Preface<\/p>\n
This book, as its title suggests, is a brief exposition of what Christians often refer to as \u201cthe person and work of Christ.\u201d Its focus is on some of the different ways in which the Bible portrays Christ\u2019s identity and describes his ministry. The chapters are by no means exhaustive. They cover only seven of the many descriptions of Jesus found in the Bible, and none of those descriptions is treated exhaustively. So these pages are meant as a taster, a beginning exploration. Our joint prayer is that they will help some who are not yet Christians, be an eye-opener to those who already are, serve as an encouragement for mature believers, and be a pleasure for all who love Christ.
\nWe cannot claim that this is a \u201cspecial\u201d book. But there are two special things about it that may lend interest to reading it.
\nFor one thing, it is a concrete expression of a friendship, begun in the 1970s when we were both very young ministers in Scotland, that now spans five decades. We were born and lived the first years of our lives in the same city. We knew the same places, were taught the same psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, heard the same preachers, developed a network of mutual friends, and, yes, even supported the same soccer team and played on some of the same golf courses. We both came to minister in the United States within a few months of each other, in 1983.
\nOf course we are different personalities and live within our own worlds (one has become an American citizen, the other hasn\u2019t; one plays the guitar, the other doesn\u2019t; one is a Baptist, the other a Presbyterian; one lives in Cleveland, the other in Columbia; and so on). We both have our own circle of friends as well as intersecting circles of friends. But over these many years we have enjoyed the kind of friendship, esteem, and affection for one another that has made us feel we are brothers. One of us never had a brother; the other lost his brother. So in part this book and its theme are expressions of our joint gratitude to the Savior in whom we have enjoyed such friendship and the love for his people we share in common.
\nBut in addition, Name above All Names gives us the opportunity to do something we have talked about over the years: express in some tangible way our joint gratitude for Derek Prime, who has been to us model pastor, friend, and encourager. That would be true especially for Alistair who served with Derek Prime at Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh, from 1974\u20131976. Our sense of gratitude for the measure of Christ-centeredness and Christlikeness we have seen displayed in his life and ministry makes it very natural for us to dedicate to him this little book on our Savior and Lord.
\nThe material in these pages began to come together in its present form as we prepared for a conference at The Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. We are indebted to that congregation and to its senior minister, Sandy Willson, for giving us the opportunity to serve them together and to share some of the material here in spoken form. We are also indebted to Mrs. Eve Huffman for the secretarial help without which this project would never have been completed.
\nWe hope these pages will encourage, instruct, refresh, and challenge every reader. In order to make it more practically helpful to those with only a beginning knowledge of the Bible, we have included references to the Bible passages or texts to which we refer. These references are in footnotes so that the book may be read without the constant interruption of bracketed material.
\nWe ask one favor from our readers. Standing in various pulpits in our native land of Scotland we have often seen words visible to the preacher but hidden from the congregation: \u201cSir, we wish to see Jesus\u201d (John 12:21). We ask you to make that your prayer as you begin to turn these pages.
\nAlistair Begg
\nSinclair B. Ferguson
\n1
\nJesus Christ, the Seed of the Woman<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ has been given the name above all names.1 The names assigned him begin in Genesis and end in Revelation. Taken together they express the incomparable character of Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Reflecting on them better prepares us to respond to the exhortations of Scripture, to focus our gaze upon him, and to meditate on how great he is.
\nBeing able to think long and lovingly about the Lord Jesus is a dying art. The disciplines required to reflect on him for a prolonged period of time and to be captivated by him have been relegated to a secondary place in contemporary Christian life. Action, rather than meditation, is the order of the day. Sadly, too often that action is not suffused with the grace and power of Christ.
\nHow different is the example of the apostle Paul\u2014for whom \u201cto live is Christ\u201d2\u2014or the author of the letter to the Hebrews, who urges us to \u201cconsider Jesus.\u201d3
\nWe need to learn to recapture such Christ-centeredness in our activist, busy age. Many of us are by nature too impatient. The most common tools of life, used on a daily basis\u2014our computers and all of our technology\u2014simply increase that impatience.
\nIt can only do us good, then, to spend the few hours it will take to read these pages focused on and riveted to the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
\nThe beginning, as Julie Andrews reminds us, \u201cis a very good place to start.\u201d Genesis is the book of beginnings. There we find the first hint of the coming of a redeemer. He is the Seed of the woman.
\nIn the Garden
\nThe title of this chapter is drawn from words God spoke in the garden of Eden. He addressed the Serpent that had just successfully tempted Adam and Eve into sin:<\/p>\n
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
\nand between your offspring [seed] and her offspring [seed];
\nhe shall bruise your head,
\nand you shall bruise his heel.4<\/p>\n
The context is a familiar one.
\nGod has put Adam and Eve into a beautiful garden. Every tree in that garden is good to look at and its fruit tastes delicious. But there is one tree in the garden about which God has said, \u201cOf the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you will die.\u201d5
\nThe point, apparently, was not that there was anything inherently poisonous about this particular tree. In fact, it is described in exactly the same terms as every other tree. It does not bear ugly fruit with a poisonous aroma. No. The distinctive feature of this tree is what God has said about it. For the all-generous God, who has given Adam and Eve everything in the garden to enjoy, has also said to them:<\/p>\n
Now, prove your love for me, show your trust in me and your obedience to me as a generous God, not because you can tell the difference between that tree and any other tree, but simply because I, as your Father, have told you, \u201cTrust me and obey me\u201d with respect to this one tree.<\/p>\n
It is a call to the life of faith that runs from the beginning of the Bible to its end:<\/p>\n
Trust and obey, for there\u2019s no other way
\nTo be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.6<\/p>\n
But then the Serpent appeared singing a different song:<\/p>\n
Trust me and obey, for there\u2019s no other way
\nTo be happy without God, except\u2014do what I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid God set you in this garden full of all these glorious trees, and all this delicious fruit, and then say, \u2018You are not to eat of the fruit of any of the trees\u2019?\u201d
\nOf course, Eve tried to argue with him, but she failed and was eventually drawn in to his scheme. She assessed the significance of the tree through her eyes rather than through her ears! Instead of listening to what God said about it, she thought about it only in terms of what she could see on it. After all, it looked delicious as well as attractive. She had not grasped the divine principle: believers \u201csee\u201d with their ears, not with their eyes, by listening to God\u2019s Word!7
\nThis, of course, is always the Serpent\u2019s trick.8
\nIn addition, what better way to bring about the fall of Adam other than\u2014as Eve herself later admitted\u2014by deceiving her and then employing her? Satan used the very best of God\u2019s gifts to Adam to gain leverage on him and to draw him into sin. And so, in turn, Adam brought the cosmos to ruin.
\nGod comes and exposes the sinful pair. They make their pathetic excuses. The man blames the woman. The woman blames the Serpent.
\nThen God pronounces three words of judgment.9
\n1) There is a judgment on Adam related to his task of gardening and his calling to turn the whole world into a garden for God.
\n2) There is a judgment on Eve related particularly to childbearing and to her attitude toward her husband.
\n3) There is a judgment on the Serpent.
\nAmazingly this judgment on the Serpent contains a seed of glorious gospel hope:<\/p>\n
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
\nand between your offspring [seed] and her offspring [seed];
\nhe shall bruise your head,
\nand you shall bruise his heel.10<\/p>\n
Emmaus Road Reading
\nWhen we trace the way the Old Testament develops this theme, we are, in a sense, trying to catch up with Jesus himself as he talked with two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus on the afternoon of his resurrection.11 We are trying to overhear what he said.
\nThe disciples were confused, bewildered, and distressed because of Jesus\u2019 death. He pointed them to the Scriptures: \u201cDo you not see how these Scriptures show that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise again and enter his kingdom and then extend that kingdom to the whole world?\u201d
\nApparently they didn\u2019t.
\nHow much we would love to have been there with an iPhone or a Blackberry set to RECORD to be able to play back all the Old Testament passages to which he drew their attention. He clearly had them memorized! Presumably he simply worked his way through them on that short journey.12 Later, for a period of several weeks, he kept coming back to the disciples and showing them all the ways in which the Old Testament pointed to him.13
\nWhen our Lord Jesus did this\u2014and whenever he still does it through his Word and by his Spirit\u2014three things happen:
\n\u2022 First, he provides an exposition of the Scriptures.
\n\u2022 Second, he brings illumination to the mind.
\n\u2022 Third, he creates a passion for himself in the heart.
\n\u201cDid not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?\u201d14 That was the reaction of the two disciples when he left them.
\nThis is the function of any Bible study. It is what we want to happen whenever we read what the Bible has to teach us about Jesus. We read or hear the Scriptures, and we look to the Holy Spirit to illumine them. When he does, our hearts burn within us. They are \u201cstrangely warmed\u201d (to use John Wesley\u2019s words). If we have once experienced this kind of heart burning, we want our hearts to burn like that again and again with love for the Savior and his teaching.
\nIf that is to happen, there is no better place to start than where we suspect Jesus made his beginning, in Genesis 3:15\u2014here in this promise of the conflict between the two seeds.
\nThe antagonists are first described as the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent. But the climax of the conflict is destined to be more personal and individual\u2014between the seed of the woman and the Serpent itself. The final evil antagonist is no longer the seed of the Serpent but the Serpent itself. Implicitly, then, the final seed of the woman is also an individual. Each would crush the other. But whereas the Serpent would crush only the heel of the seed of the woman, the seed of the woman would crush the head of the Serpent\u2014a blow that would prove fatal.
\nIf we were to give you a 3×5 blank card, inviting you to answer the question, \u201cFor what reason did the Son of God appear?\u201d what would your answer be? Here is the apostle John\u2019s answer:<\/p>\n
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.15<\/p>\n
That is the very first dimension of the gospel recorded in the Bible. John saw the prophecy of Genesis 3 fulfilled in our Redeemer Jesus Christ. When Christ appeared, he came to undo what the Serpent had done. By his life and ministry and ultimately through his death and resurrection, he destroyed all the works of the Devil.
\nHow do these words illumine the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ?
