Category: Sermons

James 2: 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

As I will be on Holiday for the 508^th celebration of the Reformation, I thought I would take a couple Sundays focusing on truths that the Reformation restored. These truths are still abominated by much of the Church world. Indeed, when one becomes Biblical and so Reformed one is immediately on the wrong side of the popularity game – even within the Church.

And so there is a ongoing need to return to these treasures in order to understand the Biblical foundation of Biblical Christianity. To do so we look to James 2 this morning in order to take up the matter of Salvation – Justification and Sanctification.

The enemies of Biblical Christianity, whether Arminian, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic, will come to James and say… “Ah … here we have proof that the Biblical doctrine of Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone that you Reformed type come up with is utter nonsense.”

Well, is that the case? Is James contradicting Paul who could write explicitly in Romans

Romans 4:2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[a] 4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those

whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

8 Blessed is the one

whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”[b]

9 Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10 Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! 11 And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. 12 And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. 13 It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

So, the question is, is James contradiction Paul? Is God of two minds when it comes to this issue of how it is one is right w/ God. Paul says

5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.

Yet here comes Randy Rome insisting that James says it is faith plus works wherein men can become right with God eventually.

As we come to James 2 we have to keep before ourselves what the problem is that James is dealing with. This is essential in order to understand this passage aright thus avoiding the soul damning mistakes that Rome makes when it comes to this passage.

James is dealing with the problem who claims to have faith in God. They would insist they are Christian but there is no evidence in their lives of this vital living faith. What does James say… The Holy Spirit says that such people are clearly lying to themselves about this so-called faith they have, because, the Holy Spirit says, genuine faith (as opposed to mere claims of faith) manifests itself in the person who has been declared righteous by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Seeking to be succinct and pithy so as to be memorable…

Paul deals with how it is a person is Justified … how it is they are right w/ God
James OTOH is dealing w/ how it is a person’s claim to being right w/ God is vindicated

Do you see the difference there? If we were to boil this down even more we would say;

Paul teaches how a man is justified
James teaches how a man’s justification is justified.

They are two completely different issues and so not in contradiction in the least. In point of fact Paul will say repeatedly in His writings what James says here. Paul will say…

Eph. 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Titus 2:13 Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

Paul agrees with James because Paul and James are being inspired by the same Holy Spirit of God to write what they write and God does not embrace contradictions.

Of course this matter of how a man is accepted by God became one of the main contentious points of the Reformation. Rome then, and still today, insists that man will eventually be accepted by God, in some measure, by man’s cooperation with grace – by his behavior, while the Reformers insisted that man is now accepted by the behavior of Christ for Him.

And so Rome connects man’s behavior … his cooperation with the grace found in the sacramental system, with man’s eventually becoming right with God. While the Reformers following Scripture insisted that man does not become right with God over the course of time in concert with the Roman sacramental system combined with purgatory. The Reformers following Scripture insisted that God declares man right with God by God’s alone grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The alone are significant. They were placed there for the very reason of cutting out the ground beneath all claims that somehow man’s cooperating behavior is contriubtive to being right with God.

That is why to this day Rome, and Remonstrants, and Eastern Orthodox will howl whenever a Reformed chap comes along with the Gospel message. This is why to this day a Reformed person who stands on God’s Word on this matter will be greeted with hostility and will be considered a pariah. Especially if said person insists that this is the ONLY way of understanding how we are right with God and that all other ways may well lead to a person being eternally damned.

There is another matter we should note here in order to hopefully clarify matters in our mind. When we say that being right before God is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, we are at the same time saying w/ Paul in Romans 4:5 “that God justifies the ungodly.” Heathen Romish ways that misinterpret James teach that God only justifies the godly.

Why do I say that … well, it is due to the fact that the Roman sacramental system combined with purgatory is a system of salvation wherein a person is only finally declared righteous once they finally are righteous. By continuing to attend to the sacraments of Rome … followed by the time spent in purgatory burning off remaining sin, Rome teaches that the believer is finally justified in and of himself so that God can now say … “Well, because you are now just, I justify you.”

This is exactly contrary to Scripture. In the scriptural account God declares man, for the sake of the finished work of Jesus Christ to be be justified – man is right with God. Not because the redeemed man is now in and of himself all that God demands of Him, but because Christ put to the account of the ungodly His righteousness.

So … seeking for the pithy and memorable again …

Rome teaches that one is declared right with God because they have become right with God by cooperating with grace found in the sacramental system.

Scripture teaches that one is declared right with God because justifies the ungodly because of Christ’s finished work.

If we examine this in another way we would say that Rome, Remonstrants, and EO, have given us what we might call Christian Humanism. In this Christian Humanism man saves himself by his good works, his behavior, and his attendance on the sacramental system. This isn’t grace. This is self-salvation w/ God getting a hockey assist.

You see my friends as we consider James again, Rome looks at James and says it confirms their position. For them James is insisting that God works are combined with faith to the end of being right with God. For them these good works are seeking to attain something (being declared right with God) that is uncertain without their contribution. For the Reformed these good works are not in the least contributory to being declared right with God. For the Reformed these good works are the consequence of knowing that they have been declared right with God.

What does this mean? Well one thing it means is you could have two people (One who is Roman Catholic and one who is Reformed) doing the same exact good works and one is on their way to hell while the other is heaven bound? Why would that be? Well it is because Rome is working to obligate God to given them a salvation they cannot have apart from their cooperation while the Reformed is working out of gratitude to God for the salvation that can never be revoked or taken away. The difference is found in the motivation. Rome is motivated by gaining salvation. The Reformed are motivated because they have been freely given salvation.

This is why James can say marry faith and deeds. James insists that faith is dead without good works not because faith and works are required in order to be right with God, but rather because the consequent product of genuine faith that rests in Christ alone for being right with God is a zealousness for good works. When James complains of Faith unaccompanied by works he is not teaching that our behavior contributes to our being right with God. It is Jesus’ behavior alone that finds us declared right by God. James is saying that Faith unaccompanied by works is dead because such a faith is not faith. Even the demons have that kind of faith.

Look… we need to remind ourselves here that even after conversion our good works without being accepted for the sake of Jesus Christ still fall short of God’s standard for being good. It’s all a matter of God’s favor my friends. God accepts me for the sake of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. God accepts my good works only for the same reason. The Spirit of Christ is daily increasingly conforming me to Christ in my thinking and behavior but even when my thinking and behavior are at their top level best they are still received and delighted in by God, not for the sake of their intrinsic righteous value but for the sake of the Father being pleased by Christ.

