Week 4: Ascension, Session, & Reign; Conclusion Introduction Good morning everyone! Before we jump into the lesson, let’s pray! Well, today is the last day of our Sunday School class on the doctrine of Christology. Today, we will wrap up by talking about the rest of what the Westminster Larger Catechism describes as Christ’s exaltation: his ascension, current place seated at the right hand of the Father, and future return. As usual, we’ll have short breaks between our discussion of each of those for questions. Then, at the end of the class, I’ll try to sum up everything we’ve said in the last four weeks. (We’ll see how that goes.) Because we’ve covered a lot of ground over the last couple weeks, I’ve left some a bunch of extra time at the end for questions about anything we’ve covered, so start thinking now! Part 1: Ascension The doctrine I’ll open our discussion of the ascension by simply quoting the Apostles’ Creed: “He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” Scriptural basis This comes straight from Acts 1, where we read that the disciples asked Jesus about restoring Israel to what they thought was her place in the world, still not fully understanding what this Messiah was really doing. So he commissioned them, and then: After He had said this, He was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. While He was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen Him going into heaven.” The angels’ question here makes me laugh a little. Of course, the angels have the right of it: “Jesus told you what to expect. Get back to Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit, and then go to the nations!” At the same time, I suspect that if I watched Jesus ascend into the sky and disappear into the clouds, I would also stand and stare. I’m not sure it felt like good news. In our lives But it is. All the Reformation confessions and catechisms pick up on this; but the Heidelberg Catechism has my very favorite way of putting it: Q49: How does Christ’s ascension to heaven benefit us? First, he is our advocate in heaven in the presence of his Father. Second, we have our own flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that Christ our head will also take us, his members, up to himself. Third, he sends his Spirit to us on earth as a corresponding pledge. By the Spirit’s power we seek not earthly things but the things above, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. That is: Christ’s ascension is good news for us in three ways— First, because we have an advocate in heaven. I’ll say much more about this in the next section. Second, he didn’t just junk his humanity and leave it behind. He came to save us as human beings, so he remains human. We can be confident that will finish saving this humanity, all of it, soul and skin and bones alike, because (to go back to my favorite hymn): “…the incarnate God ascended / pleads the merit of his blood.” God who became man, prophet, priest, and king of Israel, righteous sacrifice, rose from the dead—and then went bodily to heaven. Third, he sent us his Spirit to empower us to (as Colossians 3 says) “seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God.” And why? “For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God.” The Ascension is good hope for our full humanity to be saved, and strong exhortation to look to Christ and seek first the kingdom. Now: what questions do you have? Part 2: Session All right, let’s keep moving! The doctrine The second section today is what is sometimes called Christ’s session. The word originally came out of Latin meaning “seated”, and that’s actually the short version of the doctrine! Again, from the Apostles’ Creed: “He is seated at the right hand of the Father Almighty.” Scriptural basis Many places in the New Testament us this phrase. Hebrews 1:3 reads: After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. We heard it a minute ago in the exhortation in Colossians 3, to “seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God.” Ephesians 1:20 says: He [that is, God] demonstrated this power in the Messiah by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens—far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come. So Scripture tells us over and over again that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. But… what does that mean for us, exactly? Part of the answer is that he continues doing what the Son has always been doing: he is the one through whom the Father created all things, and he is the one who sustains all of creation by his powerful word. But now, in Christ, the Son does more for us: he reigns as our good king, and he intercedes for us as our merciful high priest. Kingship First, Jesus is ruling now, even his reign is not complete. As Hebrews notes, “We do not yet see everything subjected to him.” But he is nonetheless ruling. That’s what the imagery of being seated at the right hand of the Father means. And that’s not just his rule over the church: as Ephesians tells us, “far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion.” The Westminster Larger Catechism says: Q54: How is Christ exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God? Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth; and does gather and defend his church, and subdue their enemies; furnishes his ministers and people with gifts and graces, and makes intercession for them. So Jesus’ rule as king means that he gathers us into his church in the first place, and then he protects us afterward! He’ll never lose us. Because, as he told us in John: he doesn’t lose anyone the Father has given to him. He also has the right to give us the gifts and graces we need as his people—and he exercises that right! I also love that it calls out that he has “all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth”! The one whose earthly life was so marked by grief now gets to reign in joy, because he finished the task. And we can rejoice in that, too! We’ll come back to this in the final section today, because, again, his reign is not yet complete. But it has begun. And that’s good news for us because it means that whatever comes our way—and if we’re honest life is full of things that can make us wrestle with this, but it remains the truth—Jesus is king. That’s the first thing we see: Jesus is king. Priesthood The second thing we see is that last phrase in Westminster’s answer; “and makes intercession from them”—straight out of Hebrews, which says that by the merit of his death and resurrection he is our high priest, and as our high priest he helps us when we are tested. He sympathizes with our weaknesses. He calls us to come his throne when we need mercy and grace, and he will give them. And he remains our high priest forever. He never dies, so “He always lives to intercede for them.” For us. Here again, I think the Westminster Larger Catechism just nails this: > > Q55: How does Christ make intercession? > : Christ makes intercession, by his appearing in our nature continually before the Father in heaven, in the merit of his obedience and sacrifice on earth, declaring his will to have it applied to all believers; Answering all accusations against them, and procuring for them quiet of conscience, notwithstanding daily failings, access with boldness to the throne of grace, and acceptance of their persons and services. How could it possibly get better than this? Jesus Christ, God the Son incarnate, prays for us. Says we are his. Defends against every accusation—from Satan, from our own consciences, from our own real failings. “I dealt with that,” he says. “It is finished.” Sweet, sweet, deep, deep comfort to our souls. You are never alone. Christ is always praying for you. When you are asleep, he’s praying for you. When you feel too spiritually weak to pray, he’s praying for you, praying for you to come to him and get the grace you need. When you feel too guilty to pray, the one who took all your sins is praying for you. Forever, God the Son in Christ Jesus—the king!—is serving us as our high priest, praying to God the Father for us. That is good, good news! Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus, who is our Part 3: Return & Future Reign For our very last doctrine, let’s look at Jesus’ return and future reign. Before we get into this, though, I want to note that I am not going to get into the specific details today of things like the tribulation or the millennium. If you care to know, I’m an amillennial guy at this point and I’m happy to talk to you about that outside of this context. For our purposes today, those distinctions are all secondary, because we all agree on this doctrine: The doctrine Jesus is coming back as the glorious king of the universe; and when he does he will raise everyone from the dead, some to eternal judgment and some to eternal life with God; and he will remake all things—new heavens and new earth, renewed together in glory. As the creeds and confessions say it: he will come again to judge the living and the dead. Scriptural basis There are a number of places Scripture teaches us this. Philippians 3:20–21 reads: …but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself. And 1 Thessalonians 4:16 tells us: or the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. In our lives The Heidelberg Catechism reflects on this doctrine by asking: Q52. How does Christ’s return “to judge the living and the dead” comfort you? In all distress and persecution, with uplifted head, I confidently await the very judge who has already offered himself to the judgment of God in my place and removed the whole curse from me. Christ will cast all his enemies and mine into everlasting condemnation, but will take me and all his chosen ones to himself into the joy and glory of heaven. The first thing here is the comfort that this provides for God’s people when they are suffering: our suffering will end, and when our suffering is at the hands of people who hate God, he will do justice. If they repent, then justice has been done at the cross; and if they do not, judgment is coming. This is especially good news to our brothers and sisters in places where they can be jailed or killed for following Christ. Remembering God’s justice is part of how we’re able to follow Paul’s instruction in Romans 12: “for your part, live at peace with