\nWhen we think about salvation, we use words like forgiveness and justification\u2014and rightly so. But notice that there is no mention in Genesis 3:15 of forgiveness or justification. Does that not matter? Indeed it does! But God\u2019s words here place all the emphasis on conflict (\u201cI will put enmity . . .\u201d) and therefore on our need to be delivered from bondage to the Evil One so that we are no longer the prisoners of \u201cthe prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.\u201d16
\nAnd so these words, almost at the beginning of Genesis, give us an important insight into the whole message of the Bible. It is a library of books that traces an ages-long cosmic conflict between the two \u201cseeds.\u201d
\nThe Protevangelium
\nGenesis 3:15 has long been referred to as the \u201cProtevangelium,\u201dthe first announcement of the good news of the gospel. It contains the earliest promise of Christ\u2019s coming\u2014a prophecy that his appearance will be the climax of an extended conflict. Notice how this is expressed:<\/p>\n
a) I will put enmity between you and the woman,
\nb) and between your offspring and her offspring;
\nc) he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
\n\u2022 In the first statement (a) God declares enmity between the Serpent and the woman.
\n\u2022 In the second statement (b) God indicates that this will continue beyond the lifetime of Eve and involve the offspring (seed) of the Serpent and the seed of the woman.
\n\u2022 In the third statement (c) God says that the enmity will come to a climax when the offspring (\u201che\u201d) of the woman bruises (or crushes) the head of the Serpent. The conflict ends in the victory of the seed of the woman.
\nSo there is a development in this verse, from enmity between two individuals (the Serpent and Eve), to enmity between two family lines (their offspring), to a final d\u00e9nouement: the woman\u2019s offspring or seed (singular) will crush the head of the Serpent.
\nSatan?
\nThere is no reference to Satan in Genesis 3. But when the rest of the Scriptures reflect on what happened there, it is clear that behind the Serpent stands the figure of Satan.
\nPaul echoes Genesis 3:15 when he tells the Christians in Rome that \u201cthe God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.\u201d17 He is picking up this ancient promise and applying it to the Christians in Rome. The implication is that the Serpent in Genesis 3 is the mouthpiece of Satan, and that the conflict referred to there has now come to a climax. Christ overcomes him\u2014and therefore so shall we.
\nThis is even more vividly expressed in the book of Revelation. Revelation 12 gives us a dramatic picture of this ages-long conflict reaching its climax. John sees a great red dragon that devours humanity. This is the \u201cancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.\u201d18 Having spiritually devoured so many from the human race, the Serpent of Eden has grown into a large dragon.
\nIn fact, the apocalyptic vision of Revelation 12 is almost like a movie version of Genesis 3:15. We are invited to watch, in dramatic, high-definition, Technicolor with special effects, the prophesied ongoing conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent and its final outcome.19
\nThis is the underlying plotline of the whole of the Bible. It appears in embryo in the very next chapter of the book of Genesis. One brother (Cain) is in conflict with another brother (Abel) because the latter\u2019s sacrifice was acceptable to God.20 Jealousy and murder result as the seed of the Serpent (Cain), seeks to destroy the seed of the woman (Abel).
\nThe same plotline makes its way through the tower of Babel as man seeks to build his kingdom over against God\u2019s. But in sovereign power God pulls down that kingdom and destroys its unity.21 This is also the story of Egypt against Israel.22 It is the story of Goliath against David.23 It is the story of Babylon against Jerusalem, of Nebuchadnezzar against Daniel.24 It is the story of Satan against Jesus,25 and of Pontius Pilate and Herod seeking to destroy the Savior.26 It is the story that runs through the Gospels and beyond. The Jews seek to destroy Jesus during his ministry: \u201cYou are of your father the devil,\u201d he says.27 It is the story of how the enmity then turns on the Christian church.28
\nThus the story of the ages is beginning to unfold here already in Genesis 3:15.
\nOngoing Conflict
\nWe need to remember this conflict when we come to read the Gospels. It is a major underlying theme in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. Its presence runs through every page of the story. The Gospels are the story of Jesus\u2019 conflict with the seed of the Serpent\u2014whether in the form of demons, or in the inciting of hostility against him, or in his efforts to conscript into his service Jesus\u2019 disciples Peter and Judas. In the terse summary language of the aged John: \u201cThe reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.\u201d29
\nAnd so from the beginning to the very end, from the garden of Eden turned into a desert because of sin, until in Revelation 21 and 22 when that desert is turned back into a garden, the whole of the Bible is the story of this conflict. It was promised to last throughout the ages until Christ came, and then, in his ministry, it enters its critical phase.
\nThe New Testament reflects this in many different ways.
\nRemember how Paul says that when the time was fully come, God sent his Son. He describes Jesus in two arresting phrases, \u201cborn of woman, born under the law.\u201d30 \u201cBorn of woman\u201d\u2014is he echoing Genesis 3:15? Surely, for lineage elsewhere in Scripture is traced through the male line.31 But God had said, \u201cThe seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.\u201d Paul is, as it were, saying to us, \u201cNow do you see in the incarnation who the seed\u2014the one born of\u2014the woman actually is? It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d
\nCould this be the reason why the Lord Jesus addresses his mother Mary as the \u201cwoman\u201d? He does that in two very striking moments recorded exclusively in John\u2019s Gospel.
\nFirst, at the wedding Jesus was attending in Cana of Galilee, he responds to Mary\u2019s insistence that he \u201cdo something\u201d about an impending disaster. The wine was running out. But Jesus answers: \u201cWoman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.\u201d But shortly afterwards he turned water into wine\u2014his first miracle; his first display of his glory!32
\nLater, during the last hour or so of his life, Jesus again addresses his mother as \u201cwoman.\u201d He is about to finish his work on earth. In that work God \u201cdisarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame.\u201d33 As he does so, he turns to John and commits his mother Mary into his care. And then he says to her, \u201cWoman, behold, your son!\u201d34
\nCommentators have always found it difficult to explain the precise nuance of Jesus\u2019 words. They seem to jar a little. After all, when did you last address your mother in this impersonal form? And if you did, what did she say? Did she remind you who she is? To our ears there is something abrasive about such language when used by a son of his loving mother. Some commentators go to great lengths to say, \u201cNow, there is no tension here. This is a very normal thing for Jesus to say.\u201d
\nBut is it? This style of address between a son and his mother does not appear elsewhere in the Gospels. Could there be a deeper reason why John records this language at both the beginning and the end of Jesus\u2019 public ministry? Is he saying: \u201cDon\u2019t you see what is happening here? Jesus sees he is the seed of the woman who would bruise the head of the Serpent.\u201d Is he simply reminding his mother of their God-given destinies? After all, John\u2019s Gospel teaches us that, on the cross of Calvary, our Lord Jesus Christ did, in fact, crush the head of the Serpent. \u201cNow\u201d he says, when Gentiles asked to see him, \u201cNow is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.\u201d35
\nJesus Meets the Enemy
\nAnother passage in John\u2019s Gospel seems to fit in with this overall perspective, although it too is far from easy to interpret.
\nIn the middle of our Lord\u2019s Farewell Discourse (John 13\u201317) he says to his disciples, \u201cRise, let us go from here [or, let us be going]\u201d (14:31). But there is no indication in the text of any physical relocation or indeed of any movement at all. However, the language John uses here was employed outside of the New Testament in a military context, for marching against the enemy. Perhaps, then, Jesus is not saying, \u201cCome on, let\u2019s move on from here,\u201d but rather, \u201c In the light of all that I have been saying and all that is happening, it is time for us to march into the final conflict against the powers of darkness.\u201d36 For, \u201cthis is [their] hour, and the power of darkness.\u201d37 Whether the disciple band physically left the room at that point or not, Jesus was certainly entering enemy-occupied territory.
\nAnd so the Gospels seem to be saying to us: \u201cDo you see in the ministry of the Lord Jesus how this promise of conflict is coming to a climactic point?\u201d
\nRevelation 12 is a dramatic form of this promise of Genesis 3:15. In his vision, John sees that a child who will rule the nations is about to be born.38 But a great dragon stands waiting for him to come from his mother\u2019s womb. The dragon means to devour the child. The dragon is explicitly identified with the Devil and the Serpent in Eden.39 This is all too reminiscent of the vicious and cynical pogrom Herod mounted against the infants in the region of Bethlehem.40 There was something deeply satanic about that attack, focused as it was on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The story of salvation is a wartime story.
\nThe same realities come to expression in our Savior\u2019s temptation in the wilderness.41
\nThe Second Adam Comes to the Fight
\nWe sometimes make an elementary mistake when reading the temptation narratives. We assume that their chief purpose is to teach us about our temptations and how we should resist them.
\nTrue, our Lord\u2019s example of resisting his temptations does help us to withstand our temptations. But their point is not to say, \u201cJesus was tempted, and you are tempted just like him, so respond to temptation as he did.\u201d That would turn his temptations into a mere example for us to emulate. No\u2014we are told that the Holy Spirit led Jesus, indeed \u201cdrove him,\u201d into the wilderness to be tempted.42
\nJesus\u2019 temptations were not a series of unfortunate events that overtook him unexpectedly. They constitute an epic confrontation taking place within the divine strategy. What we see here is Jesus\u2019 work of conflict, victory, and salvation. He came face-to-face with Satan. He appeared as God\u2019s new man, the second Adam, to do what the old man, the first Adam, had failed to do. The question is: who will possess the kingdoms of this world? And how will God\u2019s kingdom be recovered and established? And the answer is that Jesus will repossess them in our name and for his Father\u2019s pleasure and glory. Satan will be crushed under foot!<\/p>\n
O loving wisdom of our God!
\nWhen all was sin and shame,
\nA Second Adam to the fight
\nAnd to the rescue came.<\/p>\n
O wisest love! that flesh and blood,
\nThat did in Adam fail,
\nShould strive afresh against the foe,
\nShould strive and should prevail.43<\/p>\n
This is why Jesus experienced such overwhelming weakness and hunger (in contrast to Adam, who enjoyed plenty). This is why he faced temptation in a wilderness (not like Adam, situated in a lovely and hospitable garden). This is why he was surrounded by wild animals (not, as Adam was, by pliant, obedient, almost domesticated animals). Jesus, the Last Adam, had to conquer in the context of the chaos the first Adam\u2019s sin had brought into the world.