My friends, people who think that God accepts their good works as contributory along w/ Christ’s finished work unto the end of eventually one day in the future being right with God have not ever really understood the sinfulness of their sin.

This is why Christ is center for the Christian. It is why we hang crosses everywhere. My only hope is nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness.

Last week I had a Eastern Orthodox ask me;

Where do you even get this unbiblical idea that you are righteous simply by trusting Christ alone? My answer was, “Why, from Scripture alone of course.”

Galatians 2

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified[a] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness[b] were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Look, when Rome comes to James insisting that James proves that our works are part of our being right with God what they are saying is that Christ doesn’t by Himself save His people by His righteousness imputed but instead people must add their additional works to Christ’s incomplete work and if they don’t add their additional works they will forever be damned? As such Christ doesn’t save but gives us the opportunity to save ourselves with maybe a little help from Him. That’s very good of God to allow us to save ourselves.

This is why I said earlier that this is nothing but religious humanism. It is a man centered religion where Christian language is used in order to cover up the fact that men are involved in an enterprise dedicated to saving themselves.

Now having said all this what do we do with James 2

24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

The Roman Catholic here will run to this verse in triumph insisting that our idea of salvation by Grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone is nonsense.

But again, remember the context here. The context is people claiming to have faith but not having correspondent works. The question that James is answering is … “How is that Christian faith is seen as vindicated.”

The Greek word in vs. 24 for “Justified” has a range of meaning that includes the idea of vindicated. This same word is translated that way in I Tim. 3:16. So, James is saying that if man claims to have faith (which is the context of this passage) then the vindication to that claim is the justified man’s behavior. However, has we have been laboring to explain, teaching how a man’s faith is vindicated is far different than teaching how a man is made right with God.

A person’s justification needs vindicated in James, as we see in James 2, because false claims are being made. People are saying they are justified (declared right w/ God via forensic declaration through faith alone in Christ alone) when there was no evidence to their claim. The evidence of which is good works. But good works are the evidence of Justification and NOT the foundation of Justification.

All of what we have said was zeroed in on by our own catechism in LD 11;

Q. Do such then believe in Jesus the only Savior, who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else?

A. They do not; for though they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds they DENY Jesus the ONLY deliverer and Savior; for one of these two things must be true, either that Jesus is not a COMPLETE Savior, OR that they who by a true faith receive this Savior must find all things in Him necessary to their salvation.

Scriptural Support

1 Cor. 1:13, 31. Gal. 5:4 Col. 2:10. Isa. 9:6, 7. Col. 1:19, 20

Rome does not give us a complete savior. In the Romish system that insists that James is teaching our works are required for being declared right w/ God we find the denial that Jesus Christ is a complete savior.

With that in mind we now read James 2

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

And with this all Protestants agree. Our only insistence is that works are the inevitable consequence of a living and vital faith and not contributory in the least to being right with God. As I cast my eyes across the dead churches of the West, I would say to our modern dead Church as James writes here … “You claim faith but your lack of good works as defined by God’s law means your faith is dead.”

Conclusion

I have tried to demonstrate, once again, that the religion of Rome and the religion of Geneva really are two completely different religions. Perhaps they both are not Christianity but it is certain that they both can NOT be Christianity.

We each own two different chaps both named Jesus. We both embrace completely different ideas of salvation. We both have completely different understandings of Church. We each have completely different worldviews.

And all this despite using the same words. It really is quite amazing and demonstrates how Worldviews affect EVERYTHING.

13 And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”

I Peter 3

Here Peter returns to a point that he had dropped earlier;

I Peter 2:12 having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

The ideas being communicated in each of these passages is that Christians will be challenged by the wicked as to their beliefs … indeed they may even suffer persecution … and in those situations Christians both by their conduct and by their words are responsible to give an apologetic … a defense of the faith. They are to provide a reason for the hope that is in them.

Peter begins here by bringing up

I.) The Possibility of Suffering/Persecution

The Apostle opens in vs. 13 by suggesting that generally speaking those who are followers of good, will be left alone. In vs. 14 though Peter does allow that there will be times when Christians suffer for righteousness sake. Of course we see that throughout the Scriptural record as well as throughout Church history. There are times, especially when the surrounding culture and visible church goes into steep decline, when Christians will suffer for righteousness sake. That is, Christians will suffer because they are doing or speaking the right thing… they are living and speaking consistent with their Christian faith.

II.) Next Peter Enjoins The Proper Response to Suffering/Persecution

Peter says that in light of that unjust persecution and suffering that the response is to first realize that we are blessed. Peter is perhaps recalling here the words of our Lord Christ who also anticipated that Christians would suffer and be persecuted;

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So, the first response that we are to have should it ever be the case that we are unjustly persecuted and so suffering is to realize that we are blessed. We can rejoice and be glad in the midst of unjust suffering because we know that such suffering is promissory of future great reward and we can rejoice and be glad in the midst of unjust suffering and persecution because we know we are keeping the very best of company being counted as among the prophets. I mean, who doesn’t want to be identified with the great prophets of God who went before us?

Peter then combines the reminder that those are blessed who suffer persecuted for righteousness sake with the admonition to “not be afraid of their threats.” This is the second response we are to have in the face of persecution and suffering. Fear not.

The last few weeks we have been considering the why behind these word “do not be afraid of their threats.” The reason for knowing no fear in light of suffering, persecution, and threats, is that the Lord God omnipotent reigns. God is sovereign and has called His people, “The apple of His eye.” The Holy Spirit has reminded us that all things work together for the good of those God loves and are called according to His purpose. God has explicitly told us that He has engraved our names on the palms of His hands (Is. 49:16). For these reasons we are not to be afraid of their threats. God is our God due to the fact that we have been united to Christ.

The third response Peter writes here to the flock as it pertains to people breathing out threats and persecuting us is to

Sanctify (Set Apart) The Lord Christ in your hearts

This call echoes Isaiah 8:13 where we read;

13 The LORD of Hosts is the One you shall regard as holy. Only He should be feared; only He should be dreaded.

This call from Peter then to Sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts in the face of persecution and suffering seems to counsel on how to overcome the fear that Peter warns against. Peter writes in essence, “very well, there is this possible persecution and suffering and in light of that there is a natural response to have fear. Well, little flock, the way to deal with the understandable fear of man is to replace it with the fear of God. Sanctify (set apart – hold as holy and distinct) the Lord God in your hearts.”

You see a genuine fear of God – a genuine setting apart God will calm the swells that can overwhelm a understandable fear of men who are breathing out threats against us.

So to “sanctify Christ” as most versions have it or to “sanctify God” was to count His Name as holy (sanctified) above all other names. To “Sanctify Christ” means to own the fear of God, as the only fear which men ought to cherish, resulting in the safeguard against all undue fear of men.

