Category: Sermons

A Glimpse @ John 12:20f

 

John 12:20 Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; 21 these then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip *came and *told Andrew; Andrew and Philip *came and *told Jesus. 23 And Jesus *answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26 If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

Jesus Foretells His Death

27 “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.” 30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes. 31 Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” 33 But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.

I.) The Inquiry (20-22)

A.) Identity of “The Greeks”

In vs. 19 the Pharisee’s lament that “the world has gone after him.” In vs. 20 we meet some of those who part of that throng who were going after Christ.

There is some debate among the commentariat on who exactly these Greeks are. It seems likely that these Greeks were what we call proselytes. They were non-Jews who had converted to the monotheistic religion of Judaism.  It may be that these are some of those whom Jesus spoke of when he said earlier that,

10:16 Other sheep I have also, which are not of this fold: them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice: and there shall be one sheepfold, and one shepherd.

If these Greeks are non Jews then John may be hinting here at the missional purpose of the Gospel. This is especially so as the request for an audience with the Lord Christ is immediately connected to the idea of Christ’s death and the fruit such a death will bring forth (23f).

These Greeks go to a disciple with a Greek name (Philip)  a person whom Jesus had called near the start of his earthly ministry (1:43). Philip contacts Andrew and together they attempt to make “Introduction,” and so arrange audience between Jesus and the Greeks.

Doubtless, they had heard about the recent raising of Lazarus from the dead.  And as seeing is believing in John’s Gospel (6:14, 30; 19:35; 20:27),  when the Greeks ask to see Jesus, they are, perhaps, expressing their desire in matters pertaining to salvation.

B.) Philip & Andrew’s role

Whatever there intent was in desiring to “see Jesus” the request from the Greeks channeled through Philip and Andrew brings a response on Christ that focuses on the matter of the Greeks, and mankind’s salvation.

II.) The Response

It seems the desire of an audience with Christ by the Greeks triggers a connection in Christ’s thought. There is something about this request that the Lord Christ associates with His death. Could the appearance of the Greeks be themselves the fruit of His death that He speaks of now? Isaiah spoke of the connection between the offering up of the Messiah with the fact that such offering for sin would mean that the Messiah shall see his seed (Isaiah 53:10). In the request of the Greeks Jesus perhaps sees His seed — that is His numerous spiritual posterity and so speaks of His death.

A.) The Glorification of the Son is Identified w/ His Death

It sounds odd, should we pause to think about it, that Christ’s connects the idea of His Glory with His death. And yet that is exactly what He does. Christ is to be glorified in His Death because in His death there is the salvation of His people. Of course, what lay on the other side of the humiliation is the exaltation of Christ. The glorification of Christ thus is both His humiliation and His exaltation but never the exaltation apart from the humiliation.

The centrality of Christ’s death is something we must never move from the center of our understanding of our Faith. It is true that the life of Christ is, in many ways, one to be emulated and followed. But Christ’s primary purpose in coming was not to set an example (though He certainly does that). Christ’s primary purpose in coming was to be lifted up in humiliation and then Exaltation. When we reinterpret Christianity from Christ as our bloody substitute to Christ the great moral example we have shifted the meaning of Christianity from Christ’s performance for us to our performance for Christ. The Cross and Christ’s work must always be at the center of our thinking just as it was at the center of Christ’s thinking here in John 12:20f.

In vs. 28 we see the glorification of the Son is at the same time the glorification of the Father. In the death of Christ the Father is glorified. We might ask ourselves how this is so?

And the answer is that in the glorification of the Son the Father is glorified because in that death of Christ, whereby the demand of God’s law for death for sin and sinner, as they fall short of God’s glory, is kept, the Father is seen as Holy and as Just as He never ceases to be. God’s honor and glory is kept. No accusation can be brought against His character as “liar” or “unjust” for not giving to Sin what Sin deserves in the death of His Son as substitute.  No accusation can be brought against the Father’s glory as “unloving” or “un-merciful” for not providing a means by which men can sue for Peace with God.

In the Cross all the potentially contradictory attributes of the Father are harmonized and reconciled. Love and Justice Kiss. The tenderness of Mercy and the demands of Holiness find agreement in the Cross of Christ. God’s Faithfulness to Himself in upholding His law-Word and to His Son in rewarding Him with a people, and to sinners in providing a means of redemption are all present in the Lifting up of the Lord Christ.

B.) The repeated usage of “Hour” in John’s Gospel

Johannine Texts:

  • Jesus, to his mother, at the Wedding at Cana:
    2:4 – “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”
  • Jesus, to the Samaritan at the well:
    4:21 – “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

    4:23 – “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”

  • Jesus, to the Jews:
    5:25 – “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

    5:28 – “Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice.”

  • Jesus, to the Jews (using the word “kairos”):
    John 7:6 – Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.”
    John 7:8 – “Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.”
  • The Evangelist/Narrator:
    7:30 – Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.
    8:20 – He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
  • Jesus, to his disciples, after Andrew and Philip tell him that some Greeks wanted to see him: 
    12:23 – “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
    12:27 – “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”
  • The Evangelist/narrator, beginning the “Book of Signs”; introducing the Washing of the Feet:

    13:1 – Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

  • Jesus, praying to his Father, at the end of the Last Supper Discourses:

    17:1 – After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.”

    What might we learn from this usage?

    Well, clearly there is underneath all of this the sense of God’s predestinating Sovereign hand. A hour is coming that can neither be hastened nor delayed. One gets the sense from this overview that “the hour” spoken of is a certainty and a divine appointment that can not be altered, and further one gets the sense from the passage that the Lord Christ is fully cognizant concerning the timing of “the hour.”

    All of this should be comforting to us. Our lives are not lived in a haphazard patch-worked series of uncertainties. Our lives are designed and determined by the sovereign creator of the Universe. We live in the context that God holds all of our “hours” in His hands. There is no divine appointment that we will fail to keep. No opportunity that we will miss. No instance where we will wonder if God somehow fell asleep. He holds all our Hours just as He held that significant “Hour” of the Lord Christ.

III.)  The Consequences of Christ’s Death

A.) The bearing of much fruit

B.) Judgment upon the World

This idea of Judgment is associated with condemnation. Because of the death of Christ the “world” is condemned.

But how we to understand the word “world” here? Is it the physical world that is condemned?

John uses the word “world” in ten different ways in his Gospel.