\nSo from the beginning of his ministry to its end, Jesus is marching against the powers of darkness. Virtually immediately after the temptations, as he begins his public ministry, he has to face a further onslaught of demonic activity in the Nazareth synagogue.44 Soon afterwards he encounters a man in Gadara whose life is under some destructive alien influence and out of control. He roams through the tombs like a wild animal nobody can subdue.
\nJesus says tenderly to the demoniac, \u201cWhat is your name?\u201d
\nHe replies, \u201cMy name is Legion, for we are many.\u201d45
\nA Roman legion theoretically consisted of around four thousand to five thousand soldiers. The man is saying, \u201cThousands of demons have invaded my life.\u201d
\nBut catch this. It takes only one demon to destroy a man. Why, then, have thousands of demons invaded him? Because the Lord Jesus was there. That is the whole point. This is not simply a poor man possessed by a legion of demons. That would be an extravagant deployment of forces Satan could never afford. No, not this man, but the destruction of Jesus\u2019 ministry is the ultimate target.
\nThe reason there is so much demon possession in the time period recorded by the Gospels is not\u2014as is sometimes assumed\u2014that demon possession was commonplace then. In fact it was not. Rather, the land then was demon-invaded because the Savior was marching to the victory promised in Genesis 3:15. And all hell was let loose in order to withstand him.
\nThe response of the demons themselves to Jesus makes this clear. When he was confronted by the demon-possessed man in the Capernaum synagogue, the unclean spirit\u2019s reaction to him was \u201cHave you come to destroy us?\u201d46
\nAnd then, of course, this sinister opposition took a more subtle form in one of the three men Jesus loved most in the world, when Simon Peter echoed the Serpent\u2019s temptation of the Savior: \u201cDon\u2019t take the way of the cross, Jesus.\u201d47
\nHow resolute Jesus was\u2014how clear-headed to hear in Peter\u2019s words the accent of the Evil One\u2014and to respond: \u201cGet behind me, Satan!\u201d48
\nA Change of Tactic
\nIn the first half of the Gospel narrative, up to the point where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Satan seeks to divert him from the cross. In the wilderness he says, \u201cJesus, don\u2019t go to the cross. I will give you the kingdoms as long as you will bow down and worship me.\u201d Through Simon Peter he says, \u201cDon\u2019t go to the cross. Find some other way.\u201d The demons seem to say, \u201cDon\u2019t go to the cross.\u201d
\nThen something unexpected happens. Satan\u2019s strategy moves into a different gear. Now he tries to get Jesus to the cross as quickly as he possibly can. Now he is attempting to subvert God\u2019s timing so that Jesus\u2019 death will be a terrible tragedy, not an obedient saving ministry. Now, instead of using an unstable member of the disciple band (Simon Peter), he uses its trusted treasurer (Judas Iscariot). Indeed his fellow disciples trusted him so implicitly that when he left the upper room to betray Jesus, several of them consciously thought that he was going to engage in mercy ministry.49
\nSatan had used Simon Peter\u2014unsuccessfully. But now he actually came to indwell Judas Iscariot.50 That signaled the beginning of Jesus\u2019 final conflict. \u201cThis\u201d he said to his captors in the garden of Gethsemane, \u201cis [your] hour, and the power of darkness.\u201d51 That power would crush his heel. But in that conflict he would crush the head of the Serpent.
\nSo the whole-Bible story is one of ongoing conflict. The Gospel story brings us to its crisis point.
\nVictory
\nHow does Jesus crush the head of the Serpent and destroy his influence?
\nWhere Adam conceded victory to Satan, Jesus resisted him. Total obedience to his Father marked the whole course of his life.
\nThree years later, Jesus was also brought to a tree. He too faced temptation. But in his case the temptation was to not eat of its poisonous fruit. The obedient Last Adam reversed the disobedience of the first Adam.
\nGod gave Adam and Eve the pleasure of eating fruit from every tree in the garden, except one. The forbidden fruit, as we have seen, was not an ugly fruit that looked sinister and gave off a repulsive odor. No, it looked delicious. Every instinct said, with respect to that tree, \u201cThis tree\u2014like all the trees in the garden\u2014is attractive to the eyes. Its fruit looks and smells delicious.\u201d52
\nWhy, when the tree in Eden looked so attractive, had God said, \u201cDo not eat this fruit\u201d? The tree tested Adam\u2019s obedience. But it also provided a context in which he could grow in his relationship to God. For God was really saying to him: \u201cAdam, obey me in this to show you trust and love me. By doing so you will grow in your relationship with me.\u201d Alas, Adam followed in the pathway on which his wife\u2019s senses had led her: sight, smell, and taste rather than the word of God.
\nWhen the second Man was brought to the Calvary tree, he faced a reversed mirror image of the first man\u2019s temptation.
\nThere was nothing in the first tree that led Adam instinctively to resist the temptation to eat its delicious-looking fruit. So there was nothing in the second tree that attracted Jesus to eat its repulsive fruit of God-forsakenness. It was an accursed tree.53
\nThere was not a bone in Christ\u2019s body, not an ounce of his flesh, not an affection in his soul that could ever be instinctively willing to experience a sense of abandonment by God. Everything in him shrunk from that. He loved his Father!
\nWe can say more. Any other reaction than to shrink from death on the tree as repulsive would have been less than holy on Jesus\u2019 part. Jesus was called to experience something from which every instinct in him recoiled. Jesus had to NOT want to eat the fruit of the tree with his whole being, and yet be willing to eat. He willed to be obedient when he did not want to be forsaken! Such was the price of our salvation. No wonder Jesus prayed, \u201cAbba, Father. . . . Remove this cup from me.\u201d54
\nWe can tabulate the contrast between Adam and Jesus in this way:<\/p>\n
Two persons:
\nAdam the first
\nAdam the last
\nTwo places:
\nThe forbidden tree
\nThe accursed tree
\nTwo commands:
\nDo not eat the fruit!
\nDrink what is in the
\ncup!
\nTwo desires:
\nWants to eat
\nDoes not want to
\ndrink
\nTwo actions:
\nDisobedience
\nObedience
\nTwo results:
\nDeath
\nLife<\/p>\n
It is against this background that Paul says, \u201cHe . . . [became] obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.\u201d55 Jesus willed to take the divine curse although everything in him, every holy desire, longed for and deserved the divine blessing. He took our place\u2014who can fathom the mystery of his sense of desolation and alienation from heaven\u2019s glory? He bore the curse\u2014all for love\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n
In my place, condemned he stood
\nSealed my pardon with his blood
\nHallelujah! What a Savior!56<\/p>\n
But there is more. Jesus did something else of massive importance.
\nThe Unmasking
\nJesus unmasked Satan\u2019s lie.
\nPaul describes the fall of man in these terms: \u201cThey exchanged the truth about God for a lie.\u201d57 What was this lie? This, surely: the Serpent said to Eve:<\/p>\n
Your God has set you in this garden. He has given you so many rich and attractive trees, so much luscious fruit. But he is really saying: \u201cI am surrounding you with all these beautiful and delicious things BUT you are not to have any of them.\u201d58<\/p>\n
Do you see the satanic innuendo here? \u201cGod is cynical; he does not want the best for you, nor does he give the best to you. He is toying with you for his own malicious pleasure. He doesn\u2019t really love you. He despises you.\u201d
\nThe rest is history. Eve struggled with the temptation, but the poisonous thought was already injected through her now-confused mind into her affections and will. From there it has passed down into our bloodstream. It is in our system now. It is the twist within us that leads us not to believe and not to trust that God himself and everything\u2014absolutely everything\u2014he is, does, says, commands, and promises is good.
\nSometimes non-Christians say to us, \u201cThe God I believe in is a God of love.\u201d But they do not know themselves. For the Bible\u2019s analysis is: \u201cNo\u2014you have exchanged the truth about God for a lie. You don\u2019t believe that he is love. You wouldn\u2019t live the way you do if you really believed that.\u201d
\nThe heart of the gospel is: in demonstration of his love, the heavenly Father sent his only Son to die on the cross in our place and for our sins. \u201cGod demonstrated his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.\u201d59
\nIt is the cross alone that ultimately proves the love of God to us\u2014not the providential circumstances of our lives. We must not allow ourselves to be tricked into thinking that if things are going well with us, then we can be sure of God\u2019s love. For life can often seem dark and painful. Things do not always go well for us. Rather, we look to the sacrifice of the cross and the demonstration God gave there of his love. This is the proof I need. This is the truth I need to hear if the lie is to be dispelled.
\nIf Jesus has died for me, then I can be sure that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will stop at nothing (absolutely nothing!) to do me good:<\/p>\n
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?60<\/p>\n
Notice how Calvary-oriented, cross-focused, and Christ-centered the gospel is. But Calvary, with all its dark sense of abandonment, is an even fuller revelation of grace. For it is not only<\/p>\n
1) The high point of Jesus\u2019 obedience. He became \u201cobedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.\u201d61<\/p>\n
It is also:<\/p>\n
2) The high point of the Father\u2019s love for his incarnate Son. \u201cFor this reason the Father loves me,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cbecause I lay down my life.\u201d62 The moment he cried out, \u201cMy God, I am forsaken! Why?\u201d was the very moment that his Father, through his tears, was singing,<\/p>\n
My Jesus, I love thee,
\nI know thou art mine . . .
\nIf ever I loved thee,
\nMy Jesus, \u2019tis now.<\/p>\n
All of this took place in order to crush the Serpent\u2019s head and to squeeze from his fangs the poisonous lie that still deadens many a Christian\u2019s heart, and causes us to become fearful, doubting believers.
\nThere is one further note to add that seems to shed light on Christ\u2019s work as the seed.
\nThe Gardener Returns
\nRecall what Adam was created to be: the gardener.
