Category: Sermons

The Presence of the Kingdom — Mark 1:21-28

Introduction

After Jesus’ Baptism and Desert Temptation Jesus begin his ministry by announcing,

15  The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe the Gospel.

For the hearers of the time, shaped as they were be the Old Testament, this announcement would have been met by an expectation that God would establish His kingdom by displacing Kingdoms that oppressed His people. After all, the purpose of the Kingdom was now to include salvation and blessing for His people and the defeat of Israel’s enemies.

Much of what is to follow then in the Gospel accounts then is a chronicling of how Christ was ushering in the Kingdom of God.

Keep in mind that as this Kingdom of God comes the consequence is that other Kingdoms are displaced. These other Kingdoms that are being overthrown are Kingdoms that raise protest over being displaced.

Given the truth of all this we should expect that the ministry of Jesus is going to be characterized by conflict. He is bringing in a Kingdom that is going to destroy previous strongholds. The clash of Kingdoms that was first promised in Genesis 3:15 becomes center stage in the life of Christ.

15 I will also put enmity between [a]thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall break thine [b]head, and thou shalt [c]bruise his heel.

And this is what we find in this passages in Mark 1:21-28. Like an old Western where a new Marshall rides into town to clean it up of assorted villains, the Lord Christ is demonstrating, via His ministry, that there is a new authority in the Cosmos. This kind of drama where demons are cast out, nature is tamed, and the disfigured, diseased and even dead are healed is what would have been expected given all the teaching of the Old Testament on the coming of God’s Messiah.

All of this reminds us that with the coming of the Kingdom in the ministry of Christ we have something more than just sweet nice Jesus giving moral instruction. No … the Kingdom of God comes as with power and authority.

I.) The Authority of the Lord Christ Demonstrates the Kingdom has Arrived

A.) Jesus and his authority (21-22)

“Exousia” describes first the freedom of God to act. The Greek word is exousia and that word is related to a verb meaning “it is free” or “it is permitted.”  When it is noted that Jesus has “authority” what is being communicated is that He has the “sovereign freedom” of one who acts without question or hindrance. This is seen as something different from the Scribes and Pharisees perhaps because they were taken up with Talmudic tradition.

Jesus comes and  teaches and his teaching strips off the accretions of traditions and takes the people back to the bare word itself. Another way of saying this is that Jesus taught as giving God’s original intent and not as the current Teachers of Israel who were forever citing what amounts to the Case law of Talmudic traditions.

This issue of Jesus and His authority will come up again in the next Chapter (Mark 2). In Mark 2 however it is Jesus who is talking about His authority to heal and forgive.

10 But that ye may know, that the Son of man hath authority in earth to forgive sins, he said unto the sick of the palsy,

So as we would expect of someone who is bringing in the Kingdom of God Jesus is one vested with authority and in this account this unique authority is noted by those observing. Jesus teaches with an independent authority–or rather, on the authority of God (cf. 11:28-33).

Mark 11:28 And said unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority, that thou shouldest do these things? 29 Then Jesus answered, and said unto them, I will also ask you a certain thing, and answer ye me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. 31 And they thought with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven, he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? 32 [a]But if we say, Of men, we fear the people: for all men counted John that he was a Prophet indeed. 33 Then they answered, and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answered, and said unto them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

Whereas the scribes are bound to tradition, and so are not authoritative in their teaching as Jesus is, the Lord Christ is  free–free in the way that only one who lives directly from and to God’s authority is free.

Mark does not give us the content of Jesus’ teaching, but we can find examples of the difference between Jesus’ teaching and the teaching of the scribes elsewhere in the gospel tradition. For example, in Mark 12:35-37, Jesus asks why the scribes say the Messiah is the Son of David when Scripture indicates that David called the Messiah “Lord.” Scripture itself suggests that the scribes’ traditional interpretation is inadequate. Jesus is suggesting that who or what the Messiah is may break the traditional Jewish mold. Again, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does not hesitate to suggest that the traditional interpretation of the commandments is inadequate. What God demands of us goes far beyond what the scribes require (cf. Matthew 5:20).

So Jesus comes with the Authority of God. His teaching is new only inasmuch as it is not laden with the mistakes of the Talmud and wrong headed traditions.

Ill. — Someone coming who goes back to the Constitution dismissing the case law and doing so convincingly.

B.) They were astonished

This astonishment over Jesus authority is carefully chronicled throughout the synoptic Gospel account. The presence of this astonishment is one of the markers of the ministry of Christ.

Mark 2:12, 4:41, 7:37, 10:24  // Matthew – 13;54, 15:31 22:22, 33 //  Luke – 2:47-48, 4:22, 36, 8:25

C.) Cite examples of the authority of Christ

1.) Authority over Demons

Jesus tells him to “hold thy peace.”

Why? — the Lord Christ does not desire demonic heralds.

Interesting sidelight — the usage of the pronouns — back and forth singular to plural to singular

2.) Authority over Nature

(Mark 4:37-41)  37 [a]And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves dashed into the ship, so that it was now full.38 And he was in the stern asleep on a pillow: and they awoke him, and said to him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? 39 And he arose up, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, and be still. So the wind ceased, and it was a great calm. 40 Then he said unto them, [b]Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, Who is this, that both the wind and sea obey him?

It is interesting the parallels this account of the casting out of the Demon has to the story of the stilling of the storm (Mark 4:35-41). Here Jesus’ rebukes (epetimēsen) the spirit with the command to “be silent” (phimōthēti). This is  parallel to Jesus’ rebuke (epetimēsen) of the wind and the command to “be still” (pephimōso) in 4:39. The response of the crowd in 1:27, “what is this (ti estin touto)…he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey (hypakouousin) him,” is parallel to the response of the disciples in 4:41: “Who then is this (tis ara houtos estin), that even the wind and the sea obey (hypakouei) him?” These similarities suggest that, for the early Christians who formulated and transmitted these stories, the exorcism and the stilling of the storm illustrate a similar point: Jesus has authority over both the natural world (winds and sea) and the supernatural world (demons).

So, lets summarize briefly here,

In Mark 1:21f we have the record of the Lord Christ casting out a demon accompanied by the amazement of the people regarding Jesus Authority. What we dare not miss here is that this casting out of the Demon is one demonstration that with the coming of God’s King God’s eschatological Kingdom itself has arrived. Mark is interested in placarding this authority of the great King and so in Mark’s Gospel we find the Lord Christ putting on an authority display over competing Kingdoms. With the Demoniac here Christ is showing his authority over Satan’s Kingdom. In the casting out of the Demon He is binding Satan and dispossessing him of his belongings (Mark 3:27). The King has come. Later, in Mark 4 Christ demonstrates his authority over the Kingdom of Nature by instructing the winds and the waves, much as He instructed the demon in Mark 1, to “be still.” The King has come. In Mark 1:30f Christ demonstrates his authority over Illness and disease. The King has come.

Mark wants us to know that Christ Himself is the King, Kingdom, and re-creation. Further Mark is interested that the work of Jesus is the work of binding the strongman.

