification is an ever ongoing activity in the life of the believer, it would be inappropriate to declare one to have finished the process already. Fortunately, the Perfect tense doesn’t require us to see it as already done, only as being assured of completion.
In light of Christian life, this makes perfect sense. We recognize that our sanctification, our ordination if you will, is indeed a life-long process, and one in which we make headway by fits and starts. Yet, we also recognize that the end result of this process is not dependent upon our action and effort, at least not upon them alone. While I sincerely doubt that one has cause to expect the work of sanctification to proceed apace where one is not personally invested and active in the process, even so the outcome is not dependent upon that active involvement. It depends upon God who has declared the end from the beginning, and that declaration includes our ordination as sons and daughters of the Most High. We are, that is to say, already confirmed in and assured of our eventual state of sanctification. It is assured because it is He Who began the good work Who will complete it. It is confirmed by Him in order that we may know that assurance. Our fitness for service is not, then, due to our personal energies in pursuit of this end, but because He already sees the end result, and in fact ensures that end result. Knowing the trend-line, if you will, He is pleased to have us serve now with the work at such stage of progress as it has attained by His good work in us.
So, then, ordination as connects with our primary quest for significance in the term Christ is, as it is with our more earth-bound representatives, a confirmation of preexisting status. It is a marking out as clean and fit for service.
ii. The Christ, Messiah
b. What is it to consecrate?
[08/01/19]
Moses writes of consecration in conjunction with sanctification as being the significance of the priestly anointing. Here, his choice of word is most interesting, as the word chose is male’, with a primary meaning of filling up or completing, perhaps satisfying. I think we must hear it in that latter sense, of satisfying the requirements of purification, perhaps, or fulfilling a vow or promise. I have to say this is not generally how I think of consecration. But, it has the same syntactical aspects as did mention of sanctification. It is a causative, Pi’el in perfect tense. It is declaring the act which was caused to be completed, or as certain of completion as to allow it to be spoken of as already complete. I could almost take it as the stamp of sanctification completed, but I don’t think that’s quite the idea.
Looking a bit further, I see that it may also take on the sense of confirmation, or to be confirmed in the Pi’el usage. That fits more with my understanding of consecration, but even there it differs from the standard meaning of the term. Looking to English dictionaries, consecration has to do with setting apart for sacred use, a devoting of person or thing to that purpose. To my eye, it looks not so much like the completion of the vow, but the taking up of that vow. But, it adds the sense of being confirmed in the fitness of taking up that vow. This is where the anointing aspect comes in. It is a public affirmation of the vow presented in consecration. Yes, here is one set apart for the Lord, to be used of Him for His purposes all his days.
ii. The Christ, Messiah
c. What, then, is it to anoint?
This brings us back to the matter of anointing. It is chiefly a ceremonial action, as we see it here, and serves as visible confirmation of those things represented in the one anointed. He is declared to have been sanctified and to now be consecrated to the Lord’s exclusive use. This does not mean he is to henceforth be free of all usual human relations. Certainly this could not have been required of the Aaronic priesthood, else Aaron would have been not only the first in that order, but also the last.
So, here we have mashach, to rub with oil, or paint with oil, if you like. It is an action fundamentally associated with this idea of consecration, and I suspect you can see in the term itself that it relates to Messiah, but let me come back to that. As far as human involvement goes, we haven’t really added anything to the previous matter of consecration. It’s the act by which the ceremony is done. We understand, hopefully, that the oil itself has no particular power or holiness to it, in spite of its being a very specific formulation used for this purpose and this purpose alone, much like the incense was to be used upon the altar of incense at the appointed times, and for no other purpose. But, this uniqueness was not indicative of some special power inherent in the ordained mixture. Rather, it was a further symbolizing of the consecrated, set apart nature of those things. They were for God’s use, and God’s use only, as those who would be anointed by the oil were set apart for God’s use, and God’s use only.
I will touch very briefly on the passage from James in regard to anointing the sick with oil. This is quite clearly something very different. Certainly, it is not setting that sick one aside as servant of the Lord, to be used of Him only. It might just be construed as committing this one to the Lord as the only one Who can heal him, but I don’t see that this is the intention. What is? Well, for one we shall have to observe that the term before us, aleipho, is not restricted to the religious, ceremonial application, which would instead use the term chrio. And again, you see that this connects with Christos, or Christ. This could be a simple matter of taking joy in the one thus anointed, or giving honor to said person. It might be even simpler; a matter of physical comfort and relaxation undertaken after bath. Then, too, there is a medicinal application, as we see in James 5:14.
Here is where things become interesting. In many circles, there is the sense that this connection of anointing oil and elder prayer somehow renders the whole thing more holy, as if the oil consecrated the prayers or some such. Certainly, within the more Charismatic denominations this holds, but even in more Conservative denominations, this might be seen as appropriate understanding of the matter, and in very serious cases, the elders might indeed apply a touch of oil in conjunction with prayer. Now, it’s quite possible that this act heighten the participants’ sense of the power of prayer, but what it does not do is render the prayer more powerful, or more likely to obtain the desired end.
What would seem to be the case in this passage, and quite in keeping with James’ general emphasis on active faith, active love demonstrating in works befitting faith and love, is that one do what lies within one’s power to address the illness, as well as praying. James does not mention the particular composition of this oil, nor do we find anything in the way of a ceremonial oil declared for use in Christian ordinances. It is more likely that he has in view such oils and ointments as would have been thought suited to the case, perhaps infused with medicinal herbs, ala the modern day infatuation with so-called essential oils. But, as far as significance goes, there is nothing to distinguish this act from, say, applying a tourniquet or a bandage, or even providing transport to the hospital. There is nothing, to take the extreme example, to distinguish this anointing with oil with applying chemotherapy or its like. Yes, pray. Most assuredly pray, and pray fervently! But, if this is all you do and it lies within your power to have done more, where is the love?
Now, let me fetch back to that other term, chrio. Here we find a definite connotation of appointment, beginning with Jesus’ first public message, wherein He read from the text of Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk 4:18-19). Indeed, of the five times this term appears in Scripture, four quite clearly apply specifically to Jesus; two by name, and two by contextual inference. That last pertains to Paul’s commission as apostle, or perhaps to believers more generally. I should have to study the passage more thoroughly to make the call. “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge” (2Co 1:21-22). I am inclined to take the broader application, as including the same sweep of ‘us’ as would apply to those who are sealed and given the Spirit as a pledge.
That would include the whole number of the elect in its application, which is to say all who are Christians indeed, and not merely Christians in name. To be a Christian is to have been sealed, and given the Spirit as a pledge. There can be no separating the two. If the question is asked whether so and so is a Spirit-filled Christian, then there is a tautology in the question. Is he a Christian? If yes, then he is also Spirit-filled. Is he Spirit-filled? If yes, then he is a Christian. Now, he who is not in fact Spirit-filled might refer to himself as a Christian, and many a poseur does this very thing, but calling oneself something does not make oneself something. For such a one, the answer to this question, asked whatever way, must be no. He is not Spirit-filled. He is not a Christian despite his claims to the contrary.
But, for the elect, here is something of significance. If I read this aright, then every one of us is anointed, consecrated and set apart for God’s exclusive use. This makes sense for a people of whom Peter says we have been made a nation of priests, a royal priesthood for our God. Priests were ever anointed for their office, and that hasn’t changed with the priesthood of all believers. What has changed is that whereas the act used to be undertaken with the symbolic application of oil, now it is undertaken with the very real antitype of the Spirit. Yes, there is some connection between this consecrating oil and the Holy Spirit, but the former does not impart the latter by any stretch of the imagination. At best, it symbolizes the reality of the Spirit’s anointing presence in the individual, and as such, also symbolizes the election of this one by the Father.
ii. The Christ, Messiah
d. How does this inform the role of Messiah?
[08/02/19]
Turning to the role or office of the Messiah, what is to be found? It may vary by translation used, but in the NASB, the only actual mention of Messiah to be found is in Daniel 9:25-26, and beyond that we have but two uses of the term in John 1:41 and John 4:25. That John takes note of that term without feeling the need to explain further seems significant, especially given the settings. We find it first in the narrative of the first time the disciples met Jesus, there where John the Baptist was ministering. Andrew, having heard John the Baptist identify Jesus as the one who was to come, finds his brother Peter and says, “We have found the Messiah” (Jn 1:41). Here, actually, John at least offers the equivalent Greek term, Christ, by way of explanation. But, observe that by Andrew’s comment, it’s pretty clear that he expected Peter, and whoever else might hear, to know who was meant.
Again, as Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well, there is this expression of apparently common knowledge. “I know that Messiah is coming. When that One comes, He will declare all things to us” (Jn 4:25). Here, too, is the notice that Christ and Messiah are of the same meaning and indicate the same One. But, we also get a sense of the expected Messianic role in that He would be declaring all things to His people – and by the way, His people would certainly include the Samaritans in her thinking. She might not have been so sure of the Jews down in Jerusalem. But, Jesus is not shy of His knowledge. “I who speak to you am He”, He informs her (Jn 4:26).
So far so good, although it seems much of this applies more to topics I have set under the next few heads. What of that which has been covered? Certainly, Messiah is to be understood as one who is consecrated and set apart for God’s exclusive use, and certainly in the Messiah, we are seeing that consecrated, sanctified state not merely declared complete, but complete in fact. This is a cornerstone matter to understand in regard to the Son. In His incarnate being, throughout those thirty or so years when He was a physical presence on the earth, He was fully sanctified, and always set apart for God – consecrated from the womb.
Much of the Gospel record goes toward making this clear, whether or not it is proclaimed outright. When we see Jesus remaining behind at the temple in Jerusalem, it might possibly be argued that he sinned in not honoring mother and father, but that would misrepresent the case. As He observes, “Why were you looking for Me? Didn’t you know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49). They didn’t understand Him, says Luke, and easy to see why. That pair of questions could readily be interpreted as simply asking them why they didn’t just look for Him here in the obvious place, rather as if He was saying, “Where else would I be?” But, I rather think the strength of necessity expressed there goes beyond matters of assumed knowledge. He’s not merely asking them why they didn’t realize the obvious. He is expressing the necessity of obedience on His part. “I had to be in My Father’s house.” It’s not that this was where they should have looked first, it’s that He had no real choice in the matter. The obedience of sanctified consecration required it of Him, and He could do no other.
Just so does Paul sum up His earthly ministry and life. “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Php 2:8). This was critical, this entire, unfailing obedience. This was what the Law of Moses demanded of every man, and what every man, from the moment of his birth, and I should insist, even from the moment of his conception, has failed to do. But, the Messiah, the Anointed One, He did not arrive with the taint of original sin. This was the necessity of the virgin birth; that He might be born without sin, a needful precursor to living a life without sin.
Let’s go back now to that which Paul said to the Corinthians. “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge” (2Co 1:21-22). He who establishes us and anoints us is God. We may say the same in the case of Messiah. He is anointed by God else the anointing is of no real consequence. Perhaps I need to stress this point just a bit more. To be sure, man often has a hand in the act of anointing, as I observed previously in regard to officers of the church. Certainly, we see the same in the Old Testament, with Samuel anointing kings, Moses anointing priests, and so on. But, the acts of Samuel and even of Moses would be to no purpose except they had been undertaken in accord with God’s choice and direction. In the case of Moses, we need look no further than his unauthorized striking of the rock at Meribah (Nu 20:11). What was true of his use of the staff was equally true of his other actions. They were of value only so far as they obeyed the Lord’s will and command. Had his many declarations as to the law of righteousness not been promulgating the truth of God’s will, they would have no value whatsoever. But, because they did, that Law condemns all who disobey, which is to say all, Moses included.
But here I am seeking to keep my considerations on the Messiah, the Anointed One. He, too, is anointed by God, and as we have seen, that anointing has the purpose, even the causative purpose of establishing and completing the work of sanctification and consecration in the one anointed. For most, it would be taken as a pledge of that eventual outcome. For the Messiah, it was and is uniquely a confirmation that said outcome is already realized in full, and shall proceed unchanged forever.
Since it’s right here before my eyes from trying to find the Meribah reference, let me simply observe this which Moses proclaims to God’s people. “The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He” (Dt 32:4). As Paul would later observe to the Corinthians, “They all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ” (1Co 10:4). This at one and the same time identifies for us who it was that Moses extolled as perfect, and also explains why that event at Meribah was so terrible. The Rock was Christ, and Moses struck out against the Rock. He may have been unaware of what he did in that event, but as ever, ignorance is no excuse in matters of law.
But, back to Messiah again. His work is perfect. All His ways are just. He is righteous and upright. This is Messiah. This is Jesus. It demonstrates repeatedly throughout the record of His life and ministry, and lest we think that perhaps the writers of the gospels were simply unaware of His sins, or chose to omit them, the powerful fact of His resurrection serves as confirmation that His death, though it came upon a cross, and as such pronounced Him accursed, even by Mosaic standards: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Gal 3:13, quoting Dt 21:23), yet God the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, chose to restore Him to life. Alternately understood, He was granted by the Father to take His life back up (Jn 10:18). Indeed, that announcement is worth reading in full. “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” Observe: It was commanded; both the laying down of His life, and its restoration. Indeed, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again” (Jn 10:17). Because He was obedient unto death, even death on the cross, the Father was pleased to express His love for His Son by seeing Him not only restored to life, but restored to heaven.
[08/03/19]
If the resurrection was insufficient to establish His perfection, observe the Ascension. Here we encounter a thing seen but twice before in Scripture, and then only in pale shadow of this event. What we know of Enoch is but a brief note in Moses’ genealogical records. He was born to Jared, and fathered Methuselah amongst others. Beyond that, he lived 365 years, walking with God, and then ‘he was not, for God took him’ (Ge 5:18-24). Now, as eulogies go, that’s not bad, certainly, but therein lies the entire sum of his long life. From Luke, we learn that he was in the line of Jesus (Lk 3:37), and Hebrews 11:5 confirms the understanding that Enoch did not die as men do, but was ‘taken up so that he should not see death’. The author further explains, “He obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Heb 11:5-6).
Again, this is no poor eulogy, but rather a testimony greatly to be desired. Yet, I will comfortably maintain that were we to observe the full detail of Enoch’s life, we would find that he was not without sin any more than David, the man after God’s own heart, was sinless. Indeed, the line of Jesus is replete with sinners, start to finish, as it must be, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Ro 3:23). It is on this point that Messiah breaks the mold, possessing and demonstrating in His person the fullness of that which anointing was designed to indicate.
What of Elijah? Certainly we find in Elijah a man who accomplished great things for God, a worker of wonders and a scourge of the wicked. At the same time, we had best recognize that the actual doer of Elijah’s deeds is God. Elijah certainly understood this. And, we can say with certainty that Elijah, too, was a sinner in the grip of mighty God. He had his doubts at times, and that alone confirms his status as a sinner like the rest of us. Certainly, we see more of Elijah’s life than we do of Enoch’s. But, what particularly concerns me at present is the end of his days. “The LORD was about to take up Elijah by a whirlwind to heaven” (2Ki 2:1), but he did not go unprepared. He passed his office to another, to Elisha. As to his departure, it seems Elisha alone was present to witness it, though others, ‘the sons of the prophets’ at Jericho recognized that Elisha had indeed inherited not just the mantle of Elijah, but his spirit and office. “Then it came about as they were going along talking”, they being Elijah and Elisha, “that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven” (2Ki 2:11). The impact on Elisha was rather immediate, not least because this sight which he had just witnessed fulfilled Elijah’s promise to him that he should receive a double portion of that spirit which had been upon him. While this is spoken of as Elijah’s spirit, surely we must recognize it as the Holy Spirit. Elisha found further confirmation of what had transpired in that he walked to the Jordan and struck the waters, and those waters divided for him to cross over (2Ki 2:15).
Clearly there is connection here to the example of Moses and Joshua, which is to say there was confirmation of Elisha’s position as a leader, a spiritual leader in Israel. Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea, and Joshua appointed the positioning of the priests and the Ark of the Covenant as Israel entered the Promised Land, crossing this same Jordan river, and quite possibly at much the same point, for lo, across the way lies Jericho. This striking of the Jordan, then, is no random display of power for Elisha, but a highly significant marker of his status as one appointed and anointed by God. Again, I cannot stress enough that in all these cases, in every event of miraculous occurrence which we encounter, it is not the individual set before us that we are to have in view, as if they had conjured up the event by their own doing, but rather, it is God who is to be seen, working out His purpose through that individual.
So, what, if anything, has all this to do with Jesus and His ascension? I say that as much as these were very real events in the lives of very real individuals, yet they were but types and shadows of Him who was to come. For one, as I have insisted, these two men, for all that they were taken up to heaven, were not perfect. Jesus was and is. Concerning Enoch and his role in things, we really don’t know a great deal beyond him being an exemplar of faithful living, and perhaps faithful parenting, for Methuselah went on to live an even longer life, by which we are to recognize that sin had less of a hold, I think. There is, after all, a clear connection in the whole of Moses’ genealogies, between length of days and holiness of life. The general trend is actually towards shorter spans, as sin’s effects are felt, but up to Methuselah, that trend is not so strongly felt, and lifespans are significantly longer, even tenfold longer, than we would expect even today. And he walked with God. That’s the testimony. If it could be said of him, it can be said with far greater conviction of Jesus.
As to Elijah, we know there is clear connection between his life and the expectations of Messiah, and these are not just because Israelites had formed their theories. It was proclaimed. “I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.” (Mal 4:5-6). It was God’s final word to man, prior to the arrival of Jesus. Yet, as we come to understand, it was not of Jesus that Malachi wrote, but of the forerunner, whom we find arrived in John the Baptist. This fact Jesus confirms. “He himself is Elijah, who was to come” (Mt 11:14b). Yes, they had held to the fact that Elijah came before Messiah, but as Jesus observes, “Elijah has indeed come, and they did to him whatever they wished, just as it is written of him” (Mk 9:3). Yes, there were those who allowed as much of Jesus as that he might be Elijah returned (Lk 9:8), but in this they were not merely wrong, but displaying a great deal of superstition. The idea of Elijah returning bodily, while it can certainly be read into Malachi’s prophecy, was not the intent. God doesn’t recycle.
Elijah did, in fact, return briefly, together with Moses, but so as to confirm Messiah, as He stood atop the mountain, at least partially revealed in His true glory (Mk 9:4). I say partially because had He stood in His full glory, I don’t suppose for a moment that Peter, James, or John would have survived the event to let us know about it. So, then, what are we to understand of Jesus? Well, I would suggest that in His ascension we see an event quite like that of Elijah’s assumption. Further, we see that the ascension of Jesus was well-attested, a scene witnessed by hundreds, not one successor. This is in part because there is no successor. Jesus the Messiah is permanently in office, and there is no need to pass the mantel to another.
I say that this affirms Jesus’ status as the Anointed. He is singularly and uniquely the Anointed. Others have known anointing, and others have been used of God to pursue particular points of His purpose. Jesus alone has claim to have been the Anointed from before the beginning, and to be the Anointed well after the end. Jesus alone embodies a life that demonstrated the claim of anointing in full and to perfection. Jesus alone, even amongst these three examples, tasted death and yet lived. Enoch and Elijah were taken up, yes, but they did not taste death. Jesus did. He not only tasted it, He effectively swallowed it whole and thereby defeated death. Life won on the day that death came to challenge Him, and in that victory His obedience was declared absolute.
That last that is said of Elijah is this: “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” (Jas 5:17a). It comes as an encouragement to pray and pray fruitfully, with the purposes of heaven in mind. Let me look briefly at the entirety of that brief comment. “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit” (Jas 5:17-18). Stop here and all you have is a power play. Yes, Elijah could control the weather if he so chose. But, first, that is a gross overestimate of Elijah’s say in the matter, and second, it is a gross underestimate of the purpose of such answer to prayer. God remains in control. Our prayers do not change Him from His perfect course. His answers, while they often come in response to earnest prayer, do not depend upon that prayer to come. Neither do they always, or even generally I dare say, come in a form that reflects directly what was asked. They come as best serves the true heart of prayer, which must ever and always be the purpose of God.
Thus, James does not stop with games of weather control. He observes a point. “My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth, and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins” (Jas 5:19-20). This is not a disconnected thought. James is not ending his letter with, “Oh, just one more thing.” No, this is the same thing. How does one turn a sinner from his error? The same way Elijah turned the weather, so to speak; and that way is prayer. Yes, there is a place for active involvement, but if action is the sum total of our efforts, our efforts are almost certain to have been in vain. Effort alone will not correct the sinner on his course. It requires God, and God does move responsive to prayer where that prayer is offered with the kingdom in view. Surely, that prayer offered in hopes that a sinner might be turned from his error has the kingdom in view. It is not a guarantee that said sinner is to be found among the elect. God may not turn this one from his error, but the purpose of prayer in this case is in no doubt. It wants what God wants: That none should be lost. It is also, one most devoutly hopes, offered with the humility of Christ Himself. “Nevertheless, Thy will be done.”
When Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do,” was that prayer answered? Oh, indeed it was! And it continues to be answered to this day, and shall so continue so long as there is a today. But, the answer was not for all. The answer was for those whom the Father is pleased to give to the Son. Forgiveness was not to be granted free of charge, for such a course could hardly uphold the Justice, the Righteousness of a holy God. But, forgiveness was to be granted – through the atoning death of Christ. His death would be their forgiveness, whom God was pleased to forgive. The prayer would be answered, but not by some miraculous intervention that would obviate the need for the Cross. Rather, that prayer would be answered through the miraculous intervention of the One upon that Cross. His ascension, His taking up His seat upon the throne of God, proclaimed to one and all that forgiveness had in fact been granted in response to His prayer, and indeed, a vast multitude of sins were covered, and a planet full of souls were saved from death.
This so far exceeds what could be attributed to the assumption of Enoch or Elijah. They saved no one by their taking up. They may have perhaps boosted the faith of a few here and there, say Methuselah and Elisha at the least, but it was not they who did so, rather God who used their last moments as He had presumably used the rest of their days. They may have ascended into heaven on the near side of death, but they did not ascend to a throne. They did not take up the rule of God’s realm. Jesus did. More properly, Jesus took it back up, for in truth He had never ceased to rule that realm; the realm He had created at the Father’s word – as the Father’s Word.
ii. The Christ, Messiah
e. What else may be said of Messiah?
[08/04/19]
If I look at the use of this word Messiah, or mashiyach, is used in the OT, it indicates the one who is anointed. This appears in varied connection. There is, earliest on, the priest that is anointed (Lev 4:3). Later, we are given to understand that at least in Israel, the king is also anointed (1Sa 2:10). In both cases, as I think I already observed regarding Aaron, the anointing may have been performed by man, but it was done by God. Interestingly, in both of these cases, it might be said to have been done through the agency of a prophet of God, Moses as concerns the first priests, and Samuel as concerns the kings. The anointing of prophets seems to take a form both more private and more direct. We do not generally see any human agency in their anointing, but rather a direct commissioning from on high, witnessed not by man but by the validity of their pronouncements. I note that in this their commissioning is more in line with that of the judges that periodically arose in Israel before there were kings.