\nEverything God made was \u201cgood\u201d\u2014but everything was not yet garden. God wanted Adam to exercise his dominion by expanding the garden. Having given him a garden to begin with, God was saying: \u201cNow, Adam, I have given you a start.\u201d Just as we might say to our children, \u201cHere is a start. Now you go and do the rest.\u201d
\nAdam was to \u201cgarden\u201d the whole earth, for the glory of the heavenly Father. But he failed. Created to make the dust fruitful, he himself became part of the dust.63 The garden of Eden became the wilderness of this world. But do you also remember how John\u2019s Gospel records what happened on the morning of Jesus\u2019 resurrection? He was \u201cthe beginning [of the new creation], the firstborn from the dead.\u201d64 But Mary Magdalene did not recognize him; instead she spoke to him \u201csupposing him to be the gardener.\u201d65 Well, who else would he be, at that time in the morning?
\nThe gardener? Yes, indeed. He is the Gardener. He is the second Man, the last Adam, who is now beginning to restore the garden.
\nLater that day Jesus showed his disciples where the nails and the spear had drawn blood from his hands and side. The Serpent had indeed crushed his heel. But he had crushed the Serpent\u2019s head! Now he was planning to turn the wilderness back into a garden. Soon he would send his disciples into the world with the good news of his victory. All authority on earth\u2014lost by Adam\u2014was now regained. The world must now be reclaimed for Jesus the conqueror!
\nIn the closing scenes of the book of Revelation, John saw the new earth coming down from heaven. What did it look like? A garden in which the tree of life stands!66
\nOne day all of this will come to pass.
\nSo the Seed has come; his heel oozed blood from being crushed. But the Serpent\u2019s head has been crushed in the process. Jesus reigns, and we will be more than conquerors through him who loved us!67
\nBut there is still a long way to go before the end; and there is much more to learn about Christ if we are to know him fully. Already we have had hints of what he will need to be: someone who speaks the truth that counters Satan\u2019s lies, that is, a prophet; someone who is able to assure us that our sins are forgiven, that is, a priest; and someone who is able to subdue us and reign over us, that is, a king. And much else.<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ, the True Prophet<\/p>\n
Scripture urges us to fix our eyes upon Jesus.1
\nVery few books have made more impact on our lives than the Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M\u2018Cheyne. Robert M\u2018Cheyne was the Scottish minister of St. Peter\u2019s Church, Dundee, from 1836 to 1843. He died at the age of twenty-nine. But his life, his preaching, and indeed his whole ministry were marked by a profound Christ-centeredness. We often reflect on his words: \u201cLearn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. Let your soul be filled with a sense of the excellence of Christ.\u201d2
\nThis is our great need\u2014to have our minds and hearts filled with a sense of the greatness and incomparable glory of Christ. When you think about the deeply narcissistic age in which we live and how much we are tempted and encouraged to be focused on ourselves, M\u2018Cheyne\u2019s words still echo in our ears down through the corridors of time. We need to take them to heart every single day.
\nWe have already noted that one of the \u201clooks\u201d we can take at Jesus is to see him as the seed of the woman. In addition to this, the Bible helps us to see him as the Christ. Christ means \u201canointed one.\u201d In the old covenant, three particular people were anointed for the service of God: the prophet, the priest, and the king. These three dimensions reveal more fully both his person and his work.
\nIn many ways the church as a whole is indebted to John Calvin for explaining the importance of this \u201cthreefold office.\u201d
\nWhen Calvin introduced this theme in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he noted that some of his contemporaries used these terms of Jesus \u201ccoldly and ineffectually, because they do not know what each of these truths contains.\u201d3 Simply put, it is possible to be adept at using this phraseology, even in an erudite way, but yet leave hearts cold so that our teaching fails to express the power of the truth we are describing. We end up explaining concepts instead of pointing to Jesus himself. It is important, then, if we are going to employ this grid to help us understand Christ, that we use it properly.
\nIn this chapter we will look at Jesus as the heaven-sent prophet and think of him in four ways.
\nThe fundamentals of education used to be referred to as the \u201cthree R\u2019s\u201d\u2014reading, writing, and arithmetic. These are basic and essential to our ability to function in the world. In a similar way we might say there are four R\u2019s that are basic and essential to our knowing Christ as our prophet and enjoying communion with him.
\nR 1: Required
\nOur fallen condition requires us to have Jesus as our prophet. \u201cRequired\u201d here is used in its most basic sense: \u201cneeded for a particular purpose; upon which we depend for success or survival.\u201d
\nEach of these three titles of Jesus\u2014prophet, priest, king\u2014contains an inherent judgment upon us. As king, Jesus comes to us to subdue our rebellion. As priest, he comes in order to deal with our sins. But the reason he comes to us as prophet is to deal with our ignorance.
\nSpiritual ignorance is the reason God sent prophets throughout all biblical history\u2014and ultimately sent his true and final prophet, the Lord Jesus.
\nFollowing the first sin and fall in Genesis 3, God saw that \u201cevery intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.\u201d4 Man\u2019s heart and mind are now skewed in the wrong direction.
\nAs we read on through the Bible, we discover something else: because of our willful rebellion, folly lurks in our hearts and further impacts our ignorance: \u201cThe fool says in his heart,\u201d says the psalmist, \u201cthere is no God.\u201d5 By the time we reach into the New Testament, for example in Romans and then again in Ephesians, Paul is driving home the same truth:<\/p>\n
They became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.6<\/p>\n
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.7<\/p>\n
Into this tragic situation of moral and spiritual ignorance Christ came. Through his prophetic ministry, light was to shine light into our darkness. \u201cIn him was life, and the life was the light of men.\u201d8
\nChildren are naturally scared in the dark. That is why they ask, \u201cWill you leave the light on in my bedroom?\u201d Thomas Watson, the English Puritan, makes an insightful comment in this respect. He notes that while we see the dangers in natural darkness, in spiritual darkness we seem to know no fear.<\/p>\n
But the spiritual darkness is not accompanied with horror, men tremble not at their condition; nay, they like their condition well enough.9<\/p>\n
Of course this is simply illustrating and reinforcing what John tells us. \u201cPeople loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.\u201d10 In fact, this darkness\u2014an internal darkness\u2014is so deep that man, as man, is blind to the very fact of his blindness! He becomes conscious of it only when the Lord Jesus comes to reveal it to him. Because of his sin and his fallen condition, it is only by God\u2019s grace that he discovers eventually that there is no intellectual road to God. As Martin Luther observed, man by his very nature is incurvatus in se\u2014turned in upon himself. As a result, his view of the world is not neutral; it is skewed. He is biased\u2014about everything. \u201cThe heart of man,\u201d says John Calvin, \u201cis a perpetual factory of idols.\u201d11 Or, to quote William Temple, \u201cevery day in a thousand ways I make myself the center of the universe.\u201d12
\nInto that darkness and folly God has spoken through the prophets \u201cin many and various ways.\u201d13 The prophets speak with great clarity on this theme. They consistently say: \u201cThis is what the Lord says,\u201d and, \u201cListen to me, O House of Jacob. Listen to me, O House of Israel.\u201d The people must listen to the word of the Lord. \u201cOld Testament prophecy was a means by which an infallible God used fallible men to bring an infallible word to fallible people.\u201d14 The prophets confronted their contemporaries with the absolute folly and futility of idolatry.
\nHere is Isaiah at his most scathing:<\/p>\n
He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, \u201cAha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!\u201d And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, \u201cDeliver me, for you are my god!\u201d
\nThey know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, \u201cHalf of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?\u201d He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, \u201cIs there not a lie in my right hand?\u201d15<\/p>\n
Now, when we read that, we are tempted to say to ourselves, \u201cThat was a long time ago, and we have moved beyond such folly.\u201d But the truth is, we continue to manufacture our own gods\u2014invariably made in our own image. These gods of our own invention take many different forms but share a view of reality that is essentially pantheistic. \u201cAll of them, in one way or another, assume that nature encloses and contains the sacred. And it assumes that the way we make contact with God is to find Him in ourselves. He is there within our deepest self.\u201d16
\nA recent editorial in our local newspaper described the Christmas spirit as the celebration of belief in the existence of an eternal energy! Discovering this energy within, in a way that is profoundly personal, was seen in an extreme form in the 1980s book Habits of the Heart.17 We are introduced to Sheila Larson, a young nurse who has invented her own religion in which God is defined as whatever fulfills her needs. She described this \u201cfaith\u201d quite unashamedly as \u201cSheilaism.\u201d
\nG. K. Chesterton shrewdly commented on this kind of thinking when he said that once people stop believing in the God of the Bible, they don\u2019t believe in nothing\u2014they begin to believe in anything!
\nThis is why we need a prophet who is able to dethrone our ignorance. And unless we are delivered from it by this great and true prophet, we remain in the darkness and futility of our thinking.
\nR 2: Revealed
\nOur second word is\u2014not surprisingly\u2014\u201crevealed.\u201d \u201cLong ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days,\u201d says the writer to the Hebrews, \u201che has spoken to us by his Son.\u201d18
\nThis prophetic, revelatory role is a vital part of the ministry of Jesus.
\nWhile Moses was the first major prophet, he spoke of another prophet who was to come: \u201cThe LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers\u2014it is to him you shall listen.\u201d And again, \u201cThe LORD said to me, \u2018They are right in what they have spoken. What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.\u2019 \u201d19
\nThis is a perfect description of our Lord\u2019s prophetic ministry: God puts his words into Jesus\u2019 mouth. Jesus reveals everything his Father has commanded him. These words also surely lie behind our Lord\u2019s High Priestly Prayer in John 17. It is the prayer of the Great Prophet:<\/p>\n
Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.20<\/p>\n
An expectation of this ministry of Christ runs throughout the Old Testament into the New. Calvin comments that the minds of the pious [have] always been imbued with the conviction that they were to hope for the full light of understanding only at the coming of the Messiah.\u201d21 Think, for example, of the way the aged Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms in the temple. What does he say? \u201cMy eyes have seen your salvation . . . a light for revelation to the Gentiles,\u201d and so on.22 In the deep piety of his expectation, he was looking for the embodiment and the fulfillment of the ancient prophetic word.