In what is recorded here we see the fulfillment of what was called for in Isaiah 61

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is [a]upon me, therefore hath the Lord anointed me: he hath sent me to preach good tidings unto the poor, to bind up the [b]broken hearted, to preach liberty to the [c]captives, and to them that are bound, the opening of the prison, 

So what we are learning is that outside of Christ’s authority there is only demon possession, untamed Nature, and disease. and we are forced to ask whose authority are we under?

3.) Authority over Illness and Disease — Mark 1:29

Another component of this authority of Jesus is his healing ministry. This is so significant as proof that the Kingdom of God has come that Jesus appeals to it as evidence against John the Baptist’s doubt as to whether Jesus was bringing in the Kingdom.

20 And when the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come, or shall we wait for another? 21 And [e]at that time, he cured many of their sicknesses, and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto many blind men he gave sight freely. 22 And Jesus answered, and said unto them, Go your ways and show John, what things ye have seen and heard, that the blind see, the halt go, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor receive the Gospel.

So Christ has come. The Kingdom of God — that promised “age to come” —  is rolling back this present wicked age. And the consequence is that Christ is seen as having Mastery over all.

II.) The Actions of the Lord Christ Demonstrate the Kingdom has Arrived

Devout Jews expected the Davidic Messiah to cast out demons and heal the blind, the deaf and the mute (see Isaiah 29:18; 35:5-6; 42:7,16).

18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.

5 Then shall the eyes of the [a]blind be lightened, and the ears of the deaf be opened.  Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the dumb man’s tongue shall sing: for in the [b]wilderness shall waters break out, and rivers in the desert.

7 That thou mayest open the eyes of the blind, and bring out the prisoners from the prison: and them that sit in darkness, out of the prison house…. 16 ¶ And I will bring the [a]blind by a way, that they knew not, and lead them by paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

This expectation of the casting out of Demons by the Messiah may find its origins with the power of David’s harp playing to exorcise the demons plaguing King Saul (see I Samuel 16:14-23). In traditions attested both in and outside the Bible (see Wisdom 7:20), David’s son, Solomon, also received power over demons and infirmities (see Josephus, The Antitquities of the Jews, Book 8, Chapter 2, no. 5).

Josephus — God also enabled him (Solomon) to learn that skill which expels demons: (6) which is a science useful, and sanative to men.

And now a greater than both David and Solomon is here and the expectation is that if David’s and Solomon’s greater Son is present bringing in the Kingdom He will do greater works of those who previously came and so He also will cast out demons.

III.) The Consequence of this Arrived Kingdom is the dismantling of all other Kingdoms

Satan’s Kingdom — (This incident demonstrates the Jesus has bound the Strong man and is dispossessing him — (Mark 3)

Scribes & Pharisees Kingdom — (This incident demonstrates the Jesus is overthrowing the Talmudic order)

His teaching as “one with authority” is quite possibly a testimony that He is not concerned with Talmudic traditions or case Law. Instead He is going back to the original Torah and is fulfilling it and bringing forth its meaning.

A couple observations

Spiritual vs. Corporeal

There is in some of the Church this idea that Spiritual matters are divorced from Corporeal matters. Here we see in Jesus’ work that the Spiritual and Corporeal intersect. Jesus is dealing with the Spiritual world by casting out a Demon but the effect is on a real live corporeal person. Similarly with His healing ministry Jesus is dealing with Spiritual problems but in his triumph over the spiritual problems physical maladies are healed.

Now / Not Yet

Obviously what we have with the coming of Christ is the NOW of the Kingdom presented to us.  Jesus is triumphing and the Kingdom to come is present. There is, of course a Not Yet to the Kingdom. We still contend with those realities that will only finally be finished once for all upon our entrance into the new Jerusalem.

We live in that time when the Kingdom is both “Now and Not Yet.” We have been delivered but we await to be delivered. We have been set free we await being set free.

I think there is a tendency to forget the Nowness of the Kingdom in favor of the Not Yetness of the Kingdom. We have needs to keep before us that the Lord Christ has triumphed and in principle has brought His Kingdom. This Kingdom reality then progressively rolls forward so that eventually the Kingdoms of nations will become the Kingdoms of our Lord.

Conclusion

How does this account of a 1st century Demoniac being healed bear upon us today? Especially in light of the fact that there are so many that dismiss the supernatural. For those of us who are God’s people, we must dismiss those who dismiss the supernatural and acknowledge and embrace again the truth that the Kingdom of God — the authority and power of Jesus Christ — has come and so is present. We must live in terms of His authority and move in the confidence that His Kingdom has come. We must not recoil in fear against those powers and Kingdoms that have already been defeated.

The fact that the Kingdom has come bears on our eschatology. If we really believe that the Lord Christ brought His Kingdom and has been Ascended and seated as King of Kings then it is difficult to see how we can avoid some kind of optimistic eschatology. If we really believe that we are now living in the age to come because of Christ’s victory over the Kingdoms that resisted his Kingdom then how can we not be convinced that we go from victory unto victory in Christ?

Confidence in Christ’s Kingdom word strongly works towards demanding of us confidence that His already arrived Kingdom is going to become that mustard seed that grows into the largest of trees.

 

Psalm 139 — The Psalmist Extolling of God’s Character

As we consider Psalm 139 we come upon one of the better known Psalms. In this Church we confess responsively parts of this Psalm at the end of every communion service. It is a Psalm that the same time comforting to God’s people and terrifying to the wicked. It is comforting to God’s people because it speaks of the expansiveness of God’s watchful presence. It is terrifying to the wicked because it reminds them of how God’s justice will win out.

I.) The Omniscience of God (1-6)

A.) Consistent Testimony of Scripture

The Scriptures teach everywhere the omniscience of God.

Psalm 139:4
Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.

Proverbs 5:21
For your ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all your paths.

Proverbs 15:3
The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.

Jeremiah 16:17
My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.

Hebrews 4:13
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Here in Psalm 139 the Psalmist articulates that he knows that God knows him.

B.) The way God knows

As we consider God’s omniscience as it regards God we speak briefly to this matter of “God knowing us because He has searched us.” We insist here that this “searching of us” is an eternal searching and not a temporal searching. All of God’s knowledge is instant to Him. God does not learn discursively as we do. When we learn about something it takes time and effort. But God does not learn as we do. All is before Him and has been from eternity.

Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

So, when the Psalmist here says that “God has searched him” we must be mindful that this is a matter of speech but the heart of the matter remains true. God knows us thoroughly.

C.) God knowledge as a personal truth

Alexander MaClaren could wonder at this God knowing him. MacLaren wrote,

“The Psalmist God was a God who came into close touch with him, and the Psalmist’s religion translated the powerless generality of an attribute referring to the Divine relation to the universe into a continually exercised power having reference to himself.”

We do not have here then a abstract doctrine that “God knows everything.” Instead what we find is the Psalmist applying that personally to himself. It is, of course true, that “God knows everything,” but for the Psalmist here it is the fact that God knows him personally that is being communicated.

Note the totality and comprehensiveness that the Psalmist speaks of in terms of God’s knowing.

sitting down … rising up
understanding thoughts from afar
walking and lying down

In our thoughts, actions, and speech God knows us.

And do not miss the comfort that the Psalmist finds in all this (vs. 6).

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

The Psalmist plays in this knowledge of God’s knowing him.