1. The Entire Universe – John 1:10; 1:3; 17:5

2. The Physical Earth – John 13:1; 16:33; 21:25

3. The World System – John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11 (see also similar usage in Gal 1:4 — Paul)

World in this usage has to do with the realm or sphere that is actuated and moves in terms of evil and the evil one. It is mankind as alienated and hostile from and to God. It is the City of Man as opposed to the City of God. 

John 8:23

23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath, I am from above: ye are of this world, I am not of this world.

John 14:30

30 Hereafter will I not speak many things unto you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nought in me,

John 15:18-21

18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the  world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me.

John 16:11

11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

John 18:36 — Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would surely fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

In John 12:31f then we take “world” to mean the operating systems of men that has Satan at its head and finds his agents in the the Jewish people who rejected him, their leaders who instigated the Jewish zombies against him, Judas who betrayed Christ, Pilate who sentenced Christ for political gain, and the Roman soldiers who crucified Him.

4. All humanity minus believers – John 7:7; 15:18

5. A Big Group but less than all people everywhere – John 12:19

6. The Elect Only – John 3:17

7. The Non-Elect Only – John 17:9

8. The Realm of Mankind – John 1:10;

9. Jews and Gentiles (not just Israel but many Gentiles too) – John 4:42

10. The General Public (as distinguished from a private group) – not those in small private groups – John 7:4

One simply cannot read John’s Gospel aright unless one understands the different connotations and denotations of the word “world” in John’s Gospel. As just one example, when we read John 18:36 (“My Kingdom is not of this world”) as if it means “My Kingdom is not in this world” we end up developing theologies that insist that the Kingdom of God does not intersect or bring leverage upon the institutions, social orders, and public squares in which we live.

C.) Casting Out of Satan

In the crucifixion Satan wins the battle but loses the War.

D.) Drawing of all men

IV.) Christ’s Dying and Ours (25-26)

Now as much as there is here about the Son’s glorification and the Father’s glorification there is some here that deals with the characterization of the Disciple. He must lose his life.

Christ alone dies as the substitute and in that substitutionary death there is the bearing of much fruit that will abide.

Still, when God calls men to Christ He bids them to come and die.

So … for Christ, if there is to be fruit He must die

And for the followers of Christ there must be a willingness to die for the cause of Christ.

Throughout the Gospel Christ gives this call to prioritize Him above all else one holds dear including their own life.

Mt. 10:37-39

Matthew 16:24-26

Mark 8:34-38

Luke  9:23-26

Luke 17:32, 38

We die to all else but Christ.

Practically speaking, for us, I think this means dying to our desire to be popular… dying to our desire for “fun” as those outside of Christ count “fun.” It means standing up for Christ and His authoritative word even when to do so invites the sure to come scorn and ostracization of others.

We are surrounded by those today who refuse to prioritize Christ over other high loves. Recently one of the Presidents of Bob Jones University (B. J. III) apologized for agreeing with Scripture in 1980. However, there have been those who have surrendered all to not be ashamed of Christ.

The Proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On hearing that he was, he tried to persuade him to apostatize, saying, “Have respect for your old age, swear by the fortune of Caesar. Repent, and say, ‘Down with the Atheists!’” Polycarp looked grimly at the wicked heathen multitude in the stadium, and gesturing towards them, he said, “Down with the Atheists!” “Swear,” urged the Proconsul, “reproach Christ, and I will set you free.” “86 years have I have served him,” Polycarp declared, “and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?”

“I have wild animals here,” the Proconsul said. “I will throw you to them if you do not repent.” “Call them,” Polycarp replied. “It is unthinkable for me to repent from what is good to turn to what is evil. I will be glad though to be changed from evil to righteousness.” “If you despise the animals, I will have you burned.” “You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and is then extinguished, but you know nothing of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. Why are you waiting? Bring on whatever you want.”

Conclusion

Re-cap

A Peek At John 3

John 3:14-21

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Introduction

Note during the advent season that the passages keep drawing us back to the Person and work of the Jesus Christ. Each week, during Lent, we are reminded of the centrality of Christ and the Cross.

Week #1 — Christ’s Baptism and it’s relation to the Cross work
Week#2 — Peter’s rebuke of Christ for speaking about his coming suffering and death
Week#3 — Jesus Cleansing of the Temple and His coming death & resurrection as a confirming sign for his authority
Week#4 — Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus regarding about Christ’s coming “lifting up.”

Lent then, in our Lord’s Days is emphasizing the work of Christ. This season is not so much about our work as it is about Christ’s work for His people. Christ and His Cross-work is our contemplation during this season. The season is only about our self denial in light of Christ’s self-denial in making Himself of no reputation and so becoming obedient even unto the death of the Cross.

Lent brings us back to the Cross and it is good that we should be brought back. There are those who would tire of the Cross saying, “Yes, yes, we know all that. What we need is instruction on how to live the Christian life.” And that is true. We do need instruction on how to live the Christian life but the beginning of all instruction on how to live the Christian life is a firm grip on the meaning of the Cross. That this necessity exists to get a firm grip on the Cross is due to the fact that there is no living the Christian life that is acceptable to God apart from the premise of the Cross. That this necessity exists to get a firm grip on the Cross is due to the fact that apart from the preaching of the Cross it is sure to be the case that instruction in godly living, as disconnected from the Cross, will likely result in some form of ugly self-righteousness because we see ourselves as such good people because of how we please God.  Apart from the preaching of the Cross our obedience is likely to become “legal” as opposed to “evangelical.” It has been my experience among Theonomists that our zeal for God’s law often times keeps us from returning to the Cross. It is as if we forget that the Cross is not merely the beginning of the Christian message but rather is the message that is interwoven with all our attentiveness to God’s Law.

And so during Lent we preach Christ and Him crucified. We don’t preach that in a vacuum. We don’t preach Christ Crucified apart from Christ as the incarnation of God’s Law Word. We don’t preach Christ Crucified as if Christ crucified as no implications for our ongoing sanctification.

Here we come to John 3 and Jesus’ interview with Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes  under cover of night in order to try and get his mind around Jesus of Nazareth. We might say that Nicodemus, as a ruler, is of the establishment and He is here trying to understand what to him is the anti-establishment. In the context of this discussion Jesus reaches back to an OT account and help define Himself and His intent to Nicodemus.

