Christ as the Light

Intro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Implication

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

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

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

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

The Psalmist says,

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

The Lord Christ can say,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

Calvin College Professor; ” Both unity in Christ and differentiation in creation are very good”

As many have noted, the idea of separation and differentiation, of dividing and consigning, is a prominent theme throughout the first chapters of Genesis as the world is being described.” The concept of separation and division, the making of things that are different essentially, each having an identity and self-action, controls much of the further presentation of material in the book of Genesis. But in particular it is that which gives the cultural mandate to man to develop (differentiate) the whole earth its concrete content and meaning.

We learn then from Scripture that no choice has to be made between unity and sameness in Christ and having distinct earthly identities. In other words, no appeal to the dynamic directive of redemption to be one in Christ can be made to determine the structures of earthly, institutional life. Both unity in Christ and differentiation in creation are very good, the former representing God’s work in redemption, the latter, which data relevant theory investigates, God’s work in creation. Oneness in Christ is no alternative to natural separations and differences in the world and hence is no alternative to a social theory of separate cultural development.

Stated in general terms, God’s act of creation is an act of separation, definition, and law-giving. The unity of things is a moral and religious principle, not an alternative definition of what being should be like. In fact the unity of things is dependent, according to Christian faith, on their distinctiveness in being. If the central ecclesiastical argument against Apartheid is that its idea of separation contradicts the biblical idea of reconciliation in Christ, then the ecclesiastical critics are simply theologically wrong, cashing in on a biblical and religious idea to legitimate a taken-for-granted “natural theology” of integrationism for which they are dependent on the homogenizing philosophy of modern, British political liberalism. Though there is a moral and emotive point to the outcry that Apartheid is a heresy, in substance this charge is a simplicism that is unbecoming of the best of Reformed social thought and practice.

Dr. Henry Vander Goot
Former  Professor of Religion and Theology,
Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis in the Reformed Community Today” , pgs. 111-112

 

Ask the Pastor; What About The Nations?

Dear Pastor,

I am glad to see that you agree that God’s actions in Genesis 11 are to be understood as a judgment and curse upon idolatrous man. Your assertion that the blessings of the New Covenant consitute an affirmation of ethnic division seems very stretched to me. Which ethnic/national/racial divisions? The divisions which existed in the first century have morphed into very different divisions in our present time. Where do we start in distinguishing legitimate divisions or do we merely affirm the de facto divisions which exist at any one point in time?

Bryan Peters
Johnston, Iowa

Dear Bryan,

First off, thank you for writing and working on clarifying matters.

Bryan writes

“Your assertion that the blessings of the New Covenant constitute an affirmation of ethnic division seems very stretched to me.”

Of course I assert this. I am Reformed. Reformed folk hold to a hermeneutic of continuity. It is very odd of you as a Reformed person to assume a hermeneutic of discontinuity. That is very Baptist of you. Why should you think that God who ordains ethnic division in the OT would reverse that in the NT? Where in the NT does God say, “I changed my mind on ethnic and national people groups. The death of  my Christ eliminated race, nations and people groups as corporeal realities?” Really Bryan… who is the one stretching here?

Bryan wrote,

Your assertion that the blessings of the New Covenant constitute an affirmation of ethnic division seems very stretched to me. Which ethnic/national/racial divisions?

Bret responds,

Bryan, you offer me more of a riddle here than a question. You imply the impossibility of ascertaining ethnicity, nationality and race and yet you, as the questioner, takes for granted the reality of ethnicities, nations and races in asking the question. If you, and most others know your own ethnicity etc, your implying of the impossibility of identifying those divisions is edges on torpidity. If you assume the reality of races in order to impugn them, you are engaged in existential pretzel logic.

The NT has no problem identifying ethnicities, Nations, and races. The Lord Christ speaks of “Nations” in Mt. 28. Dr. Luke identifies Nations in the Acts record. In Revelation St. John speaks of Nations repeatedly and even as they exist in the New Jerusalem.

Bryan writes

Which ethnic/national/racial divisions? The divisions which existed in the first century have morphed into very different divisions in our present time. Where do we start in distinguishing legitimate divisions or do we merely affirm the de facto divisions which exist at any one point in time?

Here, Bryan you are practicing the “Loki’s wager” fallacy. Loki’s Wager, is a form of logical fallacy. It posits the unreasonable insistence, in this case, on your part, that a concept cannot be defined, and therefore cannot be discussed.