We ought not to miss the subjectivity here. It could well be possible to get lost in an abstract doctrine like “God’s intimate knowledge of everything,” but far easier is it to laud the doctrine of God’s omniscience when it is personal to us.

D.) Further, the Psalmist teaches us here,  by way of slight abstraction, that if we would know ourselves aright we must know God who knows us better and more thoroughly than we know ourselves. The knowledge of self then lies in the knowledge of God who alone can teach us ourselves.

This is an important insight for moderns who go crazy trying to understand themselves. The modern asks of Himself “Who am I,” and will seek to try and know himself apart from God’s knowledge of the modern.

There are dozens of different personality testing systems. There are stand-alone models or theories which seek to explain personality, motivation, behaviour, learning styles and thinking styles (such as Benziger, Transactional Analysis, Maslow, McGregor, Adams,VAK, Kolb, and others). All of these in pursuit of knowing ourselves apart from knowing the God who alone knows us.

There is no true knowledge of the self apart from knowing the one who knows us exhaustively. Knowledge of self lies then in knowing God who knows us perfectly.

John Calvin underscored the absolute necessity of accurate self-knowledge to knowing God in the opening pages of his monumental work, Institutes of the Christian Religion. He wrote:

Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves (Institutes, 1.1.1).

Calvin argued that one could not truly know God without knowing oneself and that one couldn’t truly know oneself without knowing God. Calvin acknowledged the obvious dilemma in saying, “which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern” (Institutes, 1.1.1).

E.) We can take comfort from this doctrine when

— We are confused. We may not know our own thoughts but God knows and the God who knows our own thoughts before we do can clarify matters for us and dispel our confusion.

— We are discouraged by who we see ourselves to be. We see our sin … we see our mortality. We may not like what we see at times. But, my friends … God knows us. He created us. And in that knowing of us He has claimed us for Himself in Christ Jesus. If God knows us and accepts in Christ then we can know ourselves and accept ourselves as w are in Christ Jesus.

— There is in all of us a desire to be perfectly and thoroughly known. Only God knows us like this and when we seek to be known like this by anyone else but God we run the danger of making for ourselves an idol of they who we would have know us like this.

Implications

Open Theism

Of course this overturns all other teaching that suggests that God does not know the future, or that God and man are co-operating in order to create a uncertain future. This is, of course, a non-Christian position. A non all knowing God is no God at all. A god from whom we can hide from in any sense is a limited god and so no God.

Ominscience as an inescapable concept for deity

Inescapable concept — Bugs Bunny and Lumps on the head

When we deny omniscience to God, omniscience does not go away, but instead it seeks to find itself seized by whatever immanent god seeks to be god. Of course when we deny omniscience to god it finds itself being located in man somewhere.

We are hearing of the attempt to seize temporal omniscience all the time today. We are seeing reports about Government agencies — seeking to collect all kinds of information and data on Americans.

A Congresswoman (Maxine Waters) recently noted that,

“The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life,” Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday.

“That’s going to be very, very powerful,” Waters said. “That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that…. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”

What else can this be but an attempt for man to claim God’s prerogative?

Rushdoony noted here,

“When the State claims sovereignty, the logic of its position requires that a like total knowledge be acquired concerning all men and things, and the result is the inquisitive and prying state which aims at knowing all in order to govern all.”

So, by this doctrine we can also identify entities that are seeking to arise to God’s position of Omniscience. Any entity that seeks to know everything about us there is to know so that nothing is kept hidden from them is an institution that is seeking to aspire to Godhood with all its omniscience. And of course to willingly yield to that desire of omniscience of the State is to participate in idolatry — to instate another God above God.

It is not hard to think of the entity or institution in our daily lives that insists that nothing be kept private from them.  Any institution that would demand all our records and would even spy on us to gain what it wants to know  is an institution or entity seeking to be God.

For God to know all communicates absolute control. The Psalmist understands that. But God being God he is the only one who is to have the privilege of omniscience. The Psalmist finds comfort in this (vs. 5-6)

God’s omniscience for the believer is a like a child’s security blanket.

II.) The Omnipresence of God (7-12)

Jeremiah 23:24

“Can a man hide himself in hiding places So I do not see him?” declares the LORD “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD.Just as the Psalmist speaks of God’s all knowing character so now he speaks of God’s all present character.

Remember here that one indication of man as sinner is his desire to escape God. When Adam sinned he sought to hide from God.

Isaiah 29:15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?

It is the fallen man’s nature to hide from God but here in Psalm 139 the Psalmist readily confesses that he can not hide from God and there is the clear sense that he is delighted with that.

And so should we be. All men may forget us or our cause. All men may despise us and wish we would hide ourselves from them. Yet, despite the wish of men that we might disappear God is with us. He has promised he will never leave us nor forsake us.

Another help that this passage is to us is that in being ever in God’s presence we must be mindful that there is no such things as secret sins. Whenever we sin, we blow a trumpet in the face of the ever present God and rebel boldly in His presence. Perhaps the thought of God being ever present could be a hedge against what we think is private sinning?

And what comfort God’s presence is to His saints. This comfort has even been put into poetry and hymn,

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—	 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,	 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

So, the omnipresence of God is stressed in a very personal and particular way. We are not permitted to think of God deistically, as a remote, determinism and a far out power.

God is taught here as being omnipresent, everywhere at every moment. A true God cannot be God if He is not totally present. If he is not totally present at all times to all man’s doing then there are places that men can go to escape God’s presence and judgments.  Omnipresence, total presence, is therefore, necessary and the concomitant to total government, to effective government. We believe, as Christians, that God is everywhere present. It could not be otherwise, because if God is not everywhere present,  He is not God. If we can escape Him and say, “Over there belongs to God but over here I can escape God then we have limited God and En-Goded ourselves. We have therefore defeated God and become God wherever God is not present. Therefore, basic to scripture is the doctrine that God is every-where present, and basic to every theology that has ever been developed, every doctrine of God, is this same concept of the omnipresence of God, the everywhere presence of God.

Just as No God can be truly God if He does not know all there is to know about man so no God can be truly God if He is not everywhere present to man. Accordingly, the State not only seeks to be all knowing but also all present so as to have total control.

Now we must say a word as to why we can find this omniscience and omnipresence comforting. It is for the same reason that the Psalmist can find it comforting. We find that which is a terror to those who hate God to be a comfort because we are covenant men. Being covenant men we belong to Christ. Belonging to Christ we know we have favor with God. If God’s omniscience and omnipresence be for us, who can be against us.

Introduction

Review from last week

We spoke about the omniscience and omnipresence of God but we did so as the Psalmist does so in personal and concrete ways. The Psalmist here does give us these high doctrines of the character of God — His Omniscience (all-knowing-ness) and omnipresence (all present-ness) but he does so in a way that these high and potentially abstract doctrines become very tender and cherished doctrines — doctrines that we can not navigate without.

The Psalmist tells us that in a impersonal world God is personal. God is not a deistic God who has wandered away but He knows each of His people individually and thoroughly. Unlike the State, which has aspirations to be God, God knows us not abstractly by our social security number but intimately. The Pslamist tells us that God has made a personal search, that He is interested in the most mundane details such as your lying down and rising up. This knowing of God is extended even being familiar with our speech patterns before we have crafted that speech.