David, for all that he was anointed to become king of Israel, recognized very well that as the anointing was the LORD’s to bestow, so the timing was His to determine. Thus, as much as he was misused and threatened by Saul, he would not take matters into his own hands, even when they were practically put in his hands. We find him facing Saul, and easily able to deal with Saul quite finally. But, he does nothing, instead pointing out to Saul, “The LORD render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness: For the LORD delivered thee into my hands today, but I would not stretch forth my hand against the LORD’s anointed” (1Sa 26:23). Observe as well that Saul’s abject failures in following God did not change his status. He remained the LORD’s anointed.
Now, this takes us farther from direct application to Messiah, but I do want to observe that the idea of being God’s anointed expands beyond these three offices of leadership, and extends to the whole people of God. Concerning the people of God as they trekked through the wilderness, the Psalmist writes, “And they wandered about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people. He permitted no man to oppress them, and He reproved kings for their sakes: ‘Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm’” (Ps 105:13-15). I observe that in this case, ‘My prophets’ covers the whole of the people, all of whom are likewise encompassed by ‘My anointed ones’. This certainly has application for the Church in our own day, for we are the people of God, the children of Abraham by the Spirit. We are God’s anointed ones, His prophets, set here to proclaim His mighty deeds to one and all. We are to speak as He gives us voice and word. We are to be truthful as He is Truthful. We are to be faithful to the anointing He has set upon us, as His chosen servants.
If this is true of us, to bring this back on course, how much more it applies to Jesus the Messiah, the Anointed One. Amongst men, we find those who were anointed as prophets, those who were anointed as priests, and those who were anointed as kings. Each could rightly claim to have been appointed by God Himself. Each could provide confirmation of that appointment in one form or another. But, each was appointed to the one office, and the one alone. Prophet, priest, and king were kept separate, three more or less co-equal branches of government, and each in some degree answerable to the other. One wonders if perhaps there is a certain symbolic representation of the Trinity in that, but I don’t think I want to pursue the idea at this juncture.
In the Son, in Jesus, we are presented with the Anointed One, one who is in fact anointed to fulfill all three offices. As observed in His earthly mission, I would suggest He functioned primarily in the office of prophet, coming as the one like Moses. Like some of the prophets of old, He performed many signs and wonders. Like all the prophets of old, He came as the prosecutorial role of enforcing God’s Law, or at least forcing mindfulness of God’s Law. He came with accusation and judgment for those who set aside the Law of God, and particularly for those who did so with pretentions of holiness. He came also with hope for the repentant. He came, most of all, with the word of God, as the Word of God, teaching God’s people who God is and what He requires. In all of this, then, He served in the prophet’s office.
That is, up to the final act. In His closing days, He took up the priestly office, offering sacrifices, particularly the sacrifice of Himself on behalf of the people. He serve in the priestly office there at the Last Supper, praying on behalf of His own. He serves forevermore, as our eternal High Priest, fulfilling an office that had fallen into a most disreputable state by the time He had come to live among man. Consider simply that this office of high priest was to have been a lifetime appointment, and made by God. Yet, as He ministered in the land, we had both Annas and Caiaphas present and acting as high priest, Annas from the shadows, as it were, while Caiaphas held the title. And add to this that Rome had been granted say in who should fill that office. It had become a matter for bloodshed and politicking, neither of which have any place in the priestly role, let alone the high priestly office.
As concerns Jesus, the Messiah, He has taken up the office of High Priest to His people by the appointment of God the Father. This being a life-long office, and He being eternal, we may pronounce that office filled in perpetuity. Never again shall there be a high priest among men, nor any man to whom so great an honor is due as was due the high priest. That, though I’m not going to pursue it at this juncture, puts paid to the papacy, who think to set themselves as the prince of God or some such. They seek an authority on par with Jesus in the eyes of the people, but no such authority is given. We have one High Priest in Jesus the Messiah, the Christ of God’s own choosing. We have no need, nor any room for another.
Finally, as concerns the office of King, it is present wherever we hear Jesus spoken of as Lord. That is the kingly title, indeed, the name above all names. We see that office fulfilled but in part at this juncture, though it was the office Israel most desired to see fulfilled in Messiah. How they longed for a warrior king like David to toss off the Roman oppressor! But, it was not to be. Rome, too, served God, albeit unbeknownst to themselves. All earthly governments serve God, willingly or no, for all authority is from God, and nations rise and fall by His determination, and according to His timetable.
But, as for Jesus, we do not find a great deal of evidence for His kingship in those three years of ministry. There are hints of it, certainly, for instance in His testimony before Pilate. The key message for us is found there. “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm” (Jn 18:36). Pilate heard the claim. “So You are a king?” Jesus did not deny it. “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (Jn 18:37). Yes, Jesus is King, and in particular, King of those who are ‘of the truth’, those who are the called of God. But, His kingdom is not of this world, although it assuredly encompasses this world. His kingdom is the kingdom of God, which has broken forth into the world, and of which the Church may rightly be called an outpost when she is as she should be. But, His kingdom is in heaven and therein, He already sits upon the throne, a throne given Him by His Father.
So, then, if we are asking what more may be said of Jesus as Messiah, this is it. He is the one, the only One, appointed as Prophet, Priest, and King over the people of God. In this singular appointment, He is confirmed by God, by word, and by deed. “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him.” To Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue will confess that He is LORD. Some will do so in gladness, and many by force, but every knee shall in fact bow to the King of kings and the Lord of lords. I say He has been appointed to the trifold office, and in this office, He being eternal, He remains forever. So it was that whereas the people who condemned Him before Pilate shouted, “We have no king but Caesar,” the Christians, despite severest persecutions, found it needful to declare, “We have no King but Jesus.” So, those who went forth with the Gospel of Christ, preached one message, “Christ, and Him crucified” (1Co 2:2). So, such signs and wonders as they performed, they performed to one end, and one end only: That the kingdom of God might be advanced, and His children brought home to Him.
ii. The Christ, Messiah
f. How does this all transfer to the Christ?
As I observed well back in this section of my efforts, we have two terms that translate as anointed in the New Testament, but the one we are primarily concerned with is chrio, from which christos. The significance is entirely in keeping with what we have seen from the Old Testament example. It is a marking out for God’s exclusive use. It is a declaration there here is one sanctified by God and consecrated to God. It is a marker of God’s choice. As such, its primary application is unsurprisingly in connection with Jesus, whom ‘God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power’ (Ac 10:38). We’ve moved well beyond ceremonial application of oil, or even the use of oil for healing purposes, ala James. This is an anointing with the Holy Spirit. I can’t help but think of John the Baptist’s comment. “I baptize with water, but One is coming who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Lk 3:16). Fast forward to Acts 2, and we see this very event play out upon the Apostles, and those with them.
Yes, this is an anointing, a baptism. This is not a connection I had thought to make, but there it is. I think it might reasonably be said that baptism is a sort of anointing of God’s people. There is a reason, if this is the case, for us to hold to believer’s baptism. We may not experience the extreme, supernatural activities that defined this beginning in the upper room in Jerusalem, but that doesn’t alter the reality of the thing. Every Christian, as I have noted already, and will no doubt find it necessary to note again, is Spirit filled, else he is no Christian.
As to the Christ, we have this testimony. “Of the Son, He says, ‘Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. Thou has loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy companions’” (Heb 1:8-9). All that was expected of Messiah and more is transferred in full, more properly discovered in full, in Jesus the Christ of God. In this Christ, Whose throne is forever, we have a victorious King who never fails and never dies. We have our Advocate, our High Priest, bearing our prayers heavenward and pleading our case before His own throne. How that works, I could not say, yet there it is. We have our Prophet, the Word of God Who was made flesh and came and dwelt among us, and who shall do so once more at the culmination of all things. But, in that day we shall need no more a prophet, for He shall be with us and in us, that indeed He may be all and in all.
For the duration, though, how wonderful that we have this most tender of prophets to keep us mindful of our God, of His holiness and our need for repentance. How wonderful that we have this most marvelous of prophets to hold forth the possibility, nay, the certainty of forgiveness for them who truly repent. How utterly marvelous that so long as He may tarry and we remain, we have in His revealed word, the very truth of God exposed, everything needful for life and for salvation. We have no need to go chasing after all manner of esoteric pronouncements, or hunting about for those who will reach into heaven to bring down the word of God that we might know it. It is here. He has spoken, and He has seen to it across many ages that what He spoke remains intact and available to His children. However hard man and devil alike have tried to see that word destroyed, or altered to their tastes, every effort has failed, because greater is He who is in us, and in heaven, than he who is in the world. Death could not hold Him. Man can do Him no harm. No, nor can they destroy the truth of God, however hard they may try.
iii. The God/Man
[08/05/19]
One thing that marks out the Son uniquely amongst the Persons of the Godhead is His possession of both a human and a divine nature. This is a matter that has led to no end of wrestling with the Truth as the people of God came to grips with the reality of Messiah. In great degree, it was this subject that most drove the first councils of the Church. What was to be said about this Jesus? Who was right, and who was preaching heresy? So, the Apostles’ Creed insists, He ‘was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary’. His lineage, in this fashion, combines both, but again, not in the manner of the capricious gods of Greek mythology.
Perhaps the clearest declaration of this reality in Scripture comes with Paul’s greeting to the church in Rome. As he briefly states his gospel, ‘the gospel of God’ as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament (for they were the holy Scriptures then known), he identifies the subject of that gospel. The gospel was that, “concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (Ro 1:3-4a). Now, whether you take the reference as being to Mary or to Joseph, the first point remains unchanged. By either parent, he was a descendant of David according to the flesh. But in that Paul speaks of Him being born of a descendant, I think we can safely say it is Mary he has in view.
So, what was that all about? The virgin birth, the birth without benefit of a human father, was firstly a necessity if this One was to be born sinless. This takes us into matters of original sin, for all who have descended from Adam and his first sin against God have been born sinful, born sinners. As the sermon reminded us yesterday, taking R.C. Sproul’s words, we are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. Thus we are born and thus we proceed. But, for Jesus, this was not the case. Sin was not passed down to Him by paternal inheritance, and in terms of God’s economy for mankind, it is the paternal inheritance that has bearing. This was established in the founding of Israel and her rules of inheritance. Provision was made for those who died sonless, lest the tribes find themselves reduced and their territories thus lost. But, the rule remained one of paternal inheritance. I don’t think we need make more of this than is made by Scripture, but neither can we simply set it aside because it happens to bother folks in our day that it is so.
Be that as it may, as I say the first point is that Jesus was born sinless, a situation unknown to mankind since the first creating of Adam. And that, of course, gives us a greater significance to this event. Here was the second man that could be said to have been directly created by God, without the interpolating of secondary means. Adam, of course, was created by God and had no other as progenitor. But, every man and woman since had been born by the normal course of procreation. That has held true until Jesus, of whom no man could be credited as having fathered Him. The modern invention of in vitro fertilization and the implanting of embryos does nothing to alter this point. Man may have found a way to seed the uterus that do not directly involve intercourse, or perhaps even indirectly, I suppose. But, they have not removed the contributing work of man from the equation. Jesus and Adam alone could claim divine paternity, and Jesus alone could claim such paternity as one born to Him. Adam was made by God, but Jesus was indeed birthed by God, created in the womb as Adam had not been. I don’t know that we need attempt to place any much weight on the distinction, but it is there.
Needless to say, virgin birth is something rather difficult for us to accept. It’s certainly a rarity in the animal kingdom, although apparently not entirely unheard of. But, amongst mankind? No. This was a singular turn of events, and rather a hard sell. I can’t imagine it was easy for Mary to convince those who needed most to be convinced of it. Certainly Joseph wasn’t buying it, at least not before God sent angels to confirm her claims. But, I must observe that Joseph wasn’t left with dreams and visions alone to establish the veracity of Mary’s claim. He kept her a virgin until she gave birth (Mt 1:25). That birth would give physical evidence to back her claim, and establish the veracity of it as nothing else could. And while it is not said, I am inclined to think that said birth was not without witnesses beyond her husband, or at least the evidence that was thereby provided.
So unbelievable, however, was such a narrative that even in the earliest years of the Church there were those who could not accept the humanity of Jesus as true humanity. Surely, He had but taken the form of a man, but was in fact a deity walking the earth. Surely, therefore, His death on a cross was not real. God, after all, could hardly die, could He? How then would He be God? The question, I have to say, is valid, so far as it goes. It was the conclusion drawn from it that was invalid. On the other hand, of course, we had those who could not accept the divinity of Jesus, and we still do. To the degree that the Jews will acknowledge the historicity of Jesus at all, He is at best acknowledged to have been a man. The Muslims will admit as much, and even grant that He was a rather fine prophet. Indeed, there is some suggestion that the beginnings of Islam are founded on a corruption of the Gospel itself, although I’m doubtful you’d find many a Muslim willing to even entertain the idea.
But, Jesus, born a man, born sinless, was needful for the masterwork of salvation. A sinful man could not hope for more than to perhaps atone for his own sins. Never could such a one atone for the sins of all mankind, nor even of the portion thereof who might be accounted as God’s own. The due penalty for sin is death. It was there in the symbolic actions of sacrifice in the Old Covenant system. It is there to the full in the death of Messiah. This gets to the purpose of Jesus’ humanity. He became man that He might be the federal head of a new humanity. In this He is the second and final Adam.
Adam, as the first man, was given life by God. He was given a command by God, and he was given a work by God. Do this. Do not do that. It was the earliest covenant between God and man. Upon Adam’s obedience hung the whole of creation in a sense. Had he obeyed, the world would remain an Eden. In that he did not, the whole of the world was cast under sin’s curse. Man is particularly affected by this, as we inherit his nature along paternal lines. His sin was our sin, for he acted as the representative of all mankind. How it is that all nature becomes entangled in the corruption of that act is more difficult to assess, yet it is clearly so. The animal kingdom is a realm of constant battle and death. The vegetable kingdom produces nothing that does not eventually corrupt and decay. Even the mineral kingdom knows nothing of permanence. All is trending toward destruction, and all because this one man, the federal head of mankind, failed.
Jesus, by His virgin, fatherless birth, arrives as a true second Adam. Once again, the slate is wiped clean, and the opportunity for perfect obedience given. And He succeeds! He lives out His life as a man among men, experiencing every temptation to sin, every pressure to turn aside and seek His own advantage, every cause to toss it in and pursue His own way. And every such temptation, every such moment of weakness, every least urge to thumb His nose at God passed without His giving way in the least.
[08/06/19]
We see this temptation at its worst at the two ends of Jesus’ ministry. As He came of age, and the beginning of His active ministry service loomed, He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for the express purpose of being tempted (Mt 4:1), and note the recurrent ploy of the devil in his work. “If you are the Son of God” (Mt 4:3, Mt 4:6). And while it is not explicit in the third temptation, the sense of it is there in the kingdom held out to Him, and in the required payment for said kingdom, ‘If You fall down and worship me’ (Mt 4:9). There is much to be made of the particulars of these temptations and their significance, but for my purpose here it is the aim of those temptations that I wish to keep at the forefront. The whole purpose of this temptation was to establish first that the Son of God would not prove Himself by signs and wonders, although signs and wonders would certainly transpire and attest to His work. But, His work, His proof, lie in obedience, and that obedience was not merely to the general layout of God’s plan, but to His timetable, and His chosen means of seeing His ends achieved. Satan tried offering doubt, pushing Jesus to prove Himself. Satan tried offering a shortcut, as if the ends justified any means to obtain them, but it was a fool’s game to heed him, and Jesus was no fool.
In all this, do not lose sight of the involvement of the Holy Spirit. These temptations didn’t come to try Jesus, but to prove Him. Where the Spirit led, there was no cause to doubt the outcome. Those proofs that the devil suggested Jesus offer to validate His claim to being the Son of God were in fact given in full by the fact that Jesus, the Son of God did not move an inch from the plan and purpose of God. Therein was proof such as no other could give that He was indeed the Son of God. Spot the man who has ever managed such a thing! Even Enoch, even Elijah, as has been observed already, had their moments at cross purposes with God. Not so with Jesus.
Now, this same series of temptations transpire after a fashion as Jesus faces the end of His ministry. Still there is that pressure to prove Himself. That pressure, I note, never let up throughout the period of His ministry. There were ever those, believer and unbeliever alike, who were pressing for another sign, a more undeniable proof of His claim. Yet, His claim was just as constantly being made, only not through satisfying the curiosity seekers, rather by full and constant obedience to the course His Father set Him. But, we come to the crucifixion, and we find that they were trying to give Him drink, which He refused. There is parallel here to the first temptation at the outset, of turning rocks into bread that He might eat. In both cases, the temptation was to somehow counteract the deprivations required by obedience. In the wilderness, He had been without food many days, fasting in obedience to God’s requirement. Food is not evil, certainly, but in this case it was a temptation to disobey. Neither was the bit of wine offered Him on this occasion sinful, but as its purpose was to dull the senses, and in some small measure reduce the agony required of obedience, He refused it (Mt 27:34).
They placed over His head a sign proclaiming Him the King of the Jews, at which it must be noted the Pharisees and the Sadducees took offense, much good it did them (Mt 27:37). It was absolutely a mocking of His true person, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Pilate may have had a different audience in mind in writing out this charge for His crucifixion, but then Pilate, not unlike Caiaphas, acted prophetically in spite of their irreligion. But, this in its way parallels the third temptation, to simply take the kingdom now rather than obtain it by obedience.
Then, there is that clearest of parallels found in the taunting of the people who found themselves disappointed in the Messiah God had chosen. “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Mt 27:40b). This is the very echo of Satan, isn’t it, though it comes from the lips of man? It’s the same old doubts cast out again, and the same demands for proof. But, “No sign will be given, but that of Jonah” (Mt 12:39). Indeed, the most thoroughgoing proof was to come in the Resurrection of Jesus, in the empty tomb. Yet, as He had observed, even if someone rises from the dead, they will not be persuaded of what Moses and the Prophets wrote (Lk 16:31).
It might be asked what the temptations of Christ had to do with this matter of His being the God/Man. First, the temptations, both those that proved His obedience at the outset and those that proved His obedience even unto death on a cross, gave fullest demonstration that this was more than simply a man. Yes, we can point to those like Polycarp who would willingly face the fire, or Peter dying on his own cross, and observe others who would rather death than dishonor the name of Christ, and praise God for each and every one throughout the ages who has found it necessary to do so, and has in fact done so. But, they could not, by their obedience, save more than themselves. Oh, their example might inspire and encourage others to a more steadfast faith, but they could not produce faith in another, and more, they could not atone for another. The temptations are offered, like those miracles which are recorded in connection with Jesus, to demonstrate the validity of His claim. As the centurion observed upon His death, “Truly, this was the Son of God” (Mt 27:54).
It was absolutely needful for the work of Atonement that one more than man came and made that atonement. The blood of animals had never been enough to accomplish anything beyond the symbolic absolution of sin. It was not that the pouring out of their blood or the burning of their flesh actually achieved some spiritual effect. Rather they served as a constant reminder of the true cost of sin. The wages of sin is death (Ro 6:23). It really doesn’t matter the sin, the penalty is consistent across the board. One sin was enough to warrant the death penalty, and never, apart from Jesus, was a man born without sin. We bear that sentence from birth, even from conception, the inheritance of our sinful forebear.
Here is another aspect, for which we are greatly indebted to the work of Anshelm. Every sin is against God. We may offend against a brother, but we sin against God. Let me briefly, but forcefully insist that this is no excuse for ignoring the offense we have caused. That offense is to be redressed to the utmost of our ability to make things right and more than right. But our sin remains against God, and the penalty remains death. But, it gets worse for our case. God is an eternal being, unchanging. If this is so, then it stands to reason that our offense against Him is likewise an eternal and unchanging offense. As such, the penalty due to Him against whom we have sinned is in turn an eternal and unchanging penalty. That death is not a swift moment’s work followed by sweet surcease. Would for the sake of the unbeliever that it were, but no! This death, as we see in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, is an eternal reality, to be lived out, if one can speak of living out a death, for all eternity – ever aware of what should have been and what instead has been chosen by the sinner. And yes, we can speak of living out a death, for that is very much what we have been doing all along, certainly up to that point at which Jesus called us out of our death march and onto the Way that leads to salvation.
As is observed along the way, even Moses, by his death, even Elijah for that matter, in spite of the nature of his translation, could not save more than themselves. I will argue they could not even manage that much. God saves of His own choosing, and never a man in all history (Jesus excluded) earned his way into salvation. But, Jesus, while wholly man, was unique in this: He was simultaneously and equally wholly God. Here was an eternal being offered up for sins He did not commit. Here was payment made to eternal God that could satisfy the eternal nature of our eternal offense. Here was a life big enough to satisfy the demands of the Law, and to do so not for the one who gave His life (for He was sinless, and the Law had no demands to make of Him), but for all who are His own. To be sure, if all humanity were to be accounted His own, then His atoning work, His sinless death and eternal payment, is absolutely sufficient to put paid to the whole body of humanity’s sin. That His own does not in fact include all humanity within its scope in no wise lessens the power and efficacy of His atonement. It merely leaves Him, God, in control of determining to whom that payment applies and to whom it does not. To some that seems a capricious action on God’s part, but I would have to insist that His Justice requires it, and His deity allows it. As to the capriciousness of the matter, I am quite assured that it is only so in the estimation of those who know not the whole of the matter.
I can think of any number of occasions where the decisions of the elders were held up for assessment by those with limited, partial information of the matter in view. The elders, by the nature of their office, are often left powerless to correct such matters, for the confidential nature of those things that must often be addressed by them (and it is those matters that seem most often to produce such second guessing by those who think they know better) precludes declaring in full such details as explain the decision reached. Somebody will always think such decisions unfair or ill-advised, but in general it must be said that the one thinking thus is in fact ill-advised and ill-informed. All that to say, if we are left with what are essentially inscrutable decisions on the part of our elders, our representatives and leaders, how much more so are we in no position to second-guess God, who knows all things, who knows the hearts of man?
[08/07/19]
Thus far, I have focused on the necessity of Jesus’ deity, in particular as it concerns the work of atonement upon which our salvation depends. It is also the case that this singular work necessitated that Jesus be a man, fully human and made as we are, except without sin. At some level it becomes necessary to accept that as God, Jesus could not die, for God cannot die, being an eternal being. Yet, it is entirely true and certain that Jesus did die a real death. The centurion left no doubt of that, for he caused the heart of Jesus to be pierced through, and the blood and water that poured out of that wound give evidence to the heart having given out. Even leaving that aside, no Roman soldier was going to leave this to chance, and the squad charged with speeding up the work of crucifixion had already taken the unusual decision not to break His legs, given that He was already dead. They satisfied themselves with confirming His death by that piercing of His side.