I.) Christ’s Appeal To Revelation

OT Wilderness Serpent Account — Numbers 21:4-9

In the account from Numbers, referenced by our Lord Christ in John 3, God’s people murmured against God’s calling them into the wilderness. As a punishment God sent poisonous serpents into the Israelite camp. When the people repented, God told Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and lift it on a pole, so that anyone bitten by a serpent could look and live. The serpent, thus in the Numbers account, was a mark of God’s anger and God’s mercy. God’s people might be saved by the mercy of God from the anger of God, if only they would look upon the image of that which would have brought about their death.

We might note then, that just as a likeness of that which destroyed the Israelites was lifted up as the ordained means of their salvation in the wilderness, so the Lord Christ, who was born “in the likeness of Sinful flesh,” (Romans 8:3) is lifted up as the ordained means of our salvation. As they then must look outside themselves, to the likeness of the serpent, as on a pole, in order to be saved, so we must look, outside ourselves, to He who was born in the likeness of sinful flesh, as impaled on a pole, in order to be saved.

Further we would note that in both cases destruction and salvation are found in God. God sent the serpents to destroy and God sent the bronze serpent as the cure to their destruction. Just so with Christ. God sends the Lord Christ as man’s destruction (“He who does not believe in Christ is condemned already” vs. 18) and God sends the Lord Christ as man’s salvation (“He who believes in Christ is not condemned”).

They looked to an image that was causing their destruction in order to be saved. The Lord Christ would have us look to Himself as the exact representation of God’s nature (Hebrews 1:3) as the one who is receiving our destruction that we might be saved.

This passage reminds us again that there is no salvation for those outside of Christ apart from looking to a known Christ. Away with all notions that there is salvation outside of a known Christ as combined with a knowing looking to Him as our only salvation.

Further, we would note that there is no salvation apart from the grace given understanding that we have been sin bitten and so apart from a healing look upon our savior there is only condemnation.

II.) Christ’s Language of Being “Lifted Up.”

The Lord Christ says he must be ‘Lifted up”

This idea of being lifted up becomes a mini-theme in John’s Gospel. It is used here in connection with the OT account of serpents raised for healing. Once that connection is made then we can hear the same connection where it is used elsewhere in John’s Gospel.

—  John 8:28, 12:32,  19:18

8:28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, so I spake these things.

12:32 And I, if I were lift up from the earth, will draw all men unto me…. 34.) Repeated back to Christ by audience.

“Lifted up” (hypsoo) — The word can also mean “exalt.” It could be said that “one was lifted up to a high position.” As such we hear it as a referent both to Christ’s own Crucifixion and to His exaltation.

So, when the Lord Christ speaks of his being “lifted up” there is communicated a double meaning. The first meaning of course is as a pointer to the Crucifixion. Christ will be lifted up on the Cross and suspended between Heaven and Earth giving a visual of being the Mediator — the one who stands between God’s Wrath and Man’s Peace with God. Here the idea of Christ’s being lifted up speaks to the apex of His humiliation.

However, the idea of being “lifted up” can also refer to the exaltation of Christ as He is “lifted up” from the Dead and is “Lifted up” to the right hand of God, communicating power and majesty, in His ascension.

So, we would say that in terms of human agency, of course, the cross is a “lifting up” that communicates a profound humiliation and defeat. But in Christ’s language, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are collapsed into a single movement of divine agency: Jesus is “lifted up” by God.

III.) Clearing Up The Usage of “World”

A good many Evangelicals make the mistake with John 3:16 to make it read that God loves each and every individual that has ever lived. This is simply not true. The word “world” in John 3:16 is used in order to reveal that God’s program of redemption was not merely for the Jewish tribe. Our Lord Christ says “world” here so that the Jews might understand that His work went beyond the borders of Israel. We know that “world” here does not mean each and every individual who has ever lived because of John’s own Gospel. John’s Gospel is perhaps the most Calvinistic of all the Gospels. In John’s Gospel we chapters 6, 10, and 17 we find Jesus repeatedly making distinctions between people he came to save and people He didn’t come to save.

6:39″And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Here John, quoting Jesus, clearly makes a distinction between people whom the Father has given to Jesus and people whom the Father has not given to Jesus. Why didn’t the Father give everyone to Jesus? The answer is because the Father does not love everyone.

10:26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[d]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.”

Here the inspired Apostle clearly records Jesus saying that there is a distinction between those who hear His voice and those who don’t and goes on to say that the reason that they do not believe is because those who do not believe are not His sheep.

Why are they not His sheep we might ask? The answer is clearly because the Father does not love them.

Note also here the verse that teaches that those who belong to Jesus can’t not fall away.

17:9I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.

Jesus here prays for His people and decidedly not for those who are not His people. Jesus makes a distinction between those who are His and those who are not His.

Why are some His and some not His? The answer is that the Father does not love all people.

God does not love everybody. Jesus did not come to die for everybody though the death of Christ is sufficient for whosoever believes. If you have been given belief you can be sure that Christ died for you.

This is because there are a few that are like Esau whom God hates (See Romans 9). These were hated before they were born or did anything good or bad.

However, having said that we note that God sent Christ that those set apart for salvation might be saved (17), and in the doing of that the whole Cosmos will be saved and renewed by the finished work of Christ. The fact that Christ has come to save the world indicates an expansiveness of God’s grace. True … all will not be saved but so many will be saved that it will be rightly said that the whole world was saved and renewed by the death of Christ.
IV.) Series of Sharp Anti-thesis

condemnation (17-18) and salvation (17)

(Condemn = Penalty after sentence // Language from the courtroom)

This text reminds us that all people stand either in the way of salvation or in the way of condemnation. There is no third way or tertim quid.

Reminds us that our problem is forensic or legal and so requires a legal solution.

Part of the problem in the church today is that we make Christianity about our subjective experiences or our emotive disposition but Christianity, while affecting those realities primarily speaks to our objective legal position. We are either in the way of legal condemnation or we are in the way of legal vindication (salvation). God has a lawsuit against us and our condemnation or vindication rests not upon our experience or emotive dispositions but rather the verdict rests upon our legal relation to the one who God provides as our legal substitute. If we believe in and upon Christ we are vindicated (saved) if we believe not we remain in the legal position of being condemned.