This is not easy. I know I have failed at this in my past. I know if I had sanctified God in my heart and so feared God more than men the harassment and persecution of men would have not knocked me off my center. So, learning the fear of God… learning to set apart God is an arrows that warriors should have in their quiver because warriors are inevitably going to have to deal with persecution and suffering at one level or another.

One more word here. Peter says we are to sanctify God in your hearts.

Moderns tend to want to drive a dichotomy between head and heart. We have all kinds of silly sayings

Follow your heart
Affairs of the heart
In the 1960 Prez campaign Americans heard constantly, “In your heart you know he’s right.”

However the idea that there is this vast dichotomy between head and heart is just nonsense if we are going to understand the language in its Biblical context.

Gordon Clark dealt with this issue two generations ago. After collating all the Scripture that referred to heart Clark noted;

In eighty percent or more of (Bible verses)… the context shows… that the intellect or man’s mind is intended. Maybe ten percent mean volition (will). Another ten percent signify the emotions. Hence the actual usage very nearly identifies the heart with the intellect.

So, it would be a mistake to imagine that Peter is speaking of the “heart” here as though it is referring to the center of our emotions over against the mind with which we think. That kind of dichotomy is a stranger to Biblical thinking. In Biblical terminology the “heart” is the location of our reasoning (Romans 1:21), meditation (Psalms 19:14), understanding (Proverbs 8:5), thinking (Deuteronomy 7:17; 8:5) and believing (Romans 10:10). It is just here—in the center of our thinking and reasoning—that Christ is to be consecrated as Lord, when we are suffering and being persecuted.

So, biblically speaking, “set apart Christ as the Lord in your hearts,” means think as a Christian on this matter. It means to resolve to think properly. We are take ourselves into our hands and talk back to ourselves saying,

“Very well then, matters are getting difficult here. I am surrounded by the Philistines and they are breathing out threats and are persecuting me. I am languishing here. Very well, I must take myself in hand and at this very moment think properly about Christ as being Lord … I must sanctify God as Lord and be done with this fear of man and get on with the battle at hand.”

Then Peter gives some counsel on what more should be done in these situations;

III.) Be Ready to Give an Apologetic

and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” I Peter 3

Now here we should first note that there is only one possible way to always be ready to give this kind of defense and that is by knowing what we believe and why we believe it and what we don’t believe and why we don’t believe it. There is no defending the Gospel hope … there is no defending the reason for the hope that is in us that is absent of knowing our undoubted Catholic Christian faith.

This verse is why I drill your children so much on the catechism. It is why we have worldview classes with the covenant seed. It is why I try while in the pulpit to get into the doctrine the way I do. All of that is explained by this first. I want you and the children and myself to have the ability to give a defense for the hope that lies within us.

It explains why I write the volumes I write on Iron Ink. It explains the existence of Iron Rhetoric. It explains my reading habits. Frankly, I am scared to death that some time will arise when I am not able to give a reason for the hope that is in me. As a minister I likewise daily wonder if I have done enough to help people likewise to be able to give a reason for the hope that lies within them.

This passage teaches us that Christianity is just not a label we wear. Christianity should be seen as a vocation much like being a Doctor or a Lawyer is a vocation. It should be our jobs … our callings to be Christian and like being a Doctor or a Lawyer that requires hard and long study. It requires putting our shoulder to the wheel of learning. Only in such a way can we be ready to give an apologetic … a defense for the reason for the hope that lies within us.

And never was there a time that this was more needed than our time. We are living in a church and cultural insane asylum. The proof of that was brought forth by the renown pollster George Barna in 2021 as he spoke in a Church in Virginia. I can only imagine that matters have deteriorated since then… Barna

Cited recent data indicating that just 6% of American people have a biblical worldview, despite 51% believing they do. The Cultural Research Center, which did the survey, concluded that 94% of Americans do not have a biblical worldview… According to Barna’s research, the worldview problem is in the church as well, with just 21% of evangelicals holding to a biblical worldview. Quick math tells us that 79% of Evangelicals do NOT have a Biblical worldview.

If one does not have a Biblical worldview, whatever one might be giving as the reason for the hope that lies within him it won’t be reasons that are reflective of what is taught in God’s Word.

Consider just one very recent piece of evidence of this lack of a Christian Worldview existing in the Reformed Churches.

Not many weeks ago a ordained minister named Littlepage in a PCA Washington DC church recently announced during a sermon that he was leaving the PCA church because the Lord had led he and his wife to become Roman Catholic. The head of the Home Missions department in the PCA was setting in the service and he along with the Elders and congregation cheered when Littlepage made the announcement. The head of the Home Missions called for the Leaders and Shepherdesses to come forward and lay hands on this departing minister. In the course of all this the now Roman Catholic but still ordained PCA minister was allowed to administer the Lord’s Table.

Talk about not having a Christian Worldview… not only as pertaining to the Minister, but as pertaining to the head of the Mission to North America and as pertaining to the Church Elders and as pertaining to the congregation. It would exhaust me to count all the different ways that this whole show was blasphemous. Do you think any of those people could give a acceptable reason for the hope that lies within them?

So, I return to the thought that we need to start thinking of our Christian faith as a vocation. To those of you here (and I know you’re present) who do constantly seek to sharpen your blade, I salute you. I salute you because you are so rare and as your Pastor allow me to commend you and to urge you to press on. I know what it means to work 80 hours a week, raise a family, and try to continue to pile up the ability to give reason for the hope that lies within me. I know it is not easy… but as you can learn your faith, learn it. While driving around listen to lectures/sermons. While preparing meals in the Kitchen or while in the laundry room pursue the knowing of what you believe and why you believe it and what you don’t believe and why you don’t believe it.

And then when God opens a door, step through it. There is such a need for godly reasoning in private conversations and in the public square.

Be ready to give a defense. There was a time when we might have been able to just let the professionals be the ones giving a defense, but we are living in a time when what is required is “all hands on deck.”

And what of that “hope that lies within us?”

Well clearly that hope is the magnificence of our Lord Jesus Christ who out of love for the Father and for His people took upon Himself a human nature and as the God-Man paid the just penalty for our sin so that God’s name would be cleared of any accusation and so that we could have peace with God. He who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The hope that lies within us means that the grave holds less terror because we belong to Christ. Then the hope that lies within us means that we no longer walk as the pagans do with their darkened understanding.

Indeed, as we increasingly understand our undoubted Catholic Christian Faith our whole lives become a testimony of the hope that lies within us.

