Category: Devotional Grist

Introduction

Preaching a formal sermon to civil authorities on Election Day is a tradition unique to New England. Election Day in 18th and 19th century New England was a holiday that often began with cannon firing and a martial procession of government officials from the seat of government to a nearby church. There the most important members of the community–the governor and other elected officials, the clergy and socially prominent individuals–listened to a sermon often two to three hours long. It was a ritual in which the male, Christian, voting community (as one contemporary observer put it) “met together in a solemn assembly to give thanks to the God of heaven for the many great and distinguishing privileges, both civil and religious, which we are favored with; and to ask direction and a blessing from on high, upon all the administrations of government in the land.”

I.) Some General Considerations

It is not generally well known that our whole form of government and governmental system originally came to us out of the soil of Reformed Christianity. The their book “Fountainhead Of Federalism” McCoy and Baker trace the origins of the political thought that shaped our Federalism from the Reformation notions of covenant as applied to the realm of political thought. John Witte does something very similar in his book on political thought in the Reformed tradition. This idea of a bilateral covenant (contract) where the people take on certain responsibilities and make certain promises to the Magistrate who likewise takes on certain responsibilities and makes certain promises to the people to rule in keeping with God’s word is the original basis of our system of Federal system of Government. One can trace a line of Reformed political thought from Bullinger which would include Dupleiss Mornay’s well known work “A Defense Of Liberty Against Tyrants,” the writings of Samuel Rutherford, John Winthrop, Johannes Althusius, right on to Jonathan Witherspoon and James Madison. All these men didn’t agree on every detail of their political theory but all were influenced by the idea of covenant as an organizing principle upon which political theory could be discussed.

A.) It has always been the view of Reformed people that God is alone Sovereign.

1 Sam. 2:6-7 The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.

Ps. 103:19 The Lord has established His throne in the heavens; and His sovereignty rules over all.

Pr. 21:1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.

This conviction that God alone is sovereign resulted in political systems of thought that did not allow absolute Sovereignty to be located in any one realm in a culture or society. Since God alone is absolutely Sovereign nothing else may be invested with that kind of absolute Sovereignty that God alone has – not the Church, not the family, and most especially not the State.

Practically what this meant is that Reformed people have seldom been particularly inclined to Monarchy in the Church or in the State, since Monarchy so often slips into absolute sovereignty. Nor have they been particularly inclined to elevate Church or State as one institution over the other as other Christian expressions have. To lift one institution in a culture over all others would be to invest that exalted institution with the kind of sovereignty that only God has.
Historically what Reformed people have thus done is built Republican forms of government, both in the Churches they built and in the States they have created, where sovereignty and power is diffused throughout the society.

The result of this has been the building of equal and co-ordinate centers of power that each exercises a portion of God’s delegated authority in their particular realm. In this way sovereignty was shared with the intent that God would be honored and tyranny would be avoided; God honored because absolute sovereignty remained invested in God alone — tyranny avoided because with God’s delegated sovereignty diffused throughout a society none of the equal and co-ordinate centers of power would be able to rise above the other to seize complete and total sovereignty.

B.) It likewise has always been the view of the Reformed That Man Is Sinful

Scripture teaches that all of us “were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

Scripture teaches “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Scripture teaches that believers likewise continue to struggle against sin. (Romans 7)

This view of man as sinner reinforced some observations that we’ve already made.

Because Man is a sinner Reformed notions of Government have always been to limit the power of Government and Governors,

“It is therefore most wholesome for magistrates and officers in church and commonwealth never to affect more liberty and authority than will do them good, and the people good: for whatever transcendent power is given will certainly overrun those that give it and those that receive it…. It is necessary, therefore, that all power that is on earth be limited, church power or other. If there be power given to speak great things, then look for blasphemies, look for licentious abuse of it….It is therefore fit for every man to be studious of the bounds which the Lord hath set: and for the people, in whom fundamentally all power lies, to give as much power as God in His word gives to men.”

John Cotton (1584-1652)

This distrust of a Government that does not know its boundaries as expressed by the Reformed minister John Cotton in the 17th century is echoed again by the Deist Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century.

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” – Thomas Jefferson

The Puritans created a worldview that was unknowingly accepted even by their posterity that no longer walked with God.