This brings us to another anti-thesis

belief and unbelief (vs. 18)

stay in the darkness and come into the light (19)

This preference for darkness among those who belong to darkness should serve as a reminder for our evangelism. Men do not refuse to come to Christ because they cannot understand the the light of truth. Men refuse to come to Christ because their preference for darkness will not consent to understanding the light of truth. The problem in evangelism is often not the message but those hearing the message. This is absolutely necessary to keep in mind.

John begins this chapter by telling us that Nicodemus comes in the dark. By the end of John’s Gospel (19:39) Nicodemus is out in the light.

do evil and doing what is true (20)

Conclusion

The Cross

Mark 2:2-9 … Transfiguration

First Sunday of Epiphany — Baptism of Christ (Kingdom of God is @ hand)
Second & Third Sunday of Epiphany — Christ Shares in God’s Omniscience
Fourth Sunday of Epiphany — Christ Cast Out Demoniac
Fifth Sunday of Epiphany — Christ Brings Healing to the sick and diseased
Last Sunday of Epiphany — Transfiguration

All of this is communicating that the long anticipated Messiah that the covenant Fathers spoke of has arrived.  The age to come is Present in the person of the Lord Christ. In the words of both John the Baptist and the Lord Christ the Kingdom of God is at hand.

All of this is what is called Redemptive History. It is real History but it is the History of God’s redemptive work.

Why is a sermon series like this important for your faith?

1.) It requires you to see that the Kingdom of God is present.

— Remember the “Now — Not Yet” Hermeneutic that we emphasize here. What we’ve been looking at the past few weeks is the Now-ness of the Kingdom. This is important to realize because the majority of the Christians you meet have imbibed (often quite without know it) that the Kingdom of God is only Future. They look forward to some future day when Jesus returns and sets up His rule and Kingdom in Jerusalem. The Kingdom of God is totally future to them.  In this series we’ve been trying to teach, consistent with the Scripture accounts, that the Kingdom of God has arrived.

2.) It allows you to focus on Christ who is the Kingdom as opposed to focus on Israel today as somehow being wrapped up with Kingdom events as if Israel is more important than the King.

3.) It aids you in reading the Scripture in terms of the Scripture and not in terms of the Newspaper. I hope we have demonstrated here that when we read the Scripture we ask ourselves how does a knowledge of the unfolding and organic growth of the rest of the Scripture impact upon the blooming of the Kingdom in the Gospel Accounts. The Gospels are much like the point in the novel that is the crescendo to all that has been developed to date.

4.) Along the way we’ve tried to include the idea that as a people who have been swept up into this Kingdom of God we have the privilege and responsibility to live in terms of the present-ness of the Kingdom. For example, having been made citizens in the Kingdom of a King who is merciful and gentle we seek to demonstrate those virtues in our own lives. Being citizens in the Kingdom of God we resist evil because evil is inconsistent with this already present Kingdom.

Kingdom and Church debate

It is interesting where the Transfiguration is placed in Mark’s Gospel.  Before the exaltation of the Transfiguration is the prediction of Jesus death and resurrection. Just after the Transfiguration Jesus again predicts His death and resurrection. It is almost as if Mark is trying to squeeze in the idea that there is a realm into which the Lord Christ can be resurrected. Certainly resurrection can be easier to comprehend if there is a comprehension that there is another living realm beyond life.  Inherent in the story of the Transfiguration is the promise of a kind of life beyond what is apparent to earthly eyes most of the time. Hebrews 12 speaks of this other realm when it talks about being surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.  The Transfiguration reminds us again that there is a realm … a life beyond this life. Unlike the Academic Atheist who I once encountered in conversation, the Transfiguration reminds the Modern that it is not the case that when one dies there is just unconsciousness.

If nothing else, (and there is much more) the Transfiguration reminds that “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow w die” is not a true synopsis of life.

Let’s examine some of the symbolism and motifs (themes) that are attached to this passage and see what we can draw out from these as we read the rest of Scripture. In terms of the 6 days in Mark 9:2 (Now after six days) we find a consistency with another Mountain top in the Old Testament,

Exodus 24:15f

Exodus 24:15 Then Moses went up to the mount, and the cloud covered the mountain,16 And the glory of the Lord abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered [o]it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

It seems that the six day preparation period is connected to witnessing a vision of Divine glory. There is likely a connection here then between the Mosaic witnessing of the glory of God and the disciples witnessing the brightness of God’s glory here in Christ. If that is the case then this is one of those testimonies of Scripture where another Divine character quality of the Father is seen in the Son so that what is being subtly communicated is the Divine Nature of the Lord Christ.

That the disciples are witnessing the Glorified and Divine Christ, in a kind of “time before the time manifestation”, is confirmed by John’s record in his Apocalypse (Revelation) where John describes the ascended Christ.

Revelation 1:14 His head and hairs were white as white wool, and as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire,

Compare that with what is recorded here

Mark 9:3 And his raiment did [c]shine, and was very white as snow, so white as no fuller can make upon the earth.

The Whiteness here communicates the intense glory radiating from the Son. Snow was as close as they could come to this intense spectacle of God’s person. That the divinity of Christ is being pressed here is underscored by Daniel’s description of the “Ancient of Days in Daniel 7

Daniel 7:9 I beheld till the [r]thrones were set up, and the [s]Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels, as burning fire.

So, on the Mount of Transfiguration the post-Ascension divinity of Christ is put on display and what is communicated for those playing close attention when we read both what leads up to this event, where Christ predicts His death, and what follows this event where Christ predicts His death, is that He who is God  glorified is going to lay down His life for His people.

The paradox of the Kingdom is that it comes in with both glory and humility at the same time. During Epiphany we find the Lord Christ everywhere assaulting the Kingdom of Satan. We even see the proclamation here of His divinity and yet all this is wrapped in the enigma of His coming Humiliation — His death and burial.

This serves as analogy for the “Now … Not Yet” of the Kingdom. It has arrived in glory and yet it, more often than not, comes to us wrapped in humility. Paul was the great champion of the Kingdom … a champion given a thorn in the flesh. Peter does many great miracles in the context of Kingdom work and yet Stephen and James are recorded as martyred in the Scripture. We share in the glory of Christ and yet we do so around the Word broken and the humble elements of Bread and wine and Water. The Kingdom is present … the Mt. of Transfiguration tells us that. The Kingdom is yet to come … the fact that we are not yet transfigured tells us that.

Do not miss the significance that this is all taking place on a Mountain,

As we have seen before Mountatins are often associated with the place where concourse with God is held.

