Category: Sermons

Galatians 3:26f & The Indiscriminate Nature of the Gospel AND the Foolishness of Social Egalitarianism

Galatians 3:26-29

26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

—

BACKGROUND

To pick up the stream of thought of that which is going before in Galatians we find the emphasis here on Sonship explained by the earlier teaching that before the advent of Christ the people of God were as children under the tutelage of the ceremonial law (3:24-25). The problem in Galatians is that the Judaizers desired to foist upon Gentile Christians the ceremonial law. The Judaizers were in effect saying that in order to become Christians one had to become cultural Jews observing circumcision and Jewish food laws. St. Paul in Galatians argues a resounding “NO” to the Judaizing idea that the Gentiles had to become cultural Jews in order to be Christian.

Christ has come and so the ceremonial law had served its purpose. The ceremonial law were to the people of God before Christ what braces were to a child with weak legs. Once those legs gain their strength the necessity for the braces end. The ceremonial law had the intent of placarding Christ before Christ came but once Christ had arrived in order to be an aid to faith. However with the arrival of Christ those ceremonial law braces are fulfilled and are no longer needed. The case with the Judaizers in Galatia however is that they were telling these non-Jewish converts they had to put the legal braces back on.

The Holy Spirit argues that with the advent of Christ there is no longer a need for braces. The old age that required the law as a tutor for children has passed and the new age wherein we are no longer children but sons of God has dawned.

This is where St. Paul starts in vs 26. There are all Sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Of course the Sonship that Paul speaks is a son-ship by Adoption. Jew or Gentile those brought into the family of God are brought in by Adoption. We have passed through the courtroom and have been declared righteous because of the finished work of Jesus Christ wherein as our substitute our sins are owned by Christ as His own and His righteousness is reckoned to our account. Now having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ we now have access to the family room. The court room has an exit that leads to the family room and there we find adoption. We are not treated as the former criminals and sinner that we were but now we have concourse and fellowship with God and all the Saints who are now and who have gone before.

We are adopted. We have all the privileges of family. There is the sense of intimacy, the ability to cry out Abba Father, the confidence that God as our Father will provide, protect, comfort, and discipline, each as in turn we need. We are adopted and because of that we can have confidence of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And the inspired Apostle says that this adoption is through faith in Jesus Christ just as our Justification was through faith in Jesus Christ. Like Justification, this adoption is a forensic / legal category. Our Adoption is not a matter of our emotions or feelings at any given time but it is a matter of being legally true. Because of the finished work of Jesus Christ it is a legal fact that can’t be altered that I / we belong to the family of God. As a legal fact nothing can change that.

Our faith in Jesus Christ holds on to that Adoption just as it holds on to our Justification. Faith in Christ is the key that upon regeneration unlocks all these blessings.

It is interesting that the moment Paul talks about faith in Jesus Christ he immediately turns to Baptism thus joining at the hip again faith and baptism. Faith and Baptism have the closest possible relation. This faith that Paul talks about has as its badge of identity in baptism. Baptism is God’s sign and seal – His token that bespeaks the presence of faith.

So, intimately bound up is Baptism with faith that Paul can say that all of you that have been Baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. This is yet another objective category statement. Being baptized we have legally identified with Christ. Having been identified with Christ there is no need to go back to those ceremonial laws that the Judaizers wanted to press on the Gentiles. There is no need to run back to the ceremonial law for help with salvation. Instead we have but to look to Christ … look to our Baptism which proclaims Christ … remind ourselves of the faith that was given us as a gift of God.

We should mention here… and I mention this as a self-described theonomist that this is one of the dangers of some versions of theonomy. There is such a high regard for God’s law that it becomes a low regard for Christ. Theonomy if not built with guard rails can become a Judaizing error.

Next, with the mentioning of Sons of God we should briefly remind ourselves of the antithesis this implies along with the concept of adoption and baptism.

Either you are Sons of God or you are not. If you are not you are sons of your father the devil and so are Christ haters. It does not matter how civil, how nice, or how polite you are. If you are not Sons of God through faith in Christ God is opposed to you. Opposed to you every single day and with every single breath. This is what the Scriptures teach and this is what our Heidleberg catechism teaches,

God is terribly displeased with our inborn as well as our actual sins, and will punish them in just judgment in time and eternity, as he has declared: Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them (Deut. 27:26).

This is God’s attitude towards all those who do not have faith in Jesus Christ … towards all Christ haters. He is not a neutral God. He is a God who is either all in for His people as His Sons or He is all in as opposed to those who oppose Him. God is angular and will never be made smooth.

But the Gospel commands all men everywhere to repent and have faith and be Baptized and so clothe yourself with Christ. God commands…. will you not give up on your life of weariness characterized by a heavy laden-ness that no man should bear and look to Christ and so become a Son of God? God commands you to give up on gnawing on the vile and unseemly ends of your pathetic selfish life and come to Him to have life and life abundantly. Why would you ever rebel against such a life-giving command?

St. Paul then moves on in vs. 28 he demonstrates that regardless of very real distinctions that exist in their lives when it comes to this matter of Sonship – which is the subject at hand – there are no exceptions. Jews, Greeks, Slaves, Freeman, Men and Women are all alike Sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ … all who have clothed themselves with Christ in Baptism are Sons of God. When it comes to the issues of justification and adoption the ground at the Cross is level. Nobody has more status when it comes to being Sons of God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

This needed to be said because these Judaizers that the Apostle is contending with had a natural tendency to think of themselves as having a leg up on the Gentiles when it came to this business of being sons of God.

Something we need to realize though is that this text is very specific in the subject matter of which it treats. It is dealing with the issue of how the ground at the Cross is level when it comes to becoming Sons of God. It is not teaching a vapid egalitarianism. We know this if only by the fact that God gave Elders and Pastors to the Church as leaders for the Church. This teaches that there is such a thing as godly hierarchy and that even in the Church. Galatians 3:28 or its parallel passage Colossians 3:11 in no way teaches social egalitarianism.

We pause this morning to give more consideration to Gal. 3:28, if only because this text has become the center of a firestorm in the life of the contemporary Western Church.

In the last few decades, vs. 28 has been appealed to in order to legitimize the understanding that traditional, and heretofore thought to be Biblical role distinctions between men and women, both in the home and in the Church, are invalid, improper, and wrong.

It has been appealed to in such a fashion as to suggest that once people are converted all their creaturely distinctions are destroyed so that in becoming a son of God grace destroys nature. According to this Anabaptist type reasoning, the Church is the one place where enlightenment egalitarianism should be pursued.

Vs. 28 is appealed to as being the text that informs us that as Christians a new social order has dawned that sloughs off the consequences of the fall, which includes the consequence of Male headship in the home and in the Church. Those who make this appeal reason backwards from Galatians 3:28 to suggest that in the creation order and before the fall there was no notion of male headship and it is only with the fall and sin coming into the created order — they reason — that we find male headship. Put concisely, this ‘evangelical’ feminism argues that male headship is a consequence of sin that is reversed in Church and home (and culture where Christ’s rule sways) with the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. Galatians 3:28 is seen as a hermeneutical North star for many in the ‘Evangelical’ feminist camp. This text becomes the healing astringent that all other texts that deal with male and female relationships must be read through since it provides the constant that corrects all the other cultural relative situations with which all other New Testament texts are putatively infected.

We want to note that while this is an interesting and even innovative argument it hopelessly shipwrecks and splinters upon several significant boulders of reality.