Only on so sound an evidentiary basis did they allow His body to be taken away and buried, although even that was a departure from Roman norms. So, He was taken, and His body was wrapped for burial, although we are given to understand that the usual weight of herbs and such as would have been applied were absent. Still, He was laid in a stone tomb, and the tomb sealed by a rock of significant size rolled downhill across the entryway. This was not such a stone as even a healthy man was going to roll back uphill on his own, let alone without benefit of any ability to lay hold of an edge, and certainly not in such weakened state as Jesus must be in if He were not in fact dead. Add to this the several days laying in that tomb; three days to satisfy the Jewish custom, to move matters beyond the point where it was recognized that one buried in error might yet be found to be alive.
No, it was a very real death Jesus died, and in doing so, He died as a human being dies, being fully human. This, as I say, was necessary to the work of atonement. For one, if He died as a human, it gives evidence that He lived as a human. His life of obedience to God did not hinge on the powers of deity within Himself, but rather on the power of God in the Person of the Holy Spirit, and on fellowship with God in the Person of the Father, said fellowship maintained by the entirely human means of prayer. That is to say, the power in which He obeyed and proved righteous and utterly without sin was the power of humanity.
What then makes the difference? How is it that Jesus, in His humanity, could maintain a life of perfect obedience to God’s Law in every respect, and yet we, who are just as fully human, cannot do so however hard we may try? That must point us back to the necessity of the virgin birth, that singular birth by which Jesus, alone amongst humanity since Adam, was born without the detrimental weight of original sin bearing Him down. He began sinless, and therefore could at least have hope of remaining so. We do not operate under such conditions, being born with original sin. Neither, for reasons of God’s choice, do we obtain to such a sin-free state even upon rebirth. But, we are at least given new capacity to resist the temptation of sin. We at least come to have a choice in the matter. Prior to the Spirit’s arrival at our salvation, we could do no other but to sin, not that this in any way ameliorated our guilt.
But, Jesus, by living as a man and dying as a man, provided what we could not: The obedience of man, the living of a truly righteous life. Thus, when He was condemned by sinful man to die on the cross, it could in no wise be said to be recompense for His sins, for He was sinless, and He was a sinless man. A sinless God would hardly surprise, would it? Indeed, I should hold that God, by very definition must be sinless, for He is the perfectly righteous, perfectly holy, eternal being; the absolute pinnacle of all that is good and true and the measure against which all else must be measured. But, Jesus obeyed as a man, having laid aside the prerogatives of deity.
Here we must be careful, for it is not deity itself that He laid aside. There was never a moment when Jesus was not God, for again, God cannot change, even if it be for the briefest moment before reverting to form. Let that one brief moment of change enter, and God is no longer steadfast and trustworthy; God is no longer God. Yet, the prerogatives were laid aside for purpose of this necessary work of atonement. He had to walk out that perfectly righteous life as man, for He would, in so doing, stand as the new federal representative of man reborn. Had He not lived out His life in the power of His own humanity, His obedience would have no bearing on mankind. It would be the obedience of God to Himself, which is wonderful in its own right, but does nothing to alter the court case against humanity. As His obedience was undertaken and fully obtained as a man, however, His death could have value to mankind.
This is the key finding of Anshelm. Jesus died as a man dies in order that His death might have application to man. The penalty of death must be paid by man, for only man can die. God cannot. The philosophers who in their atheism insist that God is dead are quite mistaken. God cannot die. Eternity cannot be made finite. At the same time, it was needful that this death be able to satisfy the eternal nature of the crime, which I have already observed is committed against eternal God. The eternal penalty of death needed something more than the death of a mere, finite man to pay in full, unless that finite man’s death be eternal in nature. That is, I have already noted, the sorry future of unbelief, as each individual is left to pay his penalty in full. But, the blood of Christ, although fully human, bears eternal value because Jesus is in truth an eternal being. He is God, and because He is God, He both laid down His human life and took it back up again of His own accord. Yes, it was the power of the Holy Spirit that raised Him from the grave, and yes it was the commanding word of the Father that authorized both His death and His resurrection, but both the laying down and the taking back up again were of His own choosing.
There remains, as there must, the theoretical possibility that He could have said no. He could have ended His prayer in Gethsemane differently, and refused the final mission. He could have left humanity to their final destruction. I say there was the theoretical possibility, and there must be, else His obedience was to no purpose. It would have no more significance than the obedience of a plant in growing sunward, or a bird in eating seed. These are not acts with moral value or moral import. They are instinctive, all but involuntary actions. But, because there was at least the potential opportunity to sin, the obedience of Jesus is of great moral significance.
Let me just interject that this same issue of theoretical possibility applies to Adam, but in the obverse. It was, it had to be, theoretically possible that Adam would live out a sinless life. He, being at that juncture devoid of original sin, could have obeyed in full. The Fall didn’t have to happen on this theoretical level. That said, I must insist that both for Adam and for Jesus the final outcome was inevitable and not in question. This is not because they were being manipulated like pawns on a chessboard. Both Adam and Jesus acted as their own wills determined to act. They made their own choices and acted upon them, and as such the consequences of their actions were theirs to bear for good or for ill. Yet, in the Providence of God, Who declares the end from the beginning, Who spoke and it was, there was no realistic possibility that Adam would in fact succeed or that Jesus would fail.
The whole working out of history, from Adam to its eventual end, follows the arc of God’s perfect, unalterable planning. The whole working out of history, of Creation, is according to the original purposes of God and serves the unchanging purposes of God. The sin of Adam did not somehow take Him by surprise such that He had to resort to Plan B. The death of Jesus did not come as a shock, requiring Him to scramble and devise a new approach. All of this was firmly established between the Persons of the Godhead in eternal covenant before ever the first steps were taken in the process of creation. Before there was time, all of this was, as it were, cast in stone. The death of Jesus was necessary and in the works even then, every link in the chain that led to Him already mapped out from moment of birth to final breath. The number of my days, of your days, was already determined. The ages of empires were already set forth, and every ruler marked out for his or her period of reign.
Within that framework, we still work as individuals with wills of our own, choices we make and actions we undertake. We live and move of our own accord, and yet, it remains absolute that “In Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Ac 17:28). The two hold true simultaneously, as Jesus holds in His Person full divinity and full humanity simultaneously.
Now, while I have stressed the work of atonement, and rightly so, and while I have also upheld that Jesus, although fully God, obeyed as fully man, yet we must be careful of supposing that we are somehow able to do as Jesus did. Certainly, we cannot walk in perfect obedience. It was far too late for that moments after we were conceived. Having sinned once, sinlessness is forever out of reach. This must be obvious. But, even sinless henceforth is beyond us for we are not yet fully reborn into sinless flesh suited for eternity. There arises from time to time the conceit amongst certain Christians that they can indeed walk in perfect holiness by the power of the Holy Spirit, and indeed, even that this should be expected of Christians. But, were this the case then the life and death of Jesus was to no purpose, and God, if He required such a thing to happen when we could have simply obeyed – even if by the power of the Spirit – on our own, acted with malicious caprice. That is to say, God did not act in accord with His own essential being. He ceased to be God by undertaking such unnecessary and unwarranted cruelty, even if that action was taken against His own being.
Some look to the miracles which Jesus performed and suppose this was intended to demonstrate the new norm for reborn humanity. We should all be able to command the wind and the waves as suits us. We should all be able to multiply our provisions by no more than a prayer of thanksgiving. We should all be ready, willing, and able to heal each and every one we encounter who is suffering any sort of malady. But, here is what we miss if we come to such conclusions: Those miracles were not given as how-to lessons for the disciples. They were given as “Who is this?” answers. They were given as evidence of the deity of Christ. If these were things to be expected of every believer, then they could not serve as evidence of deity, for surely no Christian is a deity. We are not made gods by the indwelling Holy Spirit, but rather made servants of the Most High God.
To be sure, we can find examples of mere mortals granted the capacity to perform miracles, but what we will not encounter are examples of godly men using this capacity for personal benefit. Yes, where it suits the needs of the kingdom and serves God’s purpose, there is reason to expect that He might in fact authorize the miraculous through the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer. But, observe carefully: It remains His power and His decision. The spirit of the prophet, as Paul insists, is indeed subject to the prophet (1Co 14:32), but that is hardly the same as suggesting that the Spirit of God is subject to the prophet. How can we suppose the Ruler subject to the servant? It is foolishness at best to believe such a thing, and deadly hubris at worst. Think of Simon the magician, who thought perhaps he could buy this power from Peter. That was not wise thinking.
Returning to the God/Man, the obedience of Christ was an act of human obedience. At the same time, the miracles of Christ were expressions of the power of God, evidence of His deity, that deity whose prerogatives He had willingly set aside for the duration. It’s almost, and rather like the Transfiguration, a brief glimpse, a sort of, “Here’s what I could do.” But, again, the primary purpose was ever and always, “Here’s Who I AM.” No human being, however much the Holy Spirit may choose to use him and supply him with gifts, can by those gifts make the same claim.
No man can command God to give. The best of men look to God, and seek how best to put to use whatever it is He may give, be it health or sickness, be it wealth or bare necessities. It’s not about what He can give, it’s about what you can do with what He did give. As concerns the earthly obedience of Jesus, this holds for Him as it does for us. He could pray. He could make request of the Father, and cry out to the Father in moments of strain or frustration, as well as in simple, joyful communion. But, it remained the Father’s call how answer would be given, and what gifts made available in any given situation. His obedience was human. His essence was both human and divine. Both were entirely needful if we were to be saved. He died once for all mankind, all whose sins the Father was pleased to see forgiven. His sufficiency is infinite in this regard, but the application of His infinite sufficiency, like every gift of God, is God’s to give or to withhold according to His good and perfect purposes.
iv. Son of God
[08/08/19]
It must be said that nowhere in the Old Testament can one find the phrase, ‘son of God’. It can almost be found, with reference to a plurality of sons, but then, it is pretty clear that these sons are not God. At best, the term refers to angels, and in some cases, those angels would appear to be numbered amongst the fallen angels that became the demons of Satan’s dominion. Genesis 6:2-4 gives us this negative reference, when the ‘sons of God’ took the daughters of men to themselves. It’s an interesting passage, really. Mankind was multiplying, and the ‘sons of God’ saw that the daughters of man were beautiful and took them as wives (Ge 6:2), and this would appear to have been the source of the Nephilim, children born of these odd marriages, who ‘were the mighty men of old, men of renown’ (Ge 6:4). Now, if that was the whole of it, we might be left to suppose that this was actually a good outcome to good purpose, for mighty men of renown seem a good thing to have. Certainly, those mighty men of David’s league were accounted as heroes, not villains.
But, in between these two notes of the sons of God and their offspring comes this notice. “The LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” (Ge 6:3). What is to be made of this? On the one hand, messages are preached on the basis of that declaration that God was saying His patience wears out, and He will eventually give up on the reform of a given man if that man proves too resistant. But, read it carefully. Yes, there is a terminus, a time when man’s sinfulness will result in punishment, and that time is set at what we must presume is a maximum of 120 years. This was a significant reduction from previous lifespans. Nevertheless, this is not to be taken as indicating that lifespan has direct correlation to righteousness. But, the message that He won’t strive forever, because man is also flesh suggests to me a touch of mercy. He is mindful of our frame; that we are but dust. A tender reed He will not bruise. Notice of His care and gentleness with us is frequent. Judgment will come, but it seems to have been an act of mercy that it comes sooner rather than later. I could suggest that it is to man’s great benefit that it is so, for longer days offer greater opportunity for sin to increase.
Observe what follows that note. “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (Ge 6:5-6). Now, this is building the case for the Flood. Given that the whole flow of this chapter is setting forth the reason for the Flood, and the justness of the Flood as an act of God, mention of the sons of God coming amongst mankind to breed some mixed race of angels and men cannot be taken to be a good thing. It is part of the problem, not some ameliorating deposit on the positive side of the ledger. It’s a contributing sin, and in this case would seem to include the sins of angels into the mix.
The only other references I see arise from the book of Job, coming later in our textual order, but likely much earlier in the course of time. Here, too, a scene is being set. There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and observe, “Satan also came among them” (Job 1:6). And this transpires again in the early stages of the account, another day, another presenting of the sons of God, Satan among them (Job 2:1). Only once more do we meet these sons of God, and in this case, they arise as part of God’s final argument to Job. It’s part of that whole, “Were you there when, can you explain how” series of questions presented to Job to remind him who God is, Who was there and knew how. On that list, we find this: “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7). Now, this being concerned with the earliest stages of creation, the clear implication is that no man was yet present, for man had not yet been created. We’re still on stars and planets, the first building blocks. No man was present, but these sons of God were. They must then be citizens of the heavenly realm, which is to say angels.
That sense seems to be confirmed in the words of Jesus, as He presents the nature of the resurrected believers in heaven. “Neither can they die anymore, for they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Lk 20:36). That seems to combine the idea of angels with sons of God, after a fashion, although it is actually spoken in reference to resurrected man. Resurrected man, we learn, is eternal, as the angels are eternal. This requires, I will observe, since I’m exploring this line of thought, that the issues that led to the Flood have been resolved. No more is there concern that man can’t bear the weight of God’s striving with them, for they are now eternal. And, combined with events in Eden after Adam’s fall, it becomes very clear that removal of eternality was an act of unutterable kindness on the part of God. Eternality bestowed on fallen man is no blessing, but the ultimate curse. But, now, these have been redeemed, not merely forgiven their sins, but the sin nature entirely eradicated. They are a new creation not just in spirit, but in very structure. Sin is no more a danger, and now eternality can indeed be a blessing. They are sons of God by the resurrection. Yet, there remains the implication in this that the angels were already sons of God by nature.
Surely, this does nothing in regards to proclaiming angels to be minor deities of some sort, nor does it suggest that man, even in this glorified state, is promoted to godhood. That’s more in keeping with Greek mythology with its major and minor gods, and its titans who weren’t quite gods, but merely godlike. Try one more explanatory verse. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God” (Ro 8:14). That’s the key factor, and evident in this life in spite of sinful flesh and sinful fallen nature keeping us from our full potential, if you please. And herein lies our segue to the singular Son of God.
The Son of God was most assuredly one led by the Spirit of God, so much so that we could reasonably describe Him as one with the Spirit of God. Indeed, given the realities of the Triune Godhead, we can say so quite literally. We also say so with a contextual meaning significantly greater than the description applied to men and even to angels, for He is infinitely superior even to angels, and angels, for all that, are only temporarily possessed of the status of being greater than man.
Jesus, however, is singularly The Son of God. We should pause to consider the term son. Paul declares that we are huioi, sons. Jesus is addressed as huios; same term, singular form. In simplest usage, this bears its obvious meaning regarding kinship. But, particularly in so patriarchal a society, sonship of the huios form means far more. It implies close connection, a shared quality with that of which one is a son; we might say a true son. In connection with God, that has to suggest shared qualities of divinity. It indicates a son who follows in his father’s footsteps, as it were. Go back to Paul’s description of believers. They are led by the Spirit of God. The follow the Father’s footsteps in following the footsteps of the Son, and so demonstrate the reality that they are indeed sons of God.
Here I am more immediately concerned with the Son, with Jesus, the Son of God. The first to recognize this, it seems, was Satan, who himself we conclude was once numbered amongst the sons of God, as we saw back in Job. Satan, then, comes to tempt Jesus, and I must once more observe that he does so only because the Father has so directed. This was also the case with Job. Satan had his own ideas and reasons for acting, but until the Father granted leave to act, he could not, and even when he could, it was only to so great a degree as that leave permitted. He could come to tempt Jesus only because the Father had not merely permitted, but actively planned that it would be so, and we observe that while the devil came with intent to prove false, God permitted with knowledge that his efforts would instead prove the Truth.
So, I come once more to the scene of the temptation of Christ, the Son of God, and what are the first words by which Satan seeks to insert doubt? “IF You are the Son of God…” (Mt 4:6). It’s an echo of that ploy that worked so well for him in his instigation of the first sin in Eden. “Did God really say?” Is His word really that trustworthy? Why not take matters into your own hands. You could be as wise as He, as powerful as He. You could be God. This has been the temptation of man all along. Every sinful urge belies the tendency in us to desire only that we may be our own gods, and throw off the constraints of every higher authority. That was and is the sin of Satan himself, who likes to think that he has pushed the True Ruler off the throne and taken his place. But, in point of fact, his actions continue to be ruled and reined in by the One True King.
We also have early mention of Jesus as the Son of God, much earlier than that temptation, in the announcement made to Mary before even the Holy Spirit had conceived the child Jesus in her womb. Gabriel came to inform her of what lie ahead for her, which must have been some shock to a young child such as herself, even if maturity did come earlier in those days. “You will conceive and bear a son whom you are to name Jesus” (Lk 1:31). If she wasn’t flustered by the appearance of this angelic being, this would surely be enough to throw her into confusion. Yet, she holds her own, to the degree one can in such circumstance. “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (Lk 1:34). One wonders if maybe memories of lessons learned about the Nephilim and the Flood were coming to mind. Maybe this wasn’t God’s doing, but another doom being visited on mankind. But, that is set aside in short order. This is not some weird coupling between angels and humans being suggested again. No, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God” (Lk 1:35).
Several things are to be observed there. First, we have effectively a three-fold repetition of the matter of holiness. It is not just any spirit that will be involved. It’s not just some supernatural occurrence. A supernatural occurrence could yet be for good or for ill. But, this involves the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God resting upon Mary as He was known to rest upon those chosen of God for some purpose or other throughout the recorded records of His workings. Second, it was the power of the Most High, the perfectly holy God which would ‘overshadow’ her. I actually prefer the idea of enveloping, for that is the sense of it. She would be, as it were, wrapped within the power of the holy, Most High God, and it is to this alone that the conceiving of this child would be attributed. “For that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God.” It is to be a holy offspring, not some abomination such as the Nephilim. You’re not bringing forth a monster, Mary, but rather the very salvation of God. It’s right there in the name you have been told to give Him: Jesus, Joshua, God Saves.
Now, I could point to the triune activity even of this conception. The Spirit rests, the Father envelops, the Son implants. I’m not sure I like my word choice there, but I think it at least gets the idea across. The whole of the Godhead is here present at the production of the Seed that shall be the Son of God, God Incarnate.
[08/09/19]
The whole of the Godhead would still be present were but any one of the three Persons present, for each Person is wholly God. And yet, in some fashion, God is not complete except all three Persons are there. The riddle, if there is one, is solved in that the Persons of the Trinity ever act as One, ever remain in united communion one with another, and where we see one Person primarily associated with some activity, yet all three Persons are found to be involved. As it is with the conception of Jesus, so it is with the conception, if you will, of every believer. The Triune God is present and active in that work. So, too, the indwelling presence of God is not Spirit alone, but is also Father and Son. Yet, Jesus remains wholly set apart as the one Man in whom deity and humanity coexist. We are men in whom God has chosen to make His abode. He is the man who is God. Yet, as the confessions declare, He is so without those two natures co-mingling. He is not half-man and half-God. He is wholly both.
But I shall attempt to return to my present theme regarding the Son of God. What are we to take from this name? It seems to have clear connection with Messiah, at least as He was understood at that juncture. We find the question put to Jesus. “Are You the Son of God, then?” Nor was He inclined to deny it, but answered readily, “Yes, I am” (Lk 22:70). This, when He knew the answer, given to those Jews who were putting Him on trial, would most certainly take that acknowledgement as evidence of blasphemy. But, should He lie about it? To lie, especially to lie about a truth so marvelous, would be to act as a child of Satan, the liar. This He could not do, for to do so would be sin. To do so would nullify the whole purpose of His being, the whole purpose of Creation, really.
Luke also takes pains to make this identification of Jesus by means of His lineage. I have to say, however, that in so doing he makes a case for every one of us to lay claim to the title after a fashion. For, as he reaches the beginning of the family tree, he points us to Adam, the son of God (Lk 3:38). Actually, I am not sure I should take Luke’s purpose as being to establish God as the ultimate beginning of Jesus’ line, for the line he traces out is human, and it begins with the observation that Jesus was the supposed son of Joseph (Lk 3:23). But observe that he begins his genealogy immediately following the Father’s proclamation of Jesus, “Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am will-pleased” (Lk 3:22). Jesus’ paternity is settled in that statement. Joseph lent legitimacy in the eyes of the law (and perhaps a note of illegitimacy in the eyes of those who would not believe), but God Himself was Father to the Son. Again, this could be said of no other man except Adam, who is so identified at the end of Luke’s list. I think I would take it, then, that his purpose is to establish the corollary importance. This is something he would surely have learned well from Paul. Adam was the first federal head of mankind, Jesus is the second and the last. Both, as having been direct from God, began life in a sinless being. But, only Jesus completed His course in the same condition.
The parallel breaks down, as parallels between mankind and deity must, in that Jesus, though conceived and born a man, was not a created being. He is eternal. He was always the beloved Son of the Father. The birth pertained only to His human nature, which of necessity did undergo change as He grew up, and yes, as He died. It underwent change, in the end, in laying aside the corruptible flesh and taking up the incorruptible resurrection body. This, we are assured, shall be our experience in due course. But, bear in mind once more the careful delineation of the authors of our creeds. In Jesus, the two natures are found in full, but not co-mingled. The changing of His human body did not in any way change His deity, His godhead. It stretches the mind beyond limits to try and sort out how this can be, but it is necessary that it is so. God cannot change. A baby born in his mother’s womb must.
But, the believer is given to understand this basic truth in full. Jesus, the Christ, is the Son of God. Mark begins his gospel with that very point, made without further adornment (Mk 1:1). This is Who He Is. This is what the gospel is. Unclean spirits would fall down before Him and confess that truth (Mk 3:11), not because they were keen to worship this One, but because they were left no choice but to acknowledge the Son of God, the King of kings. They could do no other. If they could, they would. But, as with them, so it shall be with all mankind in due course. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess. That’s not a promise of pleasure in the task. It is a statement of inevitability.
So, there is connection in the office of Messiah and the understanding behind this idea of being the Son of God. It would be interesting to learn just what it was that the Jews of that era thought was meant by the phrase. It seems highly unlikely that they thought Messiah was going to be God Himself. It seems there was some thought of Moses or Elijah coming back from the dead to lead Israel once more, and maybe it would fall to them to restore somebody of David’s line to the throne and see off the invaders. But, God Himself? Most unlikely. If there was any thought at all of God fathering a child after the manner of the gods of Greek mythology, which I sincerely doubt, the child could hardly be conceived of as being God in his own right, nor even of being good. I say again, the very idea both as to its occurring and as to its outcome would have been utterly anathema.
God is One. How could He birth another? How could this be good? If God is good, you see, the whole thing becomes unthinkable. I have to say that we ought to have a bit more mercy on the Pharisees and Sadducees for their failure to accept this. If we had not the benefit of the Gospel and the Spirit making its truth known to us, we would no more accept it than did they.
But, Jesus had answer for their doubts, could they but hear it. “Do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the son of God’? If I do not do the works of My Father, don’t believe Me. But if I do them, even if you don’t believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (Jn 10:36-38). Sonship is shown in adherence to the life modelled in the Father. It is a demonstration by word and deed that the son is indeed made of the same stuff as the father. It’s not a simple matter of paternity, or some point to be established by examination of the DNA. It’s a showing oneself a true son by being of the same spirit, the same character and habit.