\nWe see the same thing illustrated in Jesus\u2019 conversation with the unnamed Samaritan woman he met at Jacob\u2019s well. Such an expectation (as Calvin also notes) \u201chad spread even beyond the realms of the faithful, and had infiltrated the minds of the Samaritans.\u201d23 She knew enough theology to be able to say to Jesus, \u201cWhen [the Messiah comes], he will tell us all things.\u201d24 What a fascinating statement from an unlikely source! Here is a Samaritan woman who has already had multiple husbands and now has a live-in lover. She meets this Jewish stranger at the well, and an unexpected conversation begins. It is really remarkable, isn\u2019t it? As Jesus speaks to her, she immediately responds, \u201cI can see that you are a prophet.\u201d And then as the dialogue continues, she seeks, as it were, to put an end to it all by simply telling this stranger this whole thing will get sorted out when the Messiah comes. \u201cBecause when he comes\u2014all of this will become absolutely clear.\u201d Little did she expect Jesus\u2019 response: \u201cI who speak to you am he.\u201d25 Her amazement is matched by that of the congregation in the synagogue of Nazareth when Jesus, having read from Isaiah 61, declares, \u201cToday this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.\u201d26 They marveled at his words!
\nIt was as a prophet that Jesus was first acclaimed by his contemporaries. We see this throughout the Gospels. Immediately following the feeding of the five thousand, the word on everyone\u2019s lips is: \u201cThis indeed is the Prophet who is to come into the world!\u201d27
\nWhen Jesus stopped a funeral procession outside the city of Nain, it was to raise the dead boy and restore him to his mother. In response the people say, \u201cA great prophet has arisen among us.\u201d28
\nWhen Nicodemus, the profoundly learned and deeply religious Pharisee, came to Jesus under cover of darkness with some questions, he said: \u201cYou know, I can see that you are a teacher sent from God.\u201d In other words, \u201cI can see that you are a prophet.\u201d29 And later when Jesus asked his disciples, \u201cWhat is the word on the street concerning me? Who do people say that I am?\u201d one of the first responses is \u201cMany say that you are one of the prophets.\u201d30
\nJesus accepted this designation\u2014although he wanted it to be properly understood, because it wasn\u2019t. For example, after the evening in the synagogue in Nazareth, he sensed the hostile reaction of the people and declared: \u201cNo prophet is acceptable in his hometown.\u201d31
\nLater on he says that it is not right for a prophet to die outside of Jerusalem.32
\nWe need a prophet because of our ignorance. Jesus himself is a prophet; indeed he is the prophet we need.
\nR 3: Recognized
\nThis takes us a stage further than \u201crevealed.\u201d Ultimately Jesus must be recognized, not merely as a messenger of revelation from God but as the very source of that revelation. Jesus is not only the revealer; he is the revelation! That is why after his words in the Nazareth synagogue the buzz around town was: \u201cIsn\u2019t this Joseph\u2019s son? Who does he think he is, reading the Scriptures in such a way? Who does he think he is, adopting the position of a teacher? Who, then, is this man on whom our eyes were fixed like magnets? Who is this who says, \u2018Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing\u2019?\u201d33
\nAnd then, as we saw in the first chapter, the same thing happens again on the road to Emmaus. The discouraged disciples had no idea that they were speaking to the one who had risen from the dead. And so, as they engage in conversation, he gently rebukes them:<\/p>\n
\u201cO foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?\u201d And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.34<\/p>\n
Now, none of the other prophets could say that, could they? Jesus is the embodiment of all that the prophets have previously said. Essentially, Jesus is able to take the Scriptures as they are, open them up, and say: \u201cDo you see? This is a book about me. This whole book is about me!\u201d
\nAs Jesus explained the Scriptures to them, their eyes were opened. They heard a careful exposition of the Scriptures; they experienced the illumination of their minds, and they discovered a new passion stirring in their hearts\u2014a fire. Then they recognized him!<\/p>\n
And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, \u201cDid not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?\u201d35<\/p>\n
Jesus did the same in his subsequent appearance to the disciples. Not only did he come to open the Scriptures, and to open hearts, but now \u201che opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, \u2018Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and . . . rise from the dead.\u2019\u201d36 \u201cThis is what was written then,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cand now what has happened in me is the fulfillment of it all.\u201d This was all part of his plan to prepare these same disciples to go out in the power of the Spirit of God to preach the truth embodied in him as God\u2019s final prophet.37
\nThe prophetic role of Jesus is required in order to dispel our ignorance. It is revealed in Jesus himself. It is recognized in all of its fullness at the end of his earthly ministry.
\nBut there is one further step we need to take if we are fully to capture what it means for Jesus to be prophet. These first three aspects describe his finished work, his fulfilled ministry. But there is a fourth aspect\u2014his unfinished work. For the Lord Jesus continues to minister as God\u2019s prophet.
\nR 4: Realized
\nJesus\u2019 ministry as prophet needs to be realized\u2014but how? In the preaching and teaching of the Bible. Christ\u2019s prophetic ministry was continued in the preaching and teaching ministry of the apostles. But the same is also true of all preachers who stand in the line of that apostolic authority and have been set apart as gifts of the ascended Christ. It is their ongoing task to bring the Scriptures to bear upon the minds of the foolish and ignorant in their own time and generation.
\nIf we fail to understand this, then both our preaching and our hearing of the biblical testimony to Christ will be impoverished. Calvin, again, helps us here. He says of Jesus:<\/p>\n
He received anointing, not only for himself that he might carry out the office of teaching, but for his whole body that the power of the Spirit might be present in the continuing preaching of the gospel.38<\/p>\n
So the present prophetic ministry of Christ never introduces bizarre or strange or new and fanciful notions. No, it is found in the opening up of the Word, in the gossiping of the gospel, in the sharing of Christ. That is where the ongoing prophetic work of Christ is seen\u2014or, better, heard. That is what Paul is saying when he writes to the Corinthians: \u201cTherefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.\u201d39 Through him? Through Timothy? Through Titus? Doesn\u2019t that also imply: through us? God is making his appeal through us!
\nAt the close of his earthly ministry Jesus said to his disciples, \u201cI want you to go out from here into the world and preach the gospel. But listen, I am always with you.\u201d
\nThese men were going out to be confronted by a hostile world, deeply aware of their own finitude, personal frailty, and ineffectiveness. Jesus was giving them a cast-iron promise: \u201cAnd I will be there. I was once lifted up on the cross and I will be lifted up again through your witness in order to draw all men to myself.\u201d40
\nThe task of sharing the gospel involves simply and clearly bearing testimony to Christ. It involves saying who he is and what he has accomplished historically, explaining the significance of his death, the wonder of his resurrection, the fact of his ascension, and so on. And the promise of Christ is that in this ongoing ministry of God\u2019s Word, he is present and he continues to speak. But there will need to be more said about that in a later chapter.41
\nPassion
\nThere is a vast difference between simply conveying information to people, which can be cold and ineffectual, and true preaching and witness.
\nWe have a long-standing friend who was once driving in the north of Scotland with our fellow countryman the late professor John Murray of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Professor Murray decided to turn the journey into a quiz! He asked a question: \u201cWhat is the difference between a lecture and preaching?\u201d
\nOur friend tried his best to come up with a good answer. But Professor Murray was not satisfied.
\n\u201cWell, Professor Murray,\u201d our friend eventually conceded, \u201cWhat is the answer? What is the difference between a lecture and preaching?\u201d
\n\u201cThis is what it is:\u201d said John Murray, \u201cPreaching is a personal, passionate plea.\u201d
\nOur friend again replied, \u201cBut what is the personal passionate plea?\u201d
\nQuick as a flash, Professor Murray responded in Paul\u2019s words: \u201cWe implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.\u201d42
\nThat\u2019s it!
\nThis is not just for the pulpit and the big public occasion. This is for the grocery store, for the golf course, for the coffee shop. Wherever we tell others about the Lord Jesus, through God\u2019s power and with an awareness that Christ himself is the great prophet of God, we say\u2014in our own words\u2014\u201cI implore you. Be reconciled to God. Receive the reconciliation that he has provided.\u201d And when God begins to work, people say, \u201cI didn\u2019t know about that; tell me more.\u201d And we can respond, \u201cWell then, I will be glad to tell you about it. Let me tell you the story.\u201d And so we have the opportunity to speak into the darkness of their minds and the futility of their thinking.43
\nIt is essential that we do this as humble instruments of the ongoing ministry of Christ. Listen to John Calvin again:<\/p>\n
All those, then, who, not content with the gospel, patch it with something extraneous to it, detract from Christ\u2019s authority.44<\/p>\n
We must be alert to this danger! Why would he say, \u201cfrom Christ\u2019s authority?\u201d Because it is Christ\u2019s prophetic word\u2014in the preaching and teaching of the Bible\u2014that is brought to bear upon our minds through the very feebleness of the instruments God chooses to use.
\nThere is enormous encouragement for us in that. If that were not the case, then we wouldn\u2019t really know who was doing what, would we? But when we\u2019re aware of the fact that he has put this treasure in \u201cjars of clay,\u201d45 we say, \u201cWell, it must be God who is doing this!\u201d Listen to Calvin on this same theme:<\/p>\n
He deigns to consecrate the mouths and tongues of men to His service, making His own voice to be heard in them. And whenever God is pleased to bless their labour, He makes their doctrine efficacious by the power of His Spirit; and the voice which is in itself mortal, is made an instrument to communicate eternal life.46<\/p>\n
James S. Stewart, in the Lyman Beecher lectures delivered at Yale, uses a wonderful expression. He describes the apostles hitting the streets of Jerusalem \u201cwith a waft of the supernatural.\u201d47 With a waft of the supernatural! He is not thinking about some of the strange and eccentric things we see on religious television. He is talking about what Peter must have felt on the Day of Pentecost.