Since man was a sinner no man should be given to much power. Reformation theology agreed that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Because Reformed people believed with the Scriptures that man was a sinner they introduced checks and balances and plurality of leadership into the forms of government that they built.

Now, these two general considerations should already give us a principle in our voting Tuesday – and that principle is that when we vote we should be voting against any candidate or party that desires to consolidate power into one person or to a centralized location.

We have a need to realize in our voting that when we vote to consolidate and centralize political power we are at the same time voting against the other realms that God has ordained to delegate authority. When we vote for those who will empower the State to be responsible to feed, clothe, and educate our children, we vote against the sovereignty that God has delegated to the Family. When we vote for those who might restrict what can be said in the pulpit we vote against the Church.

As voters we must realize that temporal sovereignty is not infinite and whenever you invest one realm with more sovereignty you at that point divest sovereignty from some other realm where God has appointed it to be.

It is interesting that our Constitution is a document that reflects all of this. It is a document that was intended to limit the Federal Government with specific delegated and enumerated powers. It was crafted to restrict the Federal government to doing a number of very limited things.

It is my conviction that when we vote for candidates or parties that desire to increasingly centralize and grow Government, whether in Lansing or in Washington, we are voting against Scripture which insists that God alone has the kind of sovereignty that the State is seeking to accrue. Such voting by Christians often pursued under the notion that the State will take care of them and their interest belies an underlying attitude that the State is the institution that can provide our salvation.

It is my conviction that when we vote for candidates or parties that desire to increasingly centralize and grow Government, and we do this when we vote for people who desire to increase the funds of Government at the expense of family income, we are voting against the wisdom of Scripture that reminds us that man is sinful.

Now, I hope you realize that in what we have said already we have eliminated a fairly large number of those who are vying for your vote. Increasingly rare is the candidate who intends to go to Lansing or Washington with the genuine intent of limiting and shrinking the size and role of government. Legion is the name of the candidates who believe that the brokenness of our society and culture can be fixed if we will just give Government more power and more wealth. Bloated Government cannot fix our problems because bloated Government is our problem.

II.) Some Specific Counsel From Scripture Touching This Election

A.) Life

Scripture teaches that the power of life and death come from God. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. When man seeks to ascend to the position that he can arbitrarily determine who lives and who dies man is seeking to seize the scepter from God and engod himself.
For this reason no Christian can vote for any candidate who supports abortion in any way. If God is the author of life then it can be nothing but murder when we end life without God’s sanction. Our assumption need always be that life begins at conception. Even if we are uncertain on that point our uncertainty should lead us to err in the direction of protecting life.

We are now somewhere in the vicinity of 50 million murders being committed in the name of choice.

Francis Schaeffer warned us long ago that the next logical step to abortion would be euthanasia and infanticide. We now have a candidate at the top of the ticket who has consistently supported infanticide with his vote (Infant born alive act). Neither of the candidates at the top of the ticket have been universally and unequivocally pro-life. Very few candidates down ticket have a high few of life.

This high esteem for life ought to make an impact on the way we vote in Michigan on proposition 2.

B.) 2nd Amendment

First we would note that the Scripture allows for self-defense.
“If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him,” Exodus 22:2-3

It is interesting when you look at the Scriptural record that the Philistines “disarmed” the Israelites in order to enslave them in I Samuel 13:19-22. In order to control people, they must be disarmed.
The right to keep and bear arms is a right of men to be free. If we really believe that God is pleased with cultures and societies that are free then we will be very leery of anybody or any party that seeks to strip us of means of self-defense.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny, when the government fear the people there is liberty – Thomas Jefferson

C.) Economics

Scripture teaches that the State bears the sword (Romans 13). A general rule of thumb is that the State thus should be restricted to doing whatever can be done with a sword. You do not house people with a sword, you do not feed people with a sword, and you do not give medicine to people with a sword. These functions should not be the function of the State.

Scripture nowhere gives to the State the role of God.

Socialism is a system that steals God’s sovereignty in order to invest it in the state. Socialist systems teach and believe that in the state we live and move and have our being. The State is our provider, or protector, and our omnipotent caretaker. Further, socialist systems are completely predicated upon violating the 8th commandment, stealing from those who work hard producing wealth, in order to redistribute that wealth. The effect of this redistribution of wealth is to shrink the pie of wealth as people lose incentive to create wealth. The consequence of this is not the raising up of people without wealth to wealth, but rather the pulling down of people with wealth to the status of not having wealth. Equality is achieved but it is the equality of the miserable.