Thus the liar inadvertently confesses his father the devil by his lies, for in lying he displays the same spirit, character and habit as the father of lies. Thus the Son very purposefully demonstrates the truth of his Father God in that His every word, action, and thought are modelled exclusively on what He sees His Father doing, what He hears His Father saying. It is only thus that He is fit to share in the glory of the Father, and that glory He does share, for the Father sees to it. Hearing of the death of Lazarus, Jesus proclaims, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it” (Jn 11:4). In turn, the Son being glorified glorifies the Father. “The hour has come. Glorify The Son that the Son may glorify Thee” (Jn 17:1).
Now, whether or not the Jew of that day would recognize the Son of God as indicating deity, the certainly recognized a claim to equality with deity. The accusation against Jesus was, that by acknowledging Himself as the Son of God, He was making Himself out to be equal with God. I still have difficulty believing that they could make the connection between that equality of status and the equality of being. Nothing in their theology could prepare them for such a concept. If God is One, how can there arise one who is equal to Him? If God is Most High, there can’t be another who is equally most high. If there can, then neither is truly most high, only equally as high as the other. Apart from the reality of the Trinity, this problem would be unsolvable, and sadly for them, they had no place for the Trinity in their thinking. It was too much like the polytheism of the Gentiles, and they could not make a distinction. How, after all, could God be One and yet more than one? That question still perplexes and even dissuades today. For the believer, it is merely perplexing – a reality held to by faith yet effectively impossible to explain in any sufficient sense. For the unbeliever, it is perhaps the ultimate stumbling block. To the Jew it is blasphemy. To the Greek it is nonsense. Some things never change.
But, observe that very early on the claim of Jesus as the Son of God is recognized. Nathanael, with the barest of introductions to Jesus, sees it. “Rabbi! You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel” (Jn 1:49). That may give us our best sense of what the phrase meant in the ears of the average Israelite. It was a label for the king, the Son of David who was to come and deliver Israel. Certainly this idea of military deliverance by a warrior king informed the idea of Messiah in that period. We see it time and again as they seek to push Jesus into taking up the kingly office. But, it wasn’t the time. So, in the ears of the people, this is quite likely what all the terms meant. Son of David, Son of God, Messiah; it all amounted to much the same thing to them. Here was the king of Israel come to give Rome what for. No wonder, then, that they so swiftly turned against Him when He seemingly proved powerless before Rome’s representative.
[08/10/19]
Nathanael, of course, was not the only one to confess this truth in hope. Peter’s confession comes later, but is perhaps therefore more informed in what he confesses. Everybody, it seemed, had their opinions about who Jesus was and what His presence might mean. But, all fell short – far short – of the reality of His being. So, after having asked His disciples who people thought the Son of Man was, He turned to His companions and asked, “But who do you say I am?” To this, Peter replied, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:14-16). The list of other answers had primarily shown evidence of superstition on the part of the people. Some, like Herod, thought maybe He was John the Baptist returned to life, or maybe just the shade of John. Others tried a more informed answer. Oh, He must be Elijah come back like the Scriptures said. But, that just demonstrated a misapprehension of the Baptist’s role, not to mention the nature of that Scriptural return. No, neither was he any other prophet reborn, nor present in spirit. He was a real man born into real life. He was no rerun, no shade, but real flesh and bone. It’s interesting that all of those answers seemed to involve a return appearance by some Old Testament hero or another, for even John the Baptist, by Jesus’ assessment, is to be counted as a prophet of the Old Covenant, and indeed the culmination of that prophetic order.
But, Peter identifies Him as the Son of the living God. I think it key that he included the word living. This was no phantasm risen from the grave, no spirit rising to address God’s people. Heaven forfend! After all, Scripture is exceedingly and abundantly clear that such activities are not condoned, but rather condemned with utmost vehemence. Think of Saul when he caused the shade of Samuel to be called back. Samuel was by no means amused, but God was livid, to the degree that He can be spoken of in such terms. This was an act by His anointed ruler that was in absolute violation of His commandments. Is it any wonder such a king found himself so thoroughly rejected by God? Jesus could not, then, be of such a nature. No. He is the Son of the living God. He is born into life by the living, not called up from the dead.
This must require us to consider His own resurrection, and indeed, His actions in resurrecting Lazarus, and in raising that others from death and restoring them to life. I think even in writing that that I have my answer to the dilemma. I will put it to you in two parts. First, to think of one being restored to life misunderstands the condition of man on the other side of the grave. Death is not surcease, but rather translation. While our full transformation, I believe, awaits that day of Christ’s return, whether that day find us walking the earth or buried therein, yet there is this translation from earthly existence to some other state. The body decays, but the spirit does not, the soul does not – if indeed these are to be accounted as two distinct things.
This is not to suggest the sort of Limbo or Purgatory proposed by Rome. I might be talked into accepting that as beings translated into the eternal, time has ceased to signify for the dead, and therefore, a translation that happened at the moment of death would still in effect be that transformation that comes in the twinkling of an eye at the sound of the last trumpet. From the perspective of those who remain to that moment, it may very well seem that all who are resurrected experience it in that same glorious moment. Yet, it could be that for those who have entered into eternity before us, that moment began, from an earthbound perspective, much sooner. I don’t know that I’d care to put a stake down on such a claim, but it strikes me as a possibility.
Over against that, however, I must observe the declarations of Scripture, that would seem to indicate a bodily resurrection that awaits for those who have gone on before us. So, perhaps it is the case that the spirit was fitted for eternity at the moment of our salvation, and the soul, again assuming it is something distinct from the spirit, joins it at the moment of physical death. At any rate, it is only the body that in fact corrupts and dies, and the being continues on. So, then, those shades called forth by the necromancer’s arts, or by seers, or what have you, are not dead spirits, but living. More to our point, those whom Jesus called forth were not brought back to life, but brought back to this life.
That leads to my second, and more critical distinction as concerns the work of Jesus in resurrecting the dead. He restored them to life. He did not merely call forth their spirits to visit with the living. He restored life to the body. He is, after all, the giver of life. He is Life. Now, to this add the declaration that by the Father’s direct instruction, He has authority to lay down His life and to take it back up again. Here again we must, I believe, distinguish between body and spirit. The body was laid down, and the body was taken back up. The body died, and the body was restored to life, and even transformed, as we shall one day be transformed, to accommodate it to eternal life.
What happened, then? Was this not a real death? No, indeed it was a real death, as it had to be a real death to have any real impact on our own condition. The atonement could not be made on the cheap. It had to be real life given, real blood shed. But, His death, like our own, is a bodily concern that does not in fact alter the soul’s condition. As such, though in body He died, and was buried as any dead man is buried, yet He lives, the One Who Was, Who Is, and Is to come. Surely, unchanging God never died. He cannot. For to die would certainly constitute change.
Now, I have to observe that so far as this idea goes, the same can be said of us. I rather wonder if that isn’t what Jesus was getting at when He offered His rather cryptic comment about those who remain faithful. “I am the resurrection and the life.” I really rather think those should have been capitalized. “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26). Now, I have to say that if all that He has in view here is the continuance of the spirit, the same could be said of those who don’t believe. But, life and death are of greater significance than mere continuance of being. They get to the state of that being. To live is Christ. It is to be with Christ, abiding in Him and He in you, and that condition shall pertain for the believer come what may. Though he dies physically, yet he remains in Christ, alive and well, and fully enjoying the communion of God.
The unbeliever is already dead, and has been since birth. The grave is no great change for that one either, for though his spirit continues on, it is for him a situation most bitter. His spirit continues, but continues in perpetual payment for his sins against perpetual God. Never shall he know that forgiveness of God. Never shall he hear that his debt has been paid and he is free to go. Justice demands no less. We don’t like to hear it any more than that man shall, but it is the clear message of damnation upon those who commit the unpardonable sin of rejecting Christ and His atoning work.
Now, that cryptic message about life and death introduces the third great confession, which rarely gets counted as such, given the setting. Jesus is, at that time, present with Mary and Martha, who are mourning the death of their brother Lazarus. Jesus, unbeknownst to them at the time, has purposely delayed His arrival to allow this death to transpire, and even to pass the point at which there might be some question of Lazarus having been interred in error. It was thus that He spoke this declaration of His being the Resurrection and the Life to the grieving Martha. And He then asked, “Do you believe this?” Oh, that most marvelous question! Oh, that most trying question! Yes, I get it. Yes, the concept has come to my ears, and I have nodded my assent to it. But, do I really believe it? That’s that hard part. Belief translates in actions. Martha’s reply suggests she is at least two-thirds there. “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, He who comes into the world” (Jn 11:27). That introduction of a past tense sense of things in saying, “I have believed,” might suggest to us that while this was something she had officially assented to, it really didn’t impact her that much at the moment. But, in fact, this is translating a Perfect Indicative. That moment of first believing lay in the past, but the results are very much present, and in fact shall be ever more.
This, then, is not a confession with room for doubts. Rather, I would take it to be Martha hearing in full the confidence restoring question Jesus posed. He was not, after all, questioning her faith and belief. Rather, He was actively restoring it. Martha! Don’t forget Who I AM! This has happened for the Father’s glory. Do you suppose Him glorified by the death of any of My friends? No, but though he has died, your brother lives. The resurrection isn’t just some hazy future hope, it’s present reality.
I will offer you the fourth confession: That of the centurion charged with keeping guard over the crucifixion of Jesus. He was witness to far more than was bargained for. Not only did he have close observation of the way Jesus died of His own accord, albeit hanging, beaten and lashed, from the cross. He did not die as the usual victim of crucifixion died, utterly at a loss to control his own body and utterly debased by the nature of his passing. Jesus, in spite of all that happened, died with the dignity of having chosen His moment to go. But, as Matthew records, it wasn’t just that Jesus died by His own choosing. There was that eclipse of the sun, hours long. This, I should note, ought rightly to remove any idea that this was an eclipse like those that occur naturally. A quick glance at the web turns up the fact that total eclipse, at its longest, lasts about three minutes, not three hours.
Then, there was the disturbance at the temple, although I don’t suppose the centurion would have been aware of that, being outside the walls of Jerusalem at the time. But, the earthquake? Yes, that would get notice. The dead saints bodily raised? I suppose that would depend how far Golgotha was from those graves. But, it seems they were at the very least outside the city as well – no surprise there – for those who rose then ‘entered the holy city’. The sum of it all, however, left the centurion with no doubt as to the enormity of the crime just committed, and him in full participation. “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Mt 27:45-54). Now, while Scripture does not declare it outright, I am convinced this centurion was, if not at that moment, then very shortly thereafter, a believer. Indeed, I suspect the reason we have this part of the account is because he testified to one and all of this Son of God. If he was convinced now, imagine the impact when the body of the one he had seen dead on the cross departed a tomb guarded by men quite likely familiar to him. The Sadducees and the Pharisees could say what they liked, and cast their aspersions on those men, but here was one who knew better. Truly, this was the Son of God.
[08/11/19]
And if there was any doubt of that at his death, the resurrection put paid to those doubts. Paul writes of him that yes, according to the flesh He was born a descendant of David (Ro 1:3). This was legally true given Joseph’s acceptance Mary in marriage, but it was equally, physically true by the lineage of Mary. It was not, then, just a legal fiction, but the reality. The Seed was of the line indicated by God. But, as had so often happened in the promised line, it ran not as man expected, but according to the purpose and determination of the One who promised. In this last step, it meant the whole genealogical order of Judaic thought was overturned. Lineage, by their thinking, was to be traced via the father. But, Jesus, so far as the flesh is concerned, traces His by the mother.
As to paternity, He points to the Father alone. This may have seemed a face-saving maneuver to those who had heard the circumstances of His birth. People could do basic math, certainly. They would have noted that Jesus’ arrival came a tad early for so recently married a couple, and tongues would wag. Note that they asked, “Isn’t that Mary’s boy?” Whatever the legal standing, it seems He wasn’t generally recognized as Joseph’s. That could be simply because Joseph was dead and gone, and Mary was the one they knew, but it could also be an intimation of their supposed knowledge of His supposed illegitimacy. But, He was not illegitimate. He was, we might say, more legitimate than any since Adam. And, whatever rumors attended His birth, Paul observes this: He ‘was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus the Christ, our Lord’ (Ro 1:4).
Note again the association of holiness with the point. This was no magic show, no dark arts being practiced to bring back some phantasm that was but a spirit. No, He returned with flesh and blood the men and women touched and held. He took food, which a phantasm would have no need to do, nor I should think any way of doing so if it wanted to try. He was declared not merely alive and returned from the dead, but this return was in fact demonstration of the power of God, the power transmitted, as it were, ‘according to the Spirit of holiness’. It was a holy occurrence. It was, in fact, an evidence of His own holiness, an acceptance of the offering made of His own life in payment for the sins of all those He had come to save, all those given Him by the Father.
It returns to that startling declaration made to the Jews. “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down. I also have authority to take it up again. In fact, this is the commandment I received from My Father” (Jn 10:17-18). Here, in the reality of His resurrection, the truth of His saying was proved. Is it any wonder, then, that the Church has established itself most firmly on the Rock, Christ Jesus? It is the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who is preached among us, wherever the Church holds true (2Co 1:19). He is not yes and no, but “As many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are yes; wherefore also by Him is our amen to the glory of God through us” (2Co 1:20). So, the confession of the Christian is ever, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). I will save the further implications of that text, as concerns faith and works, grace and law, either at another point in this effort, or for a study of Galatians in its own right.
Let us hold to this, together with the Apostles. “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, in order that we might know Him who is True, and we are in Him who is True, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1Jn 5:20). “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” (Heb 4:14). The Son of God, our eternal High Priest, returned to His heavenly throne at the Ascension. By His death, He had cleansed not only the earthly temple of His people, but the heavenly temple of which the earthly is but a copy. “Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb 9:23-24)
And to the Church everywhere, the Son of God says, “The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this: I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” (Rev 2:18-20). I’ll leave it to the reader to assess all that is to be understood of this, and to repent accordingly. Hold to this: The Son of God knows your deeds, both good and ill. His eyes are like fire to burn through every dissembling and deceit. It holds, most assuredly, for the individual. I have to think it holds as well for the congregation which calls itself His body. He is Holy. Though He is incredibly merciful and compassionate toward us in our weak estate, yet He is also Just and True, and His Truth must be upheld Justly. He will not long tolerate that which claims to be His body but acts as a son of the devil.
This was not a direction I expected to take in this portion, and certainly not this morning, but as it has come, so I must pursue. The Gospel, for all that it holds forth the free gift of God, does not give free pass to His children. It ever challenges the true son of God to examine his ways, to observe where God is working in his person and in his fellowship, and to seek, as best he may, to align his own meager efforts with the work of his Master. Even if he has no sense of God looking, he must know with certainty that He is in fact entirely aware of every action and even every thought. But, far from driving us to despair, as it surely would had we no hope but in our own efforts, it drives us to prayerful pursuit of our Redeemer. With Paul, and therefore in very good company, we cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. What the Law could not do, God did. He sent His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Ro 7:24-8:4).
That’s a lot to consider, but critical to grasp. We are not freed to sin. That we continue to serve the law of sin in the flesh is not something of which to boast, nor something to be accepted and pursued with added gusto. No! We may serve the law of sin in the flesh, but our hope comes of not walking according to the flesh. That is to say, sin no longer defines us. It may be, indeed most certainly will be, that we stumble and sin on occasion. But, sin is no longer our standard operating mode. Yes, we remain sinners, and therefore we sin. But, we are freed of that law, to walk in the law of the Spirit of life. A great change has come upon us, entirely wrought by the Son of God who, by His life and death as a son of man, the Son of Man, purchased our liberty from sin and death.
v. Son of Man
[08/13/19]
As I turn to the subject of Jesus the Son of Man, I will begin with the one most often addressed by that title in the Old Testament – Ezekiel. Over and over again God speaks to Ezekiel by this title. “Son of man, stand on your feet” (Eze 2:1). “Son of man, I am sending you” (Eze 2:3). And it is not just at his calling that this title finds use, but throughout his ministry. “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations” (Eze 16:2). “Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Do you come to inquire of Me? As I live,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘I will not be inquired of by you’” (Eze 20:3). In connection with this, and with later pronouncements Ezekiel is required to make, comes the question to himself. “Son of man, will you judge them” (Eze 20:4, Eze 22:36).
It strikes me, as I consider the scope and tenor of Ezekiel’s work, that his work informs our understanding of Jesus as the Son of Man, far better than does the brief mention in Daniel. That mention is indeed important, and I shall address it in turn, but consider what we see here, even with that brief survey of references. The Son of Man is sent by God. That is certainly a point Jesus repeats often, speaking constantly of ‘the One Who sent Me’ (Lk 10:16). As to the mission, it seems that there is a great deal of parallel as well. Jesus certainly confronted Jerusalem, most especially those who fashioned themselves the spiritual leaders of Israel, with their abominations.
It seems as if this is done specifically to provoke them to action, ensuring God’s timetable is followed by their willful choices, and I believe that is in fact the case. But, God would not provoke such disobedience at random, nor does He tempt man to sin. Man does quite well at that all on his own. Rather, I would take it that as with Canaan before Israel came into the land, God was permitting the complete number of their sins to accumulate before addressing the whole enormity of their sins. It had happened before, hadn’t it? This was the reason behind the exile of which Ezekiel was now a part. His prophecies did not come as warning to prevent the Exile, but rather as instruction and warning during that Exile.
Even in that time, it seems, the problem of sin remained. That should hardly surprise is when we see how our own sin so tenaciously clings to existence in us. So, the charges build even then. “There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst, like a roaring lion tearing the prey. They have devoured lives. They have taken treasure and precious things. They have made many widows in the midst of her” (Eze 22:24). That could as readily describe the Church in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. No, it does not describe the Church in whole, any more than Ezekiel’s message, God’s message, was a blanket statement covering the whole of the population. Yet, the whole of the population was certainly paying the price. “I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath. Their way I have brought upon their heads” (Eze 22:31). Oh, that God’s children would hear and repent!
But, let me return to my proper course. What has this to do with Jesus? As the prophets leading up to, and apparently continuing during the exile, so the priesthood in the time of Jesus. The office, even, of high priest had become a political plaything, often obtained by bloodshed, as if this were the way God chose! The Sadducees were far more enamored of power politics than piety. The Temple was primarily a means of gain to them; thus the temple marketplace, albeit constrained primarily to the court of the Gentiles. But, as Jesus made painfully clear, this was utterly at odds with the plan and purpose of God. The Pharisees, while also clearly in positions of power, had at least a passing interest in piety, even if the definitions had been corrupted rather severely. But, Jesus had no patience with pious poseurs. He confronted them with Truth, pointed out how their purported holiness violated the true Law of God repeatedly, and all the while insisted that this was the way everybody should act. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel about on land and sea to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (Mt 23:15). And, to Jesus as well comes that follow-on question. “Son of Man, will You judge them?” To which Jesus answers, “All judgment has been given into My hands” (Jn 5:22).
The other great mission, the positive mission of Ezekiel, concerned the rebuilding of the temple. He gave its plans in great detail. Jesus comes with the news that the temple then present would indeed be torn down – again, the destruction of Jerusalem which would come about in 70 AD. But, He observed as well that He would Himself rebuild the temple in but three days. This, as John points out, concerned His bodily resurrection, but the point remains. In the course of God’s purposes in Creation there had been thus far four temples. There was the tabernacle fashioned under the direction of Moses, which I will note also presents us with the first occasion of the Spirit’s anointing, as He came to instill the gives needful to the building of that tabernacle. There was Solomon’s temple, so grand a structure, which had stood until its corruption, along with that of the people who ostensibly worshiped therein, led to the Exile. There was the temple built by Nehemiah and company at Exile’s end, a pale shadow of that former glory that caused its builders to weep at the loss. Now there was Herod’s temple, a structure that sought to match once more Solomon’s splendor, but it must be said, with no clear indication of God’s approval. Herod hardly seems the sort for God’s approval, but then, the same could be said of many others whom He did choose.
Now, Jesus was declaring the fifth temple, a temple not made by human hands (Jn 2:21, Ac 7:48), echoing the instruction given Israel in regard to building altars. Don’t cut the stones! God has already fashioned them to His liking. Don’t suppose you can improve on God’s work, God’s design. And there is another message we could stand to hear today, both as concerns the building of churches, and as concerns the current propensity for altering God’s design for our individual bodies. But, that’s a trail I choose not to follow this morning, leaving it merely as a seed for thought.
Jesus, the Son of Man, comes to build a temple, the Temple built without human hands. Yes, the original point concerns His own body, but it speaks also to the nature of the Church, which I shall be considering in due course, Lord willing. This, too, is no physical structure fashioned by man, although we do avail ourselves of those buildings we are able to construct by God’s strength and provision, as places where we can gather together to worship in community with one another and with God. We do have our holy places, but the temple remains that which God has fashioned, that which Jesus has sanctified, the individual life of the believer.
So, then, the Son of Man comes, it seems to me, in the mission of Ezekiel, whom God so often called, ‘son of man’. He comes to confront. He comes to cleanse. He comes to judge, but also to present a pure and holy hope, as He presents the plans for the new temple in His own body. “Here is the plan. Let us build.” And so, the Church has been built in accord with the plan and purpose of God since that time. Errors have been made, to be sure, and corrections required. It is ever so, whether we consider the organized church or the individual therein. Repentance and renewal are ever the necessary activities of the believer. The Reformation never stops, but requires that we constantly apply the plumb line of the Word, and correct that work which is found out of plumb.
[08/14/19]
Now, perhaps, we have sufficient background to consider the import of Daniel’s message regarding the Son of Man. There is much of interest in that passage, as Daniel conveys to us what he saw in a vision, and that vision speaks of things pertaining to the last day. Here, too, we are with a prophet of the period of the Exile. In his vision he sees four empires arise and fall in turn, each more dreadful than the last, and each seemingly determined to crush all God’s people. But, lo! The Ancient of Days takes His seat, and He fairly glows with His own purity (Dan 7:9). Here was true Majesty, not another tyrant such as reigned over those four empires, and the true Majesty on high sits in judgment even of them. The last came before him with boasting, but was destroyed nonetheless (Dan 7:11). The others were granted temporary reprieve, yet faced an appointed time. But, then comes this greatest part of the vision. “I kept looking in the night visions, and behold! With the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed” (Dan 7:13-14).
If Ezekiel tells us much about what to expect from the ministry of this Son of Man, Daniel tells us why. Here is your king, and His kingdom is forever. The Jews were not wrong to expect a king in their Messiah, for indeed, a King He Is. What they failed to recognize, however, is that which Jesus observed to Pilate. “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36). Pilate, too, got it wrong. He was not merely King of the Jews, though He was surely that. No, His kingdom encompasses all peoples, all nations, men of every language. It is eternal in duration, and all-encompassing in its scope.
