Jesus Christ, the Conquering King<\/p>\n
\u201cNow after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, \u2018The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel\u2019\u201d (Mark 1:14\u201315). The ministry of Jesus began with this announcement.
\nJesus often spoke about the kingdom of God\u2014it is a central theme in his message. He both preached and demonstrated that the kingdom of God had broken into the world in his coming. In his preaching he taught his disciples how to enter the kingdom and the kind of lifestyle to which this would lead. Through his miracles he gave visual, physical demonstration of the restoring and transforming power of the kingdom.
\nA week or so prior to his crucifixion he did something that made it clear that he himself was the king in the kingdom of God. Here is John\u2019s description of the event:<\/p>\n
The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, \u201cHosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!\u201d And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
\n\u201cFear not, daughter of Zion;
\nbehold, your king is coming,
\nsitting on a donkey\u2019s colt!\u201d<\/p>\n
His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, \u201cYou see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.\u201d1<\/p>\n
These melodic lines in the Bible\u2019s portrayal of Jesus\u2014the seed of the woman, the prophet, and the priest\u2014not only run all the way from Genesis through Revelation, but they also, in a sense, intersect with one another.
\nYou might think of these various themes in terms of a Venn diagram, those interlocking circles we learned about in math in high school. The point at which they all meet with one another centers on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and on his work of salvation and restoration.
\nAs boys in Sunday school, our teachers constantly reminded us that the Bible is a book all about Jesus:
\n\u2022 In the Old Testament Jesus is predicted.
\n\u2022 In the Gospels Jesus is revealed.
\n\u2022 In the Acts of the Apostles Jesus is preached.
\n\u2022 In the Letters Jesus is explained.
\n\u2022 In the book of Revelation Jesus is expected.
\nActually that\u2019s quite a useful little summary for grown-ups as well as youngsters! It may not be exhaustive or sophisticated, but it certainly helps us as we move around the Bible. For the truth is that the Bible will be an impenetrable mystery at every point where we take our eyes away from Christ. We will lose our way around the Bible when we fail to look to Jesus.
\nThe story of Jesus\u2019 entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday is a case in point. What is happening in this familiar passage?
\nSometimes the most familiar verses can be the occasion for our most superficial reading. This particular passage is routinely read on Palm Sunday. But despite our familiarity with the Triumphal Entry scene, we may not have grasped its significance.
\nSo\u2014what is the message? What does it mean? Why does it matter?
\nSlow Learners
\nIf we are honest about our uncertainty, we should not be unduly disheartened. We are in good company\u2014with Jesus\u2019 own disciples. John says: \u201cHis disciples did not understand these things at first.\u201d2 Hardly complimentary to them, is it?
\nIncidentally, one of the marks of the authenticity of the Gospels is, surely, the number of times the authors tell us what the disciples didn\u2019t know! They were not written to commend to the church the natural gifts of the apostles!
\nIt is helpful\u2014and can be wonderfully encouraging\u2014to notice these little details. They remind us that we are on a pilgrimage, and we have not yet arrived at our destination. Jesus is transforming us, but our lives are still under construction. We too have much to learn. That simply underscores what a privilege it is to be able to possess Scripture and to live under its tutelage.
\nThe disciples just weren\u2019t getting it, were they? Nor was this the only time John recorded their lack of spiritual intelligence.
\nLater, in the upper room, Jesus told them, \u201cI am going to prepare a place for you, I will come back and I will take you to be where I am,\u201d and he added: \u201cand you know the way to where I am going.\u201d Then Thomas said, \u201cBut we don\u2019t! We don\u2019t understand you, Jesus. We don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going, so how can we know the way?\u201d Jesus replies, \u201cWell, you know, I am the way, and if you really knew me you\u2019d know the Father.\u201d And then dear Philip says, \u201cWell, Jesus, why don\u2019t you just show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.\u201d He still did not understand that the Father was revealing himself in Jesus! \u201cHave I been with you so long,\u201d replied the Lord, \u201cand you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.\u201d3
\nJesus tells them that they should be encouraged by the fact that when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide them into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. In \u201ca little while . . . you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.\u201d4 That\u2019s not particularly difficult, is it? \u201cI\u2019m going to be going away, and you won\u2019t see me. And then I\u2019ll be coming back, and you will see me.\u201d But some of his disciples said to one another, \u201cWhat is this that he says to us, \u2018A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me?\u2019 \u201d5
\nOf course it seems perfectly plain to us, because we have been able to read the end of the story. We have the New Testament Letters to explain it all to us. But as you listen to the disciples, it isn\u2019t a surprise to discover that later Jesus is calling out, in prayer, \u201cFather! Father!\u201d\u2014as if he is saying: \u201cLook at these characters you have given me. I\u2019ve had them in Sunday school for three years, and they\u2019re still absolutely hopeless! One after another they keep asking me these simple and basic questions. O, Father, I have kept them. Will you please keep them?\u201d6
\nAll of this underlines for us that when we read the Scriptures we need to guard ourselves from thinking, \u201cOh, I know a lot about this; I know all about the meaning of this passage. It\u2019s the Palm Sunday passage. I know that one. Yes, we\u2019ve done that one already. I\u2019ve been at any number of Palm Sunday services. There can\u2019t be anything for me to learn now. Now, Jesus, he\u2019s a king, isn\u2019t he?\u201d
\nNo! Our starting place should be, \u201cLord, you know, I really don\u2019t know much about this.\u201d Then we\u2019re more likely to think: \u201cI wonder, what is exciting and dramatic and interesting here, and what I can discover that\u2019s fresh this morning out of this passage?\u201d
\nUse Your Imagination
\nIf it were possible for us to go back in time and observe a family preparing for the Passover, we might overhear a conversation between a boy and his father:<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, I can\u2019t wait for tomorrow. I\u2019ve already got my palm branches, Dad. I\u2019m all ready. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to be able to sleep tonight, Dad. Because tomorrow . . . it\u2019s that wonderful time, isn\u2019t it?\u201d
\n\u201cOh, yes, son. It is,\u201d the father replies.
\n\u201cFather, sing me a song before I go to sleep. Can we sing together that one I like?\u201d
\n\u201cWhich one do you mean?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, isn\u2019t it one of those Psalms of Ascent? 7 The one that begins, \u2018I rejoiced with those who said to me . . . \u2019 That one about how our feet are standing inside Jerusalem! Can we sing that one?\u201d<\/p>\n
You may know this psalm in Isaac Watts\u2019s version:<\/p>\n
How pleased and blest was I
\nTo hear the people cry,
\n\u201cCome, let us seek our God today!\u201d
\nYes, with a cheerful zeal
\nWe haste to Zion\u2019s hill,
\nAnd there our vows and honors pay.8<\/p>\n
It is important for us to keep in mind that the material in the Gospels is set within the warp and woof of ordinary life. Granted, we see this little boy only in our imaginations; but many excited little boys just like him were there with their families on Palm Sunday\u2014like children lining the streets for a presidential inauguration or a British coronation. The Jerusalem crowds, however, gathered to celebrate God\u2019s saving interventions in their nation\u2019s past. They had also learned from the Old Testament of a new age, a new day that would dawn, when all that had been lost and forfeited would be restored and when all that they longed to see would be revealed. In the crowd of bystanders and palm branch wavers, there would be multiple layers of anticipation built into the expectation and enjoyment of that day.
\nBehind the Scenes
\nIn John\u2019s record of the Triumphal Entry, however, the immediate context for what happens on Palm Sunday is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Jesus had come to the village of Bethany a few days after Lazarus had died. He had gone to his tomb\u2014probably a cave\u2014and had told some men to roll the stone away, and had called, \u201cLazarus, come forth!\u201d His dead friend had come walking out of the grave. More likely he \u201ctottered out\u201d\u2014he was still bound in his grave clothes.
\nWhen Lazarus came out of the tomb, Jesus gave a command that his grave clothes should be removed. Then we are told that many of the Jews who were there to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. That is followed by the frustration of the religious leaders, which leads to the hatching of a plot to kill Jesus.9 Can you imagine the \u201cbuzz\u201d there was in this community?
\nThey kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another,<\/p>\n
What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?10<\/p>\n
But a few verses later on, when Jesus had returned to Bethany, we are told that by the time the large crowd of Jews found out that he was there,<\/p>\n
they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.11<\/p>\n
But this was not all that was happening. Because of this<\/p>\n
the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.12<\/p>\n
What a remarkable statement! Small wonder that Jesus had looked over Jerusalem and said:<\/p>\n
Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.13<\/p>\n
Think of it. All of these people, with their deeply religious background, with their amazing heritage, with their knowledge of the Scriptures\u2014but as they tried to weave together the strands of their messianic expectation, they got it all dreadfully wrong. Here, in the most unexpected way, is the answer to all their expectations; but they could not recognize him. Truly \u201che came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.\u201d14
\nIt would take us on too long a journey to show how they misread hint after hint, prophecy after prophecy, as the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. But it is worth pausing to set out some pointers.
\nThe Big Picture
\nOne of the disadvantages about digital\u2014in distinction from Polaroid\u2014cameras is that we do not get any pictures in our hands. Not actual pictures. But one of the advantages is in being able to immediately create a collage and to see how the individual moments are all part of an extended narrative leading up to the final frame. We can look back on a complete vacation or the growth of a child from kindergarten to high school. The same is true of video. We can zip through all kinds of scenes that help to explain how we reached the final scene.
\nIn the same way, as we scroll through the Scriptures we discover the layers that precede the moment in time when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem as king.
\nFor example, we could scroll back to Luke 1:26\u201338 and the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary. Remember how she was troubled at the greeting, and the angel said, \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t really be troubled\u201d:<\/p>\n
You have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God [notice that!] will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.\u201d15<\/p>\n
This is one of those little snapshots. Here we have the announcement of a future birth. But there is so much more\u2014including the nature and identity of the child who is going to be born. He will be given the throne of his father David. He is a king, and he will have a kingdom!
\nMary was an ordinary young woman, probably a teenager. Small wonder that she pondered these things!16 She must have mulled them over many a day. Think of Mary watching her Jesus grow, seeing him coming back into the house after being outside, and asking him, \u201cWhat have you been up to today, Jesus?\u201d Think of her watching him in his little triumphs when he had copied the work of Joseph and so on. And always at the back of her mind the echo of the angelic announcement, \u201cAnd he will reign on the throne of his father David.\u201d
\nPhillips Brooks captures something of that in his Christmas carol:<\/p>\n
O little town of Bethlehem,
\nHow still we see thee lie,
\nAbove thy deep and dreamless sleep
\nThe silent stars go by.
\nYet in thy dark streets shineth
\nThe everlasting Light;
\nThe hopes and fears of all the years
\nAre met in thee tonight.17<\/p>\n
Here it is! All the hopes and fears, all the anticipations, all the dreams, all the Old Testament promises of the one who would come and embody the great prophetic announcements about the Messiah\u2014they are now all somehow coming to fulfillment there in Bethlehem.
\nAnd then\u2014fast-forward thirty years\u2014to find the same thing in this triumphant scene on the road up to Jerusalem. The King is coming!
\nHere is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah: \u201cRejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! . . . Your king is coming to you.\u201d18 And of Isaiah 32: \u201cBehold, a king will reign in righteousness.\u201d19 And of 2 Samuel 7 and the promise that God gave to David that an eternal and universal king would come from his line.20
\nAll of these we discover by scrolling through the biblical record. Further back to Genesis 49 we read the prophetic words of Jacob as he blesses his sons:<\/p>\n
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler\u2019s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.21<\/p>\n
Now, imagine an Old Testament believer reading these\u2014and many more\u2014passages. They would naturally ask, \u201cHow will this be? Who can this be?\u201d22 As we move forward through the Bible, we find the people longing for a king, hoping that this will be the answer to all their dilemmas. But none of the kings fulfills their expectations; none of them is able to bring real salvation. And so the Old Testament people were left at the end of it all looking for the \u201cSomeone\u201d who would be the great king. The prophetic ministry of the entire Old Testament ends with silence\u2014several hundred years of silence\u2014waiting for this unknown Someone who would come to be the embodiment of the prophetic word.
\nAll this and more is on the hard drive of God\u2019s unfolding revelation, and then we come to the picture to which all the others have been pointing.