We spoke that this knowledge that God has of us must be the fulcrum by which we know ourselves. There is no knowing of our selves apart from knowing the God who knows us. We noted that no psychological test can tell us about what we want to know about ourselves in comparison to what we learn about ourselves by knowing the God who knows us. Our knowledge of self is the ectype of God’s archetypical knowledge of us. God’s knowledge of us is original and our knowledge of ourselves is derivative of God’s knowledge of us.

We spoke then briefly about those pretenders to Christianity that deny this doctrine of Omniscience and we considered then the State which seeks to take on the mantle of God and so replace God as the all knower and the all knowing.

Then we spoke about God’s Omnipresence which the Psalmist brings out next in Psalm 139.  The Psalmist notes that fact that God is a inescapable presence. We spoke of what a comfort that doctrine should be to God’s people. We reminded ourselves that the certainty of God’s presence means we can withstand the hostility of God’s enemies and the loneliness that often creates. Though all would flee from us God is present and God is enough company and in that we find comfort.

We noted briefly that God’s Omnipresence can be a means by which we flee sin. We noted that all sin — even that sin we think done in secret — is sin that is committed on center stage spotlight in the full presence of God. The thought of that might slow down our mad rush into what we think are private sins.

Finally, on this score we noted again the attempt of the State to overthrow God and en-god itself and we noted that on way we see that is the States desire to take up the prerogative of all-presence-ness. State agents, state camera’s and state satellites are ubiquitous. The capacity to eavesdrop on almost any conversation. All this is suggestive of how the State has morphed into this entity that desires to be all present.

And finally we noted that the reason we find all this comforting is that we belong to the Lord Christ. Christ has atoned for our sins and made such an introduction of us to the Father that we find comfort in God inescapable knowing and presence. Because of Christ God is for us. To the contrary, those outside of Christ find this everywhere knowing and presence of God to be a threat and so they seek to escape God by conjuring up other deities that they think will be more kindly to their sins in those deities omnipresence and omniscience.

That was last week in reduced to the nub. Now we consider the third and fourth strophe of Psalm 139

III.) The Creative work of God As The Foundation Upon Which His Intimate Knowing and Presence Is Constructed

The inspired Psalmist has been accentuating the character of God. He professes God’s knowing of Him and God’s constant companionship and it is as if he says now in Psalm 139:13-18 that these attributes of God are only to be expected in the one who created him. We should not be surprised that He who is the very creator of us is a God who then goes on to know our sitting and rising and a God from whom we cannot escape.

Here we see God as the great creator King who is set forth as the one one who brings us into being. Cast into the background are the indirect means of human sexuality and / or human artifice that God uses to create each individual. Instead what we are focused on here is the direct agency of God in creation.

The Psalmist isn’t interested in the “science or biology of it all.” What he is focusing on is the agency of God in man’s creation. And so he uses poetic (lowest parts of the earth) language to describe what happens in conception and in man’s development in the womb.

The Psalmist can say here,

For thou hast formed my inward parts.

The “reins” in the Hebrew thinking referred to the kidneys. In the Hebrew mindset the Kidneys (reins) was used to signify a man’s desires or longings. In this Psalm what is being communicated is that God was the one shaping our whole physical being including the core of our being. As the one who has formed us and woven us God is the one who has absolute right of ownership.

So, like the previous words of the Psalmist which spoke of the intimacy of God, inasmuch as God knows all there is to know about the Psalmist, and inasmuch as God is everywhere present to the Psalmist so here the intimacy of God to the Psalmist is declared in its most intense expression … “God is the one who knitted me.”

It is a reversed lesser to greater argument.

“Of course God knows me … of course God is everywhere present to me … After all, God is the one who created me before I was even cognizant to talk about a “me.”

What a deliciously Biblical (Reformed) way to speak.  God is always prior. In our being God is prior to our self consciousness. In our thinking God must be our beginning assumption. God, as the objective reality, precedes and gives definition to all our subjective encounters with His reality. From beginning to ending we begin and end with God.

Do not miss this high view of God. This high view of God is exactly the tonic that the Church needs to return to in order to be faithful once again. The Psalmist here is intoxicated with the character and glory of God. It is his main reality in which he comprehends all other reality. When he finds any value in himself it is only because He understands the creative work of God in creating his self.

Note again here God’s personal involvement in the affairs of His people. His not a bloodless God so to speak. He is not removed us as some kind of passionless God. From our conception to the end of our days God is present as our Creator… as our High King … as our companion. Christianity is not the faith of the stoic who endures for the sake of some absent God. God is near and present. God sees … God cares … God loves.

As moderns we tend to be amazed with our technology. We stand amazed at in vitro fertilization. We stand amazed at stem cell research. We stand amazed the prospects of cloning. But we have largely lost the ability to stand amazed at the God who stands over and above all this technology like a great Architect stands over his child’s first Lego house.

The Psalmist presses on. Not only does he speak of God’s work in his creation but he speaks also of God’s intimate knowledge of his own end. (Psalm 139:16).

It is not only that the Psalmist is fashioned for God it is also that the days of the Psalmist are fashioned by God. Here is the strong Biblical (Reformed) doctrine of Predestination. Before conception God has numbered our days. This ought to give us great confidence. Nobody can take a day from our life nor can we add a day to those days that God has ordained for us. Let the wicked breathe out threats against us. They are no threat to the one who holds are days in the palm of His hand.

Application

1.) If we honestly believe Psalm 139 we will be slower to cavil against God when He forms and weaves some children different from others. God forms and weaves the Down’s syndrome child, the cystic fibrosis child, the cerebral palsy child. Why?

On this side of eternity who of us could ever begin to say, but confidence in the God who forms and weaves all requires us to rest in His character and wisdom, as difficult as that often times is.

2.) Of course it is fitting in our looking at this only a few days after the commemoration of those who were tortured and murdered while still in the womb. To date this is how we have treated some 57 million fellow image bearers.

Would any Christian, no matter how well intentioned, take up for Abortion if Psalm 139 and the Character of God it portrays was lodged deep within their souls? Would any of us dare to interrupt God’s work of forming and weaving a child thus communicating that we know His business better than he does?

In light of this weeks commemoration of 42 years of legalized slaughter, ponder the connection between the slaughter of innocent children, the rise of government brutality in the streets and courts of our land, and our own culpability as citizens. Here we turn to Kuyper,

“If the institution of government is an act of God’s grace and an important part of his common grace, then it is obvious that a people is punished with a bad government, and blessed with a good one. As the people is, as a rule so will its government be as well. If, as is the case among many African tribes [replace this with: ‘many Western nations’], there is no respect for human life among the people themselves, even to the extent of still being sunk into cannibalism, and if they murder recklessly among themselves and among other tribes, then it is quite understandable that their heads and rulers also do not show any respect for the life of their subjects. If, conversely, respect for human life has already entered the consciousness of all the people, so that murder is considered an abomination, then it is equally understandable that the government itself does not commit murder either, and to the contrary, tries to oppose all murder. Thus Holy Scripture teaches us that a good king must be honored as a blessing of God, and conversely, a people that itself sinks into sin is punished with bad rulers.”