\nKnowing how close he had been to becoming a complete washout, on the Day of Pentecost Peter finds himself surrounded by his fellow countrymen plus visitors from abroad. There he stands\u2014in the very same streets of Jerusalem where he\u2019d run to hide a few weeks before as someone who had denied he even knew Jesus. But now he addresses the crowd with such boldness and with a clarity of understanding of the Bible\u2019s message that is simply breathtaking. That day three thousand people were baptized! Oh, yes, there was \u201ca waft of the supernatural,\u201d all right.
\nIsn\u2019t there supposed to be?
\nTo quote Donald McCullough: \u201cWhen the gospel is preached, . . . Christ walks among his people. It\u2019s the miracle of Christmas all over again: Christ clothed himself in humanity, spurning the language of angels to speak with the tongues of mortals.\u201d48
\nTwo further things need to be said here by way of application.
\nBold Confidence
\nIf we accept this, if we bow down before the truth of Christ\u2019s prophetic ministry and then stand up on our feet ready to serve the Lord, something will happen. We will be endued with a sense of confidence, a God-emboldened confidence, and the kind of confidence that will allow us to be courageous in the face of all the challenges of our day. It will make us bold enough\u2014not bombastic, but bold enough\u2014to be faithful to our Lord and his commission despite all the pluralism and syncretism of our culture.
\nThis will give us the courage to say that there is no other name under heaven among men by which people can be saved.49 We will not be embarrassed that Jesus said, \u201cI am the way, and the truth, and the life . . . ,\u201d nor will we put a full stop there but be prepared to go on to finish Jesus\u2019 statement: \u201c. . . No one comes to the Father except through me.\u201d50 We will be unashamed of the exclusivism of Christ\u2019s salvation\u2014he alone is the way to God and the only mediator between man and God. And we will be encouraged to tell others about him because we know that \u201che is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.\u201d51
\nThere is a gracious boldness that comes from this.
\nIn the sixteenth century John Knox encouraged Scottish ministers by reminding them that when the prophetic Word was heard in the exposition of Scripture, \u201cwayfaring men, though fools, would meet their God in the Bible, hear His voice, take His promises and comforts and rebukes personally and directly to themselves, and understand enough of what was being said to them to receive, by faith, salvation.\u201d52
\nGenuine Compassion
\nBut alongside this boldness there is another result of the conviction that Christ is our true prophet: compassion\u2014a compassion that leads us in the words of the old hymn:<\/p>\n
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
\nSnatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
\nWeep o\u2019er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
\nTell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.53<\/p>\n
Some of us are good at boldness but not so good at compassion. We gravitate to all the bold verses but turn away from the gospel\u2019s call to show genuine empathy.
\nWe need to remember the boldness of Jesus. He is the Christ whose zeal for his Father\u2019s house consumed him in the temple. He is the Christ who drove out the moneychangers because they were turning his Father\u2019s house into a supermarket.54 And he is the Christ who set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem and the cross\u2014always about his Father\u2019s business.
\nBut we must never lose sight of the fact that when Jesus, having sung with other pilgrims the songs of ascent,55 arrived in Jerusalem, he cried out,<\/p>\n
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.56<\/p>\n
When we recognize Jesus as the true prophet, exercising his ministry with compassionate boldness, then we may learn, despite our natural weakness to be bold with a boldness that comes from him. And despite our natural selfishness, to discover a compassion that comes from Christ and makes us say: \u201cOh, Cleveland, Cleveland! Oh, Columbia, Columbia! Oh, Glasgow, Glasgow!\u201d\u2014or wherever you happen to live.
\nAs Christ\u2019s ministry now begins to unfold, we see that the designation \u201cprophet\u201d is inadequate to fully express the wonder of all he is and does. That is why we should never think of him as prophet except in the context of his threefold office. His prophetic ministry must never be isolated from his other two offices, as if somehow or another we could view Christ as prophet apart from his also being priest and king. Newton keeps them together in his hymn, \u201cHow Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds\u201d:
\nJesus, my shepherd, husband, friend
\nMy prophet, priest and king
\nMy Lord, my life, my way, my end
\nAccept the praise I bring.<\/p>\n
We must then move on to consider Christ as priest and king.Jesus Christ, the Great High Priest<\/p>\n
Sometimes\u2014especially in the United States\u2014people will unintentionally invade our private space just a little by asking, \u201cDo you have a life verse?\u201d We understand what they mean: \u201cIs there a text in Scripture that has been a guide to you throughout the whole of your Christian life?\u201d
\nSome people seem so bold in asking us this question that in whimsical moments we imagine them breaking through the crowds going straight up to the apostle Paul and asking, \u201cSo, Paul, do you have a life verse?\u201d
\nWould he say, do you think, \u201cHaven\u2019t you read my letters?\u201d
\nPerhaps the verse that comes nearest to Paul\u2019s \u201clife verse\u201d is Philippians 3:8:<\/p>\n
I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.<\/p>\n
In simple terms he says, \u201cI want to know Christ.\u201d
\nThat was not merely a personal testimony, for Paul assumes this should be the life testimony of every Christian. He goes on to say:<\/p>\n
Every one of you who thinks about himself as a mature Christian should think this way. And if you think otherwise, then God will lead you back to this by his grace.1<\/p>\n
This is the conviction that drives each of these chapters. So, having seen what is involved in Christ being prophet, we now turn to reflect on what it means to have him as our priest.
\n\u201cPriest\u201d is the only title given to Jesus that has virtually an entire book of the New Testament devoted to explaining it\u2014the letter to the Hebrews.
\nHebrews is an anonymous letter. Its author describes it as a brief word of encouragement or exhortation.2 Central to this encouragement is his exhortation to \u201cConsider Jesus,\u201d3 to be \u201clooking to Jesus\u201d4\u2014and especially to see him as our high priest.
\nFacing Trials
\nWhy was that important to these Hebrews?
\nThey had experienced the same trials as Paul did when he became a Christian.
\nFirst, they would have been disinherited. They \u201csuffered the loss of all things.\u201d5 That must have been the fate of many Jews who had come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Still today when a member of a strict orthodox Jewish family becomes a Christian, he or she may be literally disinherited.
\nSo, clearly, many of these young Christians had suffered great material privation as the result of their faith in Christ.6 Not only were they personally disinherited, but they were both socially and spiritually excommunicated.
\nPut yourself in their shoes. You are a solid, law-abiding citizen of Memphis, or Columbia, or Cleveland, or Edinburgh, or London\u2014or wherever. But because of your commitment to Jesus Christ, you are disinherited. What automatically follows? You become persona non grata in all the societies, clubs, networks, and social friendships (and children\u2019s schools!) that have made up the fabric of your life. All that is now closed to you. You are excommunicated from family and society.
\nIn addition there is the place of worship you attended from childhood. Its people, services, ceremonies, songs, liturgy, and all its activities were deeply ingrained in your life. Only now, when you are no longer there, do you realize the extent to which these things defined your identity. But now you are no longer welcome there. That church\u2014still standing there as a reminder of the community that reared you and the identity you once had as part of it\u2014is one you are no longer a part of. Instead you now meet with a number of others in the sitting room of a friend. All the things you used to enjoy\u2014once so \u201cmeaningful\u201d to you\u2014rituals, officiating ministers, liturgies, music, worship ensembles, large crowds, special days of celebration\u2014they are all gone. Now you meet in someone\u2019s house, and they don\u2019t even have a piano!
\nThat was the situation of the first readers of Hebrews. No longer was their worship marked by the grandeur of the temple, the mass choir, the special moments. No longer did they catch sight of the high priest\u2014the only man who, once a year, on the Day of Atonement, was allowed to enter the sacred room to seek God\u2019s forgiveness for the people. No longer do they wait for him to reappear and raise his hands in the historic words of the Aaronic blessing, assuring them of the Lord\u2019s benediction and his peace because \u201cthere is forgiveness with him.\u201d That visible sense that their sins had once again been covered and that the face of God was smiling upon them as his covenant people\u2014it is all gone, never to return unless . . .
\nTempted to Go Back
\nUnless what?
\nUnless they go back.
\nSome of them were tempted to go back.
\nPerhaps you are in a church that the whole congregation loves deeply, where the worship is God-centered, the preaching biblical, the fellowship caring, the vision for world missions strong, and the spiritual needs of the flock met. You have had dear friends whose company moved them to another location. They look for a new church home. But whenever you speak on the phone with them and ask how they are doing, they say, \u201cFine, except . . . oh, if only we could be back again in our old church; we just can\u2019t find anything like it here!\u201d
\nThat was the situation for the first readers of Hebrews. In former days they could see and touch and even smell the worship services\u2014the great company of people, the music, all of the glorious aspects of Old Testament worship that God had given. Now it was all gone.
\nWas it all gone\u2014for nothing?
\nWhat was the answer? How could the author of Hebrews write anything to encourage them in this situation? His response is to say:<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t turn back. If you are tempted to it, then you have been looking in the wrong direction. You have been seeing things from the wrong perspective! You are not looking far enough! You\u2019re not seeing clearly enough! Don\u2019t you see what is really important? Get your eyes off buildings and liturgies and crowds and music. Fix your eyes on Jesus!<\/p>\n
Listen to some of the things he says about Jesus to encourage them:<\/p>\n
1) They have a great high priest:<\/p>\n
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.7<\/p>\n
2) They have a real salvation:<\/p>\n
The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.8<\/p>\n
3) They have a perfect high priest:<\/p>\n
For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.9<\/p>\n
4) They have a better high priest:<\/p>\n
They [the high priests of Israel] serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. . . . But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.10<\/p>\n
5) They have a final sacrifice:<\/p>\n
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.11<\/p>\n
6) They have a better sanctuary:<\/p>\n
For you have not come to what may be touched. . . . But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.12<\/p>\n
The author is really saying to them:<\/p>\n
What will keep you going in the way of the gospel of Jesus Christ is catching a glimpse of his greatness, and why it is he is such a great high priest. You have not lost\u2014you have gained. You do not have less\u2014you have more. Christ has done everything generations of high priests could not do. They were only shadows\u2014he is the reality!<\/p>\n
Two Dimensions
\nWe saw that Jesus\u2019 ministry as prophet has both a finished and an unfinished dimension. They are both present in each of Jesus\u2019 offices\u2014prophetic, priestly, and kingly.