\nWhat Kind of King?
\nJesus mounts a donkey and rides into Jerusalem surrounded by this huge, noisy crowd. We do not have any other record of Jesus riding anywhere, do we? This is the only place it happens.
\nIt isn\u2019t because Jesus is tired that he is riding on the donkey. He had deliberately sent his disciples into the city to get it on this particular day.23 He wanted to make a point.
\nBut what point?
\nJesus is here confronting the community by his actions. He is deliberately entering the jurisdictions of Annas and Caiphas the Jewish high priests, and of the Jewish ruling council (the Sanhedrin), and of Pontius Pilate the governor who represented all the might of the Roman Empire. Later, Pilate will ask him, \u201cWho in the world are you?\u201d At one point he will ask directly, \u201cAre you then the King of the Jews? Let\u2019s just get this sorted out, Jesus. Are you the King of the Jews?\u201d And Jesus replies, \u201cYou have said so.\u201d24
\nBut what kind of king is he? What kind of king rides on a donkey? What kind of king wears a crown that is woven with thorns? What kind of king is dressed up in someone else\u2019s robe and made to look foolish and a figure of fun and is cruelly mocked by his ill-disciplined military custodians?25 Here we see the great paradox that confronts any intelligent reader of the Bible.
\nIt is also the paradox that threw off many of the people who were looking for the coming one. They cried, \u201cSave us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success!\u201d26 But then they witnessed a whole series of scenes in which Jesus was \u201cdespised and rejected . . . a man of sorrows . . . acquainted with grief.\u201d27 What possibility was there that he could bring salvation, safety, and success when he could not apparently secure his own safety? His ministry had led him to such an ignominious end.
\nHow Does Jesus Reign?
\nThe Shorter Catechism is famous because of its opening question: \u201cWhat is the chief end of man?\u201d (Answer: \u201cMan\u2019s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.\u201d)28 But later in its exposition of the gospel it asks another important question, this time about Jesus:<\/p>\n
How doth Christ execute the office [ministry] of a king?<\/p>\n
That is precisely the question these scenes force us to ask. Here is the Catechism\u2019s answer:<\/p>\n
In subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.29<\/p>\n
We have considered how Christ came as a prophet to oust our ignorance and as a priest to deal with our alienation and to lead us into God\u2019s presence. Now we see him as a king who subdues all the tyrannical forces that are arraigned against us, and, yes, those that fight within us too.
\nBut how does King Jesus do this? Here we must limit our discussion to three dimensions and consider each of them in summary form. First, how he is king in relation to our salvation, then in relation to the cosmos, and finally in relation to the future.
\nSalvation
\nHow does Jesus exercise his reign for our salvation? We will need to consider this further when we think about him as the Son of Man. But for the moment we need to understand that the cross is the crisis point of his reign. There he accomplished everything necessary to deal with our sin:<\/p>\n
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.30<\/p>\n
Earlier in his ministry the apostle Paul explained to the Galatians that this\u2014death on a cross\u2014meant that Jesus had borne the curse that we deserve for our sin.31
\nMore than this, Jesus has done everything necessary to deliver us from the power of death.
\nThe tyranny of sin and guilt is made visible in our death. God had said to Adam and Eve, \u201cIn the day that you eat of it [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] you shall surely die.\u201d32 That is now our inherited condition. Our death is the corrosive, degenerative impact of sin and judgment. The weakness, frailty, disintegration, and loss involved in death are the final evidences in this world that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
\nBut, in addition, listen to what the author of Hebrews has to say:<\/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.33<\/p>\n
So Jesus has done everything that we needed to be saved from sin. He has done everything we needed in order for us to be saved from the judgment of death. And he has done everything necessary to set us free from the bondage of the Devil. In a word, he has done everything we need done for us but could never do for ourselves.
\nThe evidence for his victory is, of course, the resurrection. It is like a loud \u201camen\u201d being pronounced on his work by his Father.
\nJesus was raised physically from the dead as a sign that his sacrifice for sin had been accepted. It was as if the Judge were saying, \u201cYou have paid the penalty the law demanded; you are now free to go!\u201d Clearly it was also the sign that he had broken the power of death, because it was not possible for him to be held in its grip.34
\nHaving crushed the power of Satan, Jesus then spent a period of forty days meeting with his disciples. What a seminar on biblical teaching and resurrection life that must have been! Imagine being taught about new life, resurrection life, by the one who had said, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. Whoever, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.\u201d35
\nBut how is it that Jesus\u2019 resurrection leads to the resurrection of those who believe in him? How can it be\u2014as Scripture makes clear\u2014that because Jesus rose from the grave, it is an ontological impossibility for believers not to be raised?
\nHere is the biblical logic:
\n\u2022 We are \u201cin Christ.\u201d
\n\u2022 We are therefore united to him.
\n\u2022 We can never be separated from Christ.
\n\u2022 Christ has been raised from the dead.
\n\u2022 Therefore, because we are in him we have been raised and we will be raised!36
\nThis is why his resurrection is described as the \u201cfirstfruits\u201d\u2014it is the pledge and assurance of a final harvest.37
\nSo, Jesus reigns as king in our salvation.
\nThe Cosmos
\nScripture teaches us to think of the kingly reign of Christ in cosmic terms. Here a key text is Colossians 1:15\u201317: \u201cHe is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth.\u201d
\nJust think about this in relation to the average class in anthropology at almost any secular university. Or think about our young students who are reading history, or those who are studying medicine and will become physicians. Does it make any difference there to be a Christian? Does it affect their view of things?
\nDoes it? If Paul\u2019s words mean anything, it certainly does:<\/p>\n
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities\u2014all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.38<\/p>\n
There is, then, this great cosmic dimension to the kingship of Jesus. He is the source, the sustainer, and the goal of all created reality. \u201cThe universe was made by Him, is providentially sustained by Him and is utterly dependent on Him.\u201d39
\nAs Christians we must learn to think properly, biblically. Then we may watch CNN or BBC News, or read the New York Times, or make our way through the Wall Street Journal without joining the ranks of the gloomy or singing in the choir of the fearful. To be in Christ is mind stretching and life transforming. It is a mind-altering experience to bow before the authority of what is said concerning this cosmic Christ, who reigns over all. It changes our perspective on everything.
\nWe were not stellar students in the physics class in high school. Our report cards at the end of the year contained such statements as: \u201cHe has decided that physics is not for him\u2014and he is very firm in this decision.\u201d But although we are in dangerous territory when it comes to science, we are able to look up at the night sky, and see the stars and planets, and stare in wonder at the Milky Way.
\nIf the Milky Way contains, as astronomers now tell us, three hundred to four hundred billion stars, and if it is only one galaxy among possibly hundreds of billions of galaxies\u2014then we little people are in need of Colossians 1:16\u201317 just to be able to get to bed at night and to wake up in the morning and feel we have any security at all in the universe.
\nWe are helped by reading the prophet Isaiah\u2019s great words:<\/p>\n
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
\nwho created these?
\nHe who brings out their host by number,
\ncalling them all by name.40<\/p>\n
And by this reminder from the prologue to the Gospel of John:<\/p>\n
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.41<\/p>\n
In a cosmos of otherwise impenetrable mystery, we are greatly helped by knowing that Jesus is king in the cosmos.
\nThe Future
\nIn addition to seeing Christ\u2019s kingship salvifically and cosmically, we also need to think of it in futuristic terms.
\nGo back to the earlier illustration of the Venn diagram with its circles. We now begin to see how the various biblical descriptions of the Lord Jesus intersect with each another. The same Bible themes and passages keep recurring.
\nSo in 1 Corinthians 15, we discover that there is an order to resurrection. First, Christ the first fruits, then, when he comes, those who belong to him.<\/p>\n
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.42<\/p>\n
See then this magnificent tapestry into which images of Christ as the ascended king are woven. Truly, \u201cthe head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now.\u201d43
\nThe \u201cspillage\u201d from his ascension is seen in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that he indwells the people of God. Jesus ascended in order to ask his Father to keep his promise to send the Spirit to his people so that they might experience every spiritual blessing.44 When he, the Holy Spirit, comes, he makes much of the Word of God in our lives and points us constantly to the Son of God.45 All this comprises the glorious benefits of Christ\u2019s triumph and kingship.
\nThis\u2014with all of these elements included\u2014ought to be central in our thinking as Christians. Indeed this future dimension should control our perspective on everything, and certainly the way in which we view the world.
\nBut how should the Christian view the world?
\nWorldview
\nThe Christian views the world in terms of \u201cthe good, the bad, and the new, and the perfect.\u201d Yes\u2014the new and the perfect!
\nWhen God created the cosmos he made everything in it. And he made everything good. Then came the fall of man, and everything went bad. But in the Lord Jesus Christ it is made new. Indeed, says Paul, \u201cIf anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.\u201d46 More literally what he says is, \u201cIf any in Christ\u2014new creation.\u201d In Christ\u2019s resurrection there took place a renewal process that will eventually involve the whole cosmos. \u201cThe creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption.\u201d47
\nWe live in anticipation of the day the new creation will be realized in all its perfection. Then those who are underneath Christ\u2019s footstool will at last fall down, along with many more, and acknowledge that he is king.48
\nSo we may learn to begin the day affirming that \u201cChrist is King. Jesus is Lord!\u201d It is important to develop the practice of affirming central gospel truths as we waken to the new day, saying to ourselves, \u201cThe Lord God omnipotent reigns. This is the twenty-fifth of January (or whatever); today the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Yes, I saw the New York Times before I went to sleep last night. I have it on my iTouch. I did look at the BBC report before I went to bed last night. I saw all about Gaza. I saw all about Zimbabwe. I saw so much to disturb and distress. But Christ reigns from the beginning of the day to its end\u2014every single day of my life.\u201d
\nThis is why we love to sing at the end of the day:<\/p>\n
The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
\nThe darkness falls at Thy behest;
\nTo Thee our morning hymns ascended,
\nThy praise shall sanctify our rest.<\/p>\n
We thank Thee that Thy church, unsleeping,
\nWhile earth rolls onward into light,
\nThrough all the world her watch is keeping,
\nAnd rests not now by day or night.<\/p>\n
As o\u2019er each continent and island
\nThe dawn leads on another day,
\nThe voice of prayer is never silent,
\nNor dies the strain of praise away.<\/p>\n
The sun that bids us rest is waking
\nOur brethren \u2019neath the western sky,
\nAnd hour by hour fresh lips are making
\nThy wondrous doings heard on high.49<\/p>\n
What an amazing picture that is! Here are God\u2019s people throughout the world. And as those in one time zone are going to sleep, those in another time zone are waking. And as they do, they are saying, \u201cThe Lord God omnipotent reigns. Here I am in North Korea. I can hardly function in many areas of my life, but Jesus Christ is King. Here I am in Kuala Lumpur. Here I am in the heartlands of India. Here I am.\u201d And so God\u2019s people rise at every hour of the day to praise him in every time zone in the world. Why? Because he reigns.
\nAnd then comes the final, triumphant stanza:<\/p>\n
So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never,
\nLike earth\u2019s proud empires, pass away:
\nThy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
\nTill all Thy creatures own Thy sway.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s it! Earth\u2019s proud empires will all pass away. But the kingdom of Jesus Christ will continue, grow, triumph\u2014and last forever.
\nImplications
\nNow, as we begin to grasp all this, we see that the kingship of Jesus changes the way in which we view the world. And the kingship of Jesus will then control how we live in that world.
\nWe must not affirm that \u201cJesus Christ is King\u201d or trot out phrases like \u201cJesus Christ is Lord\u201d as if these are merely expressions of personal devotion. That would show that we had failed to understand their real meaning. When Paul wrote of the day when, \u201cat the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,\u201d50 he was not describing the devotion of the worshiper but the identity of the one who is worshiped. He is proclaiming the divine identity of Jesus. Jesus is Lord. This isn\u2019t a statement about my attitude to Jesus; it is a statement about who Jesus is. He is Lord. Kurios is the Greek word he uses. In the Greek version of the Old Testament current in Paul\u2019s world, that was the standard way of translating the great covenant name for God, \u201cYahweh.\u201d
\nAnd since Jesus is Lord and God, King and Savior, this impacts all of life.