Friends, the visible church and culture desperately needs folks who can give a reason for the hope that lies within them. More important than that even though is that this is what we are called to in order to honor our master and liege-Lord… our great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ.

³³ Pilate therefore entered again into the ^[q]Praetorium, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? ³⁴ Jesus answered, Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee concerning me? ³⁵ Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? ³⁶ Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my ^[r]servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. ³⁷ Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, ^[s]Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. ³⁸ Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find no crime in him. ³⁹ But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? ⁴⁰ They cried out therefore again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.

According to one of the Important ECF, Cyril of Alexandria,

“Christ, has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but his by essence and by nature.”

As Jesus Christ is very God of very God, He shares in Sovereignty with the Father and the Spirit.  As such Christ, by way of His divinity, is King over all creation. As we have seen this is what Scripture teaches. Christ is King over all men and over all Creation.

II.) Christ is the King by Acquired Right

I Cor. 6:20 you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body

1 Peter 1:18 

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers,

I. Cor. 7:23You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.

‘ We are no longer our own property, for Christ has purchased us as Peter teaches, “with a great price” and so our very bodies are the “members of Christ.”

The heart of our Catechism presupposes Christ’s Kingship,

Here the emphasis is that Christ has paid the Ransom-price which grants Him the Divine Right of Kingship.

III.) Christ is the King by Divine Inheritance

A third ground of sovereignty is that God bestowed upon Christ the nations of the world as His special possession and dominion.

In the Great Commission Christ, Himself testifies to this,

“All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18)

John 3:34For the One whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35TheFather loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands.

John 5:22 Furthermore, the Father judges no one, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.…

So what are the Implications of Christ being the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Thus far, I think one could get most of the Church on board with what has been said. But it is the implications of the Kingship of Christ which begins to stir the proverbial pot and so it is on the tangible impact of the Kingship of Christ wherein Christians begin to fall out with one another.

Implication #1 — Caesar must bow to Christ’s Kingship

If Christ is King over all then all must bow to the authority of Christ.

According to McGoldrick, in his book on Reformed giant Abraham Kuyper,

Kuyper believed that, “Christians must served God within the world, and not flee into seclusion as Monks and some Anabaptists have done. When Christians obtain positions of civil authority, they must operate in obedience to God, since the Lord has ordained their authority (Rom. 13:1-7). This, Kuyper argued, means that the civil government must “restrain blasphemy, where it directly assumes the character of an affront to the Divine Majesty.” The constitution of the state should acknowledge God as supreme ruler, and governments should set aside its regular activities on a Sunday and protect it as a day of worship. Magistrates… should regard themselves as responsible to God in the discharge of their duties. They should punish public attacks upon God as crime against civil law, which acknowledges God as the source of the state’s authority.”

Contrast, this Christian conviction with something just written recently by Baptist Minister John Piper,

So how do we express a passion for God”s supremacy in a pluralistic world where most people do not recognize God as an important part of their lives, let alone an important part of government or education or business or industry or art or recreation or entertainment?

Answer: We express a passion for the supremacy of God… 

5) by making clear that God himself is the foundation for our commitment to a pluralistic democratic order-not because pluralism is his ultimate ideal, but because in a fallen world, legal coercion will not produce the kingdom of God. Christians agree to make room for non-Christian faiths (including naturalistic, materialistic faiths), not because commitment to God”s supremacy is unimportant, but because it must be voluntary, or it is worthless. We have a God-centered ground for making room for atheism. “If my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight” (John 18:36). The fact that God establishes his kingdom through the supernatural miracle of faith, not firearms, means that Christians in this age will not endorse coercive governments-Christian or secular.

So, we are considering the implications of the Kingship of Jesus Christ and already we have come to a huge fork in the road between those claiming Christ. One expression holds that the implication of Christ’s Kingship is the Christians should rule as Christians. The other holds that the implication of Christ’s Kingship is that Christians should rule in such a way to make room for Atheism. Both would affirm the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Each is defining Kingship very differently.

The upshot of this is that while Christians each may affirm statements that are linguistically the same, they may very well being affirming very different things.

Implication #2 — Our Law Order must reflect the Law Order of the King

Christians and non-Christians alike fail to understand how much of the fabric of the Law Order that created Western Civilization was Christian in its beginnings.

Harold J. Berman’s Massive two  Volume Set “Law and Revolution,” notes this repeatedly.

“The Church … would work for… the reformation of the world through law, in the direction of justice and peace…. Law came to be seen as the very essence of faith. ‘God is himself law, and therefore law is dear to him, ‘ wrote the author of Sachsenspiegel,  the first German law book, about 1220…. Law was seen as a way of fulfilling the mission of Western Christendom to begin to achieve the Kingdom of God on earth.”

Elsewhere Berman notes,

“The Law of King Alfred, for example, start with the ten Commandments and a restatement of the Law of Moses, a summary of the Acts of the Apostles and references to the monastic penitentials…. Christianity broke the fiction of the immutability of folk law.”

And again in Vol. II Berman notes,

“The English Puritans… shared the belief that human history is wholly within the providence of God, that it is primarily a spiritual story of the unfolding of God’s own purposes…. They believed, further, that God willed and commanded what they called the ‘reformation of the world,’ and they emphasized the role of law as a means of such Reformation.”

Time does not permit to mine all the rich quotes from Berman’s two volumes that demonstrate that our Father’s understood that one of the implications of the Kingship of Jesus Christ was that social orders were to be governed by His Law Order. In the words of G. K. Chesterton, we are discovering anew that if ‘man will not be ruled by the Ten Commandments he will be ruled by ten thousand commandments.”

This denial of this implication of the Kingship of Jesus Christ is all very recent comparatively speaking. We have grown up in this rebellion so we tend to see the rebellion as the norm but up until about 100 years ago men understood the connection between God’s law and the law that guided the civil order in the West.

Harold O. J. Brown notes,

If there are no laws made in heaven, by what standards should human society organize itself? We do need laws by which to organize and structure our lives, but if God has not given them, where shall they come from? There is only one answer: We must make them ourselves. Of course, if we make our own laws they will have no more authority or force than what we ourselves possess and can assert by means of the power at our disposal. In other words, law comes to represent not the will of the Creator but the will of the strongest creatures. This became the widespread view, sometimes unexpressed but frequently explicit, of most Western societies in the first part of the twentieth century. America’s great legal statesman, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., thought no differently in this respect from the great dictator, Adolf Hitler. Both of them believed that laws simply represent the will of the dominant majority. Holmes was a courteous, urbane, sophisticated gentleman, but his idea of law would have offered no opposition to the enactments of Hitler, who for a time reflected the will of Germany’s dominant majority.