As proof for this I offer the reality that in classical theology it is always the right of a God to own everything (The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof) and His prerogative to distribute what He owns as He pleases (God gives them their food in due season). Clearly, we are about to empower legislators and an executive that believes that the State owns everything and as such has the prerogative to re-distribute what the State (god) owns as it (he) pleases. It is the pagan left that is turning this country into an explicit theocracy.

Conclusion

Quoting Doug Wilson

In the colonial era, ministers used to preach what were called artillery sermons—messages leading up to elections in order to teach and inform the saints on their duties in the civil realm.
But this exhortation is a bit more focused on the process of voting itself. First, all that we do is to be offered to God at the fundamental. Ask God to count your vote, and it does not matter who else does. Give what you do to Jesus, and let Him do with it what He wills. You should be like the small boy who surrendered his fish and bread for Jesus to multiply, and not like someone who tried to feed the multitude himself by giving everyone a crumb.

Secondly, confirm it in your heart and soul that the day after the election, God is still on His throne, and Jesus is still at His right hand. Certain things are not on the ballot, as the sovereignty of God is not. When Christians react to elections with despair and panic, they are demonstrated that their faith is in the wrong place. If the election goes badly, do not soak your hair with lighter fluid, set it off, and then run in tight, little circles. Be a Christian. If the election goes well, do not act you have just been saved. Salvation is not something that Caesar holds in his hand, whether to give or withhold.

Third, vote with a clear mind and clean heart, doing so confidently and with boldness. Stand up for the unborn. Strike at every idol. Love God, and hate sin. Stand against every throne built on a foundation of lawlessness. And return here next Lord’s Day for the real work of Reformation.

The need for Reformation in our culture is seen at every turn. The Church has turned into a version of mental and emotional burlesque performance where any appeal that is made is made upon the basis of emotions or experience or the fear that the secret rapture might happen tomorrow. With the emasculation of the Church the rest of the culture has followed into eclipse. The family, when it is successful, has become merely a place for bed and boarding as opposed to a place for education and training. The schools continue to churn out slaves. The State keeps tending towards tyranny. The law is built upon relativistic sand. The arts produce ugliness that communicates that there is no such thing as beauty. In our economy we continue to punish those who save and reward those who build debt. The need for Reformation in our culture is seen at every turn.

The need will not be answered by attempt at renewal that is only moral at its base. What is wrong with our culture is theological and will not be altered by merely treating the immoral symptoms that pronounce the presence of theological disease. No, if we desire to heal the immoral symptoms we must destroy the theological disease from which all moral and cultural sickness emanates. The cure must be theological.

The need will not be answered by attempts at renewal that seek to alter people’s emotional responses. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity — the 800 pound guerrilla in today’s Christian expression — will not answer our need for Reformation. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity is more problem then it is solution. Indeed, one way we will know that Reformation is taking hold when we see the influence of Pentecostalism abate. With its theology of emotion and excitement Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity combined with its anti-intellectualism hasn’t what it takes to withstand the tidal wave of paganism that has drenched all of us, nor does it have the ability to provide the lasting answers to the larger questions that all cultures demand. Without Reformation we will die in our emotion.

The need will not be answered by appealing to people’s experiences. All the rage these days is “narrative theology,” which if handled rightly could be effective. However, “narrative theology” as it is handled by most of the Church is merely a celebration of everybody’s different life-stories. It is nothing more then Schleiermacher on mescaline. This can not and will not bring Reformation. Without Reformation we will die in our experience.

The need will only be answered by thinking rightly about God – or we could say by a Holy Spirit driven restoration of right Theology. That which the Church and culture is dying of is the disease of thinking wrongly about God. This wrong thinking about the God of the Bible is the disease that produces all of our foul immoral symptoms. The first place that our wrong thinking about God reveals itself is in our worship and doxology. Thinking wrongly about God we worship wrongly. Worshiping God wrongly we reinforce wrong thinking about God. Reformation in the Church, in the family, in the schools, in the law, in the economy, in the political order, and in the arts — Reformation that will heal wherever it flows — will first be seen in the repair of our theology and doxology.