From *Common Grace*, by Abraham Kuyper, vol. 3, p. 55 (1904 ed.)

IV.) Prayer that God would oppose those who hate His majesty

Of course when we turn away from God our hatred lands upon the judicially innocent.  We hate God we do all we can to strike out at Him. This is seen, in part, by our slaughter of the innocent. Surely no one can deny that the torture and elimination of the unborn is anything but hatred no matter how nicely we dress that hatred up with hand wringing and talk about “every child being a wanted child.”

But the Psalmist introduces us to a different kind of hatred here. It is a righteous hatred … a hatred of all that finds God to be vulgar and desultory. Thus we are taught that “hatred” is an inescapable category. Either we will hate those who hate God or we will hate those who God loves.

The Psalmist bellows hot with his claim of hatred. Something we find shocking. Keep in mind though that the Psalmist has been caught up in the vision of the glorious God he serves which has elicited strong affections of love to God. What else might we expect then but a corresponding loathing for those who are opposed to what the Psalmist deeply loves?

“Sin is the antithesis of virtue. That moral principle is the reason which makes us desire the reward of righteousness is one and the same with that which makes us crave the due punishment of wickedness; moral approval of virtue and moral indignation against evil are not effluences of two principles in the reason, but of one only. They are differentiated solely by the opposition of the two contrasted objects. The sincere approbation of the good necessitates moral indignation against the evil, because the objects of the two sentiments are opposites. Everybody thinks thus. Nobody would believe that man to be capable of sincere moral admiration for good actions who should declare himself incapable of moral resentment towards vile conduct.”

-R.L. Dabney
Christ Our Penal Substitute, pp. 48-49

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;

Alexander Pope

“They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”

― Edmund Burke

Conclusion

The Psalmist ends with the same theme he began with

“Search me”

The Psalmist invites his covenant Lord to continue to probe his inmost thoughts and feelings. He longs for the wicked way to be exposed and removed. He desires to walk in God’s law way.

Christ as the Light

Intro

The book of  John has several words that end up winding their way all the way through both his Gospel and his Epistles. In his Gospel John sets forth the Reformed antithesis with the repeated words “Light” and “Darkness.” St. John, inspired by the Holy Spirit sees men in only on of two camps. They are a people of the light or they are a people belonging to “Darkness.” There is no third category and no tertium quid.  If one belongs to darkness they belong to death. If one belongs to the light one belongs to Life.

As we are going to see this is is a theme that develops its way through the book of John.

I.) Light as Promised Re-creation (John 1:4-9)

When we look at Scripture as a whole one of the ways that we break it down is to speak of the Scriptures as God’s story of “Creation-Fall-Redemption and Re-creation.” This promised “Re-creation” is spoken of in Isaiah as connected to Light.

In Isaiah, for example, we can read of Messianic light that is coming that will announce God’s eschatological promised age to come,

Isaiah 60:1-3  Arise, O Jerusalem; be bright, for thy [a]light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 2 For behold, darkness shall cover the [b]earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 3 And the Gentiles shall walk in [c]thy light, and Kings at the brightness of thy rising up (cmp. Isaiah 42:6-7, 16).

I begin here because this Isaiah passage forces us to begin even earlier for in Isaiah 60 here the way that “light” is mentioned echoes Genesis 1:2-4. When Isaiah says, “darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples” likely is a connection with to Gen. 1

2  …  and [e]darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God [g]moved upon the [h]waters.3 Then God said, Let there be light: And there was [i]light. 4 And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated [j]the light from the darkness.”

So Isaiah 60:1-3 is setting forth the coming re-creation and restoration of Israel against the back drop  of the initial creation. The re-creation will have light shine upon it just as the initial creation did. When we get to the Gospel of John and when we note the application that the Lord Christ is the light we suspect that He is the Light of which Isaiah wrote. In the Lord Christ the fulfillment of the Isaianic prophecies has come to pass.

John opens up his gospel by saying of Christ, “In Him was life and the life was the light of man.”

We are being told here the long awaited re-creation has come in the Lord Christ. Christ is the light that has come that Isaiah spoke of.  In Luke / Acts there is especial application between the Light in Isaiah as applied to the Gentiles but here we see that John opens with Isaiah’s idea the light has come to God’s people.

4 [k]In him [l]was life, and that life was [m]the light of men. 5 [n]And that light shineth in the wilderness, and the darkness [o]comprehendeth it not.6 ¶ [p]There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This same came for a witness, to bear witness of that light, that all men[q]through him might believe. 8 He was not [r]that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. 9 [s]This was [t]that true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

Side-note #1 — Christ as “the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” confirms that all men are culpable. No man has an excuse against God for their rebellion for the true light which lighteth every man has come into the world.

Side-note #2 — When John speaks of the Light (the Lord Christ) having light in Himself this is another claim to deity we find in John. John will quote Jesus later saying that as the Father has life in Himself so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.

II.) Light as that which exposes and condemns (John 3:19f)

John 3:19And this is the condemnation, that that light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than that light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every man that evil doeth, hateth the light, neither cometh to light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds might be made manifest, that they are wrought according to God.

Here the Lord Christ sets forth the reason that the world rejects Him. In His arrival the Lord Christ is the light that exposes whether a person is righteous or not. So, this light that comes into the world that bespeaks the restoration and re-creation is an offense and elicits hatred from those who love darkness.

And that is what we see in the ministry of the Lord Christ. He was despised, hated, and rejected by those who hated God.

One Implication

Now in as much as we are reflectors of this light we  likewise will be  hated by those who doeth evil. Really, in this culture and in these times it really is the case that our expectation should be to be hated by all just the right people.  We need to remember that “If the world hates us, we know that it  hated Christ before it hated us. If we are of the light we will get the same response as He who is the Light.

As I mentioned at the beginning we should note here in John 3 the interplay with darkness. In John the theme is not only light but darkness. We shall see that as we move through these passages. One of the most interesting ways that John uses the idea of darkness is to note the presence of  nighttime. Nicdoemus comes to Jesus, John records, “when it was night,” and in the Judas betrayal. John tells us that Judas goes to betray the Lord Christ and then John adds, almost as an aside,  that “it was night.” Judas goes to do his hate work of quenching the light and He does so in the context of darkness (night).

III.) Light as a metaphor for God’s Law-Word (John 8:12)

In  Psalm 119 as combined with John 8:12 we notice a connection between the God’s law-word as a light that shines upon one’s path and the Lord Christ. In John 8 the metaphor of a light to illumine a path may well be a connection to  Psalm 119. This idea of God’s Law-Word being a light unto our path  is taken up by the Lord Christ as he applies it  to Himself.

The Psalmist says,

Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a [b]lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my paths.

The Lord Christ can say,

John 8:12 [d]Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am that light of the world: he that followeth me, shall not walk in darkness, but shall have that light of life.

So, we might say here that in this couplet of Psalm 119 and John 8 that the Lord Christ is declaring that He Himself is the incarnation of God’s Law-Word which for the Psalmist was his lamp and light. If we remember that Psalm 119 is all about the delight that the Pslamist finds in God’s laws, precepts, and judgments we would be well served to remember that there is no avoidance of walking in the darkness apart from the Light which is the law and whom also is Christ.