Harold O. J. Brown, The Sensate Culture: Western Civilization Between Chaos and Transformation (Dallas, TX: Word, 1996), 88.

Implication #3 — We will be considered intolerant because we are intolerant

Illustration — To make this concrete let’s consider that the same can be said of the relationship in physical organisms. Your body can’t develop a tolerance to a deadly parasite in your body. That parasite is trying to take over your whole body and kill you, while your body’s autoimmune system are doing their flat level best to kill the parasite. The two are at war. To tolerate an alien law system into your social order is to court death.

We are the King’s men. As the King’s men we cannot abide the King’s law and character being set aside and so we will oppose all that which opposes the King. Concretely, this means, as we have taken Christ as King, we live in a time as the loyal opposition. In this epoch, so set against Christ the King as it is, we must practice the virtue of intolerance. We must practice a confrontational disposition out of love for Christ the King and for other people.

There can be no tolerance in a law-system for another religion. Toleration is a device used to introduce a new law system as a prelude to a new intolerance… Every law-system must maintain its existence by hostility to every other law system and to alien religious foundations or else it commits suicide.

R.J. Rushdoony

 Luke 24:44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This morning as we consider the Resurrection of our magnificent Lord Jesus Christ I want to fix in your minds the relationship between the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God as well as the relationship of our resurrection in Christ and the Kingdom of God. The point I am laboring to sustain is that the Resurrection itself had a teleos … a purpose, and the purpose of the Resurrection was to provide the beginning point of the extension of the long anticipated Kingdom of God.

In getting started we want to define our terms.

When we talk about Resurrection we mean here;

“God’s act to raise, first Christ, and then his people from the dead to a bodily and glorified eternal life in the new creation.”

When we talk about the Kingdom of God here we mean;

“The total reign of God in the hearts and lives of men.”

What we will be laboring to demonstrate from the Scriptures is that there is the tightest and most intimate relationship between the idea of resurrection and the idea of the Kingdom of God. God’s people had for millennia been looking for the Kingdom of God and with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Kingdom has arrived as inaugurated.

This is so true that there is no understanding resurrection apart from its foundation for the presence of God’s Kingdom and there is no understanding of the present Kingdom of God that does not begin with Christ’s resurrection.

The manner in which we will accomplish this is by first noting the tight relationship between these two as seen by a top down overview the preaching of the disciples in the book of Acts. We will see there that in the book of Acts the two main themes of their preaching was the Resurrection and the Kingdom of God and further how that preaching was greeted by the opposing Kingdoms that it had arisen to challenge.

(((From there next week we will begin with Genesis and we will demonstrate, block upon block, how resurrection and the Kingdom of God were present as a motif in the OT – often as typologically presented and perhaps along the way we will learn somewhat of what this Kingdom was to look like.)))

So, having mapped out what we are doing and how we will be doing it we turn to the book of Luke-Acts.

 Lk. 24:45-47

45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Here we find the resurrected Jesus describing Himself as the Messiah. By doing so He has identified Himself as a King. This great King opens the minds of the apostles to understand the Scriptures about the suffering, resurrection and proclamation of forgiveness of sins in His name. The Resurrected King intends to bring people into a Kingdom through the preaching of the Disciples whom Jesus declares “are his witnesses.”

The fact that this Kingship of Jesus – proven as it is by His resurrection – is global is seen in his command to the disciples that “the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. “

As we move to Acts we find the Kingdom of God once again being emphasized by the Resurrected King;

“He (Jesus) presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

These verses together reveal that the resurrected savior centered his post-resurrection appearances on the Kingdom of God and that this Kingdom of God is not merely a provincial affair but is global in its outreach. The Kingdom of God led by His Mediatorial King covers the globe.

On this Resurrection Sunday we have again to realize that the Resurrected Christ is intent on the Christian faith being a global affair. This Global reach of the Christian faith is emphasized in Matt. 28 in the great commission where the disciples are commanded to disciple the nations and it will be emphasized again by the Resurrected Jesus when after being asked if he were now at that time going to restore the Kingdom to Israel tells His disciples in Acts 1:6;

7  “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I submit to you that the Great King Jesus never intended for the Church to be on its heels in a defensive posture. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords upon being resurrected inaugurated a present Kingdom that was intended to be a reality that would cover the globe. To be sure resistance would be met – and the book of Acts tells of that resistance but the resistance to the ever present Kingdom, in the end, is always overcome.

This is a truth we need to be reminded of. The Resurrection means the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated. We are not waiting for the Kingdom of God to yet come in the some future time. In the resurrection of Christ the Kingdom has come. Now, that present Kingdom has also has a future component so that we are await the full bloom of that bud already present, but the Kingdom has come and is present about us.

We see the advance of that Kingdom throughout the books of Acts. The Church is formed as what we might call the armory of the Kingdom. It is in the Church that we come learn of the character of the King, of what the Kingdom looks like, and of what it means to disciple the nations but the Church is not the whole Kingdom of God but only its armory. In and with the Church we learn to put on the whole armor of God. In the Church we learn what it means to take every thought to make them obedient to the great King. In the Church we take every thought captive to make them obedient to Christ. In the Church we learn from the Scriptures that we have been translated from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son whom He loves. So, the Church is instrumental to the Kingdom but it is not the whole of the Kingdom. The Kingdom extends beyond the walls of the Church so that eventually, over the course of time, the present Kingdom that the Resurrected Jesus brought out of the grave with Him covers the nations as the waters cover the sea.

The resurrected Jesus brings in the inaugurated Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God finds its armory in the Church and from that armory the Kingdom expands into every area of life. Jesus is a great King who brings all domains under His sway and rule – and that more and more explicitly so as His Kingdom advances over time and in the context of the obedience of His people walking in terms of the King’s Law-Word.

We see the effect of that Kingdom that Jesus brings in affecting more and more areas. In the family realm we find in the NT that whole households are Baptized coming in as Households into the Kingdom of God. In Acts 17 the Resurrected Jesus and the Kingdom of God is such a threat to Thessalonica we read (and note the explicit relationship between Resurrection and Kingdom here;) In Thessalonica Paul

explains and demonstrates that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.”

This message is getting traction until Jews using evil men stir up resistance and go looking for Paul and Silas;

6But when they could not find Paul and Silas, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here, 7and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!”

Did you catch that? They come preaching the Resurrected Christ and everyone understands them to be preaching another King besides Caesar … the great resurrected King Jesus.