\nFor example, I have no right to develop convictions or practice a lifestyle contrary to my King\u2019s word. That is why I cannot, for example, invent new views of marriage, or reengineer human sexuality, because I bow beneath the rule of the King.
\nI cannot rewrite the New Testament documents. I dare not play fast and loose with the historical narrative in Genesis 1\u201311. Why? Because Jesus is King, and this is the King\u2019s Word. Nor do I have the right to behave in any way I please. My behavior must be marked by obedience to my King.
\nThe reign of Jesus will also influence my business practices. It will affect the way in which I go to work tomorrow morning. It affects my relationship as a child with my parents, or as a parent with my children, or as a husband with my wife, and so on.
\nIn addition, I have no right to think that I can be disenfranchised or disengaged from the people of God, because my Lord and King is also the head of the body, the church. It is in company with others who have been brought under his lordship that I both benefit and make a contribution.
\nNot only do we obey his commands, but we also enjoy his company. He is a King who has made himself accessible and who is wonderfully approachable.
\nWe have no right of immediate access to the British monarch in Buckingham Palace in London. But we do have immediate access to the King of kings and Lord of lords. Moreover, he is not only our King\u2014he is our Savior. And he is not only our Savior; he is our friend! It\u2019s true: \u201cThere\u2019s not a friend like the lowly Jesus. No, not one!\u201d51 So we can come to him with all our fears, with all our failures, with all our stresses, with all our disappointments, with all our losses, and with all the needs of our loved ones and say, \u201cJesus, you\u2019re the King over all of this. There\u2019s so much that we can\u2019t handle. There are so many aspects of this that are overwhelming us. But we come before you now.\u201d And then we can rise to our feet and go out into the day\u2014and into all of our days\u2014to declare these great and amazing truths.
\nBack again to Sunday school in Scotland! Our teachers used to teach us some of the most amazing songs. They are etched into our memories\u2014and some of them really were marvelous. Here is one that drives home the nitty-gritty, day-to-day, practical difference it makes to know that Jesus is King. In its child-friendly, child-attractive fun way (and surely children had fun with Jesus?), it underscores the power of the gospel. It says: \u201cCome on now, you don\u2019t have to be bedeviled and overwhelmed by all of these things that are coming at you.\u201d Here are the words:<\/p>\n
Come leave your house on Grumble Street
\nAnd move to Sunshine Square.
\nFor that\u2019s the place where Jesus lives,
\nAnd you\u2019ll be happy there!<\/p>\n
Well, you say, \u201cThat isn\u2019t exactly a brilliant lyric. What were they doing teaching mischievous little boys that kind of poetry?\u201d
\nYes, but we got the message of these choruses. It wasn\u2019t necessary to master a systematic theology textbook to see the point: \u201cCome on now; we say that Jesus Christ is King. Why then are our faces sad? Jesus Christ is King. Where then is our hope? Jesus Christ is King and Lord; where is our enthusiasm for the Lord Jesus? We do need to leave our house in Grumble Street and move to Sunshine Square. That\u2019s the place where Jesus is. We\u2019ll be happy there.\u201d
\nAnd then as we grew up we learned the great \u201cgrown-up\u201d words of Isaac Watts, in his wonderful paraphrase of Psalm 72: \u201cJesus shall reign where\u2019er the sun.\u201d It has a special association for us because of the story of Eric Liddell.
\nIn 1925 Eric Liddell was leaving Scotland to go to China as a missionary teacher. He was both a Scottish Rugby internationalist and an Olympic gold medalist in the 1924 Olympics in Paris (memorialized in the movie Chariots of Fire).
\nWhen Eric Liddell boarded his train in Waverley Station, Edinburgh, on the first leg of his journey to China, a vast crowd had gathered to bid him farewell. He was the great sports superstar of his day. Family and friends intermingled with folks just off the street. Liddell lowered the window of his compartment, put his head out of the window, and shouted, \u201cChrist for the world, for the world needs Christ!\u201d And then he led this massive throng in singing the hymn \u201cJesus Shall Reign Where\u2019er the Sun.\u201d
\nHere is the vision of Christ\u2019s reign that the people of God have shared since time immemorial:<\/p>\n
Jesus shall reign where\u2019er the sun
\nDoes his successive journeys run;
\nHis kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
\nTill moons shall wax and wane no more.<\/p>\n
To Him shall endless prayer be made,
\nAnd praises throng to crown His head;
\nHis Name like sweet perfume shall rise
\nWith every morning sacrifice.<\/p>\n
People and realms of every tongue
\nDwell on His love with sweetest song;
\nAnd infant voices shall proclaim
\nTheir early blessings on His Name.<\/p>\n
Blessings abound where\u2019er He reigns;
\nThe prisoner leaps to lose his chains;
\nThe weary find eternal rest,
\nAnd all the sons of want are blessed.<\/p>\n
Where He displays His healing power,
\nDeath and the curse are known no more:
\nIn Him the tribes of Adam boast
\nMore blessings than their father lost.<\/p>\n
Let every creature rise and bring
\nPeculiar honors to our King;
\nAngels descend with songs again,
\nAnd earth repeat the loud amen!<\/p>\n
That was the 1920s in Edinburgh.52
\nIt is now a century later.
\nJesus Christ was King then.
\nJesus Christ is still King now.
\nCheer up, you saints of God.<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ, the Son of Man<\/p>\n
Many Christians have been familiar with the expression \u201cSon of Man\u201d since they were children in Sunday school. Perhaps you were taught there that since Jesus is both God and man, the Bible calls him both \u201cSon of God\u201d and \u201cSon of Man.\u201d1
\nJesus is indeed both God and man. But the title \u201cSon of Man\u201d means a great deal more than that Jesus was human.
\nOrigin
\nThe origin of Jesus\u2019 own use of this title lies partly in Daniel 7. Daniel had extraordinary, apocalyptic visions, some of them of a nightmare character. The one recorded in Daniel 7 took place in the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon. Daniel saw four beasts coming out of the sea in all their horrific power. Then he looked beyond the sea into the sky. Here is what he saw:<\/p>\n
As I looked,
\nthrones were placed,
\nand the Ancient of Days took his seat;
\nhis clothing was white as snow,
\nand the hair of his head like pure wool;
\nhis throne was fiery flames;
\nits wheels were burning fire.
\nA stream of fire issued
\nand came out from before him;
\na thousand thousands served him,
\nand ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;
\nthe court sat in judgment,
\nand the books were opened.<\/p>\n
I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.<\/p>\n
I saw in the night visions,
\nand behold, with the clouds of heaven
\nthere came one like a son of man,
\nand he came to the Ancient of Days
\nand was presented before him.
\nAnd to him was given dominion
\nand glory and a kingdom,
\nthat all peoples, nations, and languages
\nshould serve him;
\nhis dominion is an everlasting dominion,
\nwhich shall not pass away,
\nand his kingdom one
\nthat shall not be destroyed.2<\/p>\n
Some verses later, he gives us a further detailed description of this judgment scene:<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the court shall sit in judgment,
\nand his dominion shall be taken away,
\nto be consumed and destroyed to the end.
\nAnd the kingdom and the dominion
\nand the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
\nshall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
\ntheir kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
\nand all dominions shall serve and obey them.\u201d
\nHere is the end of the matter.3<\/p>\n
Since we are both Scots, we have never developed the instinct to say to almost total strangers, \u201cDo you want to see a picture of my family?\u201d But when we look at photographs of our children over the years we sometimes notice that they have characteristics\u2014it could be a way of standing or looking\u2014that have been there from \u201cway back.\u201d We are struck by how deeply embedded some of their character traits seem to be.
\nIn the same way, when we look at the biblical \u201cphotographs\u201d of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see what is most deeply embedded in the biblical portrait of his person and work. The picture of him as Son of Man fits into that category.
\nIn the Gospels Jesus calls himself \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d on about fifty separate occasions (not counting parallel passages). These sayings may be so familiar to us that we rarely pause to reflect on them or notice the similarities and the differences between the contexts in which they appear.
\nHave you, for example, ever noticed in all fifty or so times Jesus is called \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d in the Gospels that the speaker is always\u2014Jesus himself? Nobody else in the Gospels ever refers to him as the Son of Man.4 Simply on the basis of these statistics we could say that \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d was Jesus\u2019 favorite self-designation. And when you analyze the fifty separate times Jesus uses the title, it seems fairly clear that, in his mind, this was the most comprehensive description of his identity, his work, and the significance of his ministry.
\nThere can be very little doubt from reading his words that he saw the background to this picture of himself as the Son of Man in Daniel\u2019s vision. There are three elements in that vision.
\nThe Coming Reign of God
\nThe first element is a prophecy of the coming reign of God. Daniel has a vision of demonic powers being released:<\/p>\n
Daniel declared, \u201cI saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles\u2019 wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, \u2018Arise, devour much flesh.\u2019 After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.\u201d5<\/p>\n
Daniel is terrified and asks: \u201cWill somebody please give me the interpretation?\u201d He approaches one of the strange figures in whose presence he stands \u201cand asked him the truth.\u201d6
\nThis is a common feature of apocalyptic literature. We find it again in the book of Revelation.7 Both Daniel and the apostle John were so drawn into the reality of their visions that they seem to step into the world they are observing and become participants in their own vision. They are not just, as it were, on the outside looking in. They are there; they are watching themselves becoming part of the vision! They feel their own lives are somehow caught up in the significance of what they are watching. So they ask, \u201cCan somebody please explain this to me?\u201d
\nDaniel\u2019s vision has a meaning. These beasts are powers that will arise in the earth and ravage it. The picture is horrific. War is waged against the saints. But God\u2019s throne is fixed in heaven, and the security of the kingdom of God is established by the work of the Son of Man. He is given dominion and glory and a kingdom. And in the end \u201cthe greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.\u201d8
\nSo here is a graphic picture of world history as the context of conflict between the kingdom of God and the powers of darkness. It is a vision version of Genesis 3:15, isn\u2019t it? Daniel foresees times in which the powers of darkness arise with such monumental authority and destructive power that it seems likely that the kingdom of God will be sunk into the sea. But then this great assurance is given to Daniel: the kingdom of God will overwhelm all other kingdoms. It is a recurring theme in the book. Kingdoms come; kingdoms go. Empires rise and fall. But the kingdom of God will be established and will endure forevermore. The entire vision is a great picture and promise of the triumph of God.
\nThe Certain Judgment of Evil
\nSecond, this scene contains a marvelous prophecy of the coming judgment of evil.
\nBecause we can read the Old Testament Scriptures with the 20\/20 vision of New Testament sight, we know that Old Testament prophecies are sometimes fulfilled in stages. The experienced mountaineer knows that the peak he sees before him is but one stage of his ascent to the summit.
\nSome Old Testament visions have this characteristic. They give us a picture of God\u2019s mighty victory. But then as that victory unfolds in history, it does so in stages. There are peaks and staging posts along the way before we come finally to the summit.
\nThis is what we find here. The kingdom of God will be established. The kingdom of darkness will be overwhelmed. But as the track of redemptive history ascends, we discover a series of peaks before the kingdom of darkness is finally annihilated.
\nDaniel is looking forward and upward. In his vision the victory looks like one single event. But we have now learned from the New Testament that while the kingdom of God has already come in Christ, it has not yet been consummated. We are living between two mountain peaks\u2014one called Inauguration and the other called Consummation. One peak has already been scaled in the death, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of the Lord Jesus. The other will be scaled finally at his return in glory.
\nThe coming judgment of evil described by Daniel was inaugurated in the ministry of our Lord Jesus. \u201cNow is the judgment of this world,\u201d he said; \u201cnow will the ruler of this world be cast out.\u201d9 He is cast out by Christ\u2019s death and resurrection. But he is not yet cast into the lake of fire.10
\nNow Daniel begins to understand. He sees thrones set in heaven, and the Ancient of Days appears, seated on his throne:<\/p>\n
As I looked,
\nthrones were placed,
\nand the Ancient of Days took his seat;
\nhis clothing was white as snow,
\nand the hair of his head like pure wool;
\nhis throne was fiery flames;
\nits wheels were burning fire.