IV.) The Light as connected with the Healing ministry of the Messiah (John 9:4f)

In Isaiah we read of the promised Servant and His work,

Isaiah 42:16 ¶ And I will bring the [s]blind by a way, that they knew not, and lead them by paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them…

In John we see the Lord Christ as the Light that quite literally fulfills all that Isaiah spoke of.

John 9:4 [c]I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is [d]day: the night cometh when no man can work.5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

This passage is in the context of the man born blind. Immediately, after referring to himself as the “light of the world” Jesus heals the blind man. Those present would likely have seen Isaiah’s prophecy playing out before them.  Isaiah spoke of a Messiah who would be a light who opens the eyes of the blind and would make the darkness light before them.

The Lord Jesus is the Messiah who is bringing the new creational realities to bear upon the fallen world. In Christ, the age to come has come and in Christ, who is the Light of the World, the age to come is reversing the sin corrupted realities of this present age. The healing of the blind man (living in a world of darkness) is evidence that the re-creation has come in Jesus who is the Messianic light.

V.) Light as our identity (John 12:35)

John 12:35 [n]Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you: walk while ye have that light, lest the darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in the dark, knoweth not whither he goeth.36 While ye have that light, believe in that light, that ye may be the [o]children of the light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and hid himself from them….46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me, should not abide in darkness.

Isaiah 9:2 — The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

As we talked about earlier our connection to Christ is to be so intimate that we take on His character of light.

Conclusion

Really this has been just the briefest of survey of the usage of light in John. There are more connections that we could make. This gives us enough to see that this metaphor that Christ uses has an important background. The theme of “Light” weaves itself all the way from Genesis to the very end of Revelation.

We  speak of Christ as “the light” being a metaphor for God’s Truth, God’s presences, God’s recreation, God’s condemnation unto those who hate the light, God’s direction via His Law Word.

We would note again that Light in the OT was spoken of in the context of the Messiah and the promised re-creation. The Messiah has come and, in principle, this present wicked age has been and so is being rolled back.

This is objectively true and does not depend upon how we personally feel about it. The Light has come. We are children of the Light.

We have to live then, as we have been fully declared to be.

Simeon’s Entrance

Introduction — Preliminary Considerations

When Simeon’s pronouncement concerning the Messiah is read in concert with Mary’s Song and with Zacharias’ Prophecy one sees that the shared theme is that God has remembered His past promises.

Mary

Luke 1:54 He has helped his servant Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
55 as he spoke to our fathers,
    to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Zachariah

Luke 1:72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers
    and to remember his holy covenant,

Simeon

For my eyes have seen your salvation

The salvation that had long been promised

In each of these outbursts of praise the central point is God remembering His covenant promises of salvation. The central point is most definitely NOT the impoverished social class to which these Hebrews belonged. Yes, Mary, and Zachariah, and Simeon, and Anna, by all accounts were oppressed and likely comparatively impoverished people but we moderns have taken the wrong point from that. Instead of marveling at God who remembers His promises we focus on the economic and social class position of  Zachariah (or Mary, or Simeon, or Anna, etc.). as being poor. Yet, poverty as poverty doesn’t score you any points in the Kingdom of God if one doesn’t belong to Christ and the people of God.  The primary focus here is on the God who keeps covenant. We know that because that was the primary focus of the Saints here.

Simeon was waiting for the “Consolation of Israel.”

Israel had been under the boot of its enemies for centuries. Consolation is the hope of renewal and restoration.

Anna, “Spoke to all those who looked for redemption in Israel.

Redemption is likely the idea that God had provided a deliverer.

In both cases the emphasis on these Saints is what God is doing. The long wait is over. God’s consolation has come. The weariness acquired will be removed.

The focus clearly is both Trinitarian-centric. Still, many are the exegetes who want to come to these passages and talk about Liberation Theology. They want to look at the impoverished state of the Holy Family and all these witnesses but that is manifestly NOT the point.

The antithesis in the Scripture is not between Rich vs. Poor but between the Seed of the Serpent vs. The seed of the woman. And what these representatives of the Old Testament (Simeon and Anna) are doing is shouting the arrival of the long anticipated seed of the woman.

The emphasis in all these prophetic outbursts in Luke’s Birth of Christ story is that God remembers His people who are being oppressed by the Wicked mighty. The whole thrust of Luke’s songs is to demonstrate that God has not forgotten His people despite the fact it might look that way and despite the fact that they are being oppressed by wickedness in high places (Herod, Augustus Caesar etc.). The fact that the Lord Christ is born among the lowly does not prove that lowliness as lowliness is a virtue. After all Jesus was born of the line of great King David and God includes the High Born in the Nativity story by including visitation from the Kings of the East. In Scripture God esteems those in Covenant, rich or poor, and destroys those outside of covenant, rich or poor.
The point in Luke’s Songs is not that God favors poor people over  rich people. The point is that God has remembered Israel and has done so despite her captivity and the low status she has sunken into. This is Redemptive History and what is being accentuated is God remembering His promise to raise up a Messiah. The character of God is primarily what is being put on display, not the status of those whom He is remembering. What is not being accentuated is that God is social class conscious.

Believe me, if the story were written today, given how much the Wealthy are hated, God would have His Messiah born among the rich and royal to add the dramatic punch to the story line of “isn’t God amazing that He brought His Messiah among such ignoble filthy rich people.” However, what we don’t see in the nativity narrative of the horrid “social class conscious Theology of today” is the amazing God who keeps His promises no matter what. No, as little Marxists what we see instead are the amazing poor people who, “naturally enough” are lifted up. “Given their noble poverty they deserve it after all” seems to be the emphasis.

This preoccupation of the Church in the West with Social class categories completely flummoxes me. God loves the righteous in Christ regardless of their socio-economic status and he hates the wicked outside of Christ regardless of their socio-economic status… even if they are as poor and wretched as the poorest one can imagine in the third world.
Why is it that we seem to think that God loves the impoverished more than the Wealthy simply on the basis of their impoverishment? God loves His people in Christ. The Wealthy saints have a charge to keep in terms of their brethren of low estate but those of low estate are not superior to those of wealth if they are both looking to Christ and resting in him, just as the wealthy are not superior to those of poverty in terms of status before God just because they are wealthy.

I.) Simeon’s Prophecy — The Work of the Holy Spirit

Mention of the Holy Spirit — 25, 26, 27

This work of the Holy Spirit upon Simeon brings to the fore the work of the Holy Spirit in the whole life of Christ. Here the Holy Spirit is directing the feet of this old saint to magnify Christ as the Messiah. This same Holy Spirit, who came upon Mary in order that the Virgin would conceive, now comes upon Simeon to testify to the Messianic reality and purpose.

For our Lord Christ there is a dependence, during His humiliation, upon the Holy Spirit at every turn and at every turn the Holy Spirit is magnifying Christ. We see that here. The Holy Spirit is directing Simeon to witness to the reality and purpose of Jesus as the Christ. Later, the Holy Spirit will anoint Christ at Baptism and then will immediately lead Christ into the desert to be tempted and then upon completion of the Temptation, Christ will tell all that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him.