Isaiah saw it as well. “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this” (Eze 9:6-7). This son given to us is indeed the Son of Man, and also the Son of God, as He must be for His kingdom to last forever, and His government ever increasing.
Now, as concerns the record of Jesus’ ministry, it is observed that this is the title by which He most frequently refers to Himself. In the present of His ministry, He observes that whereas even birds have nests in which to rest, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head (Mt 8:20). Here is the King, the head of the kingdom of heaven come to earth, and this is His reception. This, in spite of John’s preparatory efforts, calling on man to prepare the way. In spite of His herald proclaiming the approach of man’s rightful King, man remained steadfastly resistant to His rule. But, behold, this Son of Man, Jesus tells us, is Lord of the Sabbath (Mt 12:8). This came in the course of pursuing His Ezekiel-like mission of confronting the purported representatives of God, and if indeed they were God’s representatives, they ought surely to have recognized what He was saying. He identified Himself as the Son of Man often enough for them to realize He spoke of Himself in this, and they should have heard the claim of Messiah, if they did not. But, Jesus is speaking a correction to their conception of Messiah. They expected merely a hero. They got God.
The Son of Man, even by the vision of Daniel, is shown more than a mere man. Mere man does not enter heaven, not in his present state, certainly. But, the Son of Man did, and doing so, He received a kingdom without end. He is Lord of every man, like it or not. He is also Lord of every aspect of faith. The Sabbath, as He observes, was given for man’s benefit, not to be a burden to him. The Sabbath was not an excuse to rest from doing good deeds, for acting with compassion toward one another, for such actions are indeed acts of worship, when viewed aright and done aright. The Lord of the Sabbath had a message for those who had made it an excuse for callous idleness. “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Mt 12:12). Before them stood the One fully authorized to make such a statement with utmost assurance, for He spoke His own law.
But, Jesus speaks not only to the present of the Son of Man. He speaks as well of the future. There was the sorrow of the immediate future, sorrow not for what would come of it, but for the fact that it must come. “The Son of Man is going to suffer” (Mt 17:12). “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him” (Mt 17:23a). But, it doesn’t stop there, praise God, for of His kingdom there is no end, and some would argue at this juncture we hadn’t even quite arrived at its beginning. All this will come about, but, “He will be raised on the third day” (Mt 17:23b).
Now, if I say His kingdom hasn’t quite begun at that juncture, I say so only by way of a comparative analogy, for indeed His kingdom has no end, but neither had it a beginning. His kingdom is eternal as He is eternal. There remains, however, a progressive revealing or realization of that kingdom on the earth. To our eyes it may appear to wax and wane, and yet, as Isaiah proclaimed so long ago, there is in fact no end to the increase of His kingdom. It never wanes, but only grows age to age. So, Jesus must forewarn His own, “The Son of Man is to go” (Mt 26:24a), but observe that this transpires, “just as it is written of Him.” That does not excuse His betrayer in any way, but it does give comfort to those who might feel betrayed by His seeming defeat. All of this is but part of the plan, dear children. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28).
The Son of Man is going, just as it is written, but then there is this: “Just as the lightning comes from the east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be” (Mt 24:27). Even to the Sadducees and Pharisees who signed His death warrant, He proclaims, “Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mt 26:64). Oh, have no doubt, they knew exactly what He was saying here. And so, in their blindness, they insisted, “He has blasphemed!” Had He not spoken truly, they would even have been right in that. But, they were not, for He had in fact spoken truly, and His resurrection came as absolute proof of it. It is no wonder that they worked so hard to erase Him from their history, and to remove the names of those who had come to believe in Him from their genealogies. They must stubbornly maintain their self-deception, else they would have to face the enormity of their sin. Even then, I must note, there remained hope. Even then, in this extremity of action, there remained a season in which they could have repented and discovered forgiveness for their sins from the very One they condemned. But, they would not suffer the Truth to enter their hearts and minds.
What we observe, however, is that the Son of Man who is with His disciples speaks also of a day when He is coming. This informs us that what transpired there in Israel for those three brief years was not the final act. It was, to be sure, the defining point of all history, but it was not the culmination. The Son of Man had come, but not in His final, fulfilled office as King of kings. For the nonce, He was the Suffering Servant of whom Isaiah had written. He came to serve. He came to seek and to save. The time for absolute rule remained and remains future. For now, those empires of Daniel’s vision continue in their course. We do well to remember that our present day nations are still to be counted among those empires. America may be the last best hope of mankind, but the last best hope of mankind is a weak and empty hope. It is not the foundation upon which we stand, else we stand not at all. No, the kingdom that remains, the kingdom to which we rightly give our full allegiance, is the kingdom of heaven, and the Son of Man is her king, her only King. He has been king from before the beginning, and He shall remain king beyond the end.
[08/15/19]
Before I leave the Gospels on this topic, I want to turn to John 12. There I find a most interesting exchange. Indeed, it’s difficult to decide how far to back up from the verse that first brought me there. The account concerns events after the raising of Lazarus from the dead, which had led to even greater interest in Jesus amongst the people, and the Jewish leaders were not happy. “You see that you are not doing any good,” they said to one another. “Look! The world has gone after Him” (Jn 12:19). As evidence of the truth of that statement, John immediately relays news of a group of Greeks come up for the feast. These would, of course, have been restricted to the outer courts, and specifically, the court of the Gentiles, where the leaders had their markets set up. It was not a terribly worshipful place. But, they sensed change in the One who had sought to make it a proper place for worship. They came across Philip and said, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” which news Philip brought to Andrew and they together to Jesus (Jn 12:21-22).
The response Jesus has to this news is somewhat curious, especially as it is delivered, apparently, quite publicly. Hearing that a few Gentiles are seeking to meet Him, His response is this: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (Jn 12:23). Now, that in itself would seem to reflect a very positive take on the matter. But, it doesn’t stop with that. He continues. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). And from there, it becomes a message about losing life to serve Him, and be honored by the Father. Is He making this a suicide cult? No, of course not. But, He Himself must die, and well He knows it. He also knows the impact that’s likely to have on His disciples, and He is doing His best to teach them in advance in order that they will not be entirely lost when the event comes to pass. That brief message concludes, “Now My soul has become trouble. But what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? For this purpose I came to this hour! Father, glorify Thy name” (Jn 12:27-28), to which the Father Himself responds audibly, although many mistook it for thunder, and few it seems understood the response. “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (Jn 12:28-29).
Now, the message becomes more directly involved with the looming crucifixion. Judgment is announced upon the world. What a response, I have to say, to a few Gentiles wanting to meet Him! But, what a confirmation, in those few Gentiles, that indeed the world was going after Him. “The ruler of this world shall be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (Jn 12:31-32). John observes that this was pointing to the crucifixion. But, the message confuses those who heard. “We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever, so how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?” (Jn 12:34).
You see the problem. They knew these were related terms, Messiah and Son of Man. They saw the connection, saw that they referred to one and the same person. But, they also recognized what Daniel had said, the kingdom this Son of Man was to establish would last forever. So, what’s this Jesus, Who keeps calling Himself the Son of Man on about? He must be talking about something different. And so, we read the sad news that, “though He had performed so many signs before them, they were not believing in Him” (Jn 12:37). The signs were neat, and there was certainly great entertainment value to be had in following Him around. Who knew? Maybe He would raise somebody else from the dead and they’d be there to see it. How cool would that be? But, they didn’t really believe in Him. They just enjoyed the spectacular events that came of His presence.
They had plentiful information on the matter. They could hear the voice from heaven, but they couldn’t understand it. They could see the signs, but they couldn’t see the point. They could speak the Scriptures and their prophecies, but they could not recognize the fulfillment. Indeed, they could not see that their own failure was itself fulfillment of prophecy, as John proceeds to point out.
But, the question they had for Jesus is a question we must answer in our own turn. Who is this Son of Man? For them, there was a major stumbling block in that they only recognized a part of the picture. They saw the promise of a king, the promise of Israel a kingdom with power and glory once more. Honestly, I’m not certain how much they cared about the king. It was the kingdom of Israel that had their interest more. They wanted Rome out and self-rule in. Kings were somewhat standard fare for such pursuits, so yes, a promised King was a wonderful thing, but not because He was wonderful; rather because He could fulfill their desires.
But, the Son of Man came a Suffering Servant. Oh, He was King right enough, and still is. But, He hadn’t come to chase of the Romans. He had come to save the lost. He had come to reprove the sorry under-shepherds of Israel for growing fat on the sheep. Israel was in reruns. As had been the case in Exile, so it was again, but at least in Exile, Israel had recognized her punishment and repented. This time, it seemed, things were that much worse. The Suffering Servant came, and while some recognized Him for Who He was, none really recognized the full reality of His being. Certainly, the under-shepherds failed to recognize that the Good Shepherd had come. They rejected His reproof and insisted on their own right of rule. To guard their power they must destroy Him, and so they set out to do.
For the sheep, this was most disconcerting. Messiah was supposed to be the eternal king. How could He be put to death? If Jesus was the Messiah, what was all this talk about? If He is the King, why don’t we see the kingdom rising? Questions like these continue to plague the church even today. We may, one hopes, have a better sense of the full scope of Messiah’s office, but even now, I doubt we see it in its true and complete light. Even now, sinful men that we are, we fail to acknowledge the King because we don’t really see Him reigning much. The world around us doesn’t reflect much that is heavenly. Nature’s nice to look at, but it remains, as the phrase goes, “red in tooth and claw.” You’re not going to see lions and lambs frolicking together just yet. Certainly, the world of man doesn’t have much about it to recommend the holiness of God. So, who is this Son of Man? What’s He up to? What has He to do with us?
In short, everything. Here is the second Adam, the final Adam, the new representative head of a new humanity. Here, in the Son of Man, the failure of Adam has been reversed. Adam failed of the one commandment given him, and as such, all mankind and all nature fell under conviction for sin. That’s a larger topic for later in this overall study, but there it is. Our first president, if you will, committed us, his constituents, to a course that could only lead to death. But, Messiah, the Second Adam, obeyed every commandment, obeyed even to the point of death on the cross, in order that by His obedience, we who are His constituents might be committed to the Way that leads to Life.
Messiah, to fulfill the primary purpose of His efforts in Creation, must be a man, the Son of Man. His death must be the death of a man, and to be of value, His death must be the death of a man who had obeyed all righteousness as a man. Jesus, the Son of Man, met those requirements in full, as Jesus the Son of God could not. The Son of God could obey. Of course He could. He is God. Why would He not obey Himself? But, Jesus the Son of Man obeyed as a man, and so His obedience was a fit substitute for the sins of man. Jesus the Son of God was and is eternal, and as such His sacrifice was of sufficient worth to account for the sins of all whom He would call His own, all whom the Father gives Him. The blood of lambs and bulls could only provide temporary relief, and even that, in type only. The blood of a man, even one so fine as Moses or Elijah, could at best serve to atone for that one man. But, the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, could pay the full debt of all for whom the Son of Man died.
Who is the Son of Man? He is your kinsman Redeemer, paying the debt you owe that you might once more, for the first time really, be free. He is your rightful King, and in His death, that victory that Israel thought pertained to liberation from Rome was realized on a far grander scale than they could imagine. Rome wasn’t the problem. Sin was and is the problem, and all the suffering and death that came of it. Satan was the problem, that instigator of sinfulness, and death was his greatest weapon against the children of God. There on the cross, the Son of Man, the true Messiah, won a decisive and thorough victory against that enemy of Life. The Son of Man IS the Son of God. He is God made flesh, that in His flesh, God might redeem unto Himself a reborn humanity, destined for glory as He perfects His work in them.
This Son of Man/Son of God shall indeed return in due course, and all shall see Him, whether they look forward with joy to that day, or do everything in their power to delay it. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess Him the true Lord of all. But few indeed are those who will do so with joyfulness at the full and final revelation of their Savior. For the majority, sad to say, His revelation will be a matter of eternal regret.
On that note, let me turn to the Apostles’ Creed once more, as it concerns the Son. “[I believe] in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell: The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” Behold, the Man!
vi. How a Son?
[08/19/19]
I think that in many ways this question has already been answered as I looked at the two natures of Christ as Son of God and Son of Man. I see first and foremost that Jesus, the Son of God, is declared the only begotten Son. John makes the point repeatedly. He became flesh, and the Apostles, John particularly, together with Peter and James, ‘beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (Jn 1:14). Shortly thereafter, he observes that no man has seen God – a point that remains true, at the very least in regard to God in His essence. But, now has come something wonderful. “The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (Jn 1:18).
We might ask what it was John sought to convey by that phrase, for it seems to be almost uniquely his. Of the six uses I find of the phrase ‘only begotten’, all but one are from John’s writing. For one, it seems, this status as the only begotten marks Him out as God in His own right. John makes that explicit in John 1:18. But, how could this be, if our God, He is One? This was an issue that the early fathers wrestled with for a long time. It is perhaps the hardest challenge in the Trinitarian view of God. If God is One, how is He both Father and Son? Part of answering that consists in recognizing that He is not just the only begotten Son, but the eternally begotten Son. This is something hard to grasp. It does not mean that He is forever being born. That would hardly serve a purpose, would it? Rather, it insists on the point that there was never a time when He was not the only begotten. There was no point at which God was the Father but not the Son. There shall be no future point where the Son continues but the Father does not. Yes, that is the way of human life, but we are not considering human life. We are considering eternal, unchanging God.
So, then, what is it that John understood but men like Arius later missed? Arius had a big problem with this. To be begotten, he reasoned, must indicate a creative act. If there is a begetter, then his act of begetting has created this life, just as I, in fathering my daughter, might be said to have had a part in creating her life. So, if to be begotten requires a creative act, then Jesus cannot be unchanging and eternal. He has a beginning, even if He has no end, and therefore, lacking the qualification of eternality, He must be something less than fully God. Arius was wrong, but one can understand his dilemma.
Athanasius, on the other hand, insisted on the eternal state of this only begotten status. It has always been thus. He was not created as the begotten, He has ever been so, and ever shall be. So, then, one thing we cannot suppose is that the Son is a son in that He is born of the Father, or has His source in the Father. That cannot be. God cannot have His source in another, for that would produce a contingency on His being. This is difficult to wrap ourselves around, I know. But, it must be the case that the Son, although begotten, was in fact born to God at some date after God began to be. There’s already a problem there in that we presuppose a time at which God began to be. He is eternal. There is no such time. So, too, the Son. He is eternal, and there is no such time as before He was.
We must look in another direction to perceive John’s meaning. It’s there to be found. In the Son, he beheld the glory of God. This is not just a particularly favorable review of John’s rabbi. This is not hyperbole. It actually describes a real event to which John was witness, as Jesus for a brief few moments was revealed in something nearer His fullness. I don’t think even that mountaintop transfiguration could be said to have revealed Him in full, for such revelation would yet have left the three who witnessed it dead. Rather, like Moses back on Sinai, I think they were granted a glimpse of the backside of His glory, as it were – enough to make it more than clear that here was someone more than a man, but not so much as to destroy their sinful flesh. John certainly got it. This only begotten Son was in fact the only begotten God.
So, what did this mean to John? Clearly it meant Jesus was far more than a great teacher, or even a great prophet. He was God – end of discussion, no room for debate. He proved it with utmost sufficiency. Yet, as John could readily witness, and readily did, Jesus was forever addressing Himself to the Father, to our Father. This was not, then, the Father come down, but the one the Father sent. So He explained Himself, and so He was. He was sent to explain the Father to the children of God. Yet, He was not Himself merely a child of God as we may be said to be. He came into the created order, but He was not of the created order. He could not be, who had Himself made the created order. But, He came to explain the Father. I think we might be better served to say He came and exemplified the Father, if we can accept that idea without reducing Christ’s stature as fully God of fully God.
He came to live before man what man was intended to be. He came to walk out, in the life of a man, what it was the God required of man, because what God requires of man is that which is pleasing to Himself, which is to say, that which properly reflects His essence, His character, His goodness. It is to live out a life that proclaims in full the full glory of God, ‘glory as of the only begotten’.
I have written previously of the point that the son, particularly in the huios significance by which Jesus is declared the Son of God, something far stronger than paternity is in view. This is not a matter of lineage but of lifestyle. It is a matter of character and habit. The Son is of the Father in that He walks in the way of the Father, speaks after the fashion of the Father, indeed speaks the words of the Father. He speaks only what He hears the Father declare. He does only what He sees the Father do. He obeys in every command the Father issues, and He does so without carping and without delay. He does not bargain with the Father, but seeks with all that is in Him to be as the Father is.
In this, I think I lean far more toward the ‘Son of Man’ side of Christ. In His Godhood, there is no question of identity with the Father, for our God, He is One, even if three in Person. But, in living as a man, the Son faced all those struggles and temptations that are common to man. There is nothing we face, even in this strange and strained time in which we live, which He has not faced before us, and faced successfully. There is no temptation has overtaken us but such as are common to man. There is no trial in our life over which He has not been thoroughly victorious. He has experienced it, and He is therefore able to fully sympathize with our failings, not as winking at them and letting them slide, but as understanding what we go through, how powerful is that temptation, and how weak the flesh. And so, He acts in compassion to bolster us in our weakness, to be our strength.
How is God the Son? The Father gave Him to us, betroths us to Him. He gave Him to us that we might not perish, but would rather have eternal life (Jn 3:16). He gave Him also to rule and reign over us, as it were His rightful heir. Yet, I must again affirm that this is not the Son replacing the Father on His throne, as though the Father’s time had passed. Rather, we are told that when all has been fully accomplished, the Son Who is on the throne hands the whole kingdom back to the Father (1Co 15:27). This is the act of a true Son, fully committed to the way and purpose of His Father, and seeking His Father’s honor in all that He does. His concern is not for Himself, but for the Father who knows Him His Son.
Now, Paul does proceed to say that at this future point of fulfillment, even the Son will be subjected to ‘the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all’ (1Co 15:28). Yet, Paul suggests that the prerequisite for this moment is already accomplished. “He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:22-23). The very phrasing of these two passages indicates their connection with one another. However it is that the Son is subjected to God, it remains He Himself who fills all in all. He is, after all, the One, even as He is subjected to the Father, who is also the One. Perhaps we have need of once more seeing an act undertaken by the Son of Man as in some way distinct from the Son of God. I can only give that a ‘perhaps’, though. I think there are problems with trying to so divide the Son, certainly in His glorified state.
[08/20/19]
Continuing on this line, I return to the matter of the God/Man. I will quote at length from the Athanasian Creed. “For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person” (lines 30-36).
You can see how greatly the matter was wrestled with by the way in which the creed so carefully delineates its points. He is equal to God yet inferior to God. It depends whether we speak of His Godhead or His manhood. Yet, it is not so much that God was brought into the flesh, but rather that manhood was taken into God. I like that he chooses to say into, not up by or some other choice of phrase. Manhood was no more incorporated into what was already God than God was transferred to some fleshy container. Manhood was taken into God, and these two essentialities became one in Him, yet not so as to confuse one substance with another. The unity is in the Person of Christ.
I belabor this somewhat because it is a matter that needs to be belabored. It is difficult to assess; difficult to accept. But, it is critical to our faith that we understand it aright, for by misunderstanding the interplay of these two natures in the Person of Christ we arrive at no end of error, and yes, of heresy. Heresy is precisely the reason for the development of this creed, as with others. To combat the error requires that we carefully delineate the truth.
For purpose of the current discussion, the key factor is this: Not every act of Christ is an act done by dint of His deity. Neither is every act the achievement of His humanity. While the Scriptures do not, per God’s design, choose to clearly demark which is which, the fact remains that those things Jesus did as He was upon the earth are not a guarantee of some sort that all who follow Him shall in fact be able to do likewise. Certainly, as concerns His obedience to the Father, we remain unable in ourselves, and unable even in the company of the Holy Spirit, although we daily draw nearer to that goal, Lord willing.
Perfection of soul and flesh is not something for this life, but awaits the bodily resurrection, the transformation of this sinful flesh into that which is suitable for eternity. Jesus had the advantage over us in this, for He was not born a sinner as are we. He did not come with that handicap, and so had the chance of perfect obedience that is denied us by our heritage. I will say this as well: Were it possible for man, even if it be in light of the work of Christ, to walk in perfect obedience as he ought, then is the work of Christ rendered unnecessary, and if unnecessary, then also perverse. For God to give His only begotten Son to be so brutally treated, if in fact it were not absolutely necessary in order for any portion of His creation to be saved, would be perverse in the extreme. We would hardly celebrate the man who sacrifices his son, whatever the reason may be. Why would we turn to a God who sacrifices His Son, except that sacrifice were necessary in the most essential sense of the term? Who could run to such a God in hope? If He would do this to His Son, what shall He do to us?
But, the sacrifice was necessary, an absolute necessity. Further, it was part and parcel of the entire plan and work of Creation. It was baked in from the start, from before the beginning, and this was so by the eternal, covenanted agreement of God in Three Persons. Father, Son, and Spirit alike had set themselves to this task, knowing full well the depths of sorrow that must ensue for man and for God alike, because they knew as well the glory that would accrue at the fulfillment of this great work. The Father gave the Son, but the Son also gave Himself. He came not to be served, but to serve, that by His service and His sacrifice, He might save many.
That is the clear testimony of the Son Himself, preserved for us in His Word. I would stress, as well, that He speaks of saving the many, not the entirety. There remain those who will hear but not heed. There remain those who reject the Son and His atoning work. They may even be the majority, indeed all but certainly are the majority. It is the remnant that will be saved (Ro 9:27). It is so as concerns those who are Jews by birth. It will certainly be so for those who are sons of Abraham by faith. As Paul wrote of Israel at the time, so it is for the world today. “In the same way then, there has come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Ro 11:5-6). “Those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened” (Ro 11:7b).
But, I am wandering. Let me get back to my main thread. The Son acts both in the power of His Godhead and in the weakness of His flesh. He reigns as God. He hands over the kingdom to God as man. He obeys as man. He dies as man. He lives as man. Yet, His miracles confirm that here is God incarnate. His restoration of life to those whom He chooses to restore is evidence that here is the Living God, the God of Life. His resurrection, achieved quite apart from any human intervention, it must be noted, declared His Godhead in power.
This does not allow for transference. We do not look upon those who work miracles, even if they be the true Apostles of Christ, as somehow having been declared deities in their own right. The Apostles would have nothing to do with such nonsense, and rejected it most forcefully where the foolishness of man proposed it. Peter and Paul could make some claims as to healing, and even to bringing back to life. What they could not claim was to have the power in themselves. What they had was the gift of God’s grace, operating in the power of and under the sure guidance of the Holy Spirit. Peter and Paul acted, but God remains in control. It is His power that gives life, not the power of the apostle. Indeed, we are warned against supposing that every sign and wonder confirms a godly actor. It has ever been the case that evil counterfeit could mimic righteous deed where it suited them to do so. The magicians of Egypt could produce wonders not so very far inferior to those Moses performed. Yes, they were inferior, but unless held up against the deeds of Moses, who would have been less than awed by them?