First, there is the boulder that up until recently in Church history, no known major Church Theologian outside the Anabaptist camp read Galatians 3:28 in such a way as to suggest that because of the advent of Christ and the arrival of His Kingdom what arrives is this idea of an egalitarian social order that flattens out of all authority (Male and Female), class (Slave and Free), and ethnic (Jew and Gentile) distinctions. What we see then is that the recent hailing of Galatians 3:28 as the text of social egalitarianism is unique and has no historical legs upon which to stand.

Now, we must admit that it is possible that 2000 years of Church history got this text all wrong and further missed the egalitarian New Testament theology that it teaches. Further, we must concede that there may yet be found some Church Theologians in history who read Galatians 3:28 the way that it is being read today. Still, one would think that this lack of clear precedent would cause people to go slow on embracing Galatians 3:28 in a way that no Church Theologian in history, except for the Anabaptists, that we know of has ever embraced it.

Instead, we read from the Fathers quotes like this,

Difference of race or condition or sex is indeed taken away by the unity of faith, but it remains embedded in our mortal interactions, and in the journey of this life the apostles themselves teach that it is to be respected, and they even proposed living in accord with the racial differences between Jews and Greeks as a wholesome rule.

St. Augustine on Galatians 3:28

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3)

Second, there is the boulder of the rest of the New Testament Scripture. If it were the case that the Kingdom of Christ eliminates the idea of gender roles, class roles, and ethnic roles we would expect to find a consistent testimony to that end in the NT record, and yet quite to the contrary we find the opposite testimony. The New Testament retains distinction between male and female in Godly homes in passages like I Cor. 11:1-16, 14:34, I Tim. 2:11-14, Ephesians 5:22f, and I Pt. 3:1f. The New Testament retains distinctions between Jew and Gentile in passages like Romans 9-11 where the discussion centers on how Israel will be saved vis-à-vis the Gentiles and retains distinctions between nations that are inferior in some way from other nations (Titus 1:12). The New Testament retains distinctions between Slave and Free in passages like Philemon, Ephesians 6:5-9, Colossians 3:22-4:1, and I Timothy 6:1-2. There is simply no way that a fair-minded person can read the New Testament and conclude that it teaches some kind of social egalitarianism. Everywhere on the New Testament pages is the reality of gender, ethnic, and class distinctions and not in the sense that these distinctions are automatically evil.

Third, there is the boulder of the whole context of Galatians 3. From what we have seen as we have together worked through Galatians 3 the labor of the Apostle in this book is in no way connected to the issue of gender, labor or ethnic roles. Rather the issue in Galatians is how it is that Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to become Christians. The issue is the freedom that the Gentiles have in Christ quite apart from the desire of the Judaizers to foist upon the Galatians Jewish old Testament covenantal boundary markers that are obsolete because of the finished work of Christ. Galatians speaks up the completely gracious character of God’s salvation. To suddenly come upon vs. 28 and insist that it is the interpretive key that unlocks the revolutionary egalitarian nature of the Kingdom of God is to do egregious violence to the whole text of Galatians. Interpretively, such action is hermeneutical manslaughter.

Context is central in this matter. If I walk into a closed room and see and a 55 year old man hugging and kissing an 18 year old I need context in order to understand what is happening. It may be the case that this is a pervert that is forcing himself upon some young lady in which case I have need to come to her rescue. It may be the case that this is a May — December Marriage in which case I may need to tell them to get a room. And it may be the case that he is her grandfather and he is trying to console her over some kind of loss in which case I should shut the door and mind my own business. Context means everything.

What egalitarians do with Galatians 3:28 in order to support the idea that with the advent of the Gospel role distinctions are eliminated is the same as happening upon a May December Marriage and concluding that the gentlemen needs to be hauled off to jail. ‘Evangelical’ feminists in appealing to Galatians 3:28 in order to support their agenda are contextually challenged. Context means everything and the context of Galatians 3:28 has nothing to do with the elimination of gender, class, or ethnic distinctions that continue to exist in the Kingdom.

John Piper offers here that ,

The context of Galatians 3:28 makes abundantly clear the sense in which men and women are equal in Christ: they are equally justified by faith (v. 24), equally free from the bondage of legalism (v. 25), equally children of God (v. 26), equally clothed with Christ (v. 27), equally possessed by Christ (v. 29), and equally heirs of the promises to Abraham (v. 29).

I would only add that the same is true of Masters and Slaves and Jews and Gentiles.

Galatians 3:28 does nothing to overturn the Historical and Biblical categories that maintain social differences between different people. Now, to be sure Galatians 3:28 does eliminate things like hatred of the brethren that are different from us, precisely because we are all in Christ and are all children of God. The historical hatred of Jew for Gentile, the historical maltreatment of Master over slave, the historical abuse of men upon women was never God’s design but with the advent of Christ and with the bringing in of all these different relationships into the Church the former animosity between these groups is vanquished. BUT saying that former animosity is vanquished and saying that all are now equal in role is to say very different things.

With the advent of Christ and the presence of His Kingdom what the leaven of the Gospel works through home, church, and culture is not the elimination and flattening out of the richness of the varied social tapestry that constitutes life but rather the putting right of the social tapestry that was rent by the fall. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ what we should expect to find is neither a gender blender society, nor a society where labor and capital distinctions are gathered up into some kind of socialistic nirvana, nor a society where ethnic or racial distinctions are effaced. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ we should anticipate the restoration of true masculinity and femininity is on display in marriages where incredibly intelligent wives eagerly submit to incredibly humble husbands, who are in a haste to love their wives sacrificially. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ we should anticipate a renewed harmony of interests between Master and Slave where each realizes that their own interests are best served by looking out for the interest of the other. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ we should anticipate the different nations (ethnos) being brought into the Kingdom so that on that last day they will enter into the new Jerusalem nation by nation so that what is heard is the beautiful harmony of a multi-part Choir where every still distinct tribe, tongue and nation render praise unto the King of Kings. The extension of the Kingdom of Christ does not result in a situation where all the ‘colors bleed into one.’ That is a socialistic humanistic vision. The extension of the Kingdom of Christ results in the old Puritan notion of the ‘harmony of interests.’

Returning to our boulders we must mention one last boulder that the ship of hermeneutical feminism crashes against as it seeks to twist Galatians 3:28 to its end. The last boulder is that the reading that ‘Evangelical’ Feminism is trying to use for Galatians 3:28 proves too much. If it really is the case that social order distinctions are eliminated in Christ, including that of maleness and femaleness then the Church has little room left to oppose homosexuality in the Church. If Galatians 3:28 teaches that there is no longer male or female in Christ, and if that means that traditional distinctions between men and women no longer exist because of Christ’s Kingdom, then how can we maintain that sexual distinctions are an exception? More then that if the presence of Christ’s Kingdom provides the kind of egalitarianism that these hermeneutical wizards insist upon then where is the room for parental authority over children? If children are equal to parents because they are all in Christ then on what basis can parents require obedience? If that reductio sounds stupid it is supposed to. The only reason that otherwise normal people no longer find the reasoning of ‘Evangelical’ feminists to be equally stupid when it comes to their egalitarian appeals is because we have slowly been conditioned to accept it. In this culture and in the Western Church I may have to live with it but I don’t accept it.

There remain functional differences between gender, labor and ethnic categories. We all are ontologically human but functionally speaking there remains God honoring differences. We all have the same value before God, all being made in God’s image, but just as in a choir both the mezzo Soprano and the Alto are ontologically human, they remain functionally separated. Both of their functions are needed for a good choir and are to be esteemed in their place. A good choir doesn’t get better by making every one sing the same bland part. The same kind of thing is true when it comes to the insipid blandness that is being reached for in terms of male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile by the egalitarians among us.