The battle that we face today in our times and in our culture hence is not primarily between Republicans and Democrats. It is not primarily between Islam and Secular Humanism. It is not primarily between Liberals and Conservatives. The battle that we face today in our times and in our culture is the Battle of Theology. The question that confronts us is, “How Then Shall We Think About God.” Here is where the battle lies and should we answer this question wrongly, or allow people who have answered it wrongly to be our ecclesiastical and cultural gurus we shall die.

As a people then, we will suffer increasingly or decreasingly to the degree that we get our Theology wrong. The more a people think wrongly about God the more they will inflict themselves with all kinds of neuroses, psychopathic and sociopath behavior, and just plain strangeness. To the contrary, only Reformation can cure the ecclesiastical and cultural malaise that is characterized by these kinds of maladies.

As we turn to II Kings 22-23 we see Reformation as the remedy for what ails people who have embraced a culture of death.

I.) Sola Scriptura – Formal Principle Of Reformation (vs. 22:11)

Josiah realized that God’s people had disregarded the authoritative source of God’s rule over His people and such a realization led to deep anguish. The Reformation that washed over ancient Israel occurred because the Scripture was restored, and with the Scripture restored people began to think rightly about God.

In the Reformation in the 16th century this idea of Scripture alone was thought of as the “Formal Principle” of the Reformation. It was referred to as the “Formal Principle” because in returning to the Scripture alone as the authoritative source of theology much that was sloppy and inferior in thinking about God was challenged and removed.

This idea of Sola Scriptura is part of what we confess as a Reformed Protestant body of believers,

“We believe that [the] holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein…Neither may we consider any writings of men, however holy these men may have been, of equal value with those divine Scriptures nor ought we to consider custom or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truth of God… Therefore, we reject with all our hearts whatsoever does not agree with this infallible rule” (Belgic Confession VII).

Before the Law was rediscovered in the II Kings account and before the Scriptures were rediscovered in the Reformation it was no longer the case in most quarters of the Church that the Scriptures were the authoritative source of theology. What had happened is that autonomous reason and tradition had been lifted above the Scriptures.

The Reformation was the Reformation because it made a serious effort to allow the Scripture to have pride of place in and over the Church and thus in and over the lives of God’s people.

Now if we are to have another Reformation again something like this has to occur again. It needs to occur again for in much if not most of Christianity in the world what has happened is that the Formal principle of Scripture is no longer Sola Scriptura. In Pentecostal quarters for example the formal principle is Scripture and direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. In Roman Catholic quarters for example the formal principle remains Scripture and tradition and autonomous reason. In Anglican or Episcopalian quarters for example the formal principle remains Scripture, Church Authority, and autonomous reason. In Emergent Church quarters for example the formal principle remains experience plus culture.

Unless God is gracious to give us a return to Sola Scriptura our Churches will continue to ape our pagan culture. Unless God is gracious to give us a return to Sola Scriptura we will continue to think wrongly about God.

Now, here we must have a word about what Sola Scriptura isn’t.

If there was a temptation once upon a time to over privatize Scripture in the hands of the corporate magesterium, there is in our time a temptation to over privatize Scripture in the hands of the individual, so that Sola Scriptura becomes Solo Scriptura. We must say that just as no group of people can stand over the Bible dictating to it what it says, so no single individual is allowed to stand over the Bible dictating to it what it says. If it was wrong for the Church to wrest Scripture away from God’s people, it is equally wrong for individuals to wrest Scripture away from the Church.

This is simply a plea to realize that as individuals we must read the Scriptures with the Church.

II.) Sola Fide — Material Principle Of Reformation (22:13)

“Our Fathers have not obeyed the Words of this book.”

Here the implicit idea is that God’s people, through their disobedience had defamed and defrauded God of that which was rightfully His – that is Glory.

We could say that by and in their disobedience they had attempted to de-glorify God.

Now this brings us to what was referred to as the Material Principle of the Reformation.

Material Principle = The central doctrine in a theology taught by that theology.

In the Reformation there was subtle disagreement on the Material principle.

Lutherans – Justification by grace alone

Reformed – The Glory Of God

The teleology or the end or goal of the Material principle for Reformed people has always been the exaltation of God. As Reformed people we look at the Material principle of Lutherans and what we tend to see is a theology that finds its final destination in man. We prefer instead to see justification by grace alone as serving the higher principle of God’s glory all the while insisting that justification by grace alone isn’t the end but rather is the means to the end of living to glorify God in all that we do. Reformed people insist that when God saves us through faith alone in Christ alone it is always for the end of God’s glory alone. God does all that he does, including saving His people, for His glory.