The entry for “Mountain” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery reads:

“Almost from the beginning of the Bible, mountains are sites of transcendent spiritual experiences, encounters with God or appearances by God. Ezekiel 28:13-15 places the *Garden of Eden on a mountain. *Abraham shows his willingness to sacrifice Isaac and then encounters God on a mountain (Gen 22:1-14). God appears to Moses and speaks from the *burning bush on “Horeb the mountain of God” (Ex 3:1-2 NRSV), and he encounters Elijah on the same site (1 Kings 19:8-18). Most impressive of all is the experience of the Israelites at Mt. *Sinai (Ex 19), which *Moses ascends in a *cloud to meet God.

A similar picture emerges from the NT, where Jesus is associated with mountains. Jesus resorted to mountains to be alone (Jn 6:15), to *pray (Mt 14:23; Lk 6:12) and to teach his listeners (Mt 5:1; Mk 3:13). It was on a mountain that Jesus refuted Satan’s temptation (Mt 4:8; Lk 4:5). He was also transfigured on a mountain (Mt 17:1-8; Mk 9:2-8; Lk 9:28-36), and he ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:10-12).[4]

Jesus also designated a mountain in Galilee from which he gave the Great Commission to the eleven (Matthew 28:16). Jesus is both the tabernacle of God among men (John 1:14) and a temple (John 2:19-22) who builds the new temple (Ephesians 2:19-22 [his body, the church]). Hebrews 12:18-24 contrasts Mount Sinai and Mount Zion in the context of the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. God’s people have gone from one mountain to another. Surely these mountains are symbols of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and have their foundation in the first mountain-temple, the Garden of Eden.”

We could do much the same with the Biblical Motif of Clouds

Exodus 40:34-38 — Then the cloud covered the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. 35 So Moses could not enter into the Tabernacle of the Congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. 36 Now when the cloud ascended up from the Tabernacle, the children of Israel went forward in all their journeys. 37 But if the cloud ascended not, then they journeyed not till the day that it ascended. 38 For [a]the cloud of the Lord was upon the Tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

Staying with the Cloud motif

After the exodus from Egypt, when the Israelites wander in the wilderness for forty years, their journey is marked by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex 13:21, 22; 14:19, 20, 24, see later reflections in Neh 9:12, 19; Ps 78:14; 99:7; 105:39; and 1 Cor 10:1–2). Exodus 16:10 associates the cloud in the wilderness with the “ glory of the Lord.” The cloud and the fire represents God’ s presence with them

See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt within them. (Isaiah 19:1-2)

Jesus, like God in the OT , rides on a cloud (Acts 1:9). One of the most pervasive images of Christ’ s return is as one who rides his cloud chariot into battle (Mt 24:30; Mk 13:26; 14:62; Lk 21:27; Rev 1:7; cf. [cf. cf.. compare] Dan 7:13).

That takes care of some of the Imagery here. Now let’s turn our attention to the persons present.

Both Moses and Elijah, two figures whose passing’s were mysterious, were believed by many Jews to be God’s precursors of the end times. That this is at least some of the point in the text is seen in vs. 11-12

The reason for this end time expectation of these two was the mysterious end of each

Elijah — Chariot into Heaven (II Kings. 2:9-12)
Moses — Buried by God Himself (Ex. 34:4-7)

As such these two men were thought to be available for God to send back to prepare for the end. Their presence here reminds us that the Messianic end times was nigh. They also represent the idea of “the law and the prophets.” In Moses and Elijah God’s covenant people are present.  Luke’s account tells us that they speak of Christ’s Exodus … meaning his Death. This would have been a matter close to the interests of the OT Saints. The Messiah is their Champion as well as ours. His Exodus is there Exodus as well.

God Speaks — Tracks with Isaanic Servant passages

Messianic Sonship OT

1 Behold, [a]my servant: [b]I will stay upon him: mine elect, in whom my soul[c]delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth [d]judgment to the Gentiles. 2 He shall not [e]cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3 A [f]bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking [g]flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment in [h]truth. 4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have [i]set judgment in the earth: and the [j]isles shall wait for his Law.

Christ is the Isaanic Servant in whom God delight and in delighting in Him He God’s beloved Son.

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Peter — James — John

That Peter at least notes that the end is at hand he blurts out this bit about building Tabernacles or booths. We think Peter odd for saying that but Peter, though fearful (wouldn’t you be afraid if you were on the cusp of the end of the world?) connects some OT dots.

Zechariah 4:16 But it shall come to pass that everyone that is left of all the nations, which came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of Tabernacles.

So, this God-commanded festival kept by Jews for centuries, was considered a possible time for God’s taking control of God’s creation and beginning the age of shalom. Peter’s comments then were not “off the wall” but consistent with Jewish understanding.

Conclusion

Perhaps we would be well reminded that the Mt. of Transfiguration becomes an objective marker of the Truth of God’s Salvation narrative. Our belief in the presence of the Kingdom is not pinned upon our own personal experience, nor upon how we are feeling at any given moment, nor upon our sense of  utter dependence. Those are all subjective markers. Our belief in the presence of God’s Kingdom is based upon these Objective realities. It was for Peter.

16 [t]For we followed not deceivable fables, when we opened unto you the power, and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but with our eyes we saw his majesty: 17 For he received of God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from that excellent Glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18 And this voice we heard when it came from heaven being with him in the holy mount.

Second we can be reminded that God’s glory comes in God’s time and according to God’s movement. There is nothing so foolish as to think that we can seize God’s glory somehow. God’s glory comes to us in God’s time and if Scripture is any indication the glory of God is never far removed, in this life, with a theology of the Cross. Everyone wants the glory … nobody wants the humiliation. Everyone wants to go to heaven. Nobody wants to die.

Third, we are reminded of how the presence of the Kingdom is wrapped up in the death of Christ. Our hope for the Kingdom is anchored in the fact that we are united to Christ in His death, resurrection and ascension. The victory of Christ is our victory. But this victory is not only a spiritual victory (though it is that) without any corporeal repercussions. The Kingdom has come. Christ has conquered and so we move in that victory understanding that the Gates of Hell can not resist the assault of the Church upon the defense mechanisms of Satan.

Appendix — After thought

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J. R. R. Tolkien was a Roman Catholic Christian. One wonders if some of his understanding in his majestic work was somewhat based upon what he learned of the Transfiguration.   Tolkien speaks of the Elvin Lords “who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm and who live at once in both worlds. Of them Tolkien says that “against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power.”