Now returning to Galatians 3:28 we may ask ourselves why the Apostle chooses the three couplets of ‘male – female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile?

Of course we can’t say authoritatively because the text doesn’t authoritatively say but we perhaps can make a pretty good guess. The answer may be very much in keeping with the context that is going on here.

In vs. 29 the Church is reminded that they are ‘heirs according to the promise.’ Now in order to be an heir their must be an inheritance and quite obviously that inheritance is all the blessings that we have in Christ Jesus. In choosing the couplets that he chooses the Holy Spirit may be intimating the superior character of the new and better covenant as opposed to the old and worse covenant. Under the Old Testament law, Greeks, slaves, and females could not inherit land and property directly. These were restricted in the life of the old covenant. However in the New and better covenant the anti-type inheritance has come to which the inheritance of land and property in the OT was only a type, and it comes in such a way that people from every tribe, tongue, nation, class, gender, and economic strata can directly inherit. The inheritance cocoon that was the Old covenant produces a butterfly inheritance that is beyond and above what anybody in the Old covenant could have anticipated. No boundaries are erected to the inheritance of salvation. All may inherit. All may become sons of God.

And the effect of the fullness of that inheritance coming to more and more people including the renewal that is part of it is not an ugly egalitarianism where all distinction and diversity is crushed. That can only be some kind of Unitarian vision where the singleness and unitary character of God produces a bland and unitary character of culture. No, the Trinitarian Christian vision is that the effect of the inheritance coming to more and more people makes for a renewal where people in their different God honoring roles and places work increasingly together to advance the Glory of God by honoring God in the places and roles to which they have been placed and called.

He who is not with me is against me… No Neutrality

Matthew 12:22f

Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the [d]blind and mute man both spoke and saw. 23 And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”

24 Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by [e]Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”


25 But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.

26 If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. 28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. 30 He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

Here Jesus enters into contest once again w/ His enemies.

We need to realize as we have noted before that the miracle here is significant. This miracle of Jesus as all miracles is communicating that the Kingdom of God is among them and that the long awaited Messiah is in their midst.

We know this due to the testimony of the OT and then Jesus interpretation of the OT.

In Isaiah 35:5-6 we read,

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.”

In the previous chapter to the one we are looking at this morning we (Mt. 11) John the Baptist has just been imprisoned. In his perplexity, no doubt born of the incongruity of his being imprisoned combined with the Kingdom of God having arrived he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he really is the Coming One. Jesus responds in this way:

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me”

Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God has come and He is the Messiah-King ushering it in. The miracles of Jesus were the attestation of that truth. Jesus fulfills what the OT promised in terms of the Messiah-King and the coming of the Kingdom.

So… this miracle here in Mt. 12 is another scream from heaven that the King and Kingdom has come. The question “Could be this the Son of David,” being murmured among the crowd was a murmuring that connected Jesus to being the Messiah-King and the one who was bringing in the Kingdom.

Let us pause here to note something about the coming of the Kingdom.

*With the arrival of Christ, the Kingdom of God has come. This is the truth that is the cornerstone of Postmillennialism. Christ brought the Kingdom. Now that Kingdom has not yet been consummated but it has been inaugurated and so it is now present among us and the anticipation is that the intensity of the present Kingdom goes from break out to break out so that it is seen that we are getting closer and closer to the not yet but coming consummation of that already present Kingdom. The strong man has been bound. He has been and is being plundered of his goods. The yeast of victory is working itself through the whole cosmos. The Kingdom is present.

We must not make the error of the Amillennialist who admit there is a nowness to the Kingdom but who for all practical purposes live as if the Kingdom is now and always will be completely not yet since they have reduced the reality of the Kingdom to a “spiritual” reality. The Amillennialist has no swagger … no moxie since they don’t really believe on a practical everyday level that the Kingdom has come and is now in more than a spiritual manner.

The Postmillennialist on the other hand is confident in the presence of the Kingdom and he lives and walks in terms of the anticipation of the ever-expanding reality of the Kingdom. As such he carries himself with a humble swagger and he knows the moxie of being on the side that is victorious.

We need a return to this kind of Postmillennialism because the terminal expectations of pessimillennialism yields up the defeat that pessimillennialist’s eschatology expect.

Enter the Pharisees. Here we see them practicing what would become centuries later known as one of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” The Pharisees accuse Christ of doing what they are guilty of. They accuse the Lord Jesus of being in league with Beelzebub (Satan). They accuse our Master of being empowered by the Prince of Darkness.

Now, this is a serious accusation as we learn in the Markan account of this event.

“‘Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’—for they were saying, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’ ” – Mark 3:28–30

The Pharisees are in full personal soul damning mode. They were the ones who were trained, and so were to be experts in identifying the Messiah in their midst and yet when the Messiah arrives they turn on Him like a rabid dog and accuse Him of the most vile thing possible.

We learn from the context then that this unforgivable sin is the persistent, knowing, verbal attribution of the work of God to Satan. Such blasphemy is unforgivable not because the Lord is unwilling to forgive but because a person guilty of such sin has fully and finally hardened his heart against the grace of God. He does not want to be forgiven and will never ask for forgivness. Someone who is trained to identify the character of God and who in spite of knowing better identifies what he or she knows to be the case as the work of God as the work of Satan are anathema.

The Logos of God responds to them with basic logic.

6 If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. 28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?

Several matters to note here;

1.) Satan has a Kingdom and it is that Kingdom that Christ’s Kingdom is opposed to and has defeated and is rolling back. As of late there has been some confusion regarding Kingdom talk. I don’t have time to get into it into detail here but allow me to say that Scripture teaches here that ultimately there are two Kingdoms. The Kingdom of Lucifer and the Kingdom of Christ’s which has rolled over Lucifer’s Kingdom. Don’t allow people to move you off that certainty by the multiplications of Kingdoms in which it is then argued that God’s Kingdom does not apply.

2.) Jesus argues the foolishness of the Pharisee’s position given that their position would undo Lucifer’s work.

3.) If you’re going to accuse me of being Satan’s agent how can you not accuse your own people of not being guilty of the same thing?

4.) Returning to a thought established earlier, Jesus says that this healing / casting-out miracle proves that the Kingdom of God was in their presence in the person of the Messiah-King

5.) Vs, 29 is important. Jesus is saying that via this Miracle people could know that He Himself had bound the strong man and was now plundering His goods. The Strong man who is bound here is Satan and the plundering of his goods is the release of the captives from their oppression via healing and exorcism and the proclamation of the good news of the Kingdom’s presence.

The long anticipated Kingdom has arrived and in Christ Satan is bound and plundered. You sitting here, released from your sin and misery are part of that plunder taken back from the dark Kingdom.

Finally Jesus rounds off w/

30 He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

Here it may be the case that our Master is talking over the heads of His enemies to the crowd present. Clearly His enemies are already against Jesus and so His words would not apply to them. However, if the last verse is for the sake of the gathered crowds then His words are communicating what we call today the Reformed Antithesis. Christ is telling the spectators that they cannot remain neutral to Christ and the Kingdom He has brought. The God-Man does not allow us to be undecided because to be undecided is to be decided. To not be with Him four square is to be against Him four-square. To not join in His cause by gathering is to be against His cause by scattering.