As we turn to the II Kings account we see that God’s people had failed to give God glory (22:17).

III.) No God But God – The Consequential Principle Of The Reformation (23:5f)

One way we will know that Reformation has come to us is when we begin to tear down the false gods that give meaning to our times, our cultures, our churches and our lives.

Here in II Kings we see how the gods are toppled. The account is straightforward but I think we little appreciate the cultural upheaval that is communicated in this text.

In order to get a sense of that we must realize that cultures find their meanings and definition from the religions and gods that define them. When Josiah attacks these gods and religions he is, as we would say, attacking their way of life – their mode of existence. Josiah is not merely assaulting the gods, he is assaulting the web of life in which the Israeli’s lived. He was attacking their cultural paradigm.

The same kind of destruction to false religions and gods happened in the Reformation. You can hardly read a history of the Reformation without coming across statues and religious art being destroyed because of the idolatrous nature that it was associated with in the minds of the people. Historical accounts record how people thronged into churches to bring out the Holy art and destroy it.

Indeed so great was the horror of the Reformers for the idolatry that many believe they over-reacted in becoming icon-phobes. But given the superstitious era in which they lived one can understand their reaction.

We, in our times, have lived through the kind of “way of life” assault on a culture that Josiah brought against the “way of life” of his people.

The nearest thing to this that has happened in our lifetimes is what happened in the iron curtain countries after the fall of the iron curtain. The people were rejecting the faith that had been foisted upon them and what Lenin and Stalin had pursued was visited upon their own heads as their statues and images were ripped town from city squares.

Anyway … you’ll know if in your lifetime you see Reformation because when Reformation comes the old gods are going to fall in such an obvious way you won’t be able to miss it. You’ll know if Reformation comes in your lifetime because your way of life will drastically change just as it drastically changed for the Israelites in II Kings. 23 and just as it drastically changed during the Reformation.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s court there was a old order whose influence was predominant (sorcerers, astrologers, magicians Chaldeans). This old order is being eclipsed by a new order bringing a new influence. (Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael)

The difference in these two orders is significant

Whereas under the old order the attempt was to gain insight into the future by manipulating the unseen world, insight into the future in the new order would be a matter of God’s gracious revelation.

Whereas the old order was signified by death (Nebuchadnezzar’s threat to kill em all) the new order is signified by the presence of protection of life for all (24).

Whereas in the old order it is thought that the King is sovereign, in the new order God is clearly sovereign over the King.

God brought His people into Babylonian captivity but it begins to become a question as to whom has actually captured whom.

Here, in Daniel 2, Daniel is a picture of Christ the high Prophet. Just as Daniel made known God’s mind to Nebuchadnezzar so Christ made and makes the mind of God known to His people. Just as Daniel’s wisdom was a means of deliverance for God’s people so the wisdom of Jesus is the means of deliverance for God’s people (cmp. I Cor. 1:30). Just as Daniel was the revelation of God to Nebuchadnezzar so Jesus is the revelation of God to His Kingly people today. And just as there was safety from the King’s wrath only in the revelation of Daniel so there remains safety from the King’s wrath only in the revelation of Jesus.

“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.”

1.) Note that at the beginning of God’s revealed word that God is presupposed. There are no elaborate arguments given for the existence of God. No ontological, cosmological, teleological, moral or Historical arguments for the existence of God. God cannot be proven unless He is first presupposed and when He is first presupposed then everything proves and demonstrates the reality of God. Indeed nothing can be proven unless God is presupposed. Genesis 1:1 reveals that the reality of God is a necessary precondition for intelligibility.

2.) God is a creator God. The fact that God has created the heavens and earth reveals that pantheism is false. Since God is a creator we know that He is distinct from His creation and any teaching that runs God and His creation together without recognizing the proper distinction between Creator and creation is heresy. Genesis 1:1 is thus the death knell for all forms of process Theology that hold that God along with His creation is becoming. Likewise all Hegelian notions of God being universal spirit are out of bounds because of how it tends to put God in constant process. Further the idea that God is a creator God distinct from His creation implies the creator creature distinction that is often forgotten by modern Christians. God is the thrice awesome Creator. Worship that contained a little awe and respect would be a welcome relief in most American worship services.