everyone.” We don’t avenge the blood of the saints—because God will. The second bit here is where I want to camp out for the rest of this discussion—and that is the mix of holy fear and sure hope that helps us hold fast to the faith. This is what both Hebrews and Revelation are about! When we are tempted by the apparent goodness of the world, or buffeted by trials, they call us to hold fast. And they do so not least by looking to the hope of Christ’s return as both warning and comfort. We need both of those refrains to keep walking with Christ. They remind us judgment is coming as a means of grace; they’re part of how God keeps us. So: Revelation is not concerned with last things for their own sake. The book opens with letters to the seven churches for a reason, and it closes the way it does—offering living water and warning side by side—for a reason. Wherever we land on the material in between, it’s there to encourage God’s people to hold fast: because Jesus is victorious—over temptation, and over Satan; over sin, and over the enemies of God’s people. He wins! So hold fast! Don’t end up under that judgment; overcome through Christ, and receive your reward when he comes in glory. Hebrews does the same. It exhorts us to “hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (10:23). It reminds us that if we reject Christ or if we fall away, there is only “a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries” (10:27). The book is this constant back-and-forth: showing how good Christ is, and warning at what happens if we fall away. “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” as 10:31 says; and “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us hold on to grace” (12:28)—“for our God is a consuming fire” (12:29), but in Christ “we have this hope as an anchor for our lives, safe and secure” (6:18), because he is our high priest. The book teaches us that Christ “is better than the angels, he is better than Moses, he is better than the prophets, he is better than the Levites and the offerings they made—he is better than them all”1—so don’t fall away: his judgment is fiercer than theirs but his grace is sufficient to keep you! Christ is better—so hold fast! Part 4: Conclusion And now we have come to the end! Before we transition into questions, I want to take a few minutes to fit this all together because we have covered a lot of ground over the last few weeks. I want to emphasize here how we are adopted into the family of God. As the Westminster Larger Catechism tells us: all those that are justified are received into the number of his children, have his name put upon them, the Spirit of his Son given to them, are under his fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, made heir of all the promises, and fellow heirs with Christ in glory. This is ours because first of all, Christ is the Son of God eternally. The Father’s fatherhood, remember, is not something tacked on, something that came later. Instead, the Father in his his very being, eternally, the Father of the Son, and the Son is in his very being, eternally, the Son of the Father. And the Spirit who comes, eternally, in his very being, from the Father through the Son has sealed us everlastingly into that eternal, joyful life! How? The Father sent the Son into the world as Israel’s Messiah—God’s anointed one: who was prophet, priest, and king, the fulfillment of Israel’s hope and her calling who strikes the serpent’s head who is a prophet showing us God perfectly who is a priest who does not have to offer sacrifices again and again, does not have to sacrifice for his own sins, but atoned once and for all who is a righteous king in David’s line, doing justice and loving mercy who is himself a light to the nations as Israel was called to be This man Jesus is God with us, God for us; “God of God / Light of Light / Very God of Very God / by whom all things were made / who, for us and our salvation / came down from heaven.” He is fully human and fully God: so that we are wholly redeemed: our human souls and human skins alike, because he too had human skin and a human soul. He never sinned, not even once—but he took our sins, bore the weight of justice we deserved, died the physical and the spiritual deaths of our curse. But he did not stay dead! He rose, he conquered death, he defeated hell, he put Satan under his feet, he ascended in power to sit at God’s right hand until he shall come again—and there he prays for us and gives us his Spirit until he does come again and make all things new, judging evil once and for all, and raising us to eternal life with him! Hallelujah! Now, I’ve left us about ten minutes here for questions about any and all fo this. All right, we are out of time. Let’s end by hearing from Revelation, and then praying! And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them,     and they will be his people,     and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,     and death shall be no more,     neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore,     for the former things have passed away. Even so, come Lord Jesus! Amen! “Further Up, Further In”, Hebrews, Psallos, 2017.↩︎ 