In the social-order realm there in Athens in Acts 17 we find Paul as the Resurrected King’s ambassador speaking to the Athenians about their Idols that are governing their social-order and culture and we see Paul by use of Scripture and Holy Logic tearing down those Idols that the Kingdom of God may advance over the social-order of the Athenians. In Acts 19 we find the Kingdom of God being a threat to the Economic order of the Ephesians as the presence of the witness of Christ seeks to over turn the Economic foundation of the city pinned, as it was in the making of idols; As I read this note the economic overtones in the passage;

23 About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. 24 A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. 25 He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. 26 And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”

The Kingdom of the Resurrected King is chronicled in the book of Acts and wherever the preaching of the Kingdom goes the Resurrected King and His law-Word is preached and wherever the Resurrected King and His Kingdom is Preached there you find conflict and conversion.

On this resurrection Sunday we continue to preach the Resurrected King who inaugurates the Kingdom of God and we continue to receive the same kind of reward that those who preached the resurrection and the Kingdom received in the 1^st century.

But we have gotten ahead of ourselves haven’t we? Back to the earlier book of Acts and its testimony that the preaching of the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God go together like peas and carrots.

In Acts 3 where the Apostles heal the lame man they heal the long lame beggar in the name of the resurrected Christ;

 “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God

This miracle is present in the Acts text to demonstrate the presence of the Kingdom. The thing we need to keep in mind here is that the OT itself connected healing and wholeness with the Kingdom of God;

In Isaiah 35:5-6, for example, it says:

And when he (Messiah) comes, he will open the eyes of the blind
and unplug the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer,
and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams will water the wasteland.

By this healing ministry in the name of the resurrected Jesus, the Apostles demonstrate that the Kingdom of God has arrived and the expectation is that people will bow to the resurrected King in whose name and by whose authority these miracles are being done.

The thing we want to emphasize though is the Resurrected Christ means the presence of the Kingdom and the presence of the Kingdom means that God is ruling now through His and our great mediatorial King. That same King who resurrected from the grave and who inaugurated the Kingdom of God remains the great King in 2025 and that Kingdom He inaugurated remains a present Kingdom now.

Even before we get to this healing in Acts 3 the same connection between Resurrection and Kingdom is spoken up in Acts 2. There we learn that because the King of God’s Kingdom – Jesus – is alive He now reigns as the Father’s mediatorial King.

Peter proves this conclusion for us in his very first post resurrection sermon in Acts 2

In that Pentecost sermon, Peter declares that when David wrote Psalm 16:27 he was prophesying about Jesus’ resurrection as the true king of God’s kingdom,

“he (David) foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses”

(Acts 2:31–32).

Peter reaches his crescendo a few versus later when he exclaims,

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36).

The idea that God has made Jesus Christ includes the idea of King and God has confirmed Jesus to be Lord and Christ by the resurrection.

Jesus’ resurrection proves he is the rightful mediatorial king of God’s kingdom. And if the king is here, the kingdom of God is here. King Jesus conquered death and lives forever. And because he lives forever, he reigns forever. And because he reigns forever, his kingdom, God’s kingdom, will never end. As the king goes, so goes the kingdom.

So, we see that from the book of Acts that the resurrection of Jesus is fused together with the message of the Kingdom? Not enough evidence yet for y’all? Well we turn to Acts 13 where once again we see these twin motifs of Resurrection and Kingdom walking together. There Paul says that “those of Jerusalem put Jesus to death, (26-29)” and goes on to say “But God raised Him from the dead (vs. 30).

Paul continues on in that passage speaking of the Resurrection citing Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 55:3 and then again from David’s 16^th Psalm; “You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption.” But in that Sermon from Acts 13 we also read about the Kingship of the Resurrected one

23 From this David’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus

The mentioning of David’s seed reminds us of God’s promise that David would always have his descendant upon the throne. The reference to Jesus as “Savior” also points to a deliverer – that is a King who would rescue His people.

Then in vs. 38-39 in this sermon of Paul from Acts 13 the Holy Spirit fuses the idea of resurrection and Kingship together by preaching;

“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses” (vs. 38-39).

The resurrected Savior and Kingly seed of David brings freedom from sin and brings in the inaugurated Kingdom.

These are only a few places in Acts where we see the marriage of Resurrection and the Kingdom of God. If one goes to Acts 5 we hear these words of Peter upon being told to shut up about the message. Listen for the combination of Christ as Prince and the Resurrection;

29 But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. 31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

We have only hit the highlights this morning of the theme of the preaching of the early Church. That preaching was that the Resurrected Christ was the great King of the Line of David whose resurrection confirmed the presence of the Kingdom of God. The Resurrection of Christ means the Kingdom has come.

This present Kingdom has come has inaugurated and by that we mean that there is a fullness of the Kingdom that remains yet to arrive. But the Kingdom inaugurated means there is a immediacy … a nowness to the Kingdom of God. A nowness that could not be a reality if it were not for the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

Because the Kingdom of God is inaugurated by Christ it is not something that we are still waiting for to arrive at some yet future point. Christ has brought in the Kingdom and we have been, as Paul says, translated from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Gods’ dear Son whom He loves. We are in this Kingdom now. We have been united with the Resurrected one as Paul teaches in Romans 6 and being united with the Resurrected one we too are now living resurrected lives in the newness of the Father’s Kingdom. Unlike those who know not Christ we are not dead men walking but we are the resurrected saints who put off the old man and put on the new man created in Christ.

This Kingdom of Christ is an expansive Kingdom that is not limited to the confines of the Church. As a mustard seed the inaugurated Kingdom of God expands and expands. Like the cut out Rock in Daniel the Kingdom of God smashes all other Kingdoms that resist it.

As we have seen in the book of Acts the declaration of the Resurrected Christ and the presence of the Kingdom challenged political alignments, social-order climates, family life, and economic arrangements. The Resurrected Christ inaugurated a Kingdom that was totalistic in its expanse. This Kingdom of Christ that the Resurrected Christ inaugurates finds the Church as its armory for the equipping of the saints, finds the church as the Kingdom hospital for the saints where the cure of the Gospel can be found for those who know they are sinners, and finds the church as a gymnasium of the Kingdom where the Saints are built up in Christ. The Church is all this in the Kingdom but the Church can not be identified solely with the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God impacts every area of life where God’s people are called to be salt and light. The Church is the advance guard of the Kingdom and it knows that the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. Because the inaugurated Church is present with the Resurrected Christ we can confidently pray;

Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth
As it is in heaven

The resurrection of the King has reached us… has caught us up in its tornado force gales. We now have been resurrected with Christ as Ephesians 2 teaches:

Eph. 2:4But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

So not only has Christ been resurrected and is the mediatorial King of the Kingdom of God but it is also the case that by the power of the Holy Spirit those who have been irresistably called by Christ and who own Christ likewise have been resurrected with Christ so as to now live the inaugurated resurrected life.