3.) Likewise Genesis 1:1 teaches that the creation is not totally separate from God. Creation is totally dependent upon the Creator. If God did not uphold His Creation it would cease to be. Therefore Genesis 1:1 reveals that all forms of Deism are heresy. God remains intimately involved with His creation. All that happens (all historical events, all natural happenings) remains personal because God remains not only the creator but also the sustainer and governor of His creation.

4.) Christian Theology must continue to take into account God’s work in creation as well as God’s work in redemption. In some sense Redemption serves the work of God’s creation by restoring creation to its original intent. God’s work of Redemption returns God’s work of Creation to the status of ‘very good.’ Creation provides the context where Redemption happens and Redemption in return brings Creation to all that it was intended to be and Creation groans for the fullness of Redemption that is yet to be. Creation and Redemption while distinct can never be divorced. They have an incipient relationship.

5.) On the question of origins we see the Christian Worldview demands a supernatural answer. The Cosmos was created by a personal Creator. This stands in sharp contrast to the Humanist Worldview where all happens by time + chance + circumstance and where all starts by impersonal materialistic process. According to the Christian the Heavens hold a listening and watching God and all life has meaning because this personal God has placed His fingerprint on it all. According to the Humanist the Heavens are brass and all of life is meaningless — a mere chasing of the wind. Which Universe would you prefer to inhabit?

6.) If God is the creator and man is the creature then man is responsible to God. Man is not an end in Himself. He is now accountable to the Creator God and will one day give an account for his actions to the creator God.

7.) Genesis 1:1 is the beginning of Revelation where God reaches down to make Himself known to fallen man. All other religions stand in contrast to Christianity on this point. All other religions are mythologies where man seeks to ascend to God. The god or gods of all other religions are ‘man’ said loudly. Only in the Christian religion does God descend to man in order to make Himself known. We come to know God because He has made Himself objectively known. Orthodox theology thus distances itself from all forms of existentialism where that which is subjective precedes and destroys all notions of that and He which is objective.

8.) Genesis 1:1 implies God’s aseity. The doctrine of divine aseity holds that God is not dependent on anything outside himself for his being and nature. The Creator is not dependent upon the creation for His existence but rather the creation is dependent upon the Creator. If a tree fell in the woods it would still make a sound even if nobody heard it (if only because God would hear it) and If there was no creation to hear God, God would still be God. God did not create because there was some kind of lack in God. God did not create because He was lonely for fellowship. God did not create because He had some kind of unfelt need going un-met that was met by us (lucky for God He made us — blech!). God has eternally been the eternally happy God. God’s creation was the spill over of His eternal satisfaction in His triune self.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Different texts have different concerns. While the stories of Aesop Fables may help us navigate this present evil age, the narrative of God’s story that we find in Holy Writ is intended to get us into the age to come or alternately teaches us how the age to come overcomes this present evil age. Aesop fables tells us how to live in this world. Scripture teaches what God has done to make us fit to live in the next World AND how His work of making us fit for the next world re-creates this World so that the Kingdoms of this earth become the Kingdoms of our God.

We must be careful not to read Scripture as if it is a story about us. The purpose of Scripture is to give God’s story of Redemption and what it is He has done to put us in His Story. There is a perpetual danger on our part of taking God’s story and stuffing it in our own personal narratives with the result that God is the kind of co-star whose role is to approve of our story line while making sure that we, in our lead roles, look good. When we read Scripture like this Scripture goes from being a Story about the glory of God as seen in providing redemption for sinners to being a Story about our glory as seen in how we have spent our lives with God as our co-star who gladly conforms His actions according to our script.

The danger of reading scripture like this is that conceivably someone could quote Scripture backwards and forwards rattling off Scriptures from memory like a Brooklyn Bookie rattles off odds for the latest sporting events and yet we wouldn’t have any idea what Scripture means or teaches. To ‘know’ Scripture like this would leave us as ignorant of the Gospel as the Bat People Tribe who have never heard of Jesus who live in the deepest jungle of Borneo.

We need to keep this in mind when we come to passages like the Benedictus which is before us this morning. If we were to follow an all too typical type of sermon we might say something like,

“Zechariah serves for us as an example of faith, all be it tardy, that we ought to follow. Zechariah eventually obeyed God and we should also. Zechariah teaches us that God never gives up on people, even if he has to discipline them for a season and so if we have failed God we can still be faithful and He will give us another chance.”