Teaching and Sermons by Chris Krycho

Christology, Week 4

The weight of what we should have born, born for us by Christ; and the wonder of what Christ’s resurrection means for us—forever.Week 3: Suffering and Death; and the ResurrectionIntroductionGood morning everyone! Let’s pray as we get started!All right, today is the third of our four weeks looking at the doctrine of Christology: the things the church has learned from Scripture to say about our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. As a quick refresher: In the first week, we saw that God the Son is truly God, and eternally the Son, and how—amazingly—in Christ, by the Spirit, we’re adopted into that same love the Father has for the Son. Last week, we saw that Jesus Christ was Israel’s Messiah—the fulfillment of all God’s promises to bring salvation to all nations through one people. We also followed the early church in thinking through the fact that Jesus was fully God and fully human, and how this is why we are fully saved. This week, we’re talking about Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. Next week, we’ll talk about his ascension, session, and reign, before wrapping it all up. If you want to review any of these, the recordings are up at forestgate.org/sunday-school, and I’m putting all of my notes up on those pages as well.Part 1: Suffering and DeathWe’ll start out today by looking at Jesus’s suffering and death. There is a weight here I hope we can all feel again: because it is the weight we should be under, and would be under if it were not for his suffering for us.The doctrineI’m going to start with the Westminster Confession, chapters 8.4 and 8.5, which together cover both of our major doctrines for the day (as is right: they fit together, as we’ll see): 8.4. This office the Lord Jesus did most willingly undertake; which that He might discharge, He was made under the law, and did perfectly fulfill it; endured most grievous torments immediately in His soul, and most painful sufferings in His body; was crucified, and died, was buried, and remained under the power of death, yet saw no corruption. On the third day He arose from the dead, with the same body in which He suffered, with which also he ascended into heaven, and there sits at the right hand of His Father, making intercession, and shall return, to judge men and angels, at the end of the world. 8.5. The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience, and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, has fully satisfied the justice of His Father; and purchased, not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for those whom the Father has given unto Him. It’s worth chewing on those words: he willingly did this for us. He went under the law, and though he kept the law perfectly himself, he was crucified as one who had broken it—as we have. He was tormented in both body and mind—as we should have been. He died—as we have all earned death. He sacrificed himself, fully satisfying the justice of his Father—justice that was due as penalty on us.Scriptural basisAs with every one of these topics, there is more to say on this one than I could hope to fit into this time slot. The gospels dwell overwhelmingly on the final week of Jesus’ life, on his death, and then look in wonder at his resurrection. The rest of the New Testament is in many ways a reflection on those two events: the death of the one who seemed to be Messiah, and then his vindication as Messiah when God raised him from the dead. And of course those reflections are informed as well by his miraculous birth and his ministries of teaching and healing. But the climax of death and resurrection is the focal point of the lens—not just of Jesus’ life, not just of the New Testament, indeed not just of Scripture, but of all reality. Everything else comes clear in light of these two truths: that God has come to be with us and died in our place, under the judgment we deserved; and that he did not stay dead but rose triumphant from the grave.In brief, though, let’s feel the weight of what Christ did for us at Calvary: He atoned for sin, once and for all. As Hebrews 7 tells us, “He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all when He offered Himself.” His sacrifice was sufficient, for your sins and my sins and indeed every sin that has ever been sinned. For all who trust him, Christ has done what the blood of bulls and goats never could, and what we in our sinfulness never could: He has paid our penalty, as our substitute, and at-oned us with God—that’s where “atoned” came from: Tyndale made it up to translate this word into English. Jesus made us one with God again. As part of that, he was obedient— “to the point of death, even death on the cross” (Philippians 2:8). And as Hebrews puts it: he was made perfect through suffering (2:10), and “learned obedience through what he suffered” (5:8). More: where we give in to our temptations all too easily, he resisted to the point of shedding blood (Hebrews 12:4): both in resisting the temptation to turn away in Gethsemane, and then in dying for us. He freed us from Satan’s reign: Ephesians 2 reminds us that we were following “the spirit now working in the disobedient” when he saved us; Hebrews 2 tells us that through his death Jesus “destroyed the one who holding the power of death—that is, the Devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.” He broke down the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile, and indeed every racial and ethnic division, in his own flesh. He reconciled us to God together—in one body, his own body, Ephesians 2 says—at the cross. Through his death he killed the hostility between Jew and Gentile, white and black, Irish and English, Chinese and Japanese—every last one made one in his body at the cross. In sum: everything we deserve, he endured at Calvary; everything we have broken, he began setting right in his death. He is our substitutionary atonement, and he is the victor—over sin, over death, over Satan. And we know it because of what we’ll see in the next section: his resurrection.What the church has saidThe Apostles’ Creed in its traditional form says of Jesus’ death that he: was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The first half of that is uncontroversial, though worth reflecting on, and we’re going to spend some time on it. The second half is obviously a bit more controversial!First, the important bit: the Apostles’ Creed’s