And we are now prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God. We are those who herald Christ and command all men everywhere to repent and kiss the King lest he be angry and they perish in the way.

This is the preaching of the book of Acts and the Scriptures and this is what Resurrection Day means. As you can see it is both comfort and summons. Comfort because nothing can undo what God has done in the Resurrection of Christ. Comfort because Christ has named us and owned us and thus nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

But it also is a summons… a summons of all God’s people to contend for the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ in every area of life. This is no area … no academic discipline … no career calling .. where this resurrected King does not point to saying … MINE. Will we live in terms of the Resurrected King’s Kingdom?

There are any number of people in the Christian Church who will not agree with this message. They will insist that I have what they call “a over-realized eschatology.” In other words they will accuse me of seeing that the Kingdom is too present now while not appreciating enough the not-yetness of the Kingdom. To such people I can only say that I think the real problem is that your eschatology is too under-realized. You do not appreciate the transformative effects of Biblical Christianity once it takes hold of people. You do not understand the intent of what it means for the Resurrected Christ to rule until all things are brought under His feet. You are not mindful of the expansive power of the Kingdom – of how big that mustard tree will become .. of how a little leaven leavens through the whole loaf. You have not plumbed the meaning of “the gates of Hell shall not prevail.” You have underestimated the desire of the Resurrected King that the Nations should be discipled. To those who say my eschatology is over-realized all I can urge you to ruminate upon the meaning of our praying…

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Luke 19:28 When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 And it came to pass, when He drew near to [a]Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. 31 And if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you loosing it?’ thus you shall say to him, ‘Because the Lord has need of it.’ ”

32 So those who were sent went their way and found it just as He had said to them. 33 But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of it said to them, “Why are you loosing the colt?”

34 And they said, “The Lord has need of him.” 35 Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him. 36 And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road.

37 Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, 38 saying:

“ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
40 But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

John 12:12-19
Mark 11:1-11
Matthew 21:1-11
Luke 19:28-44

As we consider this account we remember the earlier words of John the Baptist announcing Jesus as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. With His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday Jesus is in the chute, so to speak, of going to the Cross where He will take away the sins of His people. This marks the beginning of Holy Week and we call it Holy week because the events of this week all lead our Lord to the Cross.

The Palm Sunday account is unique in Scripture inasmuch as it is mentioned in all four of the Gospels. It is not common for one event to reported in all four of the Gospels. The fact that Palm Sunday is recorded in all four communicates its centrality to the Gospel account. With this action Jesus the Christ is purposely fulfilling one of the prophecies of the OT.

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah 9

Jesus rides in on a donkey because in this ancient culture Kings would ride horses during times of war but during times of peace Kings would ride donkeys. The Messiah Jesus comes to His people in humility to offer peace and His ride into town would have been understood in just that way.

Consider I Kings 1:33 where Solomon @ David’s direction rides to his anointing as King on a donkey;

33 And the king said to them, “Take with you the servants of your lord and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon.

So, while this entering into Jerusalem on a foal of a donkey might well seem strange to us it was pregnant with meaning to the folks of that culture. The King has come and His terms are peace.

As the Lord Christ descends to enter the Holy City the crowd spreads their garments on the road just as the disciples had used their garments to cover the back of the foal of the donkey that Jesus rides in upon. There is a symbolism going on here. Jesus is being given what we would call a red carpet treatment. The Jewish officials of the city have refused to greet Christ with honor and so in a kind of populist uprising the rank and file of the city provide for Jesus their own royal entry. They do this because they do recognize that their Messiah King is in their midst. This greeting is a royal greeting. The kind of greeting one would expect a King to receive from His people.

And this royal greeting is proper because Jesus Himself is self-consciously entering as a King. In this pericope not only is the Zechariah 9 passage in play but less obviously so is the fact that Jesus is fulfilling King Jehu’s anointing as King in II Kings 9. There we read;

13 Then each man hastened to take his garment and put it under him (Jehu) on the top of the steps; and they blew trumpets, saying, “Jehu is king!” II Kings 9:13

In this entry, planned by Jesus to announce His Kingship, Jesus is the greater Jehu. Jehu rode to his kingship over his followers clothes to destroy the temple of the enemy Baal (II Kings 9:11-13; 10:18-28) the entry of Jesus upon the garments of those hailing Him will end with the making obsolete the vaunted Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

The antithesis seems to be clear in this passage. We will either be those laying down our cloaks in the honor of the King or we will be those who in opposition to the King try to silence His praises.

When it comes to the life of Jesus theologians talk about how in His incarnation Jesus’ life goes from humiliation to exaltation. That is to say, that as you track the live of Jesus you see all humiliation reaching crescendo in the Cross. After the Cross then we talk about His exaltation beginning with His Resurrection, followed by His ascension and then His session at the Right hand of the Father. Phil. 2:5-11 traces this humiliation to exaltation.

When we come to Palm Sunday we might think that we are seeing part of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus. There is all this raucous celebration. Jesus is purposefully arriving as the King of the Jews. He is being received as the King of the Jews by the hoi polloi.

But there is something going on here that Matthew brings to our attention of this event that suggests that what we read of here is not part of Christ’s exaltation but is instead part of his humiliation.

Luke’s account tells us that while all this exuberance is going on Jesus the Christ reveals by His tears that this is not about His exaltation but His humiliation. Listen to the text;

41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

This really is a study on contrast. On the one hand you have the populist uprising, on the other hand you have the city Fathers going around insisting on shushing everybody, and finally you have Jesus weeping.

But why do we say this is part of His humiliation?

Well, first we know, and Jesus knows, where this is all going. Remember, earlier Luke had recorded;

Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, Luke 9:11

He set His face like flint to go to Jerusalem because that is where the path to His humiliation apex lies. Jesus knows that the apex of His humiliation lays yet before Him in and at the Cross and this celebratory mood is only a well intended but misplaced enthusiasm. Misplaced because these folks want all the glory but none of the Cross. They want to be delivered, not from their sins, but from Roman tyranny. The delirious crowds have identified His office of King but they have misinterpreted it. He has not come as King to slay the Romans. He has come as King to be slain. The heights of exaltation cannot be reached without going through the depths of humiliation.

With this in mind it is significant that the Palm Sunday texts explicitly identify two of Jesus offices.

In Luke we hear;

“ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

In Matthew there is this exchange;

10 And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” 11 So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.”