But is it really the purpose of this pericope to teach us to emulate Zechariah’s example, or is there something about God’s story that we are to draw out from this?

Quite clearly we would be abusing this Scripture if we turned Zechariah into some kind of moral exemplar while all the time missing that what is happening here is that God’s Story of Redemption is reaching its climax. Zechariah’s prophecy isn’t even about Zechariah let alone about us. Zechariah’s prophecy is about God’s novel reaching its climatic moment. All the anticipations and adumbrations are being fulfilled. All the disappointments of the Novel in past characters and epochs that failed are going to be set right. The Hero who will kill the tyrant dragon who has so long unjustly oppressed the King’s people, as so many Damsels in distress, is being introduced into the novel. This is the Hero that has been promised by the King’s spokesmen (1:70) throughout the ages and it is the literary relief that God’s novel needs in order to go forward.

Zechariah’s son will be the last great royal Herald going forth with trumpet fanfare to announce the coming Hero (Luke 1:76f). But this novel has its own twist. Both the Herald and the Hero are rejected by those they came to rescue (“His own received Him not”). Worse still some of the royal people are traitors (Not all of Israel is of Israel) and are in league with the Dragon oppressor, aiding and abetting in the attempt to destroy the Herald and the Hero.

Yet that gets us ahead of where Zechariah is at in Luke 1. Zechariah is one of the Characters of the novel who the author is using to announce that the great King is true to His promise to provide a deliverer to redeem His people (Luke 1:68, 74).

First we should note that the story is linear and has teleology. That is to say that the part that Zechariah has to play in the story is consistent with earlier portions of the novel and is indicative that the Novel has a destination. This Hero comes from the promised house of Heroes (Luke 1:69) – a house that had been reduced to a withering stump (Isaiah 6:13). Further the coming of the Hero is consistent with promises that were given by God way early in the novel (Luke 1:70 cmp. w/ Genesis 3:15) that He would provide a dragon tyrant slaying Hero who would deliver and redeem His people from the clutches of His enemies (Luke 1:71). Indeed, Zechariah being filled with the Spirit of the Author of the Novel (Luke 1:67) can say that this Hero was part of a storyline that includes in it earlier Heroes such as David (Luke 1:69) and Abraham (Luke 1:73) who were literary anti-types of the great Hero in God’s novel.

Second, as we read this part of the story we realize that this story is framed by covenant (Luke 1:72). This is the literary tool used to unite the whole story. Covenant is how God, as a Novelist, brings unity and diversity into His story. The literary tool of covenant allows the novel to keep building while at the same time providing a sense of wholeness to the story as it unfolds. When Dr. Luke wanted to show early Christians that the Heroes’ life and ministry were the fulfillment of God’s ancient purposes for His chosen people, he pointed to the covenants and quoted Zechariah’s prophecy which reveals that believers such as Zechariah in the very earliest days of ‘the new and better covenant’ understood Jesus and His messianic work as a fulfillment (not a ‘Plan B’) of God’s covenant with Abraham (Luke 1:72-73). God didn’t shelf the previous story of the Old Covenant with the arrival of Jesus and start a new story with the intent of getting back to the previous story once he had finished the new story. No, Zechariah’s appeal to the covenant reveals that the characters in God’s novel understood that this was one incredible narrative.

The Novel doesn’t change plot lines with the coming of Jesus. The author of the Novel doesn’t suddenly switch to an alternate plan of rescue for His people all because His royal people reject the Hero. Quite to the contrary this was part of the Author’s intention from when He began writing His novel.

Another thing we want to see about this novel is that it is interactive, which is to say that God’s story is not a story that leaves us unaffected. While it is certainly not the case that we are to turn God’s story into our story, it is the case that God takes us up into His story so that we become participants in his story. Zechariah notes that the salvation (deliverance, redemption) that is being provided by the Messiah is to have the effect that God’s people might ‘serve Him without fear.’ The idea is that having been delivered we might be loyal servants (hence royal priesthood) to God. The redemption provided by God in His story doesn’t end with a people who deaf dumb and mute to the extension of God’s Kingdom. No, in God’s story we are delivered in order to serve. God does not become a participant in our story but we do become participants in His story, and we do so by rendering Him the service a delivered people delight in rendering.