In the present day, there is an assumption with many that the worker who performs some sort of sign and claims to be of God must necessarily be of God in truth. But, the Word of God says otherwise. The Word of God observes that the workers of Satan may even come disguised as angels of light. Signs and wonders aren’t the point. They may be real. They may be counterfeit. These are not things to have our attention to so great a degree as they tend to have it. They are mere trinkets, and may, as at Corinth, present more evidence of chaos and admixture with pagan beliefs than of holiness and devotion to God. They may be simple badges of pride, which would render them far from beneficial to the practitioner or to the one swayed by such display.
And again I am wandering. It seems inevitable with me. The Son is in heaven. We are informed that at the culmination of all things, when the whole of Creation, heaven and earth alike, are in subjection to the Son, then the Son will hand the kingdom to the Father, and Himself be subjected to the Father. Here, per the Athanasian Creed, I am more comfortable in saying that the final act is a submission of the Man, Jesus the Christ, to God. But, as to His Godhead, He remains, as ever, fully co-equal. He is, in some strange sense of things, submitting to Himself in submitting to the Father. I think, therefore, that what we observe is the submission of the human essence to the divine, which is as it should be. But, then, I would think that in Christ, this had to have ever been the case.
If I must unravel the knot of this thought, I should suggest that what is in view is the final undoing of that relinquishing of His divine prerequisites that transpired in coming to dwell among His people. “Although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Php 2:6-7). He did not cease being God in that moment, but something happened. In some fashion, He committed Himself to live as a man among men, following the normal course of human life, at least up to a point. He did not divest Himself of divinity, but neither did He walk among men as divinity exposed. Yes, we saw the Father in seeing Jesus, but not in full. Even Peter, James and John, up there on the mountaintop, did not see Jesus in fullness of deity, only enough to leave them utterly changed henceforth without destroying them.
Perhaps, then, I can start to veer back toward the topic of this section: How a Son? He is a Son in that He perfectly presents us with the way and the character of the Father. The Father remains wholly ineffable. We do not see Him. We cannot see Him. No man has, nor ever shall, says John; not in this sinful flesh. It would be his destruction. Isaiah caught but a glimpse and trembled. “Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, but my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Isa 6:5). This could not be a happy moment until that one came to him and announced, “Behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven” (Isa 6:7). But, observe carefully that even with this, he had not seen the full glory of God, nor had the Seraphim. The Seraphim, we are informed elsewhere, go about with eyes and feet covered, and for the same reason. They are not perfected, and cannot survive full exposure to the glory of the Father.
But, in the Son we see the Father. He is made tangible, observable. “The Son, He has explained Him.” He has exemplified Him. He has modeled Him in perfect fullness before us, that we might finally know and understand. He has shown us, O man, what is required of us, and that in Him, that requirement is met. He has loved us to the uttermost in clear demonstration of the Father’s unchanging love toward us. He has announced our salvation, our redemption, and has so walked in the way of His Father as to be a true Son.
So it is that Paul gives us his description of the church and its officers. “He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:11-13). This is the mission of the Church. Yes, we who are the church are called into service, and in that service, some will serve as evangelists, others as teachers, and so on. Some will find their efforts geared more towards seeking out the lost, and others in training up the found. The goal, however, remains true faith in and knowledge of the Son. The goal is for all who are called sons of God to become truly sons of God, growing into the fullness of Christ. Christ is the True Son, demonstrated by His obedience, even unto death, and confirmed by the Father in His resurrection to life, and His ascension to the heavenly throne. There, His obedience continues, and shall continue. As concerns His human nature, He remains fully man, and as a man, fully subjected to God. As concerns His divinity, He remains as He always has been, fully God, co-equal with the Father, and perfectly One with Him. To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen. (Rev 5:13).
vii. Why a Son?
[08/21/19]
This, I think, is the harder question to answer. I can see how it is that Jesus is the Son of God, and to some degree I can see how it is that there can be an eternal Son in eternal relationship with His eternal Father. But, why does God exist as Son? If it were merely a matter of His relating to humanity, I could explain it that the Son is needful that we might have His example to live by, and that is assuredly true. But, if it’s only a matter of God’s relating to us, then the Son represents something of a dependency, a contingency in God, which cannot be. If we are to answer the question of why there is a Son in the Godhead, our answer must be contained in the Godhead.
In more general terms, I can understand that God, to be complete, must have fellowship, and to avoid matters of contingency and dependency, must have said fellowship within Himself. That certainly applies as we consider the Trinity in full, and it would still apply as we consider just these two Persons of Father and Son. Arguably, that necessity was met with just these two Persons, but then there must be something about the matter that necessitates the Spirit as well. I will, I suppose, get to that in due time.
The thing is, this need for relationship could have been satisfied with any number of possibilities. Surely a mother and daughter would supply relationship as well, or even two brothers, two sisters, husband and wife, or what have you. The simple matter of relationship is insufficient to answer the question. Something about the nature of God required a Father, and surely to have a Father, there must be a child. As well, in keeping with the culture into which God pours out His revelation, there is something unique about a Son in that the Son inherits, where a daughter might not. But that would suggest that God is dependent upon the culture, or else that these Persons of Father and Son are but a type of the real situation, and we might discover that in a different setting God reveals Himself differently. This might be a tempting thing to posit, but we have no evidence of such an adjustment of the revelation of God to suit the culture. Yes, there are shifts in His economy, alterations to the way in which He deals with man over time. Witness the covenants. But in all that, God has not changed, nor has He shown Himself differently.
You may argue that the Incarnation was certainly a different way of showing Himself, but that speaks to method, not matter. Yes, it is true, God had not been seen in the physical form of a man prior to this, at least not in so durative a fashion. We would have to consider such appearances as that warrior that Joshua encountered, who certainly seemed to have the look of a man. We could go back further and question who it was that Abram and Sara fed outside their tent. He certainly seemed solid enough to take sustenance, an act that is seen as verifying the physical reality of the risen Son. So, no, I don’t think this counts as even a material change in God’s showing Himself. Be that as it may, it assuredly did nothing to alter who He is or how His being was to be understood by His creature.
God is, and ever has been, Father and Son and Spirit. The Son, though He took on flesh in time and space, grew as a human grows, from zygote to full maturity and onward to death, is, and ever has been, the Son. Why? I think we must find that inheritance plays into the matter. That requires me to think seriously about the relationships common to humanity, and to suggest that these relationships are not mere social structures or matters of cultural habit. They are the product of having been made in the image of God. There’s a thought that won’t fit well with the social structures of our day. But that hardly matters in the understanding of who God is, does it?
There needed to be a Son. It was necessitated not by anything in man, nor even anything in creation. It was necessitated by the very essence, the very character and nature of God. So, too, the Father, but it is here, at the question of the Son, that it seems more needful to wrestle with the question. I am not at all certain I have an answer that will satisfy.
[08/22/19]
Whether or not it shall satisfy, I cannot say, but I find myself possessed of a thought this morning. That thought is honor. To be sure, God is honorable. If that has not been listed as one of His essential characteristics, let it now be added. God is honor. But, here’s the thing, while honorability is or can be an inherent trait, honor is something given, and in the best case, given to whom it is rightfully due. That is to say, honor is given because honor has been earned.
Now, if God has no outside dependencies, no contingency upon anything outside of Himself, then it becomes necessary, as with the matter of fellowship, that He can give and receive honor within Himself. Here is a role of the true son of a father. The son, in this huios sense, is not merely the offspring, the teknon. He is one who models himself after his father, and in doing so, honors his father as one worthy of honor. The father is not taken as model simply because of family relationship. The father is taken as model because by his words and his deeds he has shown himself worthy of being followed in such fashion.
The rabbi, in Jesus’ day, took on much of this role, as did certain of the philosophers of Greece, and others throughout the cultures of the world. Think of our modern day borrowing of the term guru for a particular role model, even if their role be limited. But, that actually serves to explain that admonition of Jesus to call no man father. Why? Because that role is satisfied in full in the Person of God the Father. It is so fully satisfied that even the Son, though Himself equal with the Father, fully honors the Father as a true Son does. As such, God, in Himself, finds both cause to honor and means to receive honor. The Father is worthy of honor and the Son is righteous to give honor.
Being co-equal, of course that giving and receiving of honor flows both directions. The Father also honors the Son, who has shown Himself honorable in His honoring of the Father. But, I do see how this more or less necessitates the Person of the Son in particular as a required, essential component of the Trinity. I am not happy with that word choice – component – for it suggests a partialness of Person, yet each Person of the Trinity is wholly God. Yet, God would in fact be incomplete if it were possible He could be deprived of any one Person of His being. Thus, each Person is the whole, and yet there is that sense where each Person is a part. The Son is necessary to the whole, and as concerns the Godhead in isolation from His relationship to mankind and creation, this strikes me as a reasonable cause for that necessity. It contributes to the completeness of God in Himself, and provides a mechanism for honor and the exchange of honor within Himself.
Is there more to be said about the necessity of the Son as concerns the Godhead? No doubt. But, for the purpose of this exercise, I am going to leave it at what I have observed, and may God be honored by that observation.
viii. Type and Shadow
Now then, I have been observing along the way that the Son is eternally the Son. There is not a time when He is not the Son, nor can there be. If we go back to the beginning of Creation, we find Him present and at work. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being which has come into being” (Jn 1:1-3). But, as Paul observes in regard to the subjection of the kingdom that, ‘it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him’ (1Co 15:27), so it is evident that He is excepted from this creating act who creates all things. He is not of the created order, being its Creator. Yet, He is not without witness prior to His incarnation.
It is common enough for us to look back across the text of the Old Testament and notice those occasions which, properly understood, pointed forward to the coming of the Christ. Even the unbelieving portion of Israel recognized as much. Messiah would come. Messiah was promised, and God does not renege on His promises. It does seem, however, that they missed much of the foreshadowing of Messiah in the text. This accounts for much of the misunderstanding of Christ’s purpose when He came, and for the failure to recognize and acknowledge Him. If the only part of the picture you perceive is that of the king come to lead his people to victory in war, then you look for the wrong man. For one thing, you look for merely a man. We’re back to seeking out a Saul because he looks the part, when David, who seemed too young and too small was the real deal.
And there in David we may very well choose to observe something of a shadow of the Christ to come, albeit with unwanted imperfections that serve to distinguish the shadow from the real. Likewise, Joseph is recognized as a type or shadow of the coming Christ, who rescues his people in their time of danger, and in spite of their misuse of him. But, these are mere men, and can only uphold the role in part. Even Cyrus, though Persian, is honored with the very title of messiah, insomuch as he is chosen by God to deliver God’s people back into the land they were promised. But, I don’t know that I would look to Cyrus as exemplifying Christ other than by that one aspect. He shows the true mission of Christ in part by his actions, but not by his intentions. I suppose the same can be said of all those in whom we catch a glimpse of the true Messiah. They do not intentionally, or even knowingly, set out to be examples of the Messiah to come. God chooses them and uses them. And He causes the record of their actions to be set down in words for posterity, so that we who dwell in the end times may learn from their example.
But, as concerns types and shadows of Christ, we must move away from the examples of man; not as rejecting them, but as looking beyond and behind them. Perhaps the biggest example of a type fulfilled in Christ is that of the Mercy Seat. Indeed, we may speak of the Son as being the Mercy Seat. The mercy seat was a part of the original Ark of the Covenant, a construction of pure gold that rested atop the ark, below the outspread wings of the cherubim, as they were set in place facing that seat. What was the purpose of this structure? “There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you” (Ex 25:17-22). And so it was. “Now when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim, so He spoke to him” (Nu 7:89).
With the temple of Solomon, the mercy seat moved into its own room, into which none but the high priest was to go, and that but once a year, to offer atonement (1Ch 28:11, Heb 9:5-7). The author of Hebrews explains. “The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time” (Heb 9:8-9a). That present time, of course, saw the temple still standing, and the sacrifices of the old covenant system still ongoing.
Now, that same term by which the mercy seat is described in Hebrews is elsewhere, in Romans 3:25, translated as propitiation. The term is hilasterion, and is indeed used to indicate the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat whereupon the atoning sacrifice is offered. But Paul is not writing of the Ark. He is writing of the Messiah. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Ro 3:23). Therein lies the need for atonement. “Being justified freely as a gift by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (Ro 3:24-25a). Jesus is, then, both the Mercy Seat and the offering made upon it in perfect atonement for our sins. It is this singular act of obedience on the part of the Son which has obtained our gracious justification, our pardon.
Further, to completely tie the antitype together with the type, it is in Christ, the living Word, that we hear God speak, to complete the earlier quote of Exodus, “about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel” (Ex 25:22b), which sons we are through faith. To be clear, this does not somehow authorize every would-be claimant to having heard a direct word from Christ. It does, however, declare the strongest criterion for acceptance of the texts that compose the New Testament scriptures. These are the record of those who were with Jesus throughout His ministry, and who were singularly marked out and declared to be His witnesses, commissioned for the very purpose of seeing His church firmly established.
I do not go so far as to suggest that God no longer speaks directly to His people, but I am happy to conclude that having revealed all that is necessary for our rebirth, our salvation, our edification, and our sanctification, that revelatory work is set as complete. This does not preclude the work of a prophet, but it does lock the door on what is to be accepted as indisputable revealed knowledge. What God may yet speak does not add to that Scripture, for the Scriptures are complete as He has established them, and the requisite apostolic authority, although that is a topic for later, is long at an end, and has been with the passing of John, the last living apostle.
[08/23/19]
I find one other case wherein I might suggest that we are given a glimpse of the Son, and that is in certain of those events concerning the angel of the Lord. I don’t know that I could go so far as to suggest that every mention of the angel of the Lord is in fact the Son. The term itself, mal’ak indicates a deputy or messenger, much as the Greek. It needn’t indicate a spirit-being of any sort. It could indicate a king or an ambassador, or some individual. Think of Malachi, or mal’akiy, whose very name indicates his office as a prophet, a messenger of God. But, there are certain occasions in which the angel of the Lord is present amongst men, and the nature of their exchange leaves no room for supposing that being is any less than God Himself. Certainly, where such an occasion leads to an act of worship that is not rebuffed, we are assured it is no mere angel that is in view.
It is possible, certainly, that any one of the Persons of the Godhead might be present in some tangible, physical form on these occasions. It could be the Father. It could be the Spirit. But it does seem to me that the Son has the particular role of bodily representative. I grant that the Spirit is seen, on that one occasion of the baptism of the Son, in physical form, or what is taken to have been physical form, as the dove that descended upon Christ and remained. But, this is something more. We find, for example, that occasion when the angel of the Lord came to speak with Hagar (Ge 16:7-11). Much of what transpires could simply have been an angel sent with a message, and with certain inside information that would convince Hagar of his legitimacy. But, then there is this: “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they shall be too many to count” (Ge 16:10). This is nothing an angel could say. This is a declaration that must be reserved to God alone.
There is another occasion where the angel of the LORD calls to Abraham from heaven – note, no physical appearance here – as he is about to sacrifice his only son in obedience to command (Ge 22:11-18). We are not dealing with a physical manifestation here, so I cannot suggest that this is once more the Son on that basis. But, consider the scene. Here is a clear foreshadowing of the work of the Son on Calvary. Here is a son offered for sins. Here is a substitute made, a propitiation made in place of the death that is due. And here, too, is the sealing of covenant. All of this would find its fulfillment in Christ, who instituted the New Covenant not in the blood of lambs, but in His own blood. By doing so, He atoned not for His own sins, for He was sinless, as we might suppose that poor ram caught in the thicket was sinless. He atoned for the sins of others, the purpose of every sacrifice. But, His blood being eternal, His atonement is eternal. He is, as I said, both the Mercy Seat, and that offering poured out upon the Mercy Seat for the atoning of sins against Almighty God. He is the only Son, the laughter of God, we might suppose, though this connection is never explicitly established, offered up in obedience to the purpose of God.
As concerns the appearance to Balaam, I am not inclined to suppose this is another theophany of the Son, or of any Person of God. But, come to the appearance of the angel sitting under the oak, who declares to Gideon, “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior” (Jdg 6:12). Note how the narrative shifts between speaking of this visitor as the angel of the LORD, and simply as the LORD. It is the LORD who looked at Gideon and told him, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” (Jdg 6:14). Further, when Gideon prepares a meal to honor his guest, this angel of the LORD instructs him to make of it an offering, which said angel consumes, even if it be by the touch of the end of his staff (Jdg 6:21). This not merely accepting a sacrificial offering but even requiring it is not the action of an angel, is it? A similar interplay occurs with Manoah, the father of Samson, later on (Jdg 13).
What of the activity of the angel of the LORD in punishing Jerusalem for the punishment of David’s sin (2Sa 24:11-16)? This might seem awfully unfair of God, but then, David stood as representative of the people he ruled, for better and for worse. His deeds, as the deeds of any king or leader of God’s people, could not but redound to the people. There’s something to chill the spine! I have known certain currents in the thought of modern Christian practice that would suggest that sins committed in obedience to one’s ‘covering’, one’s leaders, are somehow not your sins but theirs. But, this is not the message of Scripture! This, truth be told, has more to do with the blind obedience that allowed the evils of the Holocaust, and the great, murderous crimes of seemingly every communist dictator to come to power. Blind obedience to human authority is nothing to do with Christian faith and practice.
So, when David sinned, he sinned as the head of his people, and his people suffered together with him, arguably rather more severely than him, as a result. Seventy thousand people in Israel met their death because what? Because David had taken an unauthorized census of the people. But, I am not here for crime and punishment, but for evidences of the angel of the Lord as the Son of God. This angel, sent to destroy in punishment for sin, is not, I think, such an evidence, for he is commanded to stop by the LORD Himself (2Sa 24:16). But, certainly that punishment for sin, and arguably the destruction of Jerusalem for her crimes against the Son of God, might be suggested as a type or a shadow of that which was to come.
Let me take you to one more scene. We find Joshua the high priest and Satan presented before the angel of the Lord, with Satan in his standard role of accuser (Zech 3:1), and behold! Once more we have this shifting reference between the angel of the LORD and simply the LORD. “The LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” (Zech 3:2). Now, it does seem odd, linguistically, for God to speak of Himself acting in such a third-person sort of way. But, here is the angel of the LORD seated as judge, which assuredly points us forward to the Son to whom is entrusted all judgment. Here, too, is the Judge making righteous. “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes” (Zech 3:4). And, lest there be any doubt as to the significance of the scene, it is explained to this Joshua the high priest. “I am going to bring in My servant the Branch. For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day’” (Zech 3:8b-9).
[08/23/19]
That seems a fitting point of departure for one other point of conjecture. I suppose a study with the title “What I Believe” might not be the proper place for conjecture, and likewise, the place of conjecture in the work of biblical study is limited at best. But, I think it necessary on occasion to consider a possibility, even if it turns out that the consideration leads to a rejection of the premise. It is so with proper scientific research, and if theology is the chief of the sciences, the king as it were to philosophy’s queenship in that regard, then perhaps it is not entirely unfitting that one should apply that same methodology in some way to the consideration of truth, and of God. I say in some way, for we do hit a problem if we try to do this too exactly, in that there is much about God which we cannot really submit to a test as one would a scientific experiment.
All that having been said, here’s the thing: I see repeatedly that there is connection between the name LORD of hosts and the presence of the angel of the LORD, and in some cases, we can add a third connection with the Mercy Seat. The Mercy Seat is certainly the firmest connection with the Son, as far as these types and shadows go. But, consider, for example, 1Samuel 4:4. “The people sent to Shiloh, and from there they carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts who sits above the cherubim; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.” Does this manage to associate the LORD of hosts with the Son? Perhaps not, for the Mercy Seat sat below and between the cherubim. Exodus 25:22, which I looked at earlier says God would meet Moses ‘from above the mercy eat, from between the two cherubim’. Does this, then, point higher, or does it in fact indicate the same Person of God?
I think perhaps I am working too hard to find distinction and definition here. I doubt not that in the view of the Israelites it was one and the same in view. If I look back at that passage from Zechariah, however, I think I may have to put my theory to rest, for it is the LORD of hosts who declares He is bringing His servant the Branch, and the Branch is even more clearly a type or shadow of the Son. It is, then, more likely of value to me to consider the Branch in this matter than it is the title of LORD of hosts.
It is not a little surprising to me how few mentions are made of any branches in the Bible. It seems a common enough word that we might expect to see more of it, yet the references don’t even fill a column. It may perhaps be interesting to consider where the term does come up. The first I see it used is in describing the seven lampstands made for the tabernacle, each of which had six branches, each with bulb and flower together with three almond-shaped cups. Without getting into the realm of numerology, we do understand that the number of lampstands being seven suggests a completeness to the matter. Given the Revelation reference to those seven lampstands as emblematic of the Church, it suggests that even here we are seeing the Church represented in its perfection. I will say, though, that it is only a suggestion.
Later, going in to spy out the Promised Land, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, yet a cluster so large it required two men with a pole to carry it (Nu 13:23). What, if anything ought we to make of that image? To be sure, the grapes, along with other fruits, were collected as evidence of the fruitfulness of the land, but isn’t it interesting that in the course of time, the Branch would be cut down there in the Promised Land? Again, I shouldn’t want to make more of that correlation that is proper. I just find it interesting.
If I go back into the book of Job, I find connection of branch with progeny and legacy, which would be sensible concepts to associate with the fruitfulness of a branching tree or vine. Now, our reference is from one of Job’s friends, and I’m not sure I’d wish to put too much weight into their suppositions of meaning, but as to the image, it is selected for accessibility. That is to say, the associations depicted by that image were such as were common to understanding. So, as regards the sinner, this friend counsels, “There dwells in his tent nothing of his; brimstone is scattered on his habitation. His roots are dried below, and his branch is cut off above. Memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name abroad” (Job 18:15-17). The branches, then, suggest legacy, and I would say a living legacy, something less ephemeral than fleeting fame. We see, too, the image of the tent, the tabernacle, as the place of abode. This does seem to give us an image with some slight connection with the tabernacle of Moses in which were the six-branched lampstands of the Church.
But, it is in the Prophets that this foreshadowing of Christ in the Branch really comes into full view. “In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and adornment of the survivors of Israel” (Isa 4:2). Consider as well the introduction to this point. “For seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach” (Isa 4:1). It would not be difficult to see the work of redemption in that, whether or not it is intended to be seen.
Be that as it may, the image firms up later. “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD” (Isa 11:1-2). Now, since the error creeps up, let us put it to bed swiftly. These are not seven distinct spirits being identified, but a piling up of parallel references to the Spirit of the LORD, which is to say the Holy Spirit. The stem of Jesse of course points us to the Davidic line, which had been declared the line of promise, in continuance from the line that descended from Abraham, Noah, and so on. Here was the line from which it was promised a king would come to occupy the throne of Israel forever. Here is an image fulfilled in that day when Jesus was baptized in keeping with the necessity of maintaining full obedience to that which God commanded of His people. The Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and there He remained.