\nThere is a finished work of Christ.<\/p>\n
All his work is ended,
\nJoyfully we sing.
\nJesus has ascended,
\nGlory to our King.13<\/p>\n
He has cried, \u201cIt is finished.\u201d14 In his death and resurrection he has done everything necessary for our salvation to be accomplished.
\nBut then he applies it.
\nThere is also, therefore, an unfinished work of Christ. Jesus has an ongoing ministry. As prophet he continues to speak to man from God.15 Hebrews 2 brings these two dimensions together in a remarkable way. It describes Christ\u2019s finished work.<\/p>\n
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.16<\/p>\n
Notice the two aspects of Christ\u2019s work here:17<\/p>\n
1) He delivers us from bondage to Satan:<\/p>\n
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.18<\/p>\n
2) He delivers us from the wrath of God:<\/p>\n
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.19
\nHe does both of these things through his ministry as priest. His sin offering of himself deals with our guilt and propitiates God\u2019s wrath and therefore sets us free from the grip of Satan. Since Christ has tasted death for us,20 for believers death is no longer the wages of sin but has become the entrance into everlasting life. The leverage that Satan has used to fill us with fear has been destroyed. We are free at last.
\nHebrews contrasts Christ\u2019s finished work with the never-ending work of the Old Testament priests as they brought animal sacrifices every day. But these could never take away sin because:
\n\u2022 They were repeated day by day. Since that was so, it is obvious that they could not fully and finally take away guilt.
\n\u2022 They were inadequate, even inappropriate, sacrifices for man\u2019s sin. How can an animal possibly substitute for the sins of a man or a woman?21
\nBut Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice\u2014man in place of men. His full, perfect, appropriate sacrifice was accepted by God. That is why God raised him from the dead. He is now seated at God\u2019s right hand. He does not continue to stand like the priest of old, in a daily repetition of his sacrifice. He has no need to! As the high priest who is himself the sacrifice, he has finished his atoning work.
\nIn Christ our sins are fully and finally forgiven!22
\nThe Day of Atonement
\nThere is a remarkable picture of this in the Old Testament in the annual Day of Atonement.23 On that day, the high priest would take two goats. One of them would be slain and its blood offered as a sacrifice. But over the other he would confess the sins of the people before it was taken out into the wilderness by the hand of a man who was ready to do it. This \u201cscapegoat\u201d carried into the wilderness the sins confessed over its head. It was then released into no-man\u2019s land, bearing the people\u2019s sin and guilt.
\nThis presents a vivid illustration of the two aspects of Jesus\u2019 atoning work on the cross.
\nJesus shed his own blood as the high priest who gave himself on the cross as the final sacrifice for our sins. But, on the cross, he was also taken, through the power of the Spirit, into the no-man\u2019s land between heaven and earth. In that lonely wilderness where he bore our sins, he experienced an indescribable sense of alienation from God. He was rejected by man and tasted death as the wages of our sin and as the curse of God.
\nJesus went into the presence of God as if he were the only sinner in the world, enduring the wrath of God. Entering into the unspeakable black hole of desolation, he cried out, \u201cMy God, my God, why am I forsaken by you?\u201d There, in the darkness, he became both the sacrifice and the scapegoat for our sins. His blood, shed for us, sets guilty consciences free and brings us peace with God.<\/p>\n
His blood can make the foulest clean
\nHis blood availed for me.24<\/p>\n
Nothing Left to Fear
\nWould that every psychiatrist, every therapist, every personal counselor in the country understood that sin, guilt, the wrath of God, and therefore the fear of death create all other fears and lurk underneath all manner of neuroses. Until this central fear is dealt with, these other fears must linger on. Why is that? Because only when we are delivered from the great fear\u2014the fear of death and judgment\u2014will other fears become trivial. They can be dissolved only by the knowledge that I need not fear death because the guilt of my sin has been borne by my Savior.
\nWe have another friend in Scotland, a distinguished professor of mathematics. A number of years ago, one of his daughters, a young freshman Christian student, died suddenly. One moment from the day of her funeral has etched itself permanently into our memory. Our friend was borne along through the day by the grace of God. His quiet words as we greeted him were: \u201cWe know now that we have nothing left to fear.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s it\u2014nothing left to fear.
\nAll this is true only because Jesus has dealt with our greatest problem.
\nThat problem is not simply that of our fear. Our greatest problem is God himself. For by nature, we are under his wrath\u2014and deserve to be. If we cannot deal with our sin and guilt, we certainly cannot deal with the wrath of God. But it was precisely to bear that wrath that the Lord Jesus, as our high priest, went into the holy place, the very presence of the holy God, and there experienced the awful unleashing of divine judgment.
\nThis is why, when the resurrected Jesus revealed himself to his disciples, his first word was \u201cShalom! Peace! Now at last you may have peace with God.\u201d25
\nThis is Christ\u2019s finished work as priest.
\nMost Christians are familiar with the finished work of Christ but less so with his unfinished work. But the author of Hebrews helps us to understand that although Jesus is \u201cseated at the right hand of God,\u201d having finished his atoning work, he is still doing something. He now undertakes his unfinished work.
\nUnfinished Work
\nOne thing you would probably learn if you spent time with us is that our Sunday school teachers taught us all kinds of hymns and songs that we rarely hear today. One with which our class always began was this:<\/p>\n
Jesus, stand among us
\nIn Thy risen power.
\nLet this time of worship
\nBe a hallowed hour.26<\/p>\n
What do we mean, \u201cJesus, stand among us\u201d?
\nIf you are not a Christian, you will have little or no idea what that is all about. It will be a total mystery. That may be one reason why, if you attend worship services, you find the Bible dull, hymns simply strange, and sermons boring. You have never experienced the presence of Jesus standing among his people, making the Bible a living book, the hymns making sense, and the sermons life-transforming.
\nA young man started attending services in a church where another of our friends is minister. After some time he came to living faith in Christ and applied for membership. The elders interviewed him. He told them how their church had changed dramatically since he first started attending. Now the music was so much better, the hymns chosen were much more singable than before, and\u2014turning to the minister, he added, \u201cYour sermons\u2014well, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happened to you, but they really connect now and make so much sense! You have really improved them!\u201d
\nThe elders were wise and mature men and probably smiled inwardly. They knew where the real change had taken place\u2014in the young man himself. He had become a Christian. Now he was beginning to experience the difference it makes to know Christ present among his people.
\nThe author of Hebrews teaches us that this is a central element in Jesus\u2019 ongoing priestly ministry. He is among his people when they come together. He is present in their worship.
\nHebrews 8:2 describes Jesus as a leitourgos. He is the high priest who is a minister in the holy places. You can probably see the English words liturgy and liturgist in that Greek word. The Greek word refers to the person who leads a service of worship. This is Jesus\u2019 ongoing ministry\u2014he leads the worship of his people.
\nWorship Leader
\nJesus leads every worship service you attend! He is the \u201cworship leader.\u201d
\nYou may be the music director in a church, or its organist, or sing in its choir, or play in its worship ensemble; you may even be its minister. But the one thing you are not is the worship leader. Jesus is the worship leader.
\nEarlier in Hebrews, the author gave some major hints about what this ministry of Jesus involves:<\/p>\n
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,<\/p>\n
\u201cI will tell of your name to my brothers;
\nin the midst of the congregation I will sing your
\n praise.\u201d<\/p>\n
And again,<\/p>\n
\u201cI will put my trust in him.\u201d<\/p>\n
And again,<\/p>\n
\u201cBehold, I and the children God has given me.\u201d27<\/p>\n
Notice here how the words of Psalm 22:22 are put into Jesus\u2019 mouth. This is surely significant. It was to Psalm 22 that he turned during the latter hours of his crucifixion.28 That psalm begins in overwhelming darkness: \u201cMy God, My God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d29 But it ends in words of triumph, which Hebrews applies to Jesus\u2019 resurrection, ascension, and his ongoing ministry\u2014particularly aspects of his ongoing ministry that we often ignore:<\/p>\n
I will tell of your name to my brothers;
\nin the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
\nYou who fear the LORD, praise him!
\nAll you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
\nand stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
\nFor he has not despised or abhorred
\nthe affliction of the afflicted,
\nand he has not hidden his face from him,
\nbut has heard, when he cried to him.<\/p>\n
From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
\nmy vows I will perform before those who fear him.
\nThe afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
\nthose who seek him shall praise the LORD!
\nMay your hearts live forever!<\/p>\n
All the ends of the earth shall remember
\nand turn to the LORD,
\nand all the families of the nations
\nshall worship before you.
\nFor kingship belongs to the LORD,
\nand he rules over the nations.30<\/p>\n
Jesus, the Preacher of the Word
\nJesus is the worship leader, first, because he comes by his Spirit to minister his Word. He says, \u201cI will tell of your name to my brothers.\u201d
\nHow does he do this? He does it in the exposition of Scripture, in the preaching of the Word of God. He fulfills his promise: \u201c[My sheep] listen to my voice.\u201d31 Of course, that refers in the first instance to his contemporaries. But Jesus meant much more than that. He had other \u201csheep\u201d who had never literally heard his voice.32 But they too would hear it\u2014and recognize it.
\nRemember when your parents used to waken you in the morning? \u201cIt\u2019s time to get up,\u201d they said, calling you by name.
\nThey were calling you before you were aware of it. At first it was simply the sound that roused you. But then you recognized you were being called by name, and then you recognized the voice, and\u2014at least most of the time!\u2014you got up.
\nSomething similar happens when God\u2019s Word is expounded in the power of the Spirit. Jesus calls us. His voice awakens us spiritually. Slowly we begin to realize that he has been at work in our lives, and that he is calling us to come to him. We are disturbed out of our spiritual sleep; we are being \u201ccalled\u201d by name, and we recognize Christ\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
\n\u201cCome unto me and rest;
\nLay down, thou weary one, lay down
\nThy head upon my breast.\u201d
\nI came to Jesus as I was,
\nWeary and worn and sad;
\nI found in him a resting place,
\nAnd he has made me glad.33<\/p>\n
This is what happens when the Word is preached in the power of Christ. Christ himself addresses our minds, speaks to our hearts, draws out our affections, and brings us to faith and repentance.