\nA stream of fire issued
\nand came out from before him;
\na thousand thousands served him,
\nand ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;
\nthe court sat in judgment,
\nand the books were opened.11<\/p>\n
Then, from the distance, riding as it were on the clouds of heaven, the Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days:<\/p>\n
I saw in the night visions,
\nand behold, with the clouds of heaven
\nthere came one like a son of man,
\nand he came to the Ancient of Days
\nand was presented before him.
\nAnd to him was given dominion
\nand glory and a kingdom,
\nthat all peoples, nations, and languages
\nshould serve him;
\nhis dominion is an everlasting dominion,
\nwhich shall not pass away,
\nand his kingdom one
\nthat shall not be destroyed.12<\/p>\n
The Son of Man is coming to the source of ultimate authority. That authority did not reside then in either Jerusalem or Babylon. Nor does it reside today in Washington, DC, or in London, or in Beijing. It resides exclusively in the Ancient of Days, who is seated on the throne. But the Son of Man who comes to the Ancient of Days now shares this dominion and power and will do so forever.
\nAs Daniel looks forward to this, and longs to understand it, he is in the same position as Isaiah, or Ezekiel, or any of the prophets. Peter describes these men. They \u201csearched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.\u201d13
\nSo we can think of Daniel like this: there he is, seeing these Technicolor, HD pictures, but he is scratching his head and asking, \u201cWho is this Son of Man figure? When will he come? What does this all mean?\u201d
\nThere were so many details of the prophecy still to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, in a time of enormous stress, Daniel\u2019s soul is anchored by this great vision. Like Isaiah he has caught a glimpse of the majesty of God in heaven. And also like Isaiah he has become conscious of another, as yet unidentified, figure\u2014in Isaiah\u2019s case, \u201cthe Suffering Servant\u201d and in Daniel\u2019s, \u201cthe Son of Man.\u201d
\nWhen this door into heaven, through which Daniel has walked, closes again, he will be able to come back down to earth and live here and now in the light of the triumph of God. But he knows now that the Son of Man must first appear. Only after that will he go to the throne of the Most High to receive his kingdom. But for now, living as he is in Babylon in changing and troublesome times, he will be able to remember that God is on the throne and that the kingdom will be given to the Son of Man some day in the future. He has seen the books being opened, and the Ancient of Days exercising judgment, and the dominion of the beasts being destroyed. He has seen that the verdict will be given to the saints of the Most High and that they will share in the bounty of the kingdom.
\nThe remarkable thing about this picture of Jesus is that he is never isolated from his people. That is true of each aspect of his ministry\u2014as prophet, priest, and king\u2014since his work is always related to our blessing. As we shall see, his ministry as the Suffering Servant is similarly exercised on behalf of his people. And the triumph of the Son of Man described here is for the saints of the Most High. So the entire passage ends with this amazing picture:<\/p>\n
And the kingdom and the dominion
\nand the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
\nshall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
\ntheir kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
\nand all dominions shall serve and obey them.14<\/p>\n
This was actually one of the very first things Jesus taught his disciples. Having proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and shown its transforming power through his mighty works, he went on to teach his disciples about life in the kingdom. Among the first words of his Sermon on the Mount was an echo of this very vision: \u201cBlessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.\u201d15 So there are lines that run from Daniel 7 into the New Testament Scriptures as they are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.
\nThere is a promise here of the coming reign of God. There is a promise of the coming judgment of evil.
\nBut the third element to notice here is the key promise in this passage.<\/p>\n
The Promise of \u201cThe Son of Man\u201d: The Significance of the Title
\nGiven this background in Daniel 7, there is more to Jesus\u2019 use of the title \u201cSon of Man\u201d than a simple stress on his humanity in distinction from his deity. The picture of the vision is one of unparalleled triumph, magnificence, and, indeed, glory. The Son of Man is seen coming to the throne of the Majesty on High, the Ancient of Days, and receiving authority over the whole cosmos. The rationale for this title cannot be that it stresses humility rather than great dignity! Somehow both are involved.
\nWhat, then, does the vision mean?<\/p>\n
Ezekiel
\nIn the Old Testament the expression \u201cson of man\u201d appears most frequently in the book of Ezekiel in the context of God personally addressing the prophet.16 God is God, and Ezekiel is \u201conly\u201d a man. He must therefore entrust himself wholly to God for his mission.
\nBut \u201cson of man\u201d also seems to mark out Ezekiel from others\u2014he is a faithful man, a real man. \u201cSon of\u201d is a Hebrew way of saying \u201cpossessing the properties of, being characterized by, exhibiting the marks of.\u201d The expression \u201cson of destruction\u201d means a person for whom destruction is in character.17
\nThink of the nickname Jesus gave to James and John (perhaps he gave all the disciples such names): they were known as Boanerges, \u201cSons of Thunder.\u201d Jesus meant that these two disciples had thunder-like personalities. After all, they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans.18 (Simon Peter was not the only disciple with aspirations beyond his abilities!) So, when the Scriptures use the expression \u201cson of man,\u201d one latent aspect of its meaning is: \u201chere is a true man.\u201d
\nIn addition, when God addresses Ezekiel as \u201cson of man,\u201d there seems to be an undertone of affection\u2014as an English gentleman of the eighteenth century might have addressed an intimate friend, \u201cMy dear man, this gift is too generous by far!\u201d It is not God\u2019s \u201cnormal\u201d form of address. But it is also worth noting that in Ezekiel the expression is used without the definite article. Ezekiel is a son of man, not \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d! The Lord Jesus alone is the Son of Man.19
\nPsalm 8
\nThe term appears again, significantly, in Psalm 8, in the question, \u201cWhat is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?\u201d20
\nPsalm 8 is a meditation on creation and on the sheer condescending goodness of God in making man as his image and in his likeness. We contribute nothing to our own existence, and yet God has lavished privileges upon us\u2014and did so first of all on Adam.21 The son of man is God\u2019s image, privileged to be given a kind of threefold office. He is to be the prophet who brings God\u2019s word to all creation. He is to be the priest, indeed the liturgist, who gives intelligent expression to the worship that is due from all of God\u2019s creatures. He is to be the king who will exercise his reign and dominion.
\nThe background, therefore, to Jesus\u2019 use of the expression as a self-identifier seems to lie in the creation of Adam, the ministry of Ezekiel, and the vision of Daniel.
\nJesus is the real man, or, in Martin Luther\u2019s expression \u201cThe Proper Man.\u201d22 He is \u201cman as he was created to be\u201d and \u201cthe man who fulfills man\u2019s destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Big Picture
\nIn the last analysis this is actually the big picture of the Bible. The first Adam, the first son of man, sinned and fell; Jesus is the second Man and the \u201clast Adam.\u201d23 Adam was created to be the son of man, to exercise dominion in the name of God. As we noted in the opening chapter, his calling was to take the little garden God had given to him and then, as lord of the microcosmos, to reflect God\u2019s gracious character in his dominion over the macrocosmos.
\nIn this way, God intended Adam to enjoy a \u201cshared experience\u201d with him that would further enhance the joy of their fellowship and their pleasure in one another, as Father and son. It was as though God were saying:<\/p>\n
Now Adam, so that we may enjoy each other\u2019s company, I am giving you a little taste of what I know and enjoy infinitely as Creator and Provider. So here is a little garden. I\u2019ll give you a start. I want you to be lord not only of this garden; I want you to have dominion over everything on the earth. And as that happens, you will find that you will get to know and love me even more! Plus\u2014I\u2019ll be able to love you even more as I, your Father, watch you, my son, growing in your abilities, and in your understanding of me and your love for me. We will have so much to talk about as you grow to maturity!<\/p>\n
In simple terms, as heavenly Father, God wanted his child to have \u201cshared experiences\u201d that would lead to an ever-deepening sense of fellowship with him. That would go even beyond tending and expanding the garden to sharing a \u201csecondary act of creation\u201d in becoming a father himself.
\nThink of the words of Jesus (do they, perhaps, reflect his experience in the carpenter\u2019s shop of Joseph?): \u201cThe Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.\u201d And later on, \u201cI have given them the words that you gave me.\u201d24
\nThat is what it means to be the Son of Man. It means to be made in God\u2019s image and to fulfill the divine destiny that would lead to a world ordered and completed as God\u2019s garden, extending to the ends of the earth.25 So creation as God\u2019s image, fellowship with him in life, experiencing his love and affection, being given a glorious destiny\u2014all this is wrapped up in Jesus\u2019 use of the expression \u201cSon of Man.\u201d He is the one who will accomplish all this.
\nWhich Direction?
\nBut there is something additional in Daniel\u2019s vision of the son of man. When the son of man first appears in the vision, in what direction is he going?
\nThat\u2019s an odd question, surely.
\nLook again at Daniel 7 and ask yourself the questions, when the son of man is said to come, in what direction is he coming? And from where?<\/p>\n
I saw in the night visions,
\nand behold, with the clouds of heaven
\nthere came one like a son of man,<\/p>\n
Now, where has he come from and where is he going to?<\/p>\n
And he came to the Ancient of Days.26<\/p>\n
Why is this significant?
\nWe have a tendency to assume that whenever we read about Jesus, the Son of Man, \u201ccoming,\u201d the words refer to his second coming.
\nBut Daniel 7 raises an important question. When Scripture speaks about the Son of Man coming, we need to ask: in what direction is the Son of Man coming? Sometimes his \u201ccoming\u201d refers not to the end when he comes from heaven but to his post-resurrection ascension and enthronement at the right hand of his Father with all the implications and consequences of that for the establishing of his kingdom.27
\nYes, one day Jesus will come from the Ancient of Days to bring in the final consummation of his kingdom. But here, the reference to the coming of the Son of Man seems to refer to Jesus\u2019 coming to the throne of God following his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is not Jesus\u2019 coming at the end but at the midpoint of time. He comes to his Father as one who has broken the neck of the powers of darkness, has taken the sting of death, has borne the guilt of sin, has tasted the judgment curse of God, and has risen from the grave. His \u201ccoming\u201d is actually a \u201cgoing\u201d to the Ancient of Days, clothed in our humanity, having done all that Adam and we have failed to do, and having taken the judgment Adam and we deserve. From now on the kingdom he has regained will be shared with all of his saints.
\nThe Early Fathers of the church used to think of Psalm 24 as envisaging this climactic moment:28<\/p>\n
Lift up your heads, O gates!
\nAnd be lifted up, O ancient doors,
\nthat the King of glory may come in.
\nWho is this King of glory?
\nThe LORD, strong and mighty,
\nthe LORD, mighty in battle!
\nLift up your heads, O gates!
\nAnd lift them up, O ancient doors,
\nthat the King of glory may come in.
\nWho is this King of glory?
\nThe LORD of hosts,
\nhe is the King of glory!29<\/p>\n
In their imagination these writers saw the hosts of heaven looking out from the towers of the heavenly Jerusalem to see the ascending Lord Jesus accompanied by a retinue of angels chanting, \u201cOpen the city gates and let the King of glory in!\u201d
\nFrom the city towers comes the response, \u201cBut who is this King of glory that we should fling open the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem for him?\u201d
\nThe answer? \u201cThe Lord, strong and mighty in battle. He is the King of glory. Open the doors that the King of glory may come in!\u201d
\nAnd so the Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days. He comes from the bloody scenes of Calvary and the victory of his resurrection to receive the kingdom and the power and the glory. Now the nations will be undeceived by the gospel, and Jesus will build his church in this enemy-occupied (but no longer owner-occupied!) world. And the day will dawn when \u201cevery knee should bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.\u201d30
\nSo the immediate focus of Daniel\u2019s vision is the completion of the earthly ministry of Jesus. Yes, he will come again in majesty and glory to end all history and bring in the new heavens and the new earth. But the focus of this vision is on the fruit of his first coming.
\nSurely Jesus included this passage when, as yet unrecognized, he walked along with the confused disciples on the Emmaus Road and explained the Old Testament to them. Were Cleopas and his companion as confused about the second half of Daniel as we can be? Perhaps Jesus said to them:<\/p>\n
Friends, I know the visions of Daniel are difficult for you to understand, and I know you may have been frightened off studying them because the rabbis have treated them like puzzles. But don\u2019t you see who this person is? Don\u2019t you see why your Master was always referring to himself as \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d? And don\u2019t you see the connection of all this to the promise of the seed of the woman, as well as to the promise to Abraham in Genesis that in his seed the nations would be blessed, and to the promise of the second psalm: \u201cAsk of me, Son, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance\u201d? And don\u2019t you see that \u201cit was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer and then enter his glory\u201d as Isaiah 52:13\u201315 taught you?<\/p>\n
Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
\n he shall be high and lifted up,
\n and shall be exalted.