Isaiah continues. “He will delight in the fear of the LORD, and He will not judge by what His eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear. But with righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness the belt about His waist” (Isa 11:3-5). That Isaiah is looking forward to the end of days by this point is in no doubt, and in fact he makes that explicit not too many verses farther on. But, this also begins to see its fulfillment in the Son of God, sent in the line of David, and taken up at His ascension to sit forever on the throne of heaven.
Interestingly, Isaiah also gives us a further association of the branch image and the Church, the people of God. “Then all your people will be righteous. They will possess the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified” (Isa 60:21). This, I might note, immediately precedes that glorious passage Jesus chose to proclaim His ministry. “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn” (Isa 61:1-2). It’s interesting that Jesus stopped just short of the day of vengeance in his reading. But, it was needful, for the conclusion was this: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21). The favorable day had come, and remains in effect for the present time. But, the day of vengeance, the Last Day, remains ahead.
Jeremiah also points us to the Branch. “The days are coming when I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘the LORD our righteousness’” (Jer 23:5-6). Yehovah Tsidqenuw, God is right, which we are reminded by Strong’s, is symbolic of Messiah. The message repeats in Jeremiah 33:15-16, and adds the reason. “For thus says the LORD, ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to prepare sacrifices continually’” (Jer 33:17).
I will suggest to you that both halves of that reason point to the same Branch, Jesus the Christ of God. For the days of men offering burnt offerings and sacrifices are past, and not to be taken up again, as Jesus our High Priest already offered the once-for-all offering of Himself. The need for such meager offerings as man could provide has passed, never to return. Whatever the excitement that may arise over events in Israel, let it be understood that the temple and its practices have passed: Types fulfilled in the antitype of Christ.
But, as concerns the message of Jeremiah, how needful in that day for Israel to know that this was not the end, merely the chastisement for sins. The promise of God had not been broken, even though Jerusalem would be destroyed and the people of God taken in exile to Babylon.
In light of that, we can proceed to Zechariah, who also sees the coming Branch. We saw this already as we considered the vision with Joshua the high priest brought before the judging Angel of the Lord, the LORD of hosts. “I am going to bring My servant the Branch […] and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day” (Zech 3:8-9). Then, later he writes, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is and He will build the temple of the LORD. Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the LORD, and He who will bear the honor and sit and rule on His throne. Thus, He will be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices’” (Zech 6:12-13).
That was a stunning prophecy, for those two offices of priest and king had been maintained distinct forever. Indeed, God had decreed that one line would descend through the tribe of Levi and the other through Judah, and one can find sufficient example of kings who crossed the line to their detriment. I suppose, although a specific example doesn’t come to mind just now, that one could probably find examples of priests jumping the line as well. Perhaps we could point to the Maccabees in that regard, for they certainly managed to make a mess of the priestly order in making the high priestly office, in due course, a political position subject to all the evil machinations that were common to royal successions.
But, observe the fulfillment in Christ. He removed the iniquity of the land in one day, by the shedding of His blood on the cross, by becoming a curse for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He has indeed built the temple of God, a temple not fashioned by human hands, but consisting in the very person of every believer, for in every believer He has taken up His abode, and of every believer He causes it to be written, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God?” (1Co 3:16) “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1Co 6:19) “For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’” (2Co 6:16).
Indeed, the Branch has spread out from where He is, growing to occupy every tongue and tribe and nation; growing both backward and forward through time, such that we find His Church being built from the outset in Eden, and still being built at the end when He returns. Then, too, we find that the branch returns as image of the Church which Christ is building. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit” (Jn 15:2). “I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn 15:5a). This is the type of Messiah, the One who sits upon the throne as king and high priest of His people forever, the joining of the Levitical order and the Davidic line of promise.
ix. Prophet, Priest, King
[08/25/19]
We have seen how Zechariah foresaw the joining of the priestly and the royal office in this man, the Branch. We see as well how this Branch, this Messiah, is a king whose reign is eternal. What does not show as yet is the joining of the prophetic office to this same Branch, the Messiah. But, it’s an easy enough linkage to establish. Moses spoke of it early on, as he prepared the people to enter the Promised Land. “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him” (Dt 18:15). This was not merely Moses offering comfort as his days began to approach their close. It was relaying the message the Lord had spoken to him. “The LORD said to me, ‘They have spoken well. I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him” (Dt 18:17-19).
We can observe the fulfillment of this in the life of Christ. He indeed spoke all and only which the Father had given Him to speak. He spoke, then, in the name of the Lord, on the authority of God and with the authority of God, for all authority was given Him by the Father. So, then, in Jesus we find one who has satisfied the promise of a prophet like Moses. Peter points that out in his first sermon (Ac 3:22).
Jesus comes, as well, as the seed of the Davidic line, as Luke and Matthew are careful to establish. His lineage, by human standards, qualifies Him as a potential fulfillment of that promise of a king to sit on the throne of David forever. But, it is His ascension that confirms Him as the very One who was promised. There He remains, and there He shall remain forevermore. It is not a matter of His physical presence upon the throne, any more than this was the case for David. The point is not physical location, but royal position. When He returns to lead the power of heaven against all the works of Satan, to satisfy the wrath of God against all unrighteousness, and to complete the transformation of that people chosen by God for His bride, He remains the king of all, seated upon the throne of David, and reigning over a realm that encompasses all creation, and all of heaven alike. Indeed, He is a king like David, yet a king far superior to David, as even David observed. It is perhaps the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament. “The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet” (Ps 110:1). Here, then, is that king like David, upon His throne.
Then, too, there is the priestly office. Here I would say we have a threefold satisfaction. First, as we discern by cousin Elizabeth’s marriage to Zacharias, ‘a certain priest of the division of Abijah’, and herself a daughter of Aaron’s line (Lk 1:5), that Mary had also a linkage to the Aaronic line. But, the Aaronic line, while necessary to the completion of God’s purposes in all righteousness, was not sufficient in itself. Many a priest had come of Aaron’s line; all of them. Yet, as the author of Hebrews observes, that high priestly office that began with Aaron was but a temporary office, for each individual who held the office remained a mortal man, and though he properly held the office for life, yet the term of office must come to an end as life comes to an end. Like the sacrificial system, this order of the priesthood could not suffice, for it remained temporal.
So, we discover a purpose to that early presence of one Melchizedek, an enigma who arises to bless Abram in his office as ‘a priest of God Most High’ (Ge 14:18). I observe that he is also identified as king of Salem, which we often equate as indicating the Prince of Peace. Yet we are not seeing the kingly and the priestly office joined in him, for his reign is not over the people of God, but only over the city that would in time become the city of God’s choosing. It was not as yet chosen, at least not as things are measured in a world of time. To our point, though, this Melchizedek arises without mention of his lineage, which one must recognize as being a distinct rarity in Moses’ writing. Lineage was everything with him, and yet here is one whose origins remain cloaked in obscurity. So, too, is his end, for we hear no more about him once he has blessed Abram, and we observe that Abram in his own turn offers a tithe to this Melchizedek (Ge 14:20).
That same Psalm which sets Messiah forth as Lord even to the king sets this Lord as one in the priestly order of Melchizedek. “The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind, ‘Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’” (Ps 110:4). Is it any wonder that this connection so captures the imagination of God’s people! Here is one who is proclaimed by name the king of righteousness, and by position the prince of peace; and he is also set forth as representing an eternal priesthood of which neither start nor finish can be found. This must surely have played into what Zechariah understood so clearly, that in this Messiah, this Branch, royal and priestly line were joined in perfection forever. The author of Hebrews brings it home, observing how God has designated this Messiah as ‘a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek’ (Heb 5:10). He repeats the point that Jesus has entered the true temple, ‘having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’ (Heb 6:20).
He proceeds to make a point which may in fact obviate my observations in regard to Elizabeth. Having observed that perfection was not going to happen through the Levitical priesthood based on the Law, the author concludes that another after the order of Melchizedek was needful. “And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirements, but according to the power of an indestructible life” (Heb 7:17). So, perhaps Elizabeth’s connection to the Aaronic line does not indicate Mary had some connection as well, although their situation as cousins might suggest such a thing.
Be that as it may, the sum of the fulfillment of the order of Melchizedek in Jesus is not to establish some new order of super-priests among man, but to identify this one, singular, eternal High Priest, Jesus, the Christ of God, in whom that office is once for all satisfied, and whose term of office shall never come to an end. If there is in fact a whole order of priests after the order of Melchizedek amongst man, then I dare say we must recognize that order as encompassing all who are counted among the called of Christ. These are the ones of whom Peter writes, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1Pe 2:9-10). That is not some subset of Christianity of whom Peter speaks, but the whole, just as it is not some subset of Christianity who receive the Holy Spirit indwelling them, but the whole. Yet, not one amongst the whole of Christianity is in position to suppose they can claim equality with Christ. That is a larger topic for another place, I suppose, but as it’s here, I figure I’ll at least not my perspective.
Let me return to this Jesus, though, in whom we find the royal, the priestly, and the prophetic office combined and fulfilled in perfection unto all eternity. It would be tempting to suggest that this brings all three of said offices to a close as concerns the course of man, but clearly this is not the case. We continue to have those who rule over us in the realm of civic governance. We continue to have those who serve in something of a priestly role, albeit not in the same capacity as was done by the Aaronic order. We no longer require one to interpose himself between us and God, to bear our prayers to Him and His word to us, for we are all of us entered into that royal priesthood. Yet, we continue to have those who serve if not a priestly role, then a ministerial one.
What can be said of the prophetic office? Many would say it has come to an end with the perfection of that office in Christ and the perfection of the revelation of God’s word in Scripture. Yet, I can’t help but observe that we find prophets still operating in the age of the Apostles, which surely comes subsequent to the earthly ministry of Christ. I could observe as well that at least some of those prophets of old – Elijah comes to mind – were not men who primarily expounded the newly revealed word of God, but rather men appointed by God more as the judges were appointed. They were not primarily military leaders as the judges had been, but they were there to address the sins of God’s people, and to counsel them in the ways God had already revealed. Likewise, the prophets we find active in the Apostolic age were not promulgating new revelations as to the nature of God or of His work in Creation. Rather, they spoke to specific upcoming events by way of informing the Church, lest she be taken by surprise. It seems to me to rather twist what we see of that office to make of it some super-spiritual business of hearing new instructions from on high. Those who seek to lay claim to the office in order to promulgate a new religious order that is all but completely uprooted from the revealed word of God in Scripture are, I must say, anathema.
But, this does not require us to observe a closing of the prophetic order. What is required is that we recognize that in Christ the prophet like Moses, the office by which the word of God is proclaimed to man as new revelation, has indeed come to a close. All that is needful for sanctification, for salvation, and for perseverance unto the end of days is laid out before us in the pages of those Scriptures which our Prophet, Priest, and King has caused to be written, and which the Holy Spirit of God has overseen with utmost care. God has taken great pains to ensure that this revelation of His remains intact and unaltered by the wiles of the devil or by the perniciousness of man. If He takes it so seriously, we do well to do likewise. It is the least that could be expected of us, as those ruled by the Messiah, our High Priest, through Whom that word has come, and in whom we find the Living Word of God. “Where else would we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). Indeed, the Word of God says, “I AM the Life” (Jn 11:25).
x. Son's Relationship to Father and Spirit
[08/27/19]
As concerns the relationship of the Son to the Father, I think that has largely already been explored in considering the reason for there being a son in the Trinity. But, there does remain more to be said. And, as well, I have not as yet considered how the Son relates to the Spirit, which may be a more difficult matter to try and give definition.
One particularly key aspect that seems to go toward the relationship of Son and Father is the aspect of authority. The Father, of course, is giver of authority, and that giving is done to the Son. The Son, then, is the One to whom authority is given. This is not something we find said of the Spirit, I would note. Jesus declares, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on the earth” (Mt 28:18). That, of course, excludes the One who gave the authority. The authority of the Son does not extend so far as to overrule the Father, were such an idea even properly conceivable. That said, I think we have some evidence that this authority does actually extend so far as to direct the Spirit. This is a bit of a risky thought, if taken wrongly, for it suggests a greater and lesser state of deity amongst the Persons of the Trinity, as if the Father were more God than the Son were more God than the Spirit, and that is assuredly not the case. Each Person of the Godhead is wholly God, and co-equal with the other. Yet, they have their agreed upon roles or positions within the singular being of the Trinity.
The Son, as a true son, remains in honoring and honorable relation to the Father, following in His ways and heeding His commands and instructions. Does this render the Son inferior to the Father? By no means! It renders the Son obedient to the Father, a true son set on following in the footsteps of His Father, of walking in the ways of His Father. Thus does the Son honor and glorify the Father. Thus does the Son secure honor and glory to Himself in His own right, for the Father’s ways are honorable and glorious.
That said, as to the Spirit, the Son seeks that He might be sent to minister to those who will be the Son’s bride, who already are His betrothed. He seeks this boon of the Father, and Father and Son together agree to the sending of the Spirit. Yes, we must presume and even insist that the Spirit is fully in agreement with being sent, yet as the confessions insist, He proceeds from Father and Son. If the Son would say and do only what He heard the Father command Him to say, only what He observed the Father doing, the Spirit speaks and acts only to bring to mind the instruction of the Son. That is probably more a matter for exploration in considering the third Person of the Trinity, but it begins to give definition to the relationship we see amongst the Trinity.
Jesus holds all authority, but holds it as given Him by the Father. However it is that this plays out within the Godhead, it assuredly applies across the board without the Godhead. No creature, whether earthly or heavenly or, on the off chance such a being is ever discovered, other-worldly, escapes His authority. No such creature is ever truly free from obligation to Him as their sovereign Lord. That includes Satan and his minions. Though they have seemingly free rein in the present age, yet we see from as far back as Job, which is pretty much as far back as we can reach, that one’s efforts are in fact constrained by the will of God, and rankle though it must, all his worst efforts to thwart God’s will in fact turn out to serve that will rather neatly. All things indeed work together for the good of those who love God, and are called according to His purpose (Ro 8:28). That includes this terrible enemy of God and all whom He calls His own. And even here, Jesus holds authority.
At the same time, we find Jesus presented as the Lamb of God, the innocent, perfect and unblemished sacrifice offered for sin. This probably belongs back under the types and shadows head, but as it is here, here I will consider it. Yes, the sacrificial system laid out by God through Moses foreshadows this once-for-all perfect sacrifice. I will have more to say on that, I think, in considering the Son’s relationship to man, but it also plays into His relationship to the Father, doesn’t it? The sacrifice, after all, is given to atone to the Father, against whom alone all have sinned (Ps 51:4). That was the whole purpose of the Day of Atonement; that the High Priest might make offering of this perfect lamb as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people against God. That was the purpose, as well, in the initial work of the Passover. The lamb was offered not as if it erased those sins the people had committed, but in order that God in His judgment might pass over those sins, account them as already repaid in blood.
Jesus is the payment made, the price of our sins poured out in eternal blood that the Father might look upon those who are the bride of Christ and see them righteous, their sins not ignored, no, but rather paid for in full by the Lamb of God. Again, this has as much to do with the Son in relation to us as it does to the Son in relation to the Father, but here we find Him, forever interposed, as it were, between the wrath of God and the objects of His love. It’s an odd thing, but love and wrath are not so far divided as we like to think. In God, wrath is no explosion of unruly passion, but is in fact the proper consort of His love, for His love is pure and cannot abide impurity in the object of His love. His love, being perfect and pure, is mightily moved when He considers the ravages of sin that mar His beloved. Wrath arises not against His beloved, although it must in its course touch even His beloved if that is what becomes needful to move them to repentance. No, His wrath is reserved for sin and its source. Were His wrath ever to be turned in full upon His beloved children, His beloved children would be no more. This was, apart from the true Son, the inevitable end of mankind. Final destruction must come. But, God has provided a Lamb, even as was foreshadowed on Mount Moriah when the nation of Israel, of God’s chosen people, was but three individuals; Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob (Ge 22:8).
That Lamb of God is, as observed, the atoning sacrifice by which the guilt of sin is once for all washed away, and by which God is able to look upon us as properly, legally righteous. That is not to say we shall not sin, nor that we shall no longer feel the impact of sin, or sense our guilt when sins so readily entangle us. But, we have recourse. We have a path to repentance, and an assurance of forgiveness. We have a newfound capacity to resist, albeit imperfectly at present. We have the Atonement offered on our behalf by our eternal High Priest, and we are assured, certain of the forgiveness of Father and Son alike.
The Son is, then, in a permanent Mediatorial role in His office of High Priest, ever interposed between perfectly Holy Father, and imperfectly righteous man. Here He intercedes for us, and here He ministers the holiness of God to us.
The purpose of salvation finds its source in the Father as original cause. The purpose of salvation finds its realization in the Son, the channel of action through Whom we are saved. Apart from His atoning sacrifice, apart from His being the Lamb of God, that plan which was set in motion in the beginning, or even before the beginning, really, had no chance of fruition. But, that fruition was never in doubt, for it was God’s determined will, and His will is done. In pursuit of His purpose of salvation, the Son has come, and having come, remains as eternal High Priest, seeking and saving the lost children of God’s Israel. He has all authority and has final judgment over all mankind, redeemed and reprobate alike. He has authority to request and direct the sending of the Spirit to fill and aid His people, so as to further secure that salvation He has brought about in them.
[08/28/19]
As concerns the relationship of the Son to the Father and the Spirit, I might also consider His unique standing as the Word. We must make a distinction between Scripture as being the written word of God, and Christ as being the living Word. Properly understood, the former is the record of the latter. That is the written Word is the revelation of the living Word. This requires that we take some care to hear the reference according to its context, lest we attribute to the text what is only fitting to its Author, or remove that from its Author which is properly His own. It will aid is in maintaining this distinction if we recognize that nowhere does John speak of Jesus as the Word of God, but solely as the Word. That marvelous opening to his Gospel never adds the prepositional phrase, and primarily, one suspects, because the entire premise is this: The Word was God (Jn 1:1b). If He is God, it muddies things unnecessarily to try and expand that title. No, everywhere in Scripture, the word of God refers to Scripture, not to its Author. It is also worth noting that as its Author, the Word maintains a high view of this word of God, and continues to give it a place of significance in the life of God’s people, and particularly in their instruction.
In the matter of Trinitarian relationships, however, it is the living Word that is particularly my concern. He is the Logos, the express intelligence of God, if you will. This of course is not to say that apart from the Son God lacks intelligence, or that all of God’s intelligence is vested solely in the Son. Rather, it signifies that in accordance with the eternal covenant within the Godhead, the Son has the task of revealing God to man insofar as God chooses to be revealed. He reveals what is to be revealed. The Father remains in the place of decreeing the bounds of that revelation, for the Word speaks only as He hears the Father speak. The Spirit does not reveal, but rather reminds. This is something we need to remember clearly. The Spirit comes to bring to mind all that the Son said and did, to turn our thoughts ever Christ-ward. This is not a work of revelation, but of remembrance, of instruction in what has already been said, already been revealed.
The Son, then, is the agent of revelation to man within the Trinity. He is the conveyance of that which the Father would have us to know, and apart from Him, we might well say that we would not know God at all.
xi. Son's Relationship to Man
This seems to me to slide us right into the matter of the Son’s relationship to man. Here, too, He stands as the Word, as the revealed will and purpose of God. In light of His position as the Word, it seems to me particularly egregious that we go running about seeking further revelation. He has told you, o man, what is required of you (Mic 6:8). All that God desired to make known, He made known. Now, I hear it said by those inclined to such things that as God does not change, there is no cause to suppose He stopped speaking with the conclusion of the New Testament, and we ought rightly to expect further revelation, and perhaps even a newer testament at some point. But, the whole point of the Son’s coming into the course of human history was to fulfill human history, to fulfill God’s revelation.
When Jesus, in His closing moments there on the cross, said, “It is finished,” it was not just the work of Atonement that was in view, although that was assuredly chief amongst His thoughts at the time. No, we can say as well that the work of revelation was finished, albeit that it remained for the Apostles and their aids to compose those texts which would be furnished to us as the New Testament. The Gospels are quite obviously the record of the Word in action. But, those other texts which come later, even John’s Revelation, are really continued commentary upon the Word in action, an explanation of His continued work amongst man. The Revelation, as the name insists, is in fact a revelatory work. The whole of the New Testament can be said to be a revelatory work, for it records the revealed wisdom of God. But, all that having been said, all that is needful for salvation and for sanctification has already been set forth. All that the Father desired to make known to man has been made known. The Son has revealed Him perfectly. The Word left nothing unsaid that needed saying, and He saw to it that His servants the Apostles left nothing out of that which He said and that which was meant by what He said.
As much as the argument may be made that an unchanging God can reveal to us as directly as He did to them, the counter-argument can just as readily be made on the same basis. God does not change. If He was satisfied with this final revelation then, there is no reason to suppose He decided He was wrong, and has begun a new revelation now. We will be pointed to the shift from Old Covenant to New as indicating a change in God’s plan and purpose, as if He was somehow a different God then, and is a kinder, gentler God now, but that thoroughly misunderstands the case. God has not changed. Neither, if we observe more closely, did His revelation to man change. Rather it achieved greater clarity. From the opening days of His ministry we find the Word not editing the text of Scripture, removing certain unwelcome bits and adding new things. No, His ministry was a return to Scripture in full force. It was a clearing off of human accretions and misunderstandings to reveal the Old Covenant in its full glory and its full demand. Having revealed the full demand, and its necessary, concomitant recognition of our abject failure to comply and our abject inability to comply, it was needful to also make clear the Promise held out from the start.
Man could not do it, this business of obedience to God’s full requirement for holiness. From birth it was already too late for that. “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (Ro 3:23). Here, in the Word, we were given to recognize the full scope of the Law’s demand. If this be recognized, all men must let go of hope. Works aren’t going to do it. It’s hopeless if we are left to comply in our own strength. But, the Word also revealed Hope in that He revealed the solution promised from the first moments of the Fall and its fallout. The Seed was promised. The Seed was now here. Man is not left to face God with nothing more than his own sinful nature. There is now a Mediator. I need to correct that. There has ever been a Mediator. That same Mediator was present with Adam and Eve as they were expelled from the Garden, preserving them from the utter destruction that must come of their being fully exposed to the full wrath of God’s perfect holiness.
But, what is seen only in types and shadows as it was revealed and recorded in the Old Testament scriptures, in the Law and the Prophets, was now made known in full. Here He is! Here is that promised Seed. Behold the Lamb! Behold the one Mediator between God and man, through Whom the sins of man have been fully atoned, and the righteousness of man made possible; nay, not merely possible, but certain. “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Ro 8:29-30). Was ever a more glorious truth revealed?
We have an eternal Mediator! One stands interposed between the perfect holiness of God and the abject sinfulness of man, even of the believer. He mediates. He comes, this Word, and makes the full scope of God’s intentions clear to us. He gives us to understand what it is the Law truly requires of us, and then He also gives us the hope that is to be found only in Himself, that He it is who is conforming us to His own image. He shows us by His life as a man that compliance is in fact possible in Him, in the sinless Son of God. He shows us by His death and resurrection that as the sinless Son of God, the Lamb given for our sins, full atonement has been made on our behalf, and we have been, through Him, in Him, rendered holy and acceptable to this perfectly holy God.