\nPaul seems to be thinking about this when he writes to the Ephesians: \u201c[Christ] came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.\u201d34 This preaching is explicitly said to have taken place after Jesus had finished his work of atonement. How was it that Jesus \u201ccame and preached peace\u201d in Ephesus? Did he ever visit Ephesus? In one sense, yes. He came and preached through the preaching of Paul and his companions!
\nThe same point is made in Romans 10: \u201cHow can we believe in him whom we have never heard?\u201d35 That is the simple truth. We need to hear Christ if we are to recognize his voice and come to trust in him.
\nHearing Christ
\nWilliam Wilberforce, the great English Christian politician and social reformer, became a Christian at the age of twenty-five. One of his closest friends, William Pitt the Younger, became prime minister of Great Britain at the age of twenty-four.36
\nPitt had the deepest affection for his friend but could never quite grasp what had happened to him. On one occasion Wilberforce invited him to church to hear a favorite preacher. At the close of the service Wilberforce was thrilled by the preaching. But his friend Pitt\u2014a man of considerable intellect\u2014turned to him and said, \u201cWilberforce\u2014what was he going on about there?\u201d They sat in the same pew; they listened to the same preacher; they heard the same sermon. But William Pitt did not hear the voice of Jesus calling him.
\nA man once told us that his son had been far from the Lord, but one night as he came home, he \u201chappened\u201d to pick up a recording of a sermon we had preached. The young man listened to the sermon every day for a month. On the last day of the month, he came to a living faith in Christ. What happened? He presumably did not realize what was happening to him; Christ was calling him; only slowly did that dawn on him. He heard the same human voice again and again, but then at last he heard the voice of Christ and responded.
\nThis is not confined to the beginnings of our Christian life. It is an ongoing reality in worship. Indeed if it were not an ongoing reality we ourselves would be inclined to abandon preaching. For without this dimension we would look out on our congregations each week, full of so many and varied needs, and simply despair. Our sermons cannot address all of these needs, nor do we have the ability to address them all in a single sermon. But when Christ comes to church and preaches his own Word, when the one who speaks to us \u201cis able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him\u201d\u2014then all needs can be met by him!
\nYou don\u2019t come to believe in Jesus Christ until you have heard him. Until then he is simply a character in a book. But then you become conscious that there is a totally different accent speaking to you. This is why preachers find people saying to them at the church door, \u201cHas somebody been talking to you about me?\u201d The answer is always, \u201cNo, but perhaps Someone else has been talking to you about you!\u201d
\nWhen Christ opens, or speaks through, his Word, he begins a dialogue with the soul. He engages us at the deepest level, and we bow before him to say, \u201cLord, Jesus, you have ministered your Word to us.\u201d
\nIn some churches the service is divided between \u201cworship\u201d and \u201cpreaching\u201d or \u201cteaching.\u201d But there is no such division. When Christ preaches his Word to us, we know that we have been brought into communion with him, and the immediate fruit of that is the worship we bring to him during the preaching as well as before and after it.
\nPraise Leader
\nAs worship leader, Jesus also leads us in our singing. Notice the words that Hebrews cites, again from Psalm 22:22: \u201cIn the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.\u201d37
\nIn one of our churches there is a lunch on Wednesdays followed by an exposition of Scripture. We look forward to it immensely because it gives us a privileged opportunity for teaching that both helps Christians and points outsiders to Christ.
\nOne Christmas, in one of our churches, the pastors decided (by a majority!) that as part of our \u201cChristmas present\u201d to those who came during Christmas week we would sing a carol together. There were mixed feelings among the pastors! As the date approached, the feelings became more mixed. But just before the day itself, we arranged for our music director to rehearse us. The most reluctant pastor smiled in relief and said, \u201cDo you mean he is going to sing with us?\u201d That changed everything! No fear now of being caught singing off-key or out of tune! Now we could appear with a measure of confidence and joy to sing. His voice would cover all our faults.38
\nIn true worship, Jesus is present, and he is leading the singing! We sing with him who says, \u201cIn the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.\u201d We worship in union with Christ\u2014and we sing in union with him too!
\nThat puts a new light on worship. Who would not want to sing with Jesus? He makes our singing give pleasure to his Father. His singing of praise covers all the inadequacies of ours.
\nWe need to recover an awareness of this ministry of the Lord. This is what encourages us to sing with all our heart. Jesus is standing among his people saying: \u201cFather, I\u2019m in the congregation. I\u2019m leading the praises of your people. Listen to them singing with me. Don\u2019t you love to hear them?\u201d
\nThink of this every time the service of worship begins in your church.
\nA graduation memory comes to mind.
\nOne of our children studied at a collegiate university that still used only Latin throughout the graduation ceremony. One by one the various heads of the colleges led forward its graduands (wearing their undergraduate gowns) to be presented to the presiding officer. As this was done the president of the college would representatively take one of the students by the hand and introduce all his students for graduation: \u201cHere I am and the children of my college whom I present to you in confidence for graduation.\u201d The students were then led out, still wearing their undergraduate gowns, only later to reappear wearing their graduate gowns.
\nIsn\u2019t that a picture of the ongoing ministry of the Lord Jesus? As we assemble together for worship, he comes by his Spirit to be the worship leader, the liturgist. He takes us by the hand and leads us into his Father\u2019s presence. We are only undergraduates in his school, but he presents us, saying, \u201cFather, here I am, and the children you have given me! I present them to you in the confidence that you will accept their worship and bless them!\u201d
\nOne day we will be led into the Father\u2019s presence by Jesus. On that day we will wear graduate gowns of glory! But each Sunday, and on every other occasion we worship, we already enjoy a foretaste of it.
\nThis is why, later in Hebrews, the author makes a staggering comparison between Old Testament worship, the prototype of which was the assembly at Sinai, and New Testament worship:<\/p>\n
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, \u201cIf even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.\u201d Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, \u201cI tremble with fear.\u201d But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.39<\/p>\n
This is what happens when we go to church! The risen Jesus describes this exquisitely when he says to the church in Laodicea:<\/p>\n
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.40<\/p>\n
Although these words have often been read as an evangelistic text, Jesus is actually addressing a church gathered for worship. He is talking about coming to their church, perhaps even about his presence at their Communion service.
\nWhen the Lord comes to us in this way, we are caught up into his presence and we praise him. We become conscious of his glory as his Word is ministered to us, and we begin to understand that he is not only the preacher of the Word and the leader of our praises; he is also, and supremely, the shepherd of our souls. Because he has suffered in our flesh and blood and been tempted and overcome, we know he is a priest who understands our weakness. Because he is with us, we can go to him. We know he is able to save to the uttermost everyone\u2014anyone\u2014who comes to God through him. And we know he wants to, because he calls us his children: \u201cHere am I and the children you have given me.\u201d41
\nWhat are you suffering? How are you being tested? Perhaps you feel nobody knows what you are going through, nobody could possibly understand, nobody has been where you are. You might be a young person who feels your parents and brothers and sisters don\u2019t understand you, and so you say, \u201cJesus would never understand me. My parents, my brothers and sisters\u2014they don\u2019t understand me. Nobody does! And nobody cares! \u201d
\nBut Jesus\u2019 parents didn\u2019t understand him. His brothers and sisters and friends\u2014none of them understood him. \u201cPeople are against me,\u201d you say. People were against him. \u201cNobody understands me.\u201d Nobody understood him.
\nSomeone reading these pages may agree with all this\u2014but still say, \u201cYes, but my pain is different.\u201d Perhaps it is the unspeakable pain of having been abused, molested, and possibly even raped. But think about Jesus\u2019 priestly ministry. As he became the sacrifice for our sins, he also tasted (yes\u2014he could taste it) the spittle, the blood, and the sweat, and could feel (yes\u2014feel) the lacerations on his back, the physical abuse. He knows what it is like to be molested, stripped, beaten, and then exposed and humiliated in public. He became \u201ca man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.\u201d42
\n\u201cAh, but he was sinless!\u201d you may say. \u201cThat made it different for him.\u201d
\nYes, that made it different. That made the shame, the humiliation, all the more intense and distasteful for him. That\u2019s the reason he is able to help you and pastor you. He has felt your weakness and shame in every atom of his being. But he remained absolutely faithful to God. And so he is able to take you by the hand and introduce you\u2014in all your sense of shame\u2014to the heavenly Father.
\nThere is even more to our Lord\u2019s ongoing ministry than this. He has been made like us in every respect.43 He can sympathize with us in our weakness because he has been tempted in every way like us.44 Even more, \u201che always lives to make intercession for them,\u201d and so \u201che is able to save to the uttermost.\u201d45 That means he is also able to save you from \u201cthe uttermost\u201d\u2014whatever that might be in your life. He holds his children with one hand, and he holds on to his Father with the other hand, and as he draws near to him, he says, \u201cFather here am I and the children you have given to me.\u201d
\nMany contemporary Christians have come to appreciate the hymn \u201cBefore the Throne of God Above\u201d:<\/p>\n
Before the throne of God above
\nI have a strong and perfect plea.
\nA great high Priest whose Name is Love
\nWho ever lives and pleads for me.
\nMy name is graven on His hands,
\nMy name is written on His heart.
\nI know that while in Heaven He stands
\nNo tongue can bid me thence depart.46<\/p>\n
But the reality of gospel worship is that this same Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, is also present with us.
\nHave you ever come to Jesus, trusted him, and said, \u201cMy sins, Lord Jesus! You are the only one who can set my guilty conscience free, break the bondage of my soul, bring me into your presence, and help me to praise, glorify, and enjoy God forever\u201d?
\nJesus will do all this simultaneously. What a Savior<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Preface This book, as its title suggests, is a brief exposition of what Christians often refer to as \u201cthe person and work of Christ.\u201d Its focus is on some of the different ways in which the Bible portrays Christ\u2019s identity and describes his ministry. The chapters are by no means exhaustive. They cover only seven … <\/p>\n