\nAs many were astonished at you\u2014
\n his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
\n and his form beyond that of the children of mankind\u2014
\n so shall he sprinkle many nations;
\n kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
\n for that which has not been told them they see,
\n and that which they have not heard they understand.31<\/p>\n
Little did they know that this veiled one would soon teach them that all dominion in heaven and earth was his. Little did they know that soon they themselves would be sent to the ends of the earth to extend the garden of grace!\u201d
\nSo far, then, we have looked at the way the \u201cSon of Man\u201d title is found in the Old Testament and how it is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.
\nThe fifty or so individual sayings in which Jesus refers to himself as \u201cSon of Man\u201d fall essentially into three categories. A little exercise can help us more fully appreciate the significance of this. If you are in the habit of marking your Bible or have an old Bible you could mark, notice every use of \u201cSon of Man\u201d in the Gospels, and then highlight each saying in color according to the category to which it belongs. (Apart from anything else, you will learn a tremendous amount simply by quickly reading the Gospels as a whole!)
\nCategory 1
\n\u201cCategory 1\u201d sayings describe the incarnate Son of Man establishing his kingdom.
\nProbably the easiest place to see this is in Matthew 4 through 7. Here, as we will see, Jesus is the Son of Man entering into conflict with the powers of darkness. He has come to bring judgment. As Luther put it:<\/p>\n
For us fights the Proper Man
\nWhom God himself hath bidden.32<\/p>\n
Or, in a different church tradition, as John Henry Newman wrote:<\/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.33<\/p>\n
Matthew\u2019s Account
\nMatthew\u2019s Gospel is very instructive in this context. It has a distinctive shape as it proceeds from Matthew 3:13 through Matthew 7:29. It moves from (1) Jesus\u2019 baptism in the Jordan in which he enters the public phase of his ministry as God\u2019s Son, the last Adam, and the Messiah. This is followed by (2) the temptation to seize the kingdom by avoiding the cross. Emerging victorious, he now (3) begins to proclaim the coming of his kingdom, and (4) demonstrates its presence by healing the sick and pressing back the powers of darkness. This then leads to (5) his exposition of the kingdom lifestyle in the Sermon on the Mount.
\n1) Baptism. John the Baptist proclaimed that the kingdom was at hand and that people should repent. As people responded, \u201cthey were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.\u201d34 But when Jesus came to be baptized, John argued with him. He, the Baptist, needed to be baptized by Jesus, not the other way round. John knew he was a sinner and that Jesus was the (spotless) \u201cLamb of God.\u201d35 But that was exactly the point. Only if the spotless one was baptized into fellowship with sinners could sinners in turn be baptized into the fellowship of the sin bearer and experience the forgiveness of sin.
\nBut kingdom grace brings more than forgiveness. It brings freedom from the powers of darkness and restoration to new life. Hence Jesus moves inexorably from baptism to conflict with Satan.
\n2) Temptations. In Matthew\u2019s account, the last and climactic of the three temptations is about the kingdom:<\/p>\n
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, \u201cAll these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.\u201d Then Jesus said to him, \u201cBe gone, Satan! For it is written,<\/p>\n
\u2018You shall worship the Lord your God
\n and him only shall you serve.\u2019\u201d36<\/p>\n
Why would that be a temptation to Jesus? Would he not just smile and say, \u201cThat\u2019s no temptation to me\u201d? It was a real temptation because regaining the kingdoms of this world from Satan was precisely the mission on which his Father had sent him. That is why he was incarnate as the second Man, the last Adam, and the Son of Man!
\nSatan was prepared to offer Jesus exactly what his Father had commanded him to recover. But the price was the same as Adam and Eve so foolishly and short-sightedly paid in the garden of Eden: disobedience. The Devil was a liar and deceiver from the beginning, and now he sought to deceive Jesus. The temptation was real because the prize was right. But our Lord saw through the deceit. Had he bowed down, the entire cosmos would be forever lost. If he had snatched at the kingdoms of this world, which he had come to regain righteously, all would be lost.
\nWhen Jesus rebukes Satan with the words, \u201cBe gone, Satan!\u201d37 he speaks with all the authority of the divinely ordained prophet and the God-appointed king. He is delivering the first truly destructive blow the kingdom of darkness has ever experienced.
\nWe need to understand this has never before been done in human history. Jesus is the second Man. There has been no one between Adam and Jesus able to do this. This is what the first man was supposed to do.
\nPerhaps this is why the Serpent did not go to Adam directly. If instead he could ensnare God\u2019s very best gift to Adam, namely Eve, he knew he would gain far more leverage to destroy Adam\u2019s work. The first man was supposed to crush the head of the Serpent. He failed at every point. But what Adam the first failed to do, Adam the last, Jesus Christ, came to accomplish.
\nThis is why Mark\u2019s Gospel\u2014which describes the temptations of Jesus only briefly\u2014includes this significant detail: Jesus was in the wilderness, surrounded by wild beasts.38 Unlike Adam, Jesus was not surrounded by beautiful trees and by animals he himself had named (an act that expresses authority over them). He was hungry and thirsty, and he was in a barren wilderness, surrounded by \u201cnature red in tooth and claw.\u201d39
\nNobody had withstood Satan thus far before. Nobody had been able to bear this level of temptation before. Yes, there was more to undergo. But for the very first time, Satan had to retreat. We could apply to Jesus\u2019 triumph here (and elsewhere) the famous words of Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon: \u201cOne small step for a man\u2014a giant leap for mankind.\u201d In the wilderness, Christ broke a gaping hole in Satan\u2019s kingdom.
\n3) Kingdom proclamation. Notice what Jesus does next: he begins to preach, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d40 And then he calls people into his kingdom. He comes to one person after another and says, \u201cLeave your fishing boats and your nets and follow me.\u201d
\n4) Kingdom demonstration. So Jesus establishes his kingdom. He proclaims his kingdom. He brings disciples into his kingdom. Then he begins to manifest the power of his kingdom. He goes throughout Galilee. He heals the sick and delivers those whose lives have been oppressed by the powers of darkness. His fame spreads, and \u201cthey brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.\u201d41 What is the meaning of this? Jesus is now exercising his authority in the light of his triumph; he is setting free prisoners of war. He is beginning the divine work of restoration. He has the power to throw the effects of sin into reverse gear.
\nThe essence of Jesus\u2019 miracles of healing and transformation is that they are signs. But signs of what? They point to the final regeneration and resurrection of the cosmos that the Lord Jesus Christ will bring in at the end, when he makes all things new.
\nThis final kingdom, which will be on display then, has erupted in his ministry and is already visible in his victory over the powers of darkness and his reversal of the effects of sin. To the same man he says, \u201cYour sins are forgiven,\u201d and, \u201cRise, pick up your bed and go home.\u201d42 The spiritual and physical effects of the fall are reversed in one and the same miracle.
\nAlready Jesus is giving glimpses of the future renewed creation. Perhaps you have gone into a darkened room and switched on the light, only for it to fuse. Yet in that moment you caught a glimpse of what was in the room. In a similar way the miracles give us momentary glimpses of the last and future world when all things will be made new.
\nJesus\u2019 miracles were acts of deep compassion. But more than that, they pointed to his identity as the Son of Man who is establishing his kingdom in the world and showing its power.
\n5) Kingdom lifestyle. What immediately follows in the Gospel of Matthew is the Sermon on the Mount. \u201cSeeing the crowds\u201d\u2014the words connect Matthew 4 and 5\u2014what does Jesus do next? He begins to teach about the lifestyle of the kingdom.
\nThe entire first half of our Lord\u2019s earthly ministry is marked by this: his making inroads into the kingdom of darkness (by preaching, restoring, and instructing).
\nAll of this comes to a high point, and a transition point, when Jesus asks the question (notice how he describes himself): \u201cWhat are people saying about the Son of Man?\u201d When Peter confesses that he is the Christ (God\u2019s anointed prophet, priest, and king), Jesus then explains what he has come to accomplish. He is building his church on enemy-occupied territory; not even the gates of Hades will be able to stop him!43
\nWhat follows this statement leads us to another category of \u201cSon of Man\u201d sayings.
\nCategory 2
\nThe second category of Son of Man sayings focuses not just on the incarnate Son of Man establishing his kingdom but on the suffering Son of Man paying the redemption price for that kingdom.
\nThe confession of Simon Peter is a climactic point, and a hinge, in the gospel story. The next paragraph in Matthew\u2019s Gospel begins: \u201cFrom that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things . . . and be killed, and on the third day be raised.\u201d44
\nIs it any wonder that Satan tried to resist him once again\u2014this time through Simon Peter\u2019s saying, \u201cDon\u2019t go to the cross, Jesus; and don\u2019t take me near it either\u201d? That explains the Savior\u2019s vigorous response: \u201cGet behind me, Satan!\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter, you need to understand that what I\u2019ve come to do is to fulfill the promise of Genesis 3:15. That is what it means for me to be the Son of Man. In order for all dominion to be given to me, my heel must be crushed in conflict with Satan. Wherever I build the church, the gates of Hades are always waiting to attack. There is no other way for me to go.<\/p>\n
At the end of the wilderness temptations Satan had left Jesus. He had been overcome, but he was not yet finally vanquished. Thus Luke adds, in a somewhat sinister aside, \u201cHe departed from him until an opportune time.\u201d45
\nNow that \u201copportune time\u201d had come. Peter had confessed that Jesus, the Son of Man, was the Christ\u2014God\u2019s prophet, priest, and king.46 But he did not yet understand that the Son of Man was also the Suffering Servant. He resisted the idea that in order to purchase dominion, the incalculable price of Christ\u2019s sacrifice of himself on the cross needed to be paid. He saw where the Son of Man was destined to go\u2014to the Majesty on High, surrounded by clouds of glory. He did not understand that the pathway to glory leads first to Calvary. Jesus could have said to him, as well as to the two on the Road to Emmaus:<\/p>\n
O 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?47<\/p>\n
Isaiah captures the significance of this better than any other prophet. The fourth of Isaiah\u2019s Songs of the Servant begins: \u201cBehold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.\u201d48 That is exactly the picture of the Son of Man in Daniel 7, isn\u2019t it? But then Isaiah catches a glimpse of what lies behind this exaltation\u2014the place where the Son of Man has been before he comes to the Ancient of Days in glory. That glory lies on the far side of his sufferings. He comes to the throne from the cross, where he \u201cwas marred beyond human semblance.\u201d49
\nAlec Motyer vividly captures the sobering nature of Isaiah\u2019s words here:<\/p>\n
The thought is not that the Servant suffered more than any other individual, or more than other humans but that he experienced disfigurement \u201cfrom [being] an individual . . . from [belonging with] humankind,\u201d so that those who saw him stepped back in horror not only saying \u201cIs this the Servant?\u201d but \u201cIs this human?\u201d50<\/p>\n
Jesus has to be marred beyond human semblance, to go down into the uncharted waters where, as he is covered in our sin, God no longer sees his own reflection in his Son. In that cold and dark place a kind of deep disintegration of being takes place. \u201cThe Proper Man\u201d feels as if he is being un-manned! As he meditates on Psalm 22, does he pause on the words?51<\/p>\n
But I am a worm and not a man,
\nscorned by mankind and despised by the people.
\n All who see me mock me;
\nthey make mouths at me; they wag their heads52<\/p>\n
Jesus began to be . . . troubled,\u201d says Mark\u2019s account. He uses a rare verb to describe Jesus\u2019 experience.53 J. B. Lightfoot notes that it<\/p>\n
describes the confused, restless, half-distracted state, which is produced by physical derangement, or by mental distress, as grief, shame disappointment.54<\/p>\n
Even though we are fallen creatures, the Bible insists that we remain the image of God. We may be deformed. We may be twisted. The mirror in which God\u2019s image was originally reflected may be shattered. But we are still human. There is still some reflection of what we were meant to be. But in order to repair that, Jesus needs to go underneath, as it were; to experience this terrible sense of disintegration\u2014to be treated as sin,55 to bear the curse,56 to become \u201ca worm, and not a man\u201d in order to bring about a new integration and a new humanity.