Luke 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The Spirit accompanies Christ from His conception to his death and resurrection. And here we see the Spirit of God guiding the steps of Simeon in order to declare Messiah to those with ears to hear. So, whether the Lord Christ is being announced as Messiah (Luke 2:25f, or whether he is preaching (Luke 4:18) or performing miracles (Mt. 12:28), or whether he is offering up Himself on the Cross (Heb. 9:14) or whether He is being resurrected from the grave (Romans 8:11) the Holy Spirit is bearing witness and empowering the Lord Christ from beginning to end.

17th century Theologian John Owen could offer here,

“And hence is [the Spirit]  the immediate operator of all divine acts of the Son Himself, even on His human nature. Whatsoever the Son of God wrought in, by,  or upon His nature, He did it by the Holy Ghost, who is His Spirit, as He is the Spirit of the Father.”

We should not be surprised then that the Holy Spirit who would be the one who would lead and sanctify the Lord Christ throughout His ministry would be the person who leads Simeon so directly in making the Christ known.

II.) Simeon’s Prophecy — Nunc Dimittis

“Numc Dimittis” Plummer writes, “The Nunc Dimittis. In its suppressed rapture and vivid intensity this canticle equals the most beautiful of the Psalms. Since the fifth century it has been used in the evening services of the Church (Apost. Const. vii 48), and has often been the hymn of dying saints. It is the sweetest and most solemn of all the canticles.” Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to S. Luke, The International Critical Commentary Series,

Here then is Simeon, a man who knew that God held him in the palm of His hand, now holding God in his arms.

We have only 4 verses here but like the other Songs of Luke, we see that these are crafted by people who were crafted by God’s Revelation.

Zachariah says, “For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples.”

How much does that sound like this from Psalm 98?

The LORD has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God (Ps. 98:2-3).

Zachariah, speaking of this Messiah says, “A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of your people Israel

“I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations …” Isa. 42:6-8 (cf. 49:6)

The LORD has bared His holy arm In the sight of all the nations; That all the ends of the earth may see The salvation of our God (Isa. 52:10).

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth, And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you, And His glory will appear upon you. And nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isa. 60:1-3).

This demonstrates that God’s people were saturated in Scripture. They thought in terms of God’s revelation. They are interpreting all of their reality in terms of God’s word.

Of course the question that begs being asked here is …. Do we think in terms of God’s revelation? In terms of God’s mind?

III.) Simeon’s Prophecy — Suffering

In the other songs of Luke the theme of Triumph is prevalent.

Mary

51 He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
    and exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.

Zachariah

that we should be saved from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us;
72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers
    and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
74     that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75     in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

In Simeon’s prophecy however we hear hints of the ultimate humiliation of Christ. The arrival of God’s salvation will be a sign spoken against.

A sign of what we might ask. And I would offer, given the context, a sign of God’s salvation. And Christ was spoken against.

While Christ was alive they hinted that he was illegitimately born. After his death he was a sign spoken against,

Acts 4:2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

Acts 17:32 (Mars Hill) Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.

Acts 28:22 …. “for with regard to thissect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.”

And Christ as God’s salvation is still spoken against.

Simeon speaks of the rising and falling in connection with Christ as God’s salvation and also of the sorrow that is coming to Mary.

IV.) Simeon’s Prophecy — Missions

A.) First note the way God calls

Simeon says that the Lord’s salvation was prepared before the face of all the peoples

The phrase there is plural. The Scripture everywhere and always speaks of the peoples and the nations. It does not view mankind as a amorphous blob of humanity. Whether it is in the OT passages which we earlier looked at that refers to Nations or whether it is here where Salvation is prepared before the faces of all the peoples or whether it is the great commission where Christ instruct that the Nations are to be discipled or whether it is the book of Revelation where we see the Nations entering into the new Jerusalem everywhere the Scripture presupposes that God works with peoples and nations.

A Reformed Old Testament scholar who taught at Calvin Seminary, retiring circa 1960,

Martin Wyngaarden recognized this when he wrote,

“Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden
The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture pp. 101-102.

This is a hard pill to swallow for modern man for in Rushdoony’s words,

“Man is now defined as humanity rather than the individual, and this great one, humanity, to be truly a unity, must exist as one state. in this picture, any assertion of individuality, local or national independence, or the reality of races, is viewed with hostility as a sign of mental sickness; it is an assertion of plurality, which challenges the reality and unity of the universal. It is a ‘sick’ shattering of the great oneness of being. But, since differences and distinctions are basic to all description and definition, meaning disappears as this universal triumphs.”

~Rushdoony,
“The One and the Many

B.) Second note here the clear implication that Christ, who is God’s salvation, is a Christ for all peoples.

God is no respecter of persons and His Gospel is for all people groups in all places at all times. God commands all men and all nations everywhere to repent and we are promised that there will be people in the new Jerusalem of every “tribe, tongue, and nation.”

So we have a need to be expansive and indiscriminate in our setting forth of the Gospel. There is no person … no people group who are outside of God’s command to repent.

Conclusion

God still has not forgotten His people. This is an objective fact.

For those of us who are the Israel of God we still have this Consolation … we still have this redemption. God remains faithful.

We still can delight in the fact that God is gaining the victory in Christ.

Isaiah 9 and Christmas Post-millennial Advent

 

In our first week of Advent I took some time to speak about the culture wars, particularly how those culture wars have manifested themselves against Christmas. I looked at how Christmas has been subtly undermined and challenged us to not be swept away by the Cultures re-definition of Christmas.

The Next two weeks I tried to set out how the birth of Christ was consistent with the expectation of earlier portions of prophecy in the OT. First, we looked at Herod’s slaughter of the Innocent and the escape of the Holy family and their return as well as the significance of Christ being a “Nazarene.” We noted the ways that that event in the NT served as a recapitualtion of the Narrative of OT Israel in the life of Jesus. Last  week we considered the prophecy of the Virgin Birth in the OT and how that fit with the Birth of Christ.

This week in our 4th Advent Sermon we want to look at the Scriptures that speak of the great glory of the King and the implied inevitable victory of that Great King over all his opponents. What we are suggesting is that with the coming of Christ God’s triumph has arrived and His victory is inevitable.

This inevitability and certainty of victory has been a truism of Christianity that has been stolen from us by one of the great Christian Heresies — Marxism. Marx wrote, “the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”

When once believe their cause will inevitably be victorious they live and move in terms of the inevitability and certainty of that victory.  Christians need to regain this sense of inevitable and certain victory that was characteristic of their Faith for generations.

And that inevitability and certainty of Victory is caught up in the celebration of Christmas.

“The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has a light shined.
You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the trampling warrior in battle tumult,
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
For unto us a child is born,
Unto us a son is give;
and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
(Isaiah 9:2-7, emphasis mine)

Here we have a promised change coming for the burdened people of God. The passage describes them as living under the oppression of Darkness to now living under the dawning of great light. All this as metaphor for going from being downtrodden to being released.

Then we have briefly described a people who are transitioning from oppression to liberty. The yoke of the enemy has been cast off and the rod of the oppressor has been broken by a deliverer. In place of the enemies yoke and rod comes the kind of joy and gladness associated with harvest and military victory.