was defending against the idea that Jesus didn’t really do any of those things: wasn’t really crucified, didn’t really physically die, wasn’t really physically buried. But, as we saw last week in thinking about the Incarnation: our salvation hinges on the fact that Jesus didn’t just appear to be a human being; he really was a human being—and so he really did die for us. It wasn’t a good magician’s trick! And so it’s good news for us that he really died, because in really dying (not just seeming to die) he really defeated death.Now, what about the descent into hell? The church has basically taken this in two orthodox directions: either that this is referring to Christ’s soul enduring the same reality of hell as we would, on the cross; or that it’s talking about what the Old Testament calls Sheol, what the New Testament calls Hades: the place of the dead before Christ’s coming.The Reformed tradition, from Calvin’s Institutes on, 1 has fairly universally held to the first meaning: that Jesus endured the wrath of God against our sin and the punishment of eternal separation from God: hell not in the sense of location but in the sense of experience. Thus, the Heidelberg Catechism says in Question 44: 44. Why does the creed add, “He descended to hell”? To assure me during attacks of deepest dread and temptation that Christ my Lord, by suffering unspeakable anguish, pain, and terror of soul, on the cross but also earlier, has delivered me from hellish anguish and torment. If we read the creed this way, I think it’s reasonable—but “descended into hell” requires a lot of explanation, if so! My own preference is to keep it in and deal with the work of explaining it, because I’m pretty hesitant to take out a line from a creed the whole rest of the church uses—but I also understand why not only Forestgate but a fair number of other churches hesitate here.Because I think that the traditional Reformed angle is correct, I’m just going to leave aside the interpretation that this was Jesus going into Sheol and leading God’s people waiting there to the heaven where God himself is. I think it’s a possible interpretation, and it does pull together some threads (from the Old Testament especially)… but the text just doesn’t give us a lot to hang that idea on, so at least at this point, I don’t hang anything on it!In our livesIt’s hard to single out a point for application here! The New Testament is chock full of exhortations grounded in Jesus’s work on our behalf. The two main things I want us to take away are:First: we should come away with a sense of joy and awe at the weight of what Christ bore for us, and accomplished for us, in his death: delivering us from death, from hell, from ethnic hatred, from Satan’s power, from guilt, from shame, from—as Athanasius reminds us, corruptibility to incorruptibility. From death to life, through his death.Second: we should come away with a desire to imitate Christ—as 1 Peter 4:1–2 says: Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, equip yourselves also with the same resolve—because the one who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin—in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God’s will. Now, before we move on to the Resurrection—any questions?Part 2: The ResurrectionAs Jaimie can attest, about the only topic that gets me as profoundly excited as I got about the doctrine of the Incarnation last week is the Resurrection. A few years ago I read a book with an absolutely brilliant title: The Cross is Not Enough. The book wasn’t great, unfortunately, but the title has stuck with me because it gets at a fundamental truth of our faith. It sounds, at first blush, like we’re saying something crazy, right? But the point, as we’ll see, is exactly right: everything we’ve said about the cross is null and void of Jesus was not raised from the dead. The cross alone is not enough: the Resurrection is necessary.The doctrineThe doctrine of the resurrection is worth stating fully and clearly: Jesus was truly dead—not, as The Princess Bride might have it, “mostly dead” and therefore “still partly alive”: he was all dead, 100% dead. And then God raised him bodily from the dead. Not, as some heretical theologies have said, only as a spirit; and certainly not just the ideas of Jesus living on. He was physically dead, and then he was physically alive—but with his body transformed into something more glorious than it had been.Every early creed includes the phrase “the third day he rose again.” The 39 Articles, the core Anglican statement of doctrine, says: Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things [relating] to the perfection of Man’s nature… That is: he rose with every last bit of his human nature, just as we said last week—skin and bones, too, not some kind of “spiritual” resurrection, whatever that would mean.The Heidelberg Catechism, in its beautiful way, says: Q45. How does Christ’s resurrection benefit us? First, by his resurrection he has overcome death, so that he might make us share in the righteousness he obtained for us by his death. Second, by his power we too are already raised to a new life. Third, Christ’s resurrection is a sure pledge to us of our blessed resurrection. For the rest of this lesson, I’m going to simply marvel at the wonder of what Christ has done in the resurrection—basically following that outline from Heidelberg: he has overcome death so we can share in the righteousness he obtained for us; we are raised now to new life; and we will be resurrected.Scriptural basisStarting in Luke 24:1–8—after Jesus had laid dead in a rich man’s tomb for days, this happened: On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but He has been resurrected! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’?” And they remembered His words. Matthew 28:8–10 adds: So, departing quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, they ran to tell His disciples the news. Just then Jesus met them and said, “Good morning!” They came up, took hold of His feet, and worshiped Him. Then Jesus told them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see Me there. And then Luke again, in 24:36–42: And as they were saying these things, He Himself stood among them. He said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. “Why are you troubled?” He asked them. “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself! Touch Me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” Having said this, He showed them His hands and feet. But while they still were amazed and unbelieving because of their joy, He asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and He took it and ate in their presence. This dead man was alive. Alive like us. Skin and bones like us! Eating broiled fish like us! But also, somehow, not quite like us—resurrection means this body but transformed into something gloriously more and better. Dead, and then not dead, forever.And the implications for us! Romans 4:25 tells us: He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Do you catch that? We are justified because he is raised. Sometimes we talk as though the Resurrection is just kind of a bit of punctuation on the cross, as though the cross is the real work, and the Resurrection secondary—but that’s not it at all; they’re of a single piece, and neither is whole without the other. Romans 8 emphasizes the point, just in case we missed it the first time: Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, who has been raised. Even more, it says: he has been raised! And this is our first confession, per Romans 10: if we confess and believe that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. Not, notice, believing just that he died. Everyone believes that! The keystone is believing he is raised.And when we are being saved, we have been brought to new life. Thus, Ephesians 2:4–7 tells us: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens, so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Somehow we are now raised, resurrected spiritually from the death to which we used to be enslaved. And we are raised for a reason, for a purpose that Romans 7:4 paints this way: so that you may belong to another—to Him who was raised from the dead—that we may bear fruit for God. And as Colossians 3 puts it: So if you have been raised with the Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God. We are called to live in the righteousness he bought us with his death and resurrection. And this much alone is amazing—but there is yet more: we will also be resurrected not only spiritually as we have been now, but physically, as Christ was on the third day.Going back to Romans 6 again: Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over Him. And Paul hammers this home in 1 Corinthians 15:16–17:  For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. But the good news in v. 20: But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. And so our confidence, as 2 Corinthians 4:14 puts it, is that: We know that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and present us with you. These bodies, which die—all of us have to stare that in the face at some point—God will raise from the dead because we are his, his Spirit living in us now and forever.As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it: Q57. How does “the resurrection of the body” comfort you? Not only will my soul be taken immediately after this life to Christ its head, but also my very flesh will be raised by the power of Christ, reunited with my soul, and made like Christ’s glorious body. In other words, as good as the news is that we’ll be with Christ when we die, even better news is that we will be raised. A few years ago I read an article which pointed out that right now we are in the body, which is good, but sinful, which is very bad. At death, we will no longer be sinful, but we will also no longer be in the body: better, but not yet fully what we were meant for. At resurrection, we will be truly holy and embodied: exactly what we were meant for from the beginning.Very often, the theology I encountered earlier in my faith had little to say of resurrection. It’s not that it denied it. It’s just that it really wasn’t talked about much. We got as far as “we will be in heaven with God”—and that alone is incomparably good news. As Paul says in Philippians 1: it will be “far better” to die and be with Christ. But it never clicked for me until much later that Jesus is in heaven with his resurrected body now and in some sense intends to resurrect heaven and earth and us into something more glorious than we can imagine—which will itself be better even than being in heaven with God, astounding as it is to say that.When we thrill at the beauty of this earth, when we delight in our bodies working as they were meant to—and when we see the brokenness of these things, and feel our bodies aging and decaying—we know that this but even better is what we are meant for, and Christ’s resurrection is the first fruits of that, and the guarantee that it will be ours. We will be raised with him, and he will dwell with us. His Resurrection is the seal of the promise of ours; it’s the way in which God remains forever not only for us but also with us.That’s as good as news gets.Now, as we wrap up here: what questions do you have?ConclusionLet’s pray! Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.16.10↩︎ 

Christology, Week 3

Christology, Week 2

Christology, Week 1

John 14:15–31: We love and obey God; God dwells with us. This sermon was delivered in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Dr. Marty Jacumin's Sermon Delivery class at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The only constraints on this sermon were that it be between 15 and 25 minutes long, and be on a text from the Old Testament. Audio is recorded with Ferrite, using an iPhone SE placed on the podium.

God Is With Us

Judges 3:7–31: Three stories, three judges and deliverers, one saving God. The following was delivered in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Dr. Marty Jacumin's Sermon Delivery class at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The only constraints on this sermon were that it be between 15 and 25 minutes long, and be on a text from the Old Testament. Audio is from my iPhone, in my pocket.

A Strange and Messy Deliverance

Believers are called to a humble, selfless, unity which reflects the humble, selfless, unity of the Trinity. The following was written in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Dr. Marty Jacumin's Sermon Delivery class at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The only constraints on this sermon were that it be between 15 and 25 minutes long, and be on a text from an epistle. Audio is from an old MacBook Pro pointed at the podium.

A Humble, Selfless, Unity

Faithful exposition of Scripture in the catholic, Reformed, evangelical tradition.