\nCommon grace. In view of all he planned to do through Jesus, God continued to show his creation common grace. Even the most fallen people are permitted to enjoy privileges that God originally gave to his image bearer. Many criminals possess memorable abilities but twist them; unpleasant people have stable marriages and family life; the proud and arrogant have amazing natural talents. Thus the marred image of God continues to taste his blessing yet persists in rebellion against him. The daughter held in love on her father\u2019s knee slaps him in the face; the son is given gifts by his father but spits on him.
\nTo bear the penalty of such rebellion, the Son of Man, \u201cobedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,\u201d57 looked submissively toward his Father, longing to see his gaze of responding love\u2014but everything was darkness. He felt utterly forsaken. Nature itself seemed to empathize, and darkness came over the scene for three hours lest anyone pry into the mystery:58<\/p>\n
Well might the Sun in darkness hide
\nAnd shut his glories in
\nWhen God the mighty maker died
\nFor man the creature\u2019s sin.59<\/p>\n
This description of the Son of Man as the Suffering Servant, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, emerges throughout the Gospel narrative. Here is the Son of Man on his way to being marred for us:<\/p>\n
Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, \u201cProphesy! Who is it that struck you?\u201d And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him. When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. And they led him away to their council, and they said, \u201cIf you are the Christ, tell us.\u201d60<\/p>\n
But Jesus had only one thing left to say to them. Their time had come and gone.<\/p>\n
But he said to them, \u201cIf I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.\u201d61<\/p>\n
Now you see what Jesus is saying:<\/p>\n
I am that Son of Man described in Daniel. You humiliate me now, but it is I who will come to the Ancient of Days surrounded by his glorious angels in the clouds of heaven. I will receive dominion. What you see now is my marring beyond human semblance. But this is going to purchase dominion beyond human imagination. The day will soon dawn when all authority in heaven and earth becomes mine! This too you will see!62<\/p>\n
The full flood of his suffering and passion follows. But something amazing is happening here. It is especially clear in Luke\u2019s Gospel. Two contradictory things seem to take place\u2014and they do so again and again\u2014as if the very narrative itself were crying out to us, \u201cDon\u2019t miss the point! Do you see what is happening here?\u201d
\nOn five occasions\u2014with a further occasion implied\u2014Jesus is examined and then pronounced innocent. But then he is condemned:<\/p>\n
Pilate: \u201cI find no guilt in this man.\u201d (Luke 23:4)
\nPilate again: \u201cI did not find this man guilty.\u201d (Luke 23:14)
\nThe implication: \u201cNeither did Herod, for he sent him back to us.\u201d (Luke 23:15)
\nPilate, yet again: \u201cWhy, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death.\u201d (Luke 23:22)
\nThe criminal on the cross: \u201cWe are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.\u201d (Luke 23:41)
\nThe Roman centurion: \u201cCertainly this man was innocent!\u201d (Luke 23:47)<\/p>\n
How can Jesus be declared innocent, repeatedly, and yet be condemned to death by crucifixion as though he were guilty?
\nLuke is surely saying: \u201cDon\u2019t you see that God has written the gospel into the very heart of the experience of his Son at this point? The innocent is taking the place of the guilty, in order that the guilty might be treated as the innocent.\u201d This is underlined by the nature of the charges brought against Jesus. They were blasphemy in the religious court (a capital offense) and treason in the civil court (also a capital offense). He was found \u201cnot guilty\u201d on each count. Yet he was executed.
\nWhat is the underlying meaning of all this? It is very simple. The crimes are not his.
\nWhose crimes, then, are they?
\nBlasphemy and treason are the two crimes on our charge sheet in the judgment court of God. We have blasphemed against God by making ourselves the center of our world and the lord of our own life. We have committed treason against God\u2019s rightful authority by refusing his will. That was what Adam did. It is what we also have done.
\nJesus has been found guilty and condemned for our crimes.
\nIn the Gospel narrative, every reliable witness before the court points to Jesus and says, \u201cHe is innocent of these charges.\u201d There is only one possible explanation, therefore, for his death. He is accepting the charges leveled against us in the courtroom of the eternal Judge. He, the perfect image of God, is being marred beyond human semblance so that we might be restored to the image of God.63
\nThis is a profound mystery. But it can also be stated so simply that a child can understand it:<\/p>\n
There was no other good enough
\nTo pay the price of sin;
\nHe only could unlock the gate
\nOf heaven and let us in64<\/p>\n
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
\nIn my place condemned he stood,
\nSealed my pardon with his blood:
\nHallelujah! What a Savior!65
\nCategory 3
\nThis brings us to the final category of these Son of Man sayings. We have seen that:
\n\u2022 Jesus is the incarnate Son of Man who establishes his kingdom.
\n\u2022 Jesus is the suffering Son of Man who purchases his kingdom.
\nBut now we must add a third dimension:
\n\u2022 Jesus is the triumphant Son of Man who will consummate his kingdom.
\nThis is what Jesus has in view in the Great Commission:<\/p>\n
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.66<\/p>\n
We tend to associate these famous verses with baptisms and missionary farewells. They are certainly relevant to both. But even more fundamentally these words are about Jesus\u2019 triumph as the Son of Man\u2014without which both Christian baptism and world missions would be meaningless.
\nThe words, \u201cAll authority on heaven and earth has been given to me,\u201d echo Genesis 1:26\u201328. Jesus is saying:<\/p>\n
I am the second Man, raised from the dead. I am the one who has paid the purchase price for a fallen world. I have bought it back at the cost of my death. And now that all dominion is mine and I am going back to my Father, I want you to begin to do spiritually what Adam was called to do physically: bring the gospel to the whole world; turn this wilderness back into a garden!<\/p>\n
Amazingly\u2014considering how cowardly and confused they once were\u2014Jesus\u2019 disciples begin to do exactly that.<\/p>\n
Simon Peter (now a graduate of Jesus\u2019 forty-day seminar) preaches as an able biblical theologian. On the day of Pentecost he shows how the Scriptures point to Jesus Christ. He explains that Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God and has asked his Father to fulfill his promise. Now, in order to bring the nations (and not just the Jews) to Christ, the Spirit is being poured out on all flesh. The rebellion of the tower of Babel is being reversed\u2014people from many nations with different languages now all hear the sinner-uniting gospel simultaneously. The Son of Man is now sharing the kingdom of God with his saints in all the nations. The Abrahamic promise is being fulfilled; the messianic promise that the Son would inherit the nations is coming to fruition; the Suffering Servant is now highly exalted and causes kings to be silent in awe before him.67
\nAnd so the last days have begun and move on inexorably toward the final day. The Son of Man has come to the throne of the Ancient of Days. He is sharing the kingdom with the saints of the Most High. Now, together, we wait for the time when the triumph of the Son of Man will be visible everywhere.
\nThe final actions of the Son of Man are described graphically by Paul in his great resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15. It includes, but also looks beyond, the moment of the final resurrection. Paul sees the whole of human history in terms of two men, indeed two Adams\u2014Adam and Christ.68 He writes:<\/p>\n
Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man [Adam] came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order [notice the order]: Christ the firstfruits [i.e., he is the guarantee of the final harvest], then at his coming [the final harvest] those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.69<\/p>\n
What would Adam have done if he had exercised his dominion and extended the garden to the ends of the earth?
\nSince he failed, we cannot give a dogmatic answer. But we may assume that he would have come to the throne of the Ancient of Days\u2014as any father-honoring son would come to his own father\u2014to say:<\/p>\n
Father, I am finished. No weeds left. Flowers all over the place! Father, you gave this to me. Father, will you accept this garden as my love gift to you?<\/p>\n
Imagine the mutual embrace that would have resulted.
\nAdam failed.
\nBut, says Paul, on the final day Jesus, the Son of God, in his capacity as Son of Man, will take the kingdom he has purchased and come once again to his Father to say:<\/p>\n
Here it is, Father; as the second Man, the Son of Man, I have saved and restored all this for you and for your glory. It is my love gift to you. I offer it to you on behalf of all those for whom I shed my precious life blood, who are now your adopted children.<\/p>\n
That kingdom will include all who believe in Jesus.
\nWe will all be spectators.
\nNo, we will be more than that: we will all be participants.
\nBut then hold your breath. For Paul goes on to say:<\/p>\n
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.70<\/p>\n
Paul is not saying that God the Son will lose his significance. Nor is he denying that the Son is equal in dignity, power, eternity, and glory with his Father. Rather, he is speaking here of the Lord Jesus in his specific capacity as Son of Man. Incarnate in our humanity, he is our representative, mediator, substitute, savior, and king. He leads us to God\u2019s throne in worship. He is our spokesman to the heavenly Father. He will \u201ccome\u201d then once more to the Father and say, \u201cFather, it is all yours\u2014on behalf of your redeemed people, I say, \u2018We want you to be all in all.\u2019 \u201d
\nPicture in your mind\u2019s eye this scene. See the Son of Man as he comes to the throne of the Ancient of Days and kneels before him as our representative head and on our behalf. Then, in one glorious event, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
\nOh, to be there in that moment!
\nOh, to see the Son honored by the Father!
\nOh, to say, \u201cFather, be all in all.\u201d
\nThen, surely, the kingdom and the power and the glory will be his\u2014forever and ever, world without end.
\nIn the light of this, it goes without saying that we need to think more about our Savior\u2019s glorious exaltation. But before we do that we must take a further look at him as the Suffering Servant.
\nJesus Christ, the Suffering Servant<\/p>\n
The second half of the prophecy of Isaiah is set against the dark backcloth of God\u2019s judgment on his people and their exile in Babylon.1 Slowly, out of the shadow lands, a figure appears. He is described by God as \u201cmy servant,\u201d and as we have seen, his presence dominates a series of poetic passages known collectively as the \u201cServant Songs.\u201d
\nThe Fourth \u201cServant Song\u201d
\nThe fourth of these songs, Isaiah 52:13\u201353:12, is by far the best known. Here the servant appears as the Suffering Servant\u2014a portrait that profoundly influenced the way in which the New Testament writers spoke of Jesus.2
\nThe servant appears first of all as a glorious figure:<\/p>\n
Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
\nhe shall be high and lifted up,
\nand shall be exalted.3<\/p>\n
But then, inexplicably, the servant becomes a sufferer.
\nAs many were astonished at you\u2014
\nhis appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
\nand his form beyond that of the children of mankind\u20144<\/p>\n
Then as the song continues the servant is portrayed as despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, familiar with grief. Then the truth begins to unfold. He is taking the place of others. He is suffering for them:<\/p>\n
Surely he has borne our griefs
\nand carried our sorrows;
\nyet we esteemed him stricken,
\nsmitten by God, and afflicted.
\nBut he was wounded for our transgressions;
\nhe was crushed for our iniquities;
\nupon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
\nand with his stripes we are healed.
\nAll we like sheep have gone astray;
\nwe have turned\u2014every one\u2014to his own way;
\nand the LORD has laid on him
\nthe iniquity of us all. . . .<\/p>\n
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
\nhe has put him to grief;
\nwhen his soul makes an offering for sin,
\nhe shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
\nthe will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
\nOut of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
\nby his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
\nmake many to be accounted righteous,
\nand he shall bear their iniquities.5<\/p>\n
Then once again he is exalted, and the connection between his humiliation and his exaltation is explained:
\nTherefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
\nand he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
\nbecause he poured out his soul to death
\nand was numbered with the transgressors;
\nyet he bore the sin of many,
\nand makes intercession for the transgressors.6<\/p>\n
Isaiah 53 was written under the direction of the Spirit of God. The author is speaking about something beyond his own experience. Yet at the same time, this is God\u2019s word in man\u2019s mouth,7 and so the prophet describes what he sees within the limitations of his own psychology and his own humanity.
\nQuestions at the Dinner Table
\nImagine, if you will, Isaiah writing these words, and then at the end of the day going home to his family. As he spends time relaxing with them, one of his boys asks him, \u201cWere you writing something today, Dad?\u201d
\nAll he could say, surely, would be something like, \u201cWell, I wrote these words down:<\/p>\n
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
\nAnd to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
\nFor he grew up before him like a young plant,
\nand like a root out of dry ground;
\nhe had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
\nand no beauty that we should desire him.