He stands interposed between us in our unfinished state and God in His perfection, remaining on duty until we are all of us made whole, brought into that final glorious state when this old man is put off entirely and this body of corruption transformed so that we may be, both in spiritual estate and physical condition, be truly fitted for heaven and for eternity. Here is the bride revealed without spot or wrinkle. Here it is discovered that the absence of spot and wrinkle was not because she had figured out how to walk in perfect holiness, although she tried. No, it was because the bridegroom had provided her wedding clothes, freshly washed and pressed here at the last moment, when every vestige of sin and its ravages had once-for-all been washed away. Like the high priest Joshua in Zechariah’s vision, we are to be clothed anew at His command.
[08/29/19]
As our Mediator and High Priest, Jesus also fulfills the type of Jacob’s ladder. That ladder, seen by him in a dream, ‘was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it’ (Ge 28:12). That dream marked a confirmation of the covenant God made with Abraham, and that same covenant promise passed on to Jacob in his turn. But, what does the image depict? Is the point that this particular place, Bethel, was somehow more directly connected with God than the rest of the Promised Land? Certainly this idea resounds in Jacob’s response. “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Ge 28:17). But such a response seems rather to have missed the point. It is not the place that is awesome, but the God who chose to meet Jacob there.
Jesus makes His role as the fulfillment of this image explicit as He speaks to Nathanael at the outset of His ministry. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (Jn 1:51). He is the Mediator. This not only sets Him as interposed between God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness. It also identifies Him as the channel of promise, the means of fulfillment. Paul writes in regard to Him, “For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us – by me and Silvanus and Timothy – was not yes and no, but is yes in Him. For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are yes; wherefore also by Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us” (2Co 1:19-20).
Now, as tends to be the case, Paul’s message is dense packed in these two verses, but the chief point for my purpose just now is this: Jesus Christ is Him through whom the promises of God are realized, the channel of promise. All that was foretold concerning God’s plan for mankind, and in particular, His promise of salvation and life, are found put into action and fulfilled in Him. Here is your Redeemer, your Savior, your High Priest. And as your High Priest, we discover that He is also the channel of response. “By Him is our Amen to the glory of God.” Let me stress this simple point. Apart from Him, all our amens and all our prayers are pointless exercises, vain words and empty wind. That prayer which is offered up without accord with the will of God is vanity and worse. This is a topic for later exploration, which I seem to be saying with greater and greater frequency as I proceed, but there it is. The point of prayer is not to command God nor even to advise Him as if perhaps He had forgotten something. No, the point of prayer is primarily for our own benefit, that we might be reminded of God’s purposes and His glory. So, yes, let us say Amen to the glory of God, and let us also be thoughtful in our amen, lest we find ourselves offering hearty concurrence to things that are not to His glory! Let us also give thanks that by Jesus, by our Redeemer, our Amen is to the glory of God, and not to anything else.
A shift of thought: This same Jesus, this God the Son, declares Himself our brother. He remains the only begotten Son, yet by His obedience and the Father’s determination, we are also made sons of God, brothers of the Son. This is brought home in most poignant fashion when Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus there in the graveyard after His resurrection. She has taken a few moments to recognize Him for who He is, but when she does, she is rapturous. She turns to Him and says, “Rabboni!” (Jn 20:16). That word, as John translates for our benefit, does indeed mean Teacher, but it is also a form of the word that expresses deep affection. Now one might expect the Lord to comfort her in this shocking moment. After all, it’s not every day one sees their departed companion of many years returned from the grave. Indeed, it’s a rather singular event, and one for which nothing, not even the raising of Lazarus, could have really prepared her. But, rather than reach out to comfort her, Jesus rather gently distances Himself. “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brethren, and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (Jn 20:17).
Now, the central point of that exchange has got to be news of His ascension to come, and that is the reason for Him telling Mary to let go. His physical company as an earthly companion and teacher were wonderful, but they were not the best. The best is Christ ascended. The best is our High Priest and King seated on His throne. So, He sends her with a message. “Go to My brethren.” He is our brother. Now, if that were the sum of the evidence, I might take it as merely an endearing term. But, that’s not the sum of the evidence. “I ascend to My Father and your Father.” If in fact we are of one Father, then how are we not brothers? Again, we find Paul confirming the thought. “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren” (Ro 8:29). This is not said to the exclusion of women from that privilege, but rather includes all who are the called in its sweep.
There is more for us in this matter of being brother to the Son. “You are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God” (Gal 4:7). This Son, the author of Hebrews reminds us, ‘He appointed heir of all things’ (Heb 1:2b). We, by His mediatorial work on our behalf, are made co-heirs together. If we are God’s children, His sons and daughters, then we are heirs also, as Paul observes; “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Ro 8:17). And if there remains the least doubt as to the extent of this promise, we can give Peter a listen. “You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1Pe 3:7). Whatever else may be said of her, she is a fellow heir together with you, a fellow heir together with Christ, and as such, assuredly worthy of both honor and understanding. If we would do as much for a weaker brother, which we certainly should, then surely we must do as much for her with whom God has caused us to be joined as one flesh! She is not your slave or your servant. She is your co-heir, a child of God every bit as much as yourself! Act accordingly.
[08/30/19]
In relation to the Father, Jesus receives a kingdom, that kingdom which encompasses all heaven and all creation. It is intriguing therefore to note that in relation to man, this same Jesus grants a place in that kingdom. Now, with the verse I have in mind, I need to be careful. Jesus is in the midst of a lesson being taught to His disciples, those twelve who were named by Him as apostles. The scene is that Passover meal immediately preceding His death. It is not entirely clear from Luke’s account whether this particular lesson comes before or after Judas has departed, but given the message of that lesson, my inclination is to think it came after that point. His apostles, for all their instruction, are having a fine time debating amongst themselves which of them is the greatest. (Lk 22:24). Jesus speaks to correct their interest in this competitive effort, observing that He, who was surely the greatest, being God as He is, was there serving them at table. The measures of the kingdom are not the measures of man.
But, following the corrective lesson, in Luke’s account, we come to this. “You are those who have stood by Me in My trials” (Lk 22:28). This is not a message for the disciples at large, but for those who were particularly His close companions and intended leaders, the apostles. He continues. “And just as the Father has granted Me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Lk 22:29-30). It is tempting to read this as applying to all who believe, but it was not in fact delivered to all who believed, even in that moment. It was delivered to those eleven apostles He had appointed. They will have a place in the judging of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Where am I going with all this? Well, my first thought had been that here we see the Son giving a kingdom to man, but that’s not the case at all. First, He is not giving over a kingdom, but an office within His kingdom. Second, the giving is not to man generally, but to these specific men. Finally, that office is entirely specific, isn’t it? It is not the place of sitting as judge over all mankind, nor over creatures of the heavenly realms. It is the place of sitting as judge over the twelve tribes of Israel. I’ll leave it to another time and place to try and sort out whether that should in fact include the whole scope of the Church in its purview, but I think not.
So, then, a brief examination leads me to conclude that in fact this passage speaks not at all to the matter of the Son’s relationship to man, at least not in any sort of way as I had at first supposed. I leave this exercise intact as a reminder to myself, and to whoever else might happen across my words that it is far too easy to read into the text of Scripture what we hope to find there, or what we have as our current thought and premise. A surface reading is insufficient, even with the best of intentions. So, at least so far as this passage is concerned, we need to set aside any idea of having our own little kingdoms, or having places of ruling power under our Lord. There may be another place to find support for such an idea, but this assuredly is not it.
Let me turn to something more solid as concerns that relation of Son and man. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (1Jn 4:15). Now, let me state from the outset that this is signifying more than the mere reciting of words. We know too well that we are capable of speaking things we do not hold to be true, or of not speaking that which we do. It may be because we feel it a matter of life and death to dissemble, or it may simply be that we want to fit in. It might even be a simple matter of humorous misstatement. Whatever the reason may be, we know it is in us to do this, and if we don’t know it, we likely need to look at ourselves a bit more honestly.
I don’t find it particularly unthinkable to think that Satan or his minions could, if put to the test, blurt out these that phrase, especially if they thought that by doing so they could pass off their efforts at poisoning the work of God as properly Christian. No, confession runs deeper than mere utterance. It’s a proclaiming of inward reality. It’s a truth thing. I’ll take a step forward and suggest that this confession demonstrates in deeds. It’s a life thing, not a word thing.
So, what has this to do with the Son’s relationship to man? First off, He is our confession. But, the key to that lies in the second half of the verse. God abides in the believer, and the believer in God. This simply is not possible apart from the Son. The Son takes up His dwelling in the believer. Let me bring a second passage to address this, in this case coming from John’s gospel. “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word” (Jn 14:23). Observe that here we see that confession running to deed. Confession obeys, at least to the best of its ability. If He is the Son of God, and we truly believe that, what else could follow from it but obedience to His word? He continues. “And My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.”
Here is part one. Jesus comes and makes His abode. He opts to live in us, and because He is in us, the Father loves us, and He, too, makes His abode in us. We recognize that the Spirit is likewise involved, though He is not mentioned here. The whole of the Trinity, then, indwells the believer, and takes up residence. This does not suggest that the Trinity is therefore contained within the believer, nor does it suggest that the believer is thereby elevated to the status of a semi-deity in his or her own right. That’s not the point. No, the believer is not a god, he is a temple, in which God dwells, as He dwelt in the temple that Solomon built, and in the tabernacle which Moses built. It’s not the container that matters, nor is He contained. It is emblematic of God being with His people. Yet, it is not mere emblem or symbol. It is reality. God is with you and I every moment, whether we remain cognizant of that fact or not, whether we are pleased to know He is witness to our deeds or that idea makes us cringe for shame.
So, yes, the whole Trinity abides, but it is the Son who is our confession, who makes that change in us by which we are rendered clean and fit to be the temple of a holy God. It is the Son who suits us to be an abode for God, and it is the Son, O, glorious thought, who brings us home to abide in God. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, you may be also” (Jn 14:2-3). You may argue that this, too, was spoken specifically to the apostles, and I cannot argue that. Yet the promise, per John’s letter, and many other passages besides, would seem clearly passed to all who have believed. We are not, then, granted a kingdom, but we are built an abode.
That imagery, I must note, reflects another aspect of the Son’s relationship to man, that of Groom to our bride. This act of building a place is the natural precursor to marriage, as would have been understood to the culture in that time and place. The bridegroom, before he could come receive his bride, must show himself able to support her. A chief part of that consisted in building that home in which these two, and their progeny in due course, could live. Such an act would demonstrate his capacity to care for this one he would have as bride. I should think it also demonstrates a bit of commitment, although I suppose the house could have been prepared for whoever might happen along to be the bride. But the point is that Jesus prepares a place for His bride, that He may come in due course and claim her as such, bring her home to abide with Him forever. And, Oh! The marriage feast that shall come about in that day shall be as no other.
The Lord of the kingdom has prepared a place for His bride. We may not gain a kingdom, but we are given a most wonderful role in that kingdom. We do not reign, but we are the bride of He who does.
[09/01/19]
This must bring us to the most important matter of the Son’s relationship to man. He is Lord. This is a term that has largely lost its meaning with us, particularly in America, but I think throughout the West, and perhaps the world. We don’t have any natural reminders of lordship any more. We don’t serve kings, and where royalty remains, it’s really as a figurehead far more than as anything of real power and significance. But the Truth remains. Jesus is Lord. Period. There is no other. There is no higher, nor even lower authority to which we might appeal. He is Lord, and as Lord, He has absolute say over every aspect of every day of our lives right onward into eternity. If He says go, our right response is to go. If He says speak, surely we must speak as obedient subjects of our rightful Ruler.
Now, this does not alter the fact that we are made siblings of this one who is Lord, nor does it lessen our relationship to Him as His bride, the bride of His own choosing. But, then, neither does our being His brother and His bride lessen His Lordship in the least. His say is still final and absolute; His right over us unaltered by the nearness of relationship. He is Lord, and though His love for us be sure, yet we must not, dare not lose sight of His place upon the throne. That place is not hours. We do not rule and command over all creation as suits our fancy moment by moment. Such power as we may have, we have as delegated to us as proper representatives of this true Lord of all. If we exercise that authority in accord with His intent, well and good. If we seek to bend that authority to our own amusements, we have, in so doing, relinquished all claim to authority, whatever our further words may claim to the contrary.
Jesus is Lord, and this must fully and finally define His relationship to us. Apart from this relationship, we cannot be His brothers; we cannot be His bride. We cannot be His friends, for His friends love Him, and loving Him, keep His commandments. To claim Him as friend yet disobey His commandments is to lie. To claim to love in the love of Christ and yet walk in contravention of His clear instruction is to act the fraudster, seeking the power without supplying the obedience. But Jesus remains Lord. Our manipulative habits, and our attempts to cajole Him into conformity with our desires change nothing. He remains Lord. We remain subjects, loyal or otherwise. His authority is not altered by our disobedience, nor enhanced by our compliance. His authority is absolute.
It is a thing most wonderful that this Lord of all Creation does not opt to vent His wrath in full on all disobedience with immediacy. He would be fully within His rights, and fully just, were He to do so, but this is not His way. Rather, He acts with impunity to mend us, to train us up in righteousness, and to make of enemies dearest friends and boon companions. Why should this be so? There is nothing within us to which we might point and suggest it justifies His choice of action. No. It is only His grace shown toward us, His compassion expressed upon whom He chooses to express compassion, that preserves us alive to glorify His name, that name which is above all, names, Lord.
xii. Son's Role
[09/02/19]
I suppose that in considering the Son’s relationship to us as Lord, I have already begun to contemplate His role. He uniquely among the Persons of God is declared our Lord. It is both the title given Him and the duty assigned Him by the Father in the eternal covenant that so greatly informs the Trinity. The Father is indeed Supreme, but then, so are Son and Spirit, for of these three together is it said, “The LORD, your God, is One.” But, One amongst these Persons is specifically identified as Lord, and that One is Jesus. He is our Lord, and it behooves us once again to consider the significance of that for ourselves as well as what it speaks of Him.
Let’s start back with Nathanael’s confession, which I considered some ways back. Nathanael has, in fairness, barely even met Jesus at this juncture, and yet, He makes a most salient confession. “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel” (Lk 1:49). Jesus sounds almost amused in His response. “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these. Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (Lk 1:50-51). It occurs to me to wonder just exactly how Jesus meant that first part, “You will see greater things than these.” As yet, he really hadn’t seen anything. He had but heard Jesus’ claim, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (Lk 1:48). Is He pointing back to this as a comparison? I saw you, but you will see greater things? While the linguistic connection is there in the matter of seeing, the comparison doesn’t really seem to offer much significance.
So, then, what is the comparison? If I wanted to go all prophetic on the thing, I might suggest that Jesus is telling Nathanael that he will see things more clearly than the others, Philip and whoever else was with him. That would at least fit the clarity of Nathanael’s confession. His simple reaction revealed a greater understanding of the Messiah than most of the Pharisees and Sadducees could provide. Yet, he doesn’t get the accolades that Peter will receive for saying much the same. We have his great confession in answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?” “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). These two confessions are saying pretty much the same thing, but Peter gets the response, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Mt 16:17). Was this less true of Nathanael? I would suggest that Jesus’ comment regarding seeing him under the fig tree argues against that idea. That image is the image of ‘a true Israelite’, one seeking the God of Israel, and longing for Messiah. But his answer makes it clear that he understood the significance of Messiah far better than had most. He was not merely king of Israel come to see her invaders off. No, Messiah was in fact the Son of God.
Now, it might be that Nathanael came by this understanding through study of Scripture, yet this would not mean any less that it was the Father who revealed it to him. But, however he came to recognize it, recognize it he did. This Rabbi was far more than merely a teacher. He was the Son of God. With that in view, one could take the reality of His being king of Israel as a bonus. Whatever the case, there it is. He is King of Israel. He is Lord by right, and in due time, Nathanael would no doubt come to recognize, together with the other apostles, that Israel, in this application, consisted of far more than those who could trace ancestry to Abraham. It included all who would be accounted spiritual Israel. Indeed, in purest form, it includes all period, without further qualifiers. But it is good news to those who are the called, those who are found to be sons of Abraham by common faith.
So, what is this role of Lord? It is assuredly one of rulership, and a rulership that is absolute. As Lord, He is not voted in, nor can He be voted out. His reign is not dependent upon the acceptance of it by man. It is, as True things tend to be, true whether accepted or denied. As Lord, then, He is in a position to require full and immediate compliance with His requirements. He is in a position to speak, and it is done. That centurion whose child the Lord healed recognized this. “I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes. I say to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it” (Lk 7:8). And he a mere centurion! Here is the Lord, the One to whom even Caesars must answer.
For us I should think the implications clear, but what for Him? For Him it declares a profound duty and responsibility, for He must care for all who are His own. Their security and well-being are His responsibility. More so than it might be said of Father or Spirit, we are His responsibility. He is no tyrant, that He would reign without the least regard for His subjects. He is rather more a benevolent dictator, though even that bears more negative connotations than rightly befit His lordship. If ever a king or an emperor had the well-being of his subjects foremost in his thoughts day to day, how much more does Jesus, our Lord, consider our needs and our true prospering as subjects in His kingdom? Consider that it is by His consideration and command that all things work to good for those who love Him and are in His service (Ro 8:28). Consider that it is by His consideration and command that those things by which we are able to show ourselves useful and obedient in His cause are arranged ahead of time for us to encounter and to do. And it’s not for one small group of believers at one brief juncture in history; it’s for all believers across all of time and space. His is indeed a great duty come in conjunction with great authority. It is a great duty, but He is more than able to see it done, and done to perfection. Glory be to our God and King!
[09/03/19]
I am by no means ready to depart to topic of Christ’s Lordship, and certainly not to depart His Lordship proper. Rather, I will consider Paul’s words to the church in Rome as concerns the Lord Jesus. He, Paul says, “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Ro 1:4). Through Him, he continues, “we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (Ro 1:5). I don’t know that I’ve observed this before, but I see a difficulty with translating Paul’s intent here, for either ‘we’ is constrained to the apostles in this instance, and more likely to himself personally, given the mission, or he expands it to include the whole church in the application of apostleship. Again, the mission of bringing Gentiles to faith argues for a very personal scope. That limit of scope should be understood as applying both to the apostleship and to the particular application of grace that he is addressing. That is to say, grace is not restricted to Paul or to the apostles more generally, but he is speaking of this specific instance of the grace he received, the apostleship he received. All that to say that this verse really doesn’t address the bounds of either, only the reality of both in Paul’s office.
More critically to my topic, though, I would consider the juxtaposition of Paul’s purpose and the source of his purpose. The source is “Jesus Christ our Lord.” Again, we may have to decide who all is included in ‘our’, but let it remain personal for now, and no issue arises. He is Paul’s Lord. We should all take the matter so personally. He is my Lord, and I am His to direct and command. This was assuredly Paul’s view of his life. “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Php 1:21). It’s His call, and none can gainsay Him. But, it’s not just the power of command, it’s the purpose of living. What is said in Romans plays out in his bold statement to Philippi. What he does, all that he does, is done ‘for His name’s sake’. What does that mean? It means much. It means that Paul’s chief concern is Christ’s glory. He pursues that concern first and foremost by obedience to the command of his Lord. To call Christ Lord but then reject His direction would put a lie to the claim made. Paul lived so as to put forth his claim as observable truth. Here was the chief example of, ‘follow me as I follow Christ’.
This Lord and King is also, as we have observed, our High Priest. Here, too, is cause to comply. The High Priest, who bears our prayers heavenward and God’s word earthward is surely to be heeded and to be reverenced. Here, too, is a voice of command, in this case particularly such command as addresses our moral standing, and our own holiness – if indeed we can reasonably refer to that holiness as our own. Our High Priest comes to destroy the works of the devil. “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1Jn 3:8b). Until those works be destroyed, there is no hope of holiness in us. Until He comes to liberate from sin, we are sin’s captive slaves, incapable of aught else but to sin. Now, though sin remains, we have been granted the grace to choose, and choosing to choose life. We have a great High Priest, who offers atonement for our sins, who has paid in full the high and eternal penalty our sins have deserved. His death has been our gain, and our gain has been life. No, let me be stronger in this. Our gain has been Life!
John writes of it. “He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1Jn 5:12). I love John’s passion in this. It is not mere biological existence he has in view, not that general sort of life that consists in breathing and moving and going about our daily business. No, this is the life, that life which only Christ, the Son of God, can bestow upon His own. The Father has determined the number of those who belong to Christ, and has seen to it that they are to be saved from their sins. The Son has come to implement that plan in full and perfect completeness. Not one of His own shall be lost. By corollary, not one who is not His own shall be saved. The Son is assuredly sufficiently powerful that were the Father to decree that all would in fact be saved from sin, His work would see it done. But it is quite clear that this is not the Father’s decree. The record of Scripture, along with the evidence of our own experience put paid to any such theory of sanctity. God Himself declares that He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. The point is meaningless unless that has its exclusionary bound. But, to whom He wills, He speaks life.
“Truly, truly, I say to you an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (Jn 5:25). While that may include those who are already dead and in the grave, it is not only aimed at them. It also addresses those who continue to walk and talk and breath. They, too, are dead and in need of hearing the voice of the Son, the giver of the Life. They, too, perhaps even more so, need their High Priest to come destroy the devil’s work, and set them free to live.
Our Lord, our High Priests, comes that we may have life. He speaks life to us as He has breathed life into us. But it doesn’t stop there. He is the life in us. Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). What an incredible declaration! Christ, my Lord, my High Priest, lives in me. This, I have to think, far excels the mere thought that He indwells. Oh, yes, He has taken up residence in this which He has declared to be His holy temple, but more! So much more! He lives in me. I don’t really. If it was still me living here, I would still be dead. But I have been crucified together with Christ. I’m dead, dead to my desires, dead to my agenda. Christ lives, and because He lives, I too live. Because He lives and moves and breathes in me, I truly live, I truly move as He directs, I truly breathe the air of true life, something far more rarified than the purest airs of the earth.
This, I have to say, is the ideal, and as the ideal, is also true. Yet, it is simultaneously true that I remain imperfect. My Lord has yet much to do in me, my High Priest is still most needful to me if ever I am to be sanctified and set aside for His exclusive and holy use. But He is here. He is with me, and within me, and He is achieving all His purpose in and through me, albeit too often in spite of me. He has spoken life to me, and has caused me to hear it. He has called Me His own, and in this alone do I find full and unalterable assurance. He is my salvation, and He is my Lord. May I come to the place of an obedience even like unto Paul’s example, or even Peter’s and I should be thrilled. But let it be as it shall be and I shall ever be well pleased and well assured in my Lord and King, Jesus, the Son of the living God, who died for my sins, who was raised to rule and reign forevermore, that I might indeed live in Him. To Him be all glory, all honor, all power forever and ever, amen!