Tolkien’s lesser story steals from the Greater story. In the Transfiguration the Lord Christ is manifested as one who walks between two worlds. Further, the Gospel record clearly demonstrates that Christ has great power against both the seen and unseen. After the Transfiguration the Lord Christ descends to do battle against the Kingdom that opposes Him (Mark 9:25f).

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Bowsma on John Calvin’s Passion For Distinctions — Sermon Distinctions

Text — Genesis 1
Theme – Distinctions
Proposition — God creates and delights in distinctions
Purpose — Therefore having seen that God creates and delights in distinctions let us honor the distinctions that God has created.

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In the Genesis account we see God as the God of distinctions. As we enter into the Creation account all is equally the same. All the earth and every aspect of the earth together was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. In today’s parlance we would say that all was equal.

And then the distinction making God went to work and started making distinctions and with those distinctions order and structure was introduced.

Night is made distinct from day
Evening is made distinct from morning
The Waters of the Heavens are made distinct from the Waters of the Earth
The Land is made distinct from the Seas
The fruit and vegetation is made distinct according to its kinds
The Sun from the Moon and Stars is made distinct and given distinct spheres to rule over
Sea creatures, and Birds of the Air, and beasts of the field are created as distinct
Man is created distinct from God
Woman is created as distinct from Man.

All of Creation is one long episode in God creating and assigning distinctions.

Then we come to the fall and in the working of the Serpent in the context of the Fall, what the serpent is seeking to do is to eliminate the distinctions that God had established. In tempting Eve the Serpent successfully erased the distinction, not only between God and Eve but also between Adam and Eve. It is largely accepted that in the Fall, the attempt of the Serpent was to convince Eve to leave her distinction as mortal and to erase that distinction by becoming as God in determining good from evil, but I think we should also note that there was role reversal as well. The distinctions between male and female were negated inasmuch as Eve took the lead that should have been Adam’s and Adam submitted and followed His wife Eve.

Satan’s work in the Fall was to overturn the distinctions of God’s created order. Eve shall be Adam. Adam shall be Eve. Adam and Eve shall be God. It is interesting in the cursing of the fall distinctions are reintroduced. Eve has her own distinct curse. Adam his own distinct curse. And the Dragon his own distinct curse.

We could continue this theme throughout the Scriptures, seeing where God is a God of distinctions while the role of destroying distinctions belonged to Old Scratch.

This idea of set distinctions was at the core of Christendom. It is just the idea that not everything is the same and that the proper distinctions that are found are found because God established them. To deny this … to insist on a world where the God given distinctions are eliminated is to embrace a worldview that is in antithesis to a Biblical Worldview.

Of course we see this all around us today. Dr. Peter Jones has styled these two competing worldviews as “Oneism vs. Twoism.” He is trying to simplify heavy philosophical matters by doing so, but what Dr. Jones is after is the idea that when we presuppose the God of the Bible we get a culture where Biblical distinctions obtain and are settled while if we refuse to submit to the God of the Bible we get a culture distinctions are a thing of the past.

The idea here is that the God of the Bible provides a Transcendent point of definition wherein all things find their meaning and so their distinctions. On the other hand when God is scrubbed from reality then what you have is a world and reality where there is no “outsidedness” by which one can find meaning and so determine distinctions. The consequence then is a kind of Pantheistic worldview where all is one.

Hence Jones has taken to calling this Worldview “Oneism.” It is a worldview that denies that Creation was handed to us as already greatly pre-interpreted and opts instead on insisting that God is not and we instead can interpret our own reality.

Here is Jones on the matter,

“This Utopian vision (of a kind of egalitarian Pantheism) has a long spiritual history. The ideal of the alchemists of the Middle Ages involved ‘the uniting of the opposites …the fusion of male and female, good and evil, life and death — whose union, they believed, eventually created the perfected and completed, ideal personality called Self. The Utopian cosmology in question understands how deeply the Christian faith has molded Western culture and intends to destroy the ‘bourgeois’ Judaeo-Christian culture as the first step toward a better world. To accomplish this, its advocates must weaken the culture systematically in its economy, its military, its psychology, and its morals.They also know what it will take to establish a revived pagan cosmology and will not tolerate half measures. They want all or nothing. The goal is the complete remaking of human identity…

At this  point, such a powerful cosmology takes on an unmistakably religious character. One is reminded of the goal of the occult Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn…. “The Great Work, is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties, and his future; it is especially the prefect emancipation of his will….”

… the true power of the movement: its possession of a new liberating cosmology, includes not just politics and economics but sexuality and spirituality. The sociological analysis, joined to the ideology of revolutionary sexual and spiritual liberation, forms a powerfully influential movement, determined to reinvent the world. Indeed, as politics becomes more all-inclusive, it becomes more religious, claiming to answer all human aspirations, physical and spiritual, and to usher in a better world. ”

Dr. Peter Jones
The Other Worldview; Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat — pg. 98

And so we are in worldview warfare right now and the battle lines are drawn at the point of Oneism (all is One) vs. Twoism (The Creator Creature distinction that then translates into all other distinctions).

You’re living right now through an all out assault on what made Western Civilization. As the British Journalist Melanie Phillips offered,

“The attack on Western civilization, at its most profound level, is an attack on the creed that lies at the very foundation of that civilization.”

And of course that Creed is Biblical Christianity.

You see, we have now gone well beyond the attack of God has Redeemer to the point where we are now attacking God as Creator. We are now at the point of challenging God’s authorial rights to delegate distinctions.

Of course the intensity of this battle to eliminate distinctions has been going on for quite some time. It has always been the goal of those in set defiance against God,

“Princes and nations will disappear without violence from the earth, the human race will become one family and the world the abode of reasonable men.”

-Adam Weishaupt, quoted in Paul Johnson, Intellectuals (London: Orion Books Limited, 1993), p. 32.

Capitalism developed the ever more inhuman polarization of the sexes. The cult of making distinctions, which serves only for oppression, is now being swept away by awareness of resemblance and identity.

M. Walser
Uber die neusten Stimmungen im Westen
In: Kursbuch, Bd. 20, 1970, S. 19-41.

“… Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the dictatorship of the proletariat, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede. “

V. Lenin
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination

These Communists of the past are joined today by those today, who like their Communist Fathers of the past are seeking to eliminate distinctions.