\nHe was despised and rejected by men;
\na man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
\nand as one from whom men hide their faces
\nhe was despised, and we esteemed him not.8<\/p>\n
What if someone else in the family then asked: \u201cExactly what does that mean? Who were you writing these words about? Is it someone you know?\u201d
\nIsaiah could only reply, \u201cYou know, I can\u2019t say properly. Although I was sitting writing, inwardly I felt as if I was standing on my tiptoes looking over the horizon, peering into future history. I was asking these very questions myself, wondering, even trying to imagine, who this person could possibly be and how all this will unfold.\u201d
\nThat is not merely conjecture. Peter says that while the angels find themselves wondering about what it is like for believers to experience the grace of God in the gospel, the prophets were wondering \u201cwhat person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.\u201d9
\nWe are blessed to be able to read our Bibles from back to front. The explanations of the New Testament allow us to understand passages from the Old. They help us to see how everything points to the Lord Jesus. In particular it sees these words of Isaiah fulfilled.10
\nSo against this backdrop\u2014Christ seen as the Suffering Servant\u2014let us, as it were, follow Jesus as far as we can into his passion.
\nThe Suffering One
\nWhat does it mean that Jesus was \u201cthe Suffering Servant\u201d? To answer that question\u2014even in part\u2014we need to try to follow Jesus, on the evening of his crucifixion, to the garden of Gethsemane.<\/p>\n
And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, \u201cPray that you may not enter into temptation.\u201d And he withdrew from them about a stone\u2019s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, \u201cFather, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.\u201d And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, \u201cWhy are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.\u201d11<\/p>\n
Earlier, in chapter 1, we found ourselves in a garden. Here we visit another garden. It is a familiar garden to Jesus and his disciples, the garden of Gethsemane.12 It is actually an olive grove. But on this particular night it is the center of the universe and stands at the crossroads of history.
\nA Unique Description
\nThe New Testament contains no physical description of Jesus. Despite the books you may have had in childhood with pictures of Jesus, you know they were an attempt on the part of artists to come up with a way of portraying him\u2014usually in a very traditional Western way. But those pictures are not derived from any information we are given in the Bible.
\nHere, however, in Gethsemane, we are given a rare moment of insight. It is truly a description\u2014but into the emotional life, the mental state, the psychology of the Lord Jesus as he faces the cross. Here we are shown the depths of his humanity in a way we otherwise would never see.
\nEach of the first three Gospels provides us with an emotions-piercing portrayal of what Jesus experienced. The sight is deeply disturbing. For now Jesus, who made such calm predictions about his coming suffering and all that he would endure at the hands of cruel and wicked men, now expresses himself in \u201cloud cries and tears.\u201d13
\nSome twenty-one years have elapsed since that day in the temple precincts when Jesus said to Mary and Joseph that he must be in his Father\u2019s house.14 On that occasion his earthly parents did not really understand what he was saying. They must have gone back down the road, saying, \u201cWhat do you think Jesus meant by saying, \u2018Don\u2019t you know that I need to be in my Father\u2019s house?\u2019?\u201d Did Joseph say to Mary, \u201cWell, you\u2019re his mom; don\u2019t you understand what he meant? What do you think?\u201d Did she say, \u201cWell, I\u2019m still thinking about it all. I\u2019ll reflect on it again. I have been storing up his words and pondering them deeply\u201d?
\nLater on when Jesus tells his disciples\u2014and not for the first time\u2014that he must go up to Jerusalem, they still didn\u2019t really grasp what he was saying:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.\u201d But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.15<\/p>\n
They were as close to him as anyone could possibly be. They had heard all his preaching and witnessed his miracles. And yet here we find them\u2014and they still do not understand what he was talking about. The meaning of it all is hidden from them.
\nNow, we are not to be so presumptuous as to say, \u201cMy, my! I think if I\u2019d been there, I\u2019d have understood it perfectly. I can\u2019t believe these disciples. Not the brightest bunch after all! Poor fellows. Jesus told them this on a number of occasions. How hard is this really to understand? \u2018I am going up to Jerusalem. I will suffer. I will die at the hands of cruel men.\u2019\u201d
\nHow could they possibly reconcile all this talk about suffering with the wonderful Master they followed? How could they hold together the idea of a king who would out-king all the kings, who was also a priest who would bring a final sacrifice of infinite value, with a prophet who would permanently banish their ignorance? Yet, despite the unpalatable nature of what Jesus said, his meaning was unmistakable. They simply could not take it in.
\nHumble Approach
\nIf we\u2019re honest, we see the same thing in ourselves. That is why we should appreciate the hymn that has as its refrain:<\/p>\n
Oh, make me understand it,
\nHelp me to take it in,
\nWhat it meant for thee, the Holy One
\nTo bear away my sin.16<\/p>\n
Such understanding\u2014so that the gospel makes a real impact on our lives\u2014comes only as a result of God\u2019s grace and his goodness to us. In the face of so much mystery, we need to learn to think prayerfully and properly when we come to a passage like this. We need to ask, what exactly is happening here?
\nIt is also all too possible for us simply to be emotionally stirred by this scene without actually wrestling with its inner meaning or its implications. We then end up responding to the sufferings of Christ in a way that is little more than sentimental.
\nHere, in Isaiah\u2019s description of the Suffering Servant, we encounter statements like this: \u201cIt was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief.\u201d17 What do these statements mean?
\nThey are all unfolded in the crucifixion, which is now being anticipated by Christ in this garden. It all seems such a mess\u2014a horrendous mess: Jesus, the faithful Servant, is about to be crucified between two criminals on a garbage heap outside the city walls of Jerusalem\u2014betrayed, denied, deserted, spat upon, flogged, demeaned. How is it possible for the purpose of God to be at the heart of all this? How can Isaiah say\u2014however reverently\u2014that God is in control of it all, that it \u201cwas the will of the Lord to crush him\u201d?
\nPaul explains: Jesus was made a curse for us, so that we might receive God\u2019s blessing in him.18 Why was he made \u201ca curse\u201d for us? Because \u201che made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.\u201d19 The letter to the Hebrews helps us again: Jesus \u201cmade propitiation for the sins of the people\u201d;20 he became the sacrifice that exhausts God\u2019s wrath against our sin.
\nIn Gethsemane Jesus is anticipating offering himself as a \u201cvicarious\u201d or \u201csubstitutionary\u201d atonement sacrifice for our sins.
\nUnless we appreciate the notion of substitutionary atonement, the New Testament\u2019s teaching on the death of Christ will be entirely incomprehensible to us\u2014at best it will become a tragedy of misguided heroism.
\nWe will return to that. For the moment there are three straightforward, but important, observations we need to make.
\nCompassion
\nAs we view Christ through a biblical lens and see him as Suffering Servant, our first reaction is likely to be: \u201cWhat compassion is here!\u201d
\nThink of Christ\u2019s circumstances as he goes into the garden. Notice his first thought. It is not for himself but for his followers. He turns his attention to these young men he had called and patiently taught, with whom he has lived, and whom he loves far more than they could ever begin to imagine (as John put it: \u201cHaving loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end\u201d21).
\nLook at the selflessness of Jesus. \u201cI am among you as one who serves,\u201d he had said.22 And now especially, as the extremity of the situation begins to crush him, he continues to serve the interests of his disciples.
\nNotice how lovingly he urges them to maintain close communion with the Father lest they fall into temptation: \u201cWatch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.\u201d23
\nEarlier, when he had spoken to Peter, it must have been with a breaking heart:<\/p>\n
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.24<\/p>\n
The first \u201cyou\u201d in that statement is in the plural form. But the second \u201cyou\u201d is singular. \u201cSimon,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cSatan has asked to sift you. Not just you, Simon, but all of you. All of you are going to go through the grinder. All of you are going to be stretched to the breaking point by the events that are about to unfold. But, Simon, you need to know that I have prayed especially for you.\u201d
\nSome of us, whenever the slightest thing goes wrong, have no time for anything or anyone else. Perhaps that is mainly true of men? Our wives have a phenomenal capacity for endurance and for keeping going. But the slightest thing goes wrong with some of us men and we go into retreat\u2014and we expect others to come and minister to us!
\nBut that\u2019s not Jesus. Despite all that he faces\u2014and all that he sees written on the faces of these disciples\u2014he cares, and he says, \u201cI am praying for you particularly.\u201d He knows that they will be tempted to doubt him and to desert him and even deny him.
\nThe same spirit of loving concern runs through his great prayer in John 17, which should be read alongside the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels. Here Jesus tells the disciples to pray that they will not fall into temptation. There, in John\u2019s Gospel, he prays for them that they will be kept strong in the coming time of temptation.25 The goal of the Suffering Servant\u2019s prayers is that they will be kept so that they may be able to pray for themselves to be kept!
\nThe perseverance of these disciples in this extremity will not happen by chance. Nor does it happen simply by divine fiat. It happens by God\u2019s grace, a grace that is mediated to them through God-given means.
\nOrdinary Means of Grace
\nThis is an appropriate point to remind ourselves of a dimension of Christian living that is increasingly ignored. We need a better appreciation of what we often call the \u201cordinary means of grace.\u201d
\nWhat are they? Prayer, preaching, the fellowship of God\u2019s people, the ordinances of baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper, the experience of trials, and so on. So when Scripture says, \u201cKeep yourselves in the love of God,\u201d26 it implies that God brings to completion the good work that he has begun by working in us and through us.27 We are kept by God as we also keep ourselves resting in him.
\nA second feature of Jesus\u2019 ministry is present here.
\nCommitment
\nThe Gospels tell us that as Jesus entered the garden of Gethsemane, he told eight of the disciples to remain at one particular spot, perhaps as guards. He then took three of them (Peter, James, and John) deeper into the garden. Then he himself went further in and began to pray.28
\nWhat then?
\nLuke describes his posture: he \u201cknelt down.\u201d29
\nEarlier in his Gospel, Luke described the posture of a Pharisee at prayer. He was \u201cstanding.\u201d30 Jews usually did (as did Christians for many years in church services). But Jesus is not standing in the posture of formal prayer. No, he kneels down\u2014at least at first. Matthew records that he then \u201cfell on his face\u201d31 and Mark that he \u201cfell on the ground.\u201d32 There is an intense urgency here, even desperate need\u2014and yet it is coupled with submission as Jesus prostrates himself in the dust before his Father. There is an inevitability about this strong emotion. Jesus is about to move from the theoretical, as it were\u2014the long-held knowledge that crucifixion and the judgment of God await him at the end of the road\u2014to the imminent and the actual.
\nFacing major surgery is perhaps the closest most of us ever come to this. The date is in your diary. In the meantime you are constantly meeting people in the daily thoroughfare of life and responding to their questions: \u201cYes, they\u2019re going to take me in at 8:00 a.m., and then they\u2019ll do this. At 9:00 a.m. they\u2019ll do this, and at 11:00 a.m. they\u2019ll do that.\u201d We say to ourselves, \u201cAt about half past three in the afternoon I\u2019ll be eating jelly and ice cream\u201d\u2014all the while hoping we\u2019ll manage to come out at the far end of the operation.
\nBut then the actual morning dawns.
\nYou can\u2019t get saliva in your mouth.
\nThe sterile environment sweeps over you.
\nNow you pray in a different way . . .
\nAt the Crossroads to the Via Dolorosa
\nChrist kneels; then he falls to the ground; then he lies face down on the ground, prostrated in prayer before his Father. The apostle Paul did not see this happen. But he knew what it meant. Jesus is becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.33
\nOur Lord\u2019s outward posture here is expressive of the passion within.
\nThink of what it must have meant for him to speak to his Father in this way: \u201cFather, if you\u2019re willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will but yours be done.\u201d
\nSomewhere in the vastness of the economy of God in eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit entered into a covenant. Reducing it to its simplest terms, each of them committed himself to completing a particular aspect of our redemption. All three persons would always be involved in everything God was doing. But the Father would plan salvation, the Son would come to procure it, and the Spirit would be sent to apply it.
