Category: Sermons

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

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.