In all this God has done something to make the tools of the enemy’s warfare be abolished. There is the introduction of a child who will rule as King.

When we consider again the mention of “Light” in the beginning of this passage

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light”

we are reminded that ‘Light,’ throughout the book of Isaiah as well as all of Scripture is a metaphor  for God’s blessings, presence and revelation (Is. 9:2, 30:26, 42:6, 16, 60:1-3), unto His people. So, again, what is being promised here in reversing travail and oppression is the very presence of God.

We must not miss the idea of this Light because when the utter fulfillment of this promise comes to pass and when this child arrives what we read of is Light,

“9 And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone about them, and they were sore afraid.”

And John’s Gospel can speak this way of the Lord Christ … And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

And our Lord Christ will even speak of Himself as being the “Light of the world.”

We capture something of this idea of the promised coming Light when we sing during this season our songs,

O Little down of Bethlehem

Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light,
The hopes and fears of all the years,
Are met in thee tonight.

O Come All Ye Faithful

True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal,
Lo, he shuns not the Virgin’s womb;
Son of the Father, begotten, not created;

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings

Christ is that male child spoken of and is the Light that God promised in Isaiah. The Lord Christ is the one who was promissory of the great reversal in the fortunes for His people.  The Lord Christ is the one who occasions the great reversal in the circumstances of God’s people.

This whole passage in Isaiah is indicative of the great anticipation that we as Christians continue to have — especially in this Advent season.  We do believe that the Light has dawned upon us with the coming of Christ but we also believe that we go from Light unto Light. This is to say that while we confess that God’s presence has come in Christ we anticipate the presence of God to magnify itself in the affairs of men over the course of time. We take seriously the phrase in this passage which teaches that

the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,

And so we anticipate that He who is now on David’s throne and who is now ruling will continue to extend His dominion progressively over the whole of a earth which He already rules now in Principle.

Men who are opposed to Christ and His Kingdom will be conquered and will find themselves to be glad subjects of this great King who upholds His Kingdom with justice and righteousness.

This is captured in a verse of “Angels from the Realm of Glory,”

“Sinners, wrung with true repentance,
Doomed for guilt to endless pains,
Justice now revokes the sentence,
Mercy calls you; break your chains.”

This all begins with the Birth of this promised child spoken of in Isaiah 2.

R.J. Rushdoony, in his book Institutes of Biblical Law: Volume 1 tells us,

“The joyful news of the birth of Christ is the restoration of man to his original calling with the assurance of victory. This has long been celebrated in Christmas carols… The cultural mandate [i.e. fulfilling the Dominion Mandate (Genesis 1:26-28) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20)] and postmillennialism is either explicit or implicit in Christmas carols.”

During this Christmas season we are reminded from this Isaiah passage that with the birth of the Lord Christ comes the promise of His eventual total Victory, in time and space, over all that and all who oppose Him. This is the essence of meaning of that 10 dollar word “Postmillennialism.”

With that Birth of Christ we expect that, in the words of Ken Genty,

“the proclaiming of the Spirit-blessed gospel of Jesus Christ will win the vast majority of human beings to salvation in the present age. We expect Increasing gospel success (which) will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ’s return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of people and of nations. After an extensive era of such conditions the Lord will return visibly, bodily, and in great glory, ending history with the general resurrection and the great judgment of all humankind.

And that expectation, contained here in Isaiah 9 we sing of every year in our songs.

“Joy to the World”:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come,
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow,
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove,
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love.

Note the language. The Birth of Christ is “Joy to the World,” …. the whole Earth is to “receive her King.” The effect of the arrival of the Lord Christ is the ending of thorns and the curse. He “makes the NATIONS prove.”

The birth of the Lord Christ is not some provincial affair that can be kept secret. The Lands of Allah will surrender to Christ. The inroads of Marxism and Humanism that has captured nations will totter and fall down to be replaced by the already present Lordship of Jesus Christ. Men who now curse the thought of Christ and who are now in the chains of their own spite and the shackles of their own sin will be conquered and set free to gladly serve Christ. This is what Isaiah speaks of and this is what our Western Christmas Carols echo. Consider,

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With Peace On Earth, Good Will To Man.

The Christian religion is a faith of ultimate and total victory, where the very gates of hell cannot prevail against Christ and His chosen people (Matt. 16:18).

The triumph of Christ and of the Christian faith should be celebrated annually during the Advent season. In the Incarnation — from Birth to Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension — the Lord Christ has gained the victory that is now being worked out in space and time. He is even now, as He was upon His Birth,

“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

And He is even now increasing a government and a peace that shall know no end. This Mighty God champions over men by His Gospel which announces that those who are prisoners to their sin and who are in hostility to the great King can sue for pardon and be forgiven and so released.

Well could Charles Wesley write emphasizing this reconciliation that Christ brings to those who walked in darkness and who even loved that darkness they walk in,

Hark the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled”
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies

So when we celebrate Advent and Christmas we celebrate not only the coming of a child lowly born. We celebrate the fact that this Child is “God with us– Emmanuel,” and we celebrate the sure and certain victory His life, death, and resurrection guarantees. Christmas is about the present and future triumph of God in space and time History against all those who would mute the voice of justice and righteousness and would think that they can forever successfully make war against the King of heaven. Christmas is about the Prince of Peace bringing in that Peace that He has already brought in.

We moderns speak so foolishly about Peace

Imagine all the people living life in peace — John Lenon

‘Cause out on the edge of darkness,
There rides a peace train.
Oh, peace train take this country.
Come take me home again.  — Cat Stevens

But the only way peace can come between man and man is when man’s warfare against God is ended and in the Birth of Christ the provision for the end of that warfare has arrived.  We sing of this every Christmas,

“O Holy Night”

A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn,
Fall on your knees, O hear the angel’s voices,
O night divine, O night when Christ was born.

“A new and glorious morn breaks”, because Christ’s blood has been spilled, the just for the unjust  that those who were once afar off from God could come near and know the end of their hostility and the meaning of genuine peace. This peace of God, is found only in the Christ of the Bible and His finished work.

A weary world can rejoice because in the death of the Lord Christ their rebellion against God has been punished and they now can sue for peace. All those hostilities that find themselves manifested in long simmering hatreds, jealousies, and individual twisted-ness can be brought to the Cross and laid down and men can find peace with God and so peace with man.

And none of this would be true save for the birth of He who remains Mighty God and Prince of Peace.

Because of God’s work in sending Christ, Christianity anticipates that definitive conquest of God and His people in the affairs of men precisely because in the incarnation and Redemptive work of Christ God already has conquered over His enemies. We Christians are confident of God’s Victory,and so are Heralds of this Gospel triumph that God has gained in Christ. We command all men everywhere to repent and remind men that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Our Christians Fathers so believed in the inevitability of this victory that is set forth in Isaiah 9 and throughout Scripture that they wove that Triumph into our Christmas songs.

Hark, The Herald Angel’s sing

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;

O come, All ye faithful,

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant

Those who are in Christ are the happy humble warriors. Happy because they know the one promised has come and so they know that their victory is certain, no matter the opposition.

Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,