“Being queer is more than sleeping with a person of the same gender…. it means transforming the very fabric of our society’s view of family. The goal is radically reordering society’s view of family”

Paul Ettlebrick
Gay Activist

We as Christians then … as those who uphold the idea of God ordained distinctions are in the contest of our lives.

Jones gets at the stakes in this contest between Christians and those who would erase distinctions when he notes,

 

“The push for homosexual rights is not a concession we throw to a tiny percentage of our population in a compromise that will bring no real harm to society. Pushed with ethical fervor through appeals to anti-discrimination, equal right, equality legislation, and the checking of privilege, this social movement deconstructs from the foundational social concepts like family, gender, and social achievement.There is no ‘live and let live,’ when faced with advocates of this agenda.”

Dr.Peter Jones
The Other Worldview — pg.96

And so to return to our Christian convictions on this matter of the distinction making God we make just a few observations in closing,

“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 (Oneism) 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.”

Conclusion

We end with a quote from someone who analyzed the life of Calvin and who offers Calvin’s thoughts on the importance of distinction.

“But the notion that what ails the world [inseparably from sin] is confusion had much practical value for Calvin … Thus, when Calvin associated disorder with obscurity, he could conceive of correcting it by sharpening the contours of the various entities composing the world; once one thing has been clearly distinguished, physically or conceptually, from others, it can be assigned its proper place in the order of things … Thus he abominated ‘mixture,’ one of the most pejorative terms in his vocabulary; mixture in any area of experience suggested to him disorder and unintelligibility. He had absorbed deeply not only the traditional concern for cosmic purity of a culture that had restricted mixture to the sublunary realm but also various Old Testament prohibitions. Mixture, for Calvin, connoted ‘adulteration’ or ‘promiscuity,’ but it also set off in him deep emotional and metaphysical reverberations. He repeatedly warned against ‘mixing together things totally different.’ …

The positive corollary of Calvin’s loathing of mixture was his approval of boundaries, which separate one thing from another. He attributed boundaries to God Himself: God had established the boundaries between peoples, which should therefore remain within the space assigned to them … ‘Just as there are in a military camp separate lines for each platoon and section,’ Calvin observed, ‘men are placed on the earth so that each nation may be content with its own boundaries.’”

W.J. Bouwsma
John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait — p.34-35

 

 

Mark 1:29-39 — The Lord Christ Dismisses A Fever — The King and Kingdom Have Arrived

We are still considering the Church calendar, and in that context we are still considering Epiphany. Epiphany, as we have stated means “manifestation.” As we’ve been looking at these texts we’ve then been considering the manifestation of the Lord Christ and the manifestation of the purpose of His coming.

As it pertains to the Epiphany of the Lord Christ and the purpose of His coming Mark gives us bullet points as to these matters. Condensed and packed tightly Mark makes known the person of Christ and the purpose for His coming.  In Mark 1:5 we are alerted that the coming of the Messiah has to do with the forgiveness of sins. There the Messiah’s “advance man” makes that clear. Eventually the promised “One who is coming” arrives and is Baptized thus identifying with the sons of Adam and in order to consecrate a new Priestly line. With the Baptism of Christ the heavens are split and the approval of the Father is heard communicating that God has come near to man in Christ. Unlike both Adam in the Garden and Israel in the Wilderness the Lord Christ overcomes the trials of Satan’s temptation and begins to announce that the Kingdom of God is at hand (1:15). After Messiah begins to re-establish Israel by calling what will be 12 disciples the Lord Christ immediately (a word used 14 times in Mark 1-2) begins to demonstrate the impact of the Kingdom upon this broken world. Last week we looked at that Kingdom impact in the Lord Christ casting out the Demon. This week we consider the healing ministry.

Clearly what Mark is doing here (and all the Gospel writers do, each in their own way)  is that he is giving us the impact of the Kingdom of God against this present wicked age. The coming of the Messiah, with His Kingdom is with authority and power.  Because of the Messiah and His Kingdom, the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. A pretty impressive resume. It might be helpful to you to keep this in mind when you are reading the Gospels.

I.) The Kingdom & Simon’s Home

Very well then, we get to this account that we have read this morning. After the Demoniac is healed in the synagogue Jesus attends to Simon Peter’s home. Upon arrival Peter’s mother-in-law is discovered as ill with a fever. Mark does not give us details here but we can well imagine this wasn’t a case of the sniffles. In the ancient world fevers could easily lead to long term debilitation and even death.  The text indicates that no time was wasted between the time of the discovery of the illness of this loved one and the communication of this state of affairs to the Lord Christ.

With vs. 31 the problem is as quickly addressed as it was introduced. However let us consider a couple of the verbs in vs. 31. The text says “he raised her up,” and then “she served them.” The verb “raised her up,” will be used again in Mark 16:6 in application to the resurrection of the Lord Christ.  It is a verb that Mark will use frequently to apply to healings .

Jesus simply “raises her up.” In Mark’s direct and uncomplicated style he says, “…and the fever left her and she served them.” The verbs are interesting. Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is “raised up” by Jesus. This Greek word takes on powerful meaning in Mark’s gospel. In 16:6, in reference to Christ’s resurrection, the same word is applied to Jesus himself. Mark uses egeiro in many healings (see, for example, 5:41, 9:27).  This word communicates that strength is restored so that those ill, possessed, or even the dead, are renewed to their former place. Do not miss the fact that the healing was immediate and instantaneous. No recovery period required.

Something we should interject here, before we look at the second verb is who Jesus is dealing with. Jesus comes to those who would have been considered low on the Hebrew societal pecking order. His Kingdom is not only for the well healed and well placed. Mark establishes this by noting Jesus calling of Fishermen as disciples.

The Kingdom sweeps into its vortex all types of men and women — the high born, the low born, the crippled, the healthy, the fisherman, the tax collector. In terms of entrance into the Kingdom there are no credentials that one must bring in order to enter. Jesus here heals a daughter of Eve. Also we would add that it is interesting that Mark records Jesus’ first healing to be of a woman. A woman brought sickness into creation and a woman is the first who is healed in the coming of the re-creation.

The second verb we want to consider in vs. 31 is that “she served them.” The word is where we get our word “Deacon” from. She is healed and she returns to the task that God had assigned her. This is no lowly or mean position. After all, our Lord Christ will us this same word later in Mark to describe His own ministry.

Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Peter’s Mother-in-law was healed and upon being healing she rendered Kingdom service. All who are brought into the Kingdom are brought in to serve even if their service is by way of providing Leadership. Jesus underscored this when He washed His disciples feet.

II.) The Kingdom and the Crowd

A little context here. In the ancient world the homes typically did not have doors like we do today. The openings of the houses were such that one simply walked in and out. This helps us make sense of the whole city being at the door. They were crowded around and pressing in to have audience with the King and the Kingdom. This idea of door traffic is mentioned again in the next chapter. In 2:2 we are told that the traffic was so heavy that there wasn’t even enough room around the door.

Mark’s notation that the “sun had set” is likely indicative that the people were waiting until the Sabbath had ended in order to bring their loved ones. The people had been taught that work was not to be done on the Sabbath and healing was considered work. Keep in mind though that the Lord Christ had already healed on the Sabbath.

As we saw last week, so here, the Lord Christ does not allow the Demons to acknowledge Him. Perhaps it was a matter of not desiring the sulfur tongued  to be His heralds.

Herman Ridderbos in his book “The Coming of the Kingdom offer here,

“From the beginning of his public activity Jesus’ power over Satan had already asserted itself. This is not only proved by the casting out of devils in itself, but also by the manner in which those possessed by the devil behave in his presence (cf. Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; Mark 5:7; Matt. 8:29; Luke 8:28,31). When Jesus approaches they raise a cry, obviously in fear. They show that they have a supernatural knowledge° of his person and of the significance of his coming (cf. Mark 1:34; 3:11). They call him “the Holy One of God,” “the Son of God,” “Son of the most high God.” By this they recognize his messianic dignity (ef. Luke 4:41). They consider his coming as their own destruction (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34); their torment (Matt. 8:29; Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28). They feel powerless and try only to lengthen their existence on earth (Matt. 8:29; Mark 5:10), and implore him not to send them into “the deep,” that is to say, the place of their eternal woe (Luke 8:31, cf. Rev. 20:3ff).9 All this shows that in Jesus’ person and coming the kingdom has become a present reality. For the exercise of God’s power over the devil and his rule has the coming of the kingdom for its foundation.”

Perhaps, also there was a desire to keep the sensationalism at a minimum so that He could more freely be about His work. This insistence that His work be kept as low key as possible is not unique here.

Mark 1:43-44, 3:11-12, 4:10-11, 5:19, 8:30, 9:9

This insistence on the stealth approach has sometimes been referred to as the Messianic secret. The idea is that the Lord Christ constantly kept tamping down his fame so that the Father’s plan for His death would not be accelerated by popular enthusiasm.

The question is asked why we do not continue to see these kinds of healing and miracles today since the Kingdom is still present and for the answer we have to consider the place of all this in God’s redemptive History. The reason that all this is happening is that a very particular time in Redemptive History has arrived. All of this activity is giving testimony that this unique time in History has arrived.  All of what is happening here and then later with the Apostles after Pentecost is part of a single, comprehensive crescendo part of history. All this is done in light of the Historical coming of the Kingdom and it is done only with the arrival of the Messiah and His Kingdom and the establishment of His Church.  Here, in this point in History, the cornerstone and foundation is laid. From the close of the canon forward the superstructure is built upon this unique point in time history. To ask for more of this Historical uniqueness is like asking to be 25 again. That historical moment has passed. This is not to say that remarkable providences or inexplicable healings don’t still happen as God ordains. It is to say that we are at a different time of Redemptive History.  Do keep in mind that were it the case that we were to have the same kind of demonstration of authority and power as we find in this Redemptive time, this time would no longer be seen as a time that was unique and Historically epoch. That time of Christ would be “just another” day.

While the Pentecostals and Charismatics are full of good intentions they sully the record and uniqueness of Redemptive History with their insistence that 2015 and every year must be the same Historical Epoch as the 1st Century when Jesus and the Apostles ministered.

III.) The Kingdom & Continued Ministry

A.) Prayer

In the midst of this Kingdom expansion the Lord Christ takes time to commune with He who, according to His divine nature is one with.  This bespeaks the intimacy between the Father and Son. The text says a solitary place. Some translate it as deserted.

There is a theme that runs through Scripture of God’s man and the desert or solitary space. Often you find that God raises His man up for service but before He employs him for service God puts him on the back side of the desert.

Elijah — I Kings 19 // Moses — Exodus 3 // David — I Samuel 23:14 // John the Baptist — Desert prophet // Paul — Desert years

It is beneficial to see an implied connection made between the Kingdom work of the Lord Christ and the intimacy with the Father that accompanies it. The Lord Christ is no rogue agent but in His work he is about the will of the Father whom he spends solitary time.

B.) Purpose statement — Mark 1:38 -39 — Purpose statement — “Therefore came I forth … that I might preach there also.”

“That I may preach there also” //  Preaching, healing, and casting out. // Preaching is shorthand for all three

Though shorthand for all three the primacy is on preaching the good news of the Kingdom.  The miracles only have meaning to the end of confirming what was being preached. The disciples want to constrain Jesus to a theology of glory where everyone is being wowed by the next miracle. Jesus insists on pressing on to the next community to preach the glad tiding of the presence of the Kingdom.

We would be wrong to quickly glide by the purpose statement made by the Lord Christ here. He tells us here why he came.

Christ is concerned that the message of the Kingdom receive the widest of audiences. This is consistent with what we find in the OT concerning the Messiah.

Isaiah 61 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;[a]
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;[b]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord‘s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;

These “I have come” purpose statements are important inasmuch as they presuppose the pre-existence of the Lord Christ. In saying, “I have come” there is an implied idea that He has come from somewhere previous. So,   the “coming” mentioned here must be conceived as a “coming out of heaven.”

Further the “I have come statements,” reveal that the Messiah was epistemologically self conscious about who He was as Messiah and what His task was.  Jesus has come to call “sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17ff); “to throw fire on the earth” (Luke 12:49); “to bring the sword and not peace” (Matt. 10:34ff, cf. Luke 12:51ff); he has not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but “to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17); “to proclaim the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:38), He has come “to seek and to save the lost”  (Luk 19:10), He has come “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  All of this suggests that the Lord Christ knew His supernatural origins and His task of bringing in the Kingdom.

Conclusion — Recap