So this delirious crowd understood that Jesus came as King and they identified Him as a prophet but what they couldn’t own that which made them fall away when the tide turned was the fact that Jesus came as a Priest who would offer Himself as a sacrifice. They could go all hyper happy at the idea of King and Prophet but the notion of Christ as Priest who would offer Himself as a sacrifice for sins was something they only understood after the resurrection.

Jesus is coming as Prophet, Priest, and King. The crowds drop the Priest part and misinterprets the prophet and king truths.

So, all of this is humiliation for our Lord Christ. It was like having a party thrown in your honor when all along the people who are throwing the party are completely clueless of why it is you are to be honored.

Next this is humiliation for Jesus to see how they were bending and twisting the royal word of the King – the scriptures. The people use the texts and psalms in the praise they are giving to Jesus but the crowds are willing to accept the prophecy only as it seems to fit with their preconceived notions.

Listen to the way that Reformed theologian Klaus Schilder put this;

“Jesus therefore suffers acutely now…. “

And the “now” here refers to Jesus observing the frenzy of praise.

“the false interpreters of Scriptures are concentrated upon Him. This distortion is an earmark of that basic sin which is leading Jerusalem to its grave. Israel wants to shed its light upon Him, but He must illuminate Israel…. Whoever looks at the Christ in his own light withdraws himself from the influence from Jesus through the Word. Those who do this excludes himself from that influence, though He shout “Hosanna” a thousand times. To see Christ in our own light is to sin terribly, for it is to deny Him the right to minister His threefold office to us.”

We talk about this often here but the humiliation of Jesus here is discovered in the fact that this crowd is reinterpreting Jesus through their own sinful prism. They are making Jesus in their own image. They are shouting Hosannas but the Hosannas they are shouting too is to a Jesus who is not the Jesus who is before them, but a Jesus they have constructed in their heads.

And in that Jesus suffers the humiliation. How long had He been among them and yet they misinterpreted both His person, mission, and the Scriptures that spoke of Him? They could never accept a suffering servant Messiah. In this same vain Peter rebuked Him when Jesus spoke of going to the Cross.

21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

So, for this crowd there is no room for the Christ and no room for the Cross. Instead, they reinterpret Jesus, twisting the Scripture, thus committing linguistic deception and in that there is humiliation for Jesus the Christ.
As we mentioned just a moment ago, they want the Jesus that brings them all the glory. They are praising Jesus for the carnal good that He is going to do them. None of this praise is about praising God, but it really is about praising of self. Hosanna to God in the highest because of how I or we will be advantaged by the Messiah setting us on high.

You see they want the power but not the justice of God. They want the glory but not the suffering servant. Jesus has come into Jerusalem to satisfy God’s justice. God’s holiness has been set aside and through the centuries God winked at and overlooked man’s wickedness but now in this arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem we have the one who will do the Priestly work of offering up Himself to meet God’s justice against our sin. Yet, all that these crowds are crowing about is how the might of God is going to advantage them. There is not a word of praise for the one who will satisfy God’s justice, fulfill the righteous requirements of the law, and turn away the Father’s wrath. Not one word of praise for the one who will bring them peace with God by reconciling them to God through His bloody redemptive work on the Cross.

All kinds of praise for the might/power of God for what it can do for them but not a word about the rights of God against rebellious man in his sin.

And because of this Jesus weeps and the valley of humiliation continues on to the Cross. This is not exaltation. This is humiliation painted in cheerful colors.

On this score note the fickleness of this populist movement. Here they are frenzied for Jesus because of what He might do for them and yet only in a few days when Jesus is clearly being set forth as the one who satisfies God’s justice all they can scream is “Crucify Him.”

And we have to yet speak of the more wretched in this account. The scribes and the Pharisees are more wretched because they sin against a better knowledge here.

Here again we see the humiliation of Jesus the Christ.

There is humiliation also to be found in the enemies of Christ here. We know from the Scripture that already this crew was planning on Killing Christ and this due to the fact that the rise of the popularity of Jesus the Christ meant the diminishing of their influence. Just prior to this entry Jesus had raised the dead (Lazarus). Because of this the populist movement was in high gear and the Jewish deep state had to do something to erase this threat to their power. The rise of Jesus of Nazareth meant the removal from power of the establishment. So, Palm Sunday was very political;

John records the political side of all this;

“Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin [their supreme court]. ‘What are we accomplishing?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation’ John 11

And so Jesus must bear the humiliation of being resisted by those very people who were supposed to be the shepherds of Israel… supposed to be those people who should’ve been His greatest supporters.

But they were too interested in power and they too, like the crowds, missed the purpose of His coming, even though they ended up being used by God to be chief aids in the accomplishment of the Messiah’s mission.

It may be that the words from the Pharisees came in the context of all this rejoicing being within site of the Roman Citadel Antonia where the Roman garrison was housed in Jerusalem. Rome was always especially on alert during the religious festivals held in Jerusalem. And I can see the Pharisees urging Jesus to hush his disciples while looking with worry that the citadel might empty itself to forcefully disburse this crowd.

Jesus responds by saying … Look, if these should be silent a stone choir would raise their voice in praise. Even the stones would cry out … inanimate creation would burst forth in praise. It may be here that Christ is recalling the prophecy of Habakkuk.

“The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it”

Despicable men and yet how often have we been mute about the glories of Christ when we should be signing His praises. How often have we been silent when we should have sang like stones?

And so again we see humiliation. He is the great King. He is worthy of all this praise and more and yet He has to deal with the leadership who should be leading the praises and yet are doing all they can to shut this down.

This humiliation is an ironic thing. God uses these very men who are committed to doing all they can to grind Jesus into utter humiliation and yet it is by their work of opposing Jesus and by ushering Him into His crescendo of humiliation in the Cross that His exaltation is arrived at.

This is the eucatastrophe of the humiliation. In God’s providence the catastrophic visits the Messiah and yet out of this catastrophic the victory of God is achieved. Covering Christ with this humiliation the enemy aims at victory but through and because of this humiliation the catastrophe of the Cross is overcome in the exaltation of Christ – an exaltation that means that God’s justice is upheld, God’s people are delivered, and the age to come continues to overcome this present wicked age.

All this humiliation and yet at the end of it, it serves the purposes of exalting Christ.
The humiliation around Palm Sunday reminds me of the hymn we sang yesterday at Ross’s funeral;

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

1. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
   But trust Him for His grace;
   Behind a frowning providence
   He hides a smiling face.

    

2. His purposes will ripen fast,
   Unfolding every hour;
   The bud may have a bitter taste,
   But sweet will be the flow’r.

    

3. Blind unbelief is sure to err
   And scan His work in vain;
   God is His own interpreter,
   And He will make it plain.