Bryan,

Where do we start in distinguishing legitimate divisions or do we merely affirm the de facto divisions which exist at any one point in time?

In reading various histories one thing that strikes me is the continuity of ethnicities spanning millennia. I read A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German people, and the author, Steven Ozment provides a glimpse of the continuity of the German identity well before Christ came. Political boundaries have shifted extensively, but we can still reasonably identify the major ethnic groups that exist today. Europe was populated by Southern Mediterraneans, Celts, Germans, Scandinavians, Alpines, Slavs, etc., and these groups go back to just after Noah. It seems you are conflating political boundaries for ethnic distinctions.

Bryan writes,

“The divisions which existed in the first century have morphed into very different divisions in our present time. “

Oh? How so? This looks like the fallacy of petitio principi to me.

Even so …. on this score consider what I wrote earlier,

In reading various histories one thing that strikes me is the continuity of ethnicities spanning millennia. I read A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German people, and the author, Steven Ozment provides a glimpse of the continuity of the German identity well before Christ came. Political boundaries have shifted extensively, but we can still reasonably identify the major ethnic groups that exist today. Europe was populated by Southern Mediterraneans, Celts, Germans, Scandinavians, Alpines, Slavs, etc., and these groups go back to just after Noah. It seems you are conflating political boundaries for ethnic distinctions.

Finally Bryan, keep in mind that the very existence of Covenant constitutes an affirmation of ethnic division. Think about it.

 

 

Ask the Pastor — What of Babel and Pentecost?

Dear Pastor,

I’m confused a bit. I’m hearing some people who call themselves Theonomists saying that the division of languages at Babel was not a curse. So, in light of that I’m wondering if you could help me out on that issue.

“Is the division of language and geographical location in Genesis 11 to be considered a curse? ”

Peter Bryans
_________________

Dear Peter,

Thank you for writing to ask.

First, you have to recognize that the Theonomic and Reconstruction movement has changed a great deal in the short time since Rushdoony’s death. What is happening is that Rushdoony and Theonomy is being reinterpreted through a Libertarian grid. The consequence of that is great division in Rushdoony’s legacy of  Theonomic / Reconstruction heritage. For my part, I believe that RJR is being overturned.

As to the question at hand I would say that the confusion of the languages and the scattering of the peoples recorded in Genesis 11 was a curse. Consider the parallels with Eden that one finds in the Babel account. God had given a specific command (fill the earth) just as Adam and Eve were given a specific command (keep the Garden).  In both cases the sin was one of denying God’s requirement of the Creator creature distinction.  In both cases the consequence of sin is alienation between the people in question (Adam contra Eve and The people of Babel contra one another.) In both cases we learn that God investigates the matter and in both cases those who had violated the commandment were “cast out,” and so cursed.

So, if we consider Adam and Eve cursed as a result of their sin then the juxtaposed narrative of Babel suggest that the scattering and confusion of tongues was indeed a curse, temporally considered.

Now at to Pentecost God reinforces the theme of Unity in diversity. Yes, understanding is facilitated by the speaking of tongues but the understanding of the Gospel proclaimed is a understanding of the Gospel that reinforce distinct Nationhood. Many are those who will say that “Pentecost reverses Babel.” I think that inaccurate Peter. I think it more accurate to say that “Pentecost sanctifies Babel,” or alternately “Pentecost takes the sting out of Babel in the context of Christianity.”

I hope that helps Peter.

Bret

Simeon’s Entrance

Introduction — Preliminary Considerations

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

Mary

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

Zachariah

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

Simeon

For my eyes have seen your salvation

The salvation that had long been promised

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

Simeon was waiting for the “Consolation of Israel.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mention of the Holy Spirit — 25, 26, 27

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

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

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

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

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

17th century Theologian John Owen could offer here,

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

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

II.) Simeon’s Prophecy — Nunc Dimittis

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

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

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

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

How much does that sound like this from Psalm 98?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III.) Simeon’s Prophecy — Suffering

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

Mary

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

Zachariah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV.) Simeon’s Prophecy — Missions

A.) First note the way God calls

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

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

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

Martin Wyngaarden recognized this when he wrote,

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

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

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

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

~Rushdoony,
“The One and the Many

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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