The Master is urging those on the fence not to be content with only not opposing him, but to take sides – for, in fact, they cannot help doing so. Indifference and fence setting in this case is only another name for opposition; not actively to help is really to hinder.

Jesus was a good presuppositionalist. No neutrality. Never.

There is no neutrality in the kingdom of God; that activity which we call “natural” is exercised either in good or in evil, especially in the case of those who hear the word of God. Our standing as Christians does not allow us the luxury to be anything but full bore committed to the cause of the Kingdom. They are unworthy to be considered as belonging to the flock of Christ, who do not apply to it all the means that are in their power; because their indolence tends to retard and ruin the kingdom of God, which all of us are called to advance.

No neutrality. Never.

Yet this passage has too often been applied individually, which of course it should be, but it has been left unspoken to in terms of its application to social order. We have need to dismiss the idea of neutrality towards Christ and His Kingdom not only in our personal individual lives but also in the order that we build as a Christian people. We cannot be neutral in our family lives for example. As parents we must shepherd our children before the face of God thus showing that we are gathering for the Kingdom in our family lives. But there is a flip side to this as well which is a hard truth and that flip side is if our children decide to rebel against God and to be scatterers and to be against God then we must show ourselves faithful to Christ and His Kingdom by being against our children for our children. If our children, God forbid, become perverse then if we are to be with Christ we must love our children enough to be against them and so not scatter. We must not approvingly post photos of our Lesbian daughters with their adopted children – something I’ve seen done. We must not, out of a misguided love for our children join them in their waywardness in hopes of somehow gaining them back by being against Christ.

This is just an example. The examples easily continue of how it is possible to be against Christ in our social order lives by adhering to an impossible neutrality. Recently, we have seen the Evangelical – Reformed Church seek to scatter where Christ gathers by becoming increasingly neutral (so they think) in matters of corporate morality. For example putative Conservative Baptist pastor Mark Dever last year sought to clear space for Christians to vote for candidates who supported abortion. Jonathan Leeman, who did under grad and graduate work in Pol. Sci at elite Universities and now is associated with conservative Baptist churches likewise has made very slick arguments for the same thing. My friends, to argue like this is to proclaim one’s self as against Christ and one who scatters where Christ seeks to gather. It is to try at one and the same time to have an individual Christian piety while surrendering a Christian piety in the social order.

How much good does it do us to cast out metaphorical demons in our personal individual lives while turning a deaf ear to how our social order is being possessed by demons or by arguing that we can let those demons be and not concern ourselves with them since Jesus is only a left-handed King in those areas?

It is serious error and a form of schizophrenia to be punctilious to the things of Christ in our personal and individual lives – to be for him – while at the same time scattering where Christ would gather in our social order. How can we be with Christ in our personal individual lives and yet not be with Him when it comes to promoting His cause when it comes to our civil-social Institutions?

I could spend a great deal of time of multiplying examples of what I’m getting at in terms of not being with Christ when it comes to our social order. Let’s take immigration as another example. Are we not scattering where Christ would gather when we support policies and people in our voting that assure the continued flooding of this country with people who hate Christ giving them equal rights that will be used to diminish even more the public-square influence of Christianity? That will assure that our own Christian children will be disinherited as the children of the in-rushing multitude will be the recipients of what otherwise would have been our children’s inheritance? How can we think we are not scattering where Christ would gather when we do such a thing?

Many years ago RJR often this tidbit down this line I’m pursuing;

“And the same illusion marks Europe. In Europe, they believe that because the country has a character, everyone who comes in will soon pick up that character. So, all the blacks and Arabs that are in France will become Frenchmen. That’s an illusion. They don’t have the same faith, therefore they’re not going to give the same character to society.”

And I would add, that those who pursue such policies are scattering where Christ would gather.

Let us take another point of application here. Jesus, is, as we noted earlier arguing against the idea of neutrality. Jesus in saying whoever is not with me is against and whoever does not gather scatters. Clearly when it comes to the Lord Christ and His Kingdom there is no place to be indifferent or marginal. Indifference and playing on the margins Christ says is full on commitment to his enemies.

Now, I’m no fan of the S. African Marxist Bishop Desmond Tutu but he was speaking the truth when he said,

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
Our enemies have no problem in rejecting neutrality or in trying to play even handed. Our enemies understand that in order to be victorious they have to cancel us. It has come to be known as cancel culture. Anybody who articulates truth that is related to Christian origins our enemies demonstrate that they are on the side of their Father the devil. In this the sons of this world are wiser than the sons of God. We should quit complaining about cancel culture and start practicing it from our side.

In Redemptive History God told His people to practice cancel culture. When God commanded the ultimate penalty for those caught by two or three witnesses involved in sexual perversity God was commanding that His people practice cancel culture.

Now understand something here. If we practice cancel culture because we are convinced that neutrality is an impossibility we are practicing out of love to God and our people. We seek to cancel those who advocate those practices which would dishonor God and hurt our people. Another example of cancel culture that Christians were wise in practicing was when many of them canceled their Netflix subscription when they finally got fed up with their varied expressions of being against Christ. When we pray imprecatorily here we are asking for God to engage in cancel culture.

My friends, we cannot love what is loved by God without hating that which is contrary to what God loves. If we love God then we must seek to practice cancel culture on what God hates. Epistemological self consciousness on the issue of “no neutrality is possible” pushes us to try and practice cancel culture.

We need cancel culture if we’re going to honor God, rescue our people, and be for the wicked by being against the wicked. We need cancel culture precisely because neutrality is not possible cancel culture to negate the cultural Marxists just as they seek to negate the forward progress of the Kingdom of God.

Conclusion

So…here we are pressed into battle. Both on an personal and individual basis but also as members of the social order we live in. We may not separate or divorce these two. There is no neutrality in advancing the Kingdom whether in our personal lives or in our lives as public persons.

As men and women blood bought and atoned for by Jesus Christ we are enlisted into His Kingdom advancement. Our greatest desire is to see God glorified by the entry of former enemies into the Kingdom of God and we pursue this by being for them in our opposition to them and Satan’s Kingdom.

We desire for them to know the goodness of being pardoned by God for the sake of the finished work of Christ. We desire them to come and sue for peace to a God who promises to receive all those who are weary and heavy laden. We look forward to them being enlisted into the same Kingdom work that we are involved in but that cannot happen unless we are first for them by being against them and their evil deeds.

Christ’s Ascension — 2018

 

Ephesians 1:17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, 20 which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places,21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.22 And God hath put all things under His feet, and hath given Him to be the head over all things to the church,

This past Thursday was Ascension day.
 
Ascension Day is the 40th day after the celebration of Easter. Through History, the Church recalls the ascension of Christ into Heaven and celebrates His triumphant rule over all Creation as the Victorious Priest-King who has been invested with all authority on heaven and earth. Ascension day is another high celebratory day in the Church Calendar.
 
In the Ascension Christ’s Exaltation moves towards its apex which finds the Lord Christ sitting in Sessional rule with the Father. You remember in Christ’s Humiliation there was the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the burial so in His Exaltation there is the resurrection, ascension, and session.
 
We remember that the Ascension of the Lord Christ is a necessary aspect of the narrative of the Gospel. We confess the Ascension of the Lord Christ when we confess the Apostles Creed.
 
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,


I.) Ascension and Christ as King

 

Here we see that the Ascension of Christ … The Father’s “setting Christ at His own Right hand,” is an act of enthronement and empowerment. In the Ascension, Christ is lifted  “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come. 22 And God hath put all things under His feet, and hath given Him to be the head over all things to the church.”