\nThe Son came on his saving mission. He chose to come to our fallen world from the endless and undiluted glories of life in heaven. From the intimacy of the heaven where he had everlastingly tasted the pleasures of intimate fellowship with his Father within the community of the life of God, he now comes into this morally and spiritually polluted world. He is born through a natural birth canal; he grows physically, and in favor with God and man.34 He learns from Joseph how things work in the carpenter\u2019s shop, and so on. But all the time there is a sense that his life is moving inexorably to a date that God has marked in the divine calendar. Until then Jesus\u2019 \u201chour\u201d or \u201ctime\u201d had not yet come.35
\nNow, here, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus\u2019 hour has come\u2014and it coincides with what he calls the \u201chour\u201d of the \u201cpower of darkness.\u201d36
\nThe hour hand was now moving inexorably toward midnight on the face of the divine clock of destiny. Jesus has his clearest preview yet of the agonies that are before him. Is it not safe to say that here he experiences a hellish onslaught? Here, surely, the malicious hosts of the world of darkness are unleashed against him, assaulting his psyche, oppressing him to the core of his being. The distant prospect has come near in all its gut-wrenching reality.
\nJesus must have been aware of what crucifixion looked like, perhaps even what it sounded like, and of what it did to a man. How often had he thought to himself that it would be like the pictures of suffering recorded in Psalm 22: roaring lions tearing their prey, strong bulls surrounding him.
\nBut tonight was different. Now forethought and imagination were giving way to reality. Now here come the powers of hell!
\nJesus is almost beside himself with horror. Hardly surprising then that Martin Luther comments, \u201cNo one has ever been so terror stricken by death as he was. . . . He felt and experienced death\u2019s throes more than all of us together.\u201d37
\nMark tells us that while he was still with the disciples he \u201cbegan to be greatly distressed and troubled.\u201d That\u2019s the point of his words: \u201cMy soul is very sorrowful, even to death.\u201d38 This, as we have seen, is language that expresses the kind of feeling of distraction that is the result of a profound shock.
\nPeter, James, and John now see Jesus in a new light. They had seen him before, as the rabbi teaching, and as the prophet proclaiming the word of the Lord. They had seen him as the compassionate one with little children on his knee. They had seen him in the exercise of his authority over the wind and the waves. But they had never seen this before.
\nDid one of them perhaps say to him, \u201cJesus, are you feeling all right? Is there something wrong?\u201d Our Lord responded, \u201cMy soul is overwhelmed with sorrow.\u201d He doesn\u2019t say, \u201cYou know, I\u2019m feeling a little off-color today. I\u2019m not feeling so good this evening\u2014I\u2019m just not my usual self somehow.\u201d No, he says, \u201cMy soul is overwhelmed.\u201d
\nJesus is now going through an unprecedented experience. It is even more terrifying than the overwhelming fear the disciples experienced in the boat in the Galilean storm. They had cried to him: \u201cJesus, wake up! We\u2019re drowning! Save us! Don\u2019t you care if we perish?\u201d39 But Jesus is alone in this boat as it sails into the storm of divine wrath. Now the symbolism of his water baptism at Jordan into his people\u2019s sins is being fulfilled in the reality of his baptism in blood at Calvary. Now, in a climactic water judgment, all God\u2019s waves lash upon him and his billows overwhelm him as he makes his people\u2019s sins his possession:40<\/p>\n
Save me, O God!
\nFor the waters have come up to my neck.
\nI sink in deep mire,
\nwhere there is no foothold;
\nI have come into deep waters,
\nand the flood sweeps over me.
\nI am weary with my crying out;
\nmy throat is parched.
\nMy eyes grow dim
\nwith waiting for my God.
\nMore in number than the hairs of my head
\nare those who hate me without cause;
\nmighty are those who would destroy me,
\nthose who attack me with lies.
\nWhat I did not steal
\nmust I now restore?41<\/p>\n
In his holy humanity, Jesus recoiled from the awfulness of the humiliation, suffering, and death that awaited him.
\nHe asked to be \u201csaved.\u201d \u201cFather, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.\u201d42
\nIf he had not done so, he would have been less than truly human. He would not be human or holy (would he?) if the reality before him was a matter of relative indifference. He had never before tasted the awful reality that now faced him\u2014the Father\u2019s wrath falling on his holy soul. The prospect was unimaginable.
\nFully and Truly Human
\nThe story of the church\u2019s understanding of the person of Jesus Christ is one of swings and roundabouts. The pendulum swings between diminishing the divinity of Jesus and diminishing his humanity. In the last 150 years, liberalism has diminished Christ\u2019s divinity, and orthodoxy, partly in reaction, has run the risk of diminishing his humanity. In our insistence that Jesus is Lord, that he is the divine King\u2014which we unreservedly affirm\u2014we must never fall into the error of having a less than human, or more than human, Christ. If we do, we reduce his saving work to a mathematical formula, and, worse, we have a Christ who is not able to be a savior.
\nBut if our Savior is truly and fully human, then his work is a flesh-and-blood reality. He is a real man in this real garden among real friends who fail him just when he is facing this real onslaught. On the one hand, that onslaught comes from hell (was there ever fiercer temptation than now?). \u201cTurn away from obedience to death, even death on a cross.\u201d On the other hand the cup he shrinks from drinking contains an onslaught from heaven.43 It will bring him eventually to the point of crying out, \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d
\nJesus knows this is what it will mean if he is to suffer and die as an atoning sacrifice for sin. He is about to taste God-forsakenness.
\nA Savior Who Felt and Feels
\nThere is a mental dimension to this suffering. It has an intellectual aspect. There is also a psychosomatic aspect. Jesus is engulfed by the emotion of the occasion. He had repeatedly asserted the divine necessity of his suffering. But now he is imminently confronted by the ordeal. On an evening cold enough for a fire to be kindled in the courtyard of the high priest, his sweat presses out of his body like great globules of blood and drops down to stain the ground.44 How do you sweat like that on an evening so cold that Peter will soon want to warm himself by a fire?45
\nSome of us know mental anguish. Some of us even feel it to the point where we fear for our sanity, and even for our lives. Some are plagued in mind by fears and feel ourselves at times on the verge of despair and hopelessness.
\nDoes the gospel have anything to say to us here?
\nIt does indeed! It tells us that Christ has been touched with all this, on the inside. Do you know that the Lord Jesus understands what it is to be overwhelmed? It is not for nothing that the New Testament writer who says:<\/p>\n
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered,46<\/p>\n
also wrote that<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.47<\/p>\n
These last words are not a description of the immutable eternal nature of the Son. That is a biblical truth but not the truth of this text. For this statement tells us that Jesus still is all that Jesus once was during the course of his ministry. Jesus\u2019 vast sympathy, his compassion, his perfect understanding of suffering both mental and physical\u2014all so vividly portrayed in the Gospels\u2014is still as real today as it was yesterday. More\u2014he will always be like that! He is still today the very same person who is described in the Gospel narrative\u2014and all for us!
\nThere is a physical aspect to this suffering. That bears saying. There is little need for elaboration, is there? Crucifixion is, surely, the most brutal, cruel, and unnatural punishment ever devised by man. We need to be clear that there was nothing in Christ\u2019s humanity to blunt his emotions or to anaesthetize him to lessen his suffering. The horrific way the death penalty passed on him was carried out\u2014despite all his innocence\u2014is not part of a novel. It was reality.
\nIndeed, so concerned was Jesus to suffer in unrelieved fashion that when offered wine mingled with gall as an anaesthetic to deaden his senses and to alleviate his suffering, he declined.48 He will drain the cup of suffering to its very dregs.
\nThere is a social dimension to his suffering. You may never have thought that this could be of any real significance for Jesus. But think about it now. Jesus was friendly. Jesus didn\u2019t go through his ministry as a rock or as an island.
\nJesus didn\u2019t build walls\u2014he built bridges; he gathered people around him. Children loved him. Distinguished people came to him. Ordinary people listened to him. His friends were important to him. He loved his neighbors. He was affectionate. He enjoyed human relationships.
\nSo it is not a small matter for Jesus, as he kneels down in this garden (formerly a place of tranquility and friendship for him), that he is about to be marginalized, isolated, and condemned. His companions of three years are about to betray him, deny him, or demean and desert him. No friendly face. No hand to hold. No whispered word of encouragement.
\nJesus is about to be abused by the religious establishment he had sought to treat with honor and respect. He is about to be publicly exposed to humiliation\u2014a humiliation that, surely, his dearest friends and closest family also felt deeply. Jesus, who bows down in the garden, is about to die unjustly, alone, with his friends standing at best at a distance from him until near the end. Did he even feel that those who were most important to him in this earthly life thought he was letting them down?
\nSo, you see, if you\u2019ve got only an exclusively divine Jesus, you will tend to think, \u201cWell, what about it? He\u2019s the Son of God. That\u2019s not an issue with him.\u201d
\nYes, it is.49
\nWhen we were both growing up in Glasgow, Scotland, various groups of Christians used to visit from the United States. They would bring singers and all sorts of songs for us to learn\u2014some of which deeply impressed even youngsters\u2019 minds and hearts. One of them was the song that began,<\/p>\n
There were ninety and nine that safely lay
\nIn the shelter of the fold.
\nBut one was out on the hills away,
\nFar off from the gates of gold.
\nAway on the mountains wild and bare.
\nAway from the tender Shepherd\u2019s care.
\nAway from the tender Shepherd\u2019s care.<\/p>\n
\u201cLord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine;
\nAre they not enough for Thee?\u201d
\nBut the Shepherd made answer: \u201cThis of Mine
\nHas wandered away from Me;
\nAnd although the road be rough and steep,
\nI go to the desert to find My sheep,
\nI go to the desert to find My sheep.\u201d50<\/p>\n
Written by Elizabeth Clephane, it was always sung to the tune written by Ira D. Sankey. It was very dramatic. These first two verses seemed to roll along with the tune. But with the third verse we began to feel the darkness fall. We were beginning to lose sight of where Jesus had gone. We knew we could not go all the distance with him.<\/p>\n
But none of the ransomed ever knew
\nHow deep were the waters crossed;
\nNor how dark was the night the Lord passed through
\nEre He found His sheep that was lost.
\nOut in the desert He heard its cry,
\nSick and helpless and ready to die;
\nSick and helpless and ready to die.<\/p>\n
Then the fourth and fifth verses seemed to describe all that we were allowed to know:<\/p>\n
\u201cLord, whence are those blood drops all the way
\nThat mark out the mountain\u2019s track?\u201d
\n\u201cThey were shed for one who had gone astray
\nEre the Shepherd could bring him back.\u201d
\n\u201cLord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torn?\u201d
\n\u201cThey are pierced tonight by many a thorn;
\nThey are pierced tonight by many a thorn.\u201d<\/p>\n
And all through the mountains, thunder riven
\nAnd up from the rocky steep,
\nThere arose a glad cry to the gate of Heaven,
\n\u201cRejoice! I have found My sheep!\u201d
\nAnd the angels echoed around the throne,
\n\u201cRejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!
\nRejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!\u201d<\/p>\n
None of us knows the bitter chill of these waters, the depth of this darkness. The Lord was in a place all on his own in Gethsemane. We can look long on this scene and do our best to understand it. But we can never fully comprehend it. This is where we are grateful for Paul\u2019s words:<\/p>\n
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father . . . that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that . . . you, being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.51<\/p>\n
Another hymn\u2014this time Welsh\u2014comes to mind:<\/p>\n
Here is love, vast as the ocean,
\nLoving kindness as the flood,
\nWhen the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
\nShed for us His precious blood.
\nWho His love will not remember?
\nWho can cease to sing His praise?
\nHe can never be forgotten,
\nThroughout Heav\u2019n\u2019s eternal days.52<\/p>\n
In fact, Jesus\u2019 extremity in the garden is so great, his suffering so deep, that an angel is commissioned from heaven to minister to him. (Are not angels \u201cministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation\u201d?53)
\nCan you imagine the summons that goes out for this angel?
\n\u201cI have a visit for you,\u201d says the Father. \u201cI want you to go down to Jerusalem, to the Mount of Olives\u2014and more specifically to the garden of Gethsemane. There you will find him.\u201d
\n\u201cWho, Lord?\u201d
\n\u201cMy Servant. There you will find the Suffering One. He is my Son. Minister to him.\u201d
\nWho can describe, far less explain, the nature of that angel\u2019s ministry? Alexander Whyte, the nineteenth-century minister of