In the Ascension Christ then is seen as the Father’s assigned King to rule and have dominion. All things. This is why the great Dutch theologian and polymath could say,“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Dr. Joel Boot notes that this Ascension … this Enthronement of the Lord Christ has become an inconvenient truth in many quarters in the Church today.

“In (a prominent Reformed Theologian’s) culture of paradox, the Holy Spirit is practically invisible and thus the glorious ascension of our Lord is transformed from the regal setting of Christ at His Father’s right hand and the glorious procession of the Spirit upon the Church, into a tragic absence — and therefore a means of sanctifying inactivity and compromise by restricting the kingdom of God to saving souls from an alien world which God does not govern totally and consistently through His Christ. Instead, God has one rule for His church and another for the world of common grace, or natural law. What is that world? Do sinners share our moral framework? No, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18:32).

Dr. Joe Boot 
The Mission of God — pg. 393

Jesus Christ is the King over the whole cosmos. King over principalities and powers. Christ rules and so Christians are duty-bound to walk in terms of God’s Law-Word as the King’s Law. King over all other powers that might contest and current dominions.

But the modern Church seeks to mute that truth or it seeks to claim the rule and dominion of Christ for their pet causes ignoring that with the King’s rule, comes already a pre-established law. Christ, in the total of Scripture, has already set forth what His cause is in terms of His rule.

That rule of the Ascended Christ is NOT merely a spiritual rule without also being a corporeal ruling. Many people hear “Spiritual” rule and they think “not real,” or “Gnostic.” Christ’s rule is absolute and while it begins as a Spiritual rule there is not spiritual ruling that does not have a corporeal correspondence.

Ascension Day should remind us of Christ’s Enthronement. The point of theAscension was to parallel the enthronement Psalms in the Old Testament. Those Psalms praised the King as he is ascending to take the Throne. In Christ’s Ascension Christ as gone up to take the Throne and He, right then and RIGHT NOW, rules over all.

God has gone up with a shout,
Yahweh with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praise to God, sing praises.
Sing praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is the King of all the earth.
Sing praises with understanding.
God reigns over the nations.
God sits on his holy throne.
The princes of the peoples are gathered together,
the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God.
He is greatly exalted!

Here in Psalm 47 we find what looks to be the description of a coronation, with shouts, trumpets and songs of praise.  God takes his place on the throne, not only as king of Israel but of all the earth and all the nations. Jesus is God’s final Davidic King and in and with the Ascension He has taken His place on the throne, as King of all the earth and of each and all of the nations.

The Ascension of Christ thus communicates that Christ has triumphed and that His Kingdom has arrived. Christ rules as the Father’s Mediatorial King and rules to such an end as to constantly advance His already present Kingdom. Because of the Ascension of Christ, the Lord Christ is at the Right hand of the Father presenting His credentials as surety for His people. Because of the Ascension, we have peace with God.

The Ascension reminds us that inasmuch as Christ reigns we reign with and in Him. The reality of the Ascension of Christ should forever deliver us from pessimistic eschatology that insists that the Church will end defeated in time and space History.

We are connecting Christ’s Kingship to His Ascension. Here we desire to attempt to frame a proper juxtaposition of truths.

There are those in the Church who want to talk about Christ’s Kingship as if the Kingdom of God is going to be reflected absent the proclamation of the Cross of Christ. It is as if they believe that the current Kingdom of God will be participated in by men who never understood God’s just wrath against sin yet were brought into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross. This will never do. The Cross is the center of our proclamation because it constantly reminds us of our only solution for sin and our only standing before God. We can not participate in God’s building up of His Kingdom apart from the Cross.

However, on the other hand, there are those who never want to move beyond the Cross to the resurrection and the ascension. Christ is King NOW and just as His humiliation was seen in space and time History, so His exaltation will be embodied in space and time History as He triumphs by His Gospel over the nations until His enemies are made His footstool. There are those who warn against the dangers of an over-realized eschatology (expecting too much dominion now in this life) and in doing so they are warning against a theology of glory where the humility of the Cross is ignored. This is a profitable warning.

But we might also warn against an eschatology that is under-realized and one that diminishes the Ascension of Christ. We might warn against a theology that requires defeat and insists that the victories gained by the ascended Christ are only “spiritual” in nature. We might warn against forgetting the enthronement and Ascension of our Lord Christ and His intent on making his very real enemies into very real footstools. We might warn against a theology that closes the door to God’s reign on earth being made manifest so that all the Nations flow into the Mountain of the Lord’s house (Isaiah 2).

So, Jesus is the Ascended one, who has been given a name above every other name (Phil. 2), now sits at the right Hand of the Father to the end of the fulfillment of all that the Gospel intended to accomplish which is the ongoing extension of His now established rule. In His, Ascension God has set His steward King as regent over the nations until His enemy nations are made His footstool.

Now, none of this truth denigrates the message of the Cross. In order to come underneath the rule of the King one must understand their rebellion against and alienation from the Ascended King. Only the atoning death of Christ can answer that rebellion and alienation. However, once that rebellion is forgiven because of the finished work of Christ and the alienation set aside so that we are now adopted as co-heirs with Christ we now are part of the Kingdom of God and walk in terms of His law Word — a law word that will hold sway over everything once His enemies are made His footstool.

III.)  Ascension as Christ as Priest

With His Ascension, Christ appears on our behalf. He is not only Ascended to the end that He was given to be the head over all things to the church. But Jesus has ascended also to the end of continuing His priestly work on our behalf at the right hand of the Father. If you will recall, the role of the Priest was not only to offer up sacrifices for the people, representing the People before God, but the Priest also was to pray and interceded for the people. Christ made His once for all Priestly sacrifice for His people but He continues His Priestly work in His Ascension by praying for us, His Church.

Hebrews 7:24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely[c]those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Romans 8:34 Who then is the one who condemns?No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Little flock, on this Ascension Sunday we can remember that the Lord Christ is Ascended to the end to continue His Priestly work for us. His presence before the Father pleads our cause. Are you hurt? Downcast? Tempted? Persecuted? Overwhelmed? The Ascended Christ intercedes for His people.

III.) Ascension as Typological fulfillment

Jesus at His transfiguration speaks of His coming Death, Ressurection, Ascension, as an “Exodus” in the Transfiguration accounts in Scripture.
31They appeared in glory and spoke about His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. That Transfiguration account revealed Christ’s glory prior to the crucifixion, and it anticipated his resurrection and ascension. The Ascension is where Christ complete His Exodus departure. In the OT the Exodus was God’s work to release His people from bondage to Pharaoh into a land flowing with milk and honey. in the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Christ what is being communicated in terms of typological insight from the OT and a reasonable reason why the word “Exodus” is used to speak of the redemptive events at the end of Christ’s life is that in the Lord Christ the Spiritual Exodus of mankind is completed. Man, because of sin, and the fact that sin had not yet been fully dealt with was in a kind of bondage. Christ being man’s representative shared in that bondage. But with and in Christ a New Exodus is thus now possible and is inaugurated, and in that New Exodus, we have been delivered from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, just as Israel was delivered from Pharaoh’s Dark Kingdom. Christ, in all His redemptive work, including His Ascension is the anti-type to the Exodus of the OT.

As true then Christ also answers Moses as a type to an anti-type. Christ has His Exodus but as He is our representative head we have our Exodus in Him and He leads us to out of bondage into God’s favor.

The Scripture gets at this when it teaches that because of the Ascension, we have the assurance that we ourselves are ascended with Christ and so are ruling with Him.
Ephesians 2:6 And hath raised us up [b]together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Consistent w/ Federal Theology what is predicated of the Covenant head is predicated of His people.
Christ has ascended and so Federally and Covenantally speaking we have as well.
Compare Ephesians 1:20 w/ 2:6
20 which the Father worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
2:6 — Speaking of believers

6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Conclusion

Re-cap

The Ascension of Christ communicates that Christ has triumphed and that His Kingdom has arrived. Christ rules as the Father’s Mediatorial King and rules to such an end as to constantly advance His already present Kingdom. Because of the Ascension of Christ, the Lord Christ is at the Right hand of the Father presenting His credentials as surety for His people. Because of the Ascension, we have peace with God.

Ascension day should be celebrated with the same verve as the day we celebrate Easter.

Ascension day gives us confidence that all false ideologies and religions  will be crushed underneath the reign of the Ascended Christ.

Kiss the Ascended Son folks, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

Kiss the Ascended Son Muslims, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

Kiss the Ascended Son Postmodernists, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

Kiss the Ascended Son Jewish folk, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

Kiss the Ascended Son Buddhists, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

Kiss the Ascended Son Hindus, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

Kiss the Ascended Son Atheist Humanist, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

The Ascended Son isn’t playing around. Kiss the Ascended Son.

 

 

Law — Gospel or, Gospel — Law — Gospel?

Text — Titus
Subject – Apostolic Methodology of relating law to Gospel in Titus
Theme – Analysis of the apostolic methodology of relating law to Gospel in Titus.
Proposition – . will hopefully cause us to understand how it is that the Law and Gospel come to us as believers.

Purpose — . Therefore having considered the Apostolic methodology of relating law to Gospel let us rejoice that the Holy Spirit is a teacher who gives us exactly what we need as we look to Jesus Christ for our all.

I sat down to write an introduction to this sermon and instead found a whole different sermon. So, this morning I want us to consider the methodological approach of the Apostle in this book to Titus.

This is not something that should put us off. If we believe that the very words of Scripture are inspired then it ought not to be difficult to believe the way the text is organized and pieced together is inspired as well.

As we consider this section in Titus 3 we are reminded again of the great emphasis we find in Titus on living out the Christian life (vs.8, cmp. Also 2:7, 2:14, 3:1). But we need to again remind ourselves of

1.) That the Apostle still clearly teaches that salvation, narrowly considered, is completely free (3:5)

2.) how the Apostle then provides the motive for works emphasis in an epistle where the Gospel is treated as completely free.

As we have said before, the motive for good works in Titus is not found in moralism considered as an end in itself (consider 2:10). Neither is the motive found in reminding them they are essentially good people – quite to the contrary the Apostle reminds them not of how noble they intrinsically are but rather he reminds them of how ignoble they once were (3:3).

The motive that the Apostle keeps returning to is what God has done in Christ for them (1:1-3, 2:11-14, 3:4-7). The motive he appeals to is one that we all Christians, but we especially who own the Heidelberg catechism should be familiar with – and that is the motive of gratitude.

Methodologically speaking, the Apostle writing to Titus and through him to the Christians in Crete and to us today uses a Kind of Gospel, Law, Gospel approach.

Note in Chapter 1:1-4 we begin immediately with the proclamation to Titus that Christ is Savior (4). That is Gospel. God has done it all by fulfilling His promises of eternal life (1:2).

From there he goes into instruction about what the Christian life should look like in both the leadership (1:5-16) and in the rank & file (2:1-9). That is Law. What God requires.

At that point, he gives them the Gospel again (2:11-15) as he returns to the foundation of why he can make the law appeal that he makes.

From there, in the passage we are considering this morning he returns to a law like appeal (3:1-3). Then immediately (3:4-7) he reminds them again of the Gospel of Grace that God has bestowed upon them that is to provide the motive for their anticipated affirmative response.

So throughout out this book, as believers are instructed through Titus the structural methodology that is used is to remind them of the Gospel in which they stand.

For example,

“Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.”

Then as to methodology, there is an appeal to a certain behavior or lifestyle that should characterize the believers because of how the Gospel has changed them.

So, when dealing with believers we see the pattern, at least here in Titus of,

First, — What God gives – The Gospel

Clearly what God gives is entirely free (3:5). In Salvation, God does all the doing. The triune God receives no assists from us in salvation narrowly considered.

Secondly, — What God requires – increasing conformity to the law out of gratitude for all that God has given.

This methodology is not a great deal different then what we find in Exodus 20 where the Covenant God, dealing with His people, reminds them of Gospel (What God has done) .

“I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of Bondage.”

And from there God goes on to instruct them in what he looks for from His people as a consequence of His unmerited favor.

Thou Shalt Not ..

And here we must remember that as by God’s grace we obey and increasingly conform to Christ, according to Scripture, all of that is worked in us by God’ grace.

Continue to work out your salvation in fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

So . in trying to rightly weigh this structural methodology we would observe.

When the gospel is preached among God’s people, but the law is neglected, God’s people reject discipline, believing Holiness to be disconnected from forgiveness.

Conversely, when the law is preached among God’s people, but the gospel is neglected, God’s people swing to one of two extremes.

1.) Either they become confident in their own ability to please God and so become self-righteous,

2.) Or they despair of ever being reconciled to God and so become depressed.

God’s people thus need both Gospel & Law and Gospel, and Law & Gospel in order to go on with Christ.

Now, having said all that we must emphasize that is the way that God speaks to His people. I would submit to you this morning that God speaks in a different way to those who are not yet part of the covenant community.

Cmp. Romans 1:17 – 3:21

To those yet apart from the covenant community, he does not speak in terms of Gospel and Law and Gospel, but rather in terms of Law and Gospel.

The first word that comes to the unbelieving is what God requires. That is law, and the purpose of the law at this point is not so that the people hearing it would, out of their own ability, move to conform to God’s expectations, (because they can’t) but rather that the people who are hearing it would, out of the illumination of the Holy Spirit’s work, see how hopeless it is that they would ever meet God’s perfect standard and so flee to Jesus Christ who alone can give them the righteousness that is acceptable before God.

Paraphrasing one of the Puritans,

“The law is the needle that pulls through the scarlet thread of the Gospel.”

So, as speaking to God’s People we speak Gospel and Law and Gospel.

BUT

As speaking to those outside of the covenant community we speak Law and Gospel.

Now, where things get complicated is in understanding that in every covenant community there are wheat and tares and so the minister may decide to speak to His people at different times with different voices. Some sermons may be Law – Gospel, while other sermons might be Gospel – Law — Gospel.

Now, combine that with the reality that in all of God’s people there resides the tendency to both covenant keeping (putting on the new man) and covenant breaking (having to put off the old man). Even in the Christian there is this self-understanding that we are live in ways that are not pleasing to God (Romans 7), and so the necessity exists at times to even speak to God’s people in terms of Law & Gospel and not Gospel & Law and Gospel.

It is because we remain at the same time sinner at the same time saint that there is a need for the law to be spoken in our lives both in the structure of Law-Gospel and the structure of Gospel – law — Gospel.

The old man of sin that the believer continues to contend with has to be spoken of in terms of Law – Gospel. That is a law word of condemnation. It is the new man rooted in Christ that is spoken to in terms of Gospel – Law — Gospel. That is a word of guidance.

This is just to say that the believer, as he struggles against the Adam that yet remains in him needs to hear the law as usus pedagoicus, while the believer as he makes it his goal to please God needs to hear the law as a moral guide to life.

At those times when we speak in the voice of Law and Gospel, the law is being used (usus pedagogicus) in its tutorial work of convicting us again as sinner, exposing perhaps areas that are still in rebellion in our lives, and leading us again to the Gospel of Jesus Christ who alone can save us. This is a different use than when use the law as a guide to life (usus didacticus). When we use the law that way we are speaking in terms of Gospel and Law and Gospel, which is the way it strikes me that Paul is speaking here in Titus.

Now, we should add that all that we have said this morning is one area that makes Reformed people Reformed and not any number of other stripes.

Gerhardus Vos, a Dutch Theologian of note who lived early in the 20th century, could hint at all that we have teased out this morning by saying,

” The preaching of the law in relation to the concept of the covenant has a somewhat different significance for Reformed Theologians than for Lutherans. The latter scarcely allow a place to the law before the fall. Both before and after regeneration the law has only a negative character, serving to generate repentance and mortification of the old man of sin (That would be speaking in terms of Law Gospel as we have used it this morning). For the Reformed it also serves that purpose, BUT that is not all. Even those among the theologians who strictly separate law and gospel and make the latter to consist wholly of promises – as a matter of fact, those theologians more than others – put emphasis on the fact that the law, as the comprehensive norm for the life of man, also determines man’s relation to the gospel. (This would be speaking in terms of Gospel – Law as we have cited it this morning.) At this point we observe the intensely moral seriousness of the Reformed point of view. Nothing can occur in man’s life where God’s law does not immediately apply and is not impressed strongly on the conscience.”

The law holds an essentially different place for the Lutherans than for the Reformed. Theoretically both agree with the threefold use of the law. The difference lies in the fact that the Lutherans only relate the third use of the law to the remnants of the old nature of the believer, while the Reformed relate it to the new man, who finds in the law a positive rule of life.”

Geerhardus Vos
Redemptive History And Biblical Interpretation

And this observation is not just true of Lutherans but also of many others in evangelicalism.

Now, I would submit that all that we have looked at this morning is exceedingly important. It is important because it is clearly Biblical but it is also important because it seems within the Reformed community there are signs of cracks and breakup and part of the reason that this is so is because people want to insist that the methodological structure for preaching as it pertains to God’s people has to be either one of Law – Gospel  OR one of Gospel – Law – Gospel when in point of fact, as we have seen this morning, that it might very well be either structure at different times (while avoiding the tendency to want to mix these into one product called Glawspel) if only for the reason that we remain at the same time sinner and at the same time saint.

One thing that should be now concluded is that it is a hermeneutical error to believe that Law and Gospel are in absolute antithesis as the Luthern hermeneutic seems to suggest. Indeed at one point in the Westminster Confession of Faith we can read,

WCF 19.VII. Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it: the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.

As sinners we need to continue to hear Law – Gospel. This is the good news for who we are as considered in the eschatological ‘not yet’ of this present evil age. This is good news for all of us in Christ who remain sinners and covenant breakers and continue to struggle as Paul did in Romans 7.

As saints we need to continue to hear Gospel – Law – Gospel. This is the good news for those who are considered as living in the NOW of the age to come. This is the good news for all of us who because of the Spirit of Christ’s work so earnestly desire to be covenant keepers and who continue to press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of Christ Jesus.

As we live in this semi-eschatological age we need both the paradigms of Law – Gospel and Gospel – Law — Gospel.

I would conclude this morning that anyone who says it has to be one or the other paradigms to the neglect of either is in danger of ministering to only half of who we are (either sinner or saint as opposed to at the same time sinner at the same time saint). This can only have the unhappy consequence of retarding our maturity in Christ.

Addendum — Implications beyond the personal and individual

 We have noted that Lutherans disregard the law in the capacity of sanctification by a methodology (Law/Gospel) which treats the Church only as unbelievers. This can also be true of  Baptist/Evangelical churches.

The Reformed methodology is the only one which does not treat believers as aliens to the covenant, and so the Reformed methodology is the only one which affirms our nativity and belonging to the covenant. This implies much in the social order/ people dimension.

This informs us that a people group covenanted to God are identified by God’s law. This means that non-Christian peoples in non-Christian social orders do not have the rights, privileges and immunities that belong to a people (nation) covenanted to God.  Those in the covenant have a very different relation to the law than do others. Which of course, means that even if all men are subject to the same law, as subjects, the application of that law is subjective. Not arbitrary, but determined relative to covenanted identity.

In terms of covenant nations, this view would necessarily result not in any universal ‘human rights’, but in ideas like “the rights of Englishmen.”
Constitutions,  among these kinds of people groups, delineate between peoples and affirm rights and privileges limited to people of specific identities because those people are in the covenant (and Covenant is not possible apart from law) with God as a people.

By contrast, we should imagine the Lutheran view of law which treats all men as being strangers to the covenant — because it only speaks to them as guilty of law-breakers — as producing only liberal socialist sort of social orders where the state is required to be God walking on the earth. If people cannot have the law delivered to them as Christians (usus didacticus) then the rights, privileges, and immunities of God’s law do not belong to them in any unique way vis-a-vis the way those law given rights, privileges, and immunities belong to any other people group.

Hat Tip — Ehud Would helped me think through the Implications section

 

Psalm 2 — The God Who Mocks

We mentioned briefly last week that some scholars believe that Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 were written to be read together. The reason for that is some of the similarities between the two in terms of how God deals with the righteous as contrasted with how God deals with the wicked.

TIES TO PSALM 1
Psalm 1 — The Righteous vs. the Wicked

Psalm 2 — The Wicked world vs. the Righteous Son

 

Psalm 1  – Begins with “How blessed” (v. 1) – True happiness is not being settled in sin.

Psalm 2 Ends with “How blessed” (v. 12) – True happiness is trusting God’s Son.

Psalm 1 — call to “meditate” (v. 2) – true meditation on God’s law
Psalm 2 — “devising” (v. 1) – anti-meditation on exalting self and dethroning God …

Psalm 1 — Righteous meditate on God’s Law both day and night (vs. 2)
Psalm 2 —  The Wicked’s attitude to God’s Law is to break those bonds asunder, and cast away those cords from us

Psalm 1 — Scoffers (v. 1) – The wicked mock God.
Psalm 2 Scoffs (v. 4) – God mocks the wicked.


Psalm 1 — Righteous one is planted by streams of water
Psalm 2 — Righteous One is installed on Mt. Zion, God’s holy mountain

Psalm 1 – “the way of the wicked will perish” (6) – final end of the wicked
Psalm 2 “perish in the way” (v. 12) – final end of the Nation’s wicked leaders who oppose God

Psalm 1 — Wicked blown away like chaff
Psalm 2 — Wicked broken into pieces like pottery

Psalm 1 — True faith expressed in delightful meditation on God’s word
Psalm 2 — True faith expressed in reverent adoration of God’s Son, the living Word
So Psalm 1 -2 give us a strong contrast to the ways of the righteous vis-a-vis the way of the wicked. This is a theme of the righteous vs. the wicked is a theme that is repeated throughout the Psalms and one reason we should be much in the Psalms since the theme of God establishing His people while at the same time unseating the wicked is a comfort to God’s people.

Last week we look at the first strophe of this Psalm and noted the desire of fallen men to cast off God, His Christ, and God’s law. That fallen man remains committed to this program is seen by just a couple quotes,

“We make war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of country, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keynote of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed.”

Karl Marx

“Come, Satan, slandered by the small and by kings. God is stupidity and cowardice; God is hypocrisy and falsehood; God is tyranny and poverty; God is evil. Where humanity bows before an altar, humanity, the slaves of kings and priests, will be condemned … I swear, God, with my hand stretched out towards the heavens, that you are nothing more than an executioner of my reason, the scepter of my conscience … God is essentially anticivilized, antiliberal, antihuman.”

Joseph Proudhon

And so as we looked at closely last week the peoples’ rage and imagining of a vain thing. We tried to establish the point that when in vs. 3 the Revolution expresses itself by a resolve to cast God’s cords away and break asunder their bonds that this an expression of a desire to be done with God’s law and His providence. We tried to connect the dots that as courts and legislators seek to overthrow God’s explicit law that these are modern day examples of attempts to break bonds and cast away cords.

This was the first point. “A People’s Rebellion Observed.” This week we move on to consider the second strophe of this Psalm in vs. 4-6 and note “God’s Ridicule Levelled.”

PSALM 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. 5 Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure: 6 “Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.”

II.) God’s Ridicule Levelled

A.) There is ridicule found in God’s position vis-a-vis the wicked’s raging

Vs. 4-6 moves us from the machinations on earth where we find rage and conspiring by the wicked rulers of the Nations. In first 4 we are transported as it were to God’s heavenly court room and in the face of all this rioting rage to overthrow God and His Messiah and their law we find God remaining seated.

Elsewhere in the Psalms it is said “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered.”

God is not threatened in the least. Per the Psalmist in Psalm 115,

” But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”

There is calm in the face of rebellion. There is nothing for God to be harried about. He does not call a council to map out strategy. No sweat lies upon His brow communicating concern. God merely sits. Sitting on the throne, of course, communicates security and control. The nations rage and God ridicules them by remaining seated.

We would do well to remember this when we see the fomenting of the wicked around us. We see antifa seeking to break asunder God’s bonds. We see Social Justice Warriors seeking to cast away God’s cords. We see a tide rolling in resolved to take a stand against the Lord and His anointed. We even see the Church and clergy marching in the streets supporting a Worldview that is hostile to Biblical Christianity… or maybe we are facing the hostility of friends and family for our Christian stand.

If we find ourselves understandably in turmoil we would do well to find calm in God’s ridicule of all this inasmuch as He remains seated. God is our God for the sake of Christ and He is not threatened in the least by those who threaten either Him or His people.

Luther adds here,

“This is to show that there is not a doubt to be entertained that all these things shall come to pass. And the gracious spirit does it for our comfort and consolation, that we may not faint under temptation but lift up our heads with the most certain hope.”

B.) There is ridicule found in God’s response

Orig: a primitive root; to laugh (in pleasure or detraction); by implication, to play:–deride, have in derision, laugh, make merry, mock(-er), play, rejoice, (laugh to) scorn, be in (make) sport.

Laughter … derision … mocking … scoffing

Psalm 37:13
The Lord laughs at him, For He sees his day is coming.
 
Psalm 59:8
But You, O LORD, laugh at them; You scoff at all the nations.
 
Proverbs 1:26 (Wisdom speaking)

I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes,

By repeating the same idea twice we have a tautology in this verse. Nothing is added in the second statement that isn’t already there in the first statement.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. 

In Hebrew usage, it is to emphasize the truth of a matter. It is not a great deal different from our Lord saying “Verily, Verily.” By the repetition, there is an emphasis of the certainty of the thing.

J. A. Alexander offers here that this derision/mockery is “the strongest possible expression of contempt.”

This should alter our understanding of God’s character. This contempt of God for the wicked fits into the motif of “God is always angular and will never be made smooth.” God laughs, mocks and scoffs at the wicked.

This is what God delights in doing. Many might see cruelty in such behavior but I see the love of God for His own name and glory. What better response could there be to those who would roll God off His throne and place themselves in His place?

It is simply the case, citing Alexander again, “to God Himself there is something in sin that is not only odious but absurd, something which cannot possibly escape the contempt of higher much less the highest intelligence.”

We see God laughing at the wicked throughout Scripture,

1.) Pharoah decides to kill the Hebrew male issue and God laughs by placing the destroyer of Egypt at Pharoah’s table.


2.) The Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and decide to place it in service of Dagon’s temple, only to find first Dagon lying prostrate before the Ark and then subsequent to another effort decapitated and without hands.

3.) The enemies of God kill Christ and God laughs in the Resurrection, Ascension, and judgment coming of Christ in AD 70.God is full of this kind of merriment. The wicked keep Him pealing in laughter. Some would bring a complaint against God’s compassion here insisting that this laughter isn’t very compassionate.

When we consider the issue of compassion and mockery we must keep in mind that compassion is seldom a zero sum game. That is to say that often it is the case that if God were to show compassion to one party He would thereby be showing callousness towards another party.

Compassion thus cannot be considered in a vacuum. Compassion towards a murderer is callousness towards the victim’s family. Compassion for one who is effectively advocating homosexuality as just another life-style is callousness towards those who are being charmed by that argument. Compassion towards egalitarians and feminists who are quite self-conscious about what they are attempting is callousness towards every daughter and every wife who will be hardened and hurt by the culture that the advocates are seeking to build. Just as it is callousness towards every son and every father who will be emasculated and emptied by that same culture. The loathing that is revealed by any mockery reveals a corresponding compassion and love for the opposite of that which is being mocked and lampooned.

 So we would ask,

How is it compassionate to the righteous for God to not mock the wicked? How is it compassionate to God Himself to not break out in laughter against the contrivances of the wicked? Would we really suggest this mocking of God mean or full of animosity?


Note, there is no begging of God here for the wicked to come to His Messiah and surrender their hearts. There is no “softly and tenderly Jesus is calling” here. There is only straight up derision for those who would take a stand against the Lord and His anointed.

Pop Christianity doesn’t like that kind of God. But here we find Him described as such

We should keep in mind here the words of Alexander Maclaren here when we consider the terror in the idea of God mocking His enemies,

“To draw rebels to loyalty which is life is the meaning of all appeals to terror.”

And we would add, though if the rebel refuses life terror will indeed be his lot.

C.) There is ridicule found in God’s Words,

 5 Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure: 6 “Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.”

 

 

Conclusion

“What a great measure of faith is necessary in order to truly believe this word: For who could have imagined that God laughed as Christ was suffering and the Jews exalting? So, too, when we are opposed, how often do we still believe that those who oppose us are being derided by God, especially since it seems as if we were being oppressed and trodden under foot both by God and men?

… We should … fortify our hearts and look forward toward the invisible things and into the depths of the Word … I also shall laugh with my God.”

Martin Luther
Commenting on Psalm 2

Application

1.) We can continue to look forward to this day and pray for its hastening.

This day has not yet arrived. The wicked still plot and scheme. We can pray for their defeat.

2.) We can join in God’s laughter and I would say in God’s mocking. That is another sermon in itself but here I will just note that from Elijah’s mocking God’s enemies on Mt. Carmel, to Amos’ mocking of God’s enemies in his book, to Paul mocking his enemies in the book of Galatians we find the saints of God mocking God’s enemies.

3.) We can praise God that by the work of Christ He has made us who were once His enemies, to be His friends and so no longer an object of His mocking.

4.) We can ask God that He might be so kind as to make His enemies His friends by sending the Spirit to convert.

5.) We can continue to advance the necessity of all men everywhere to repent before the day of the Lord arrives.

6.) We can support with our monies and efforts those organizations that are committed to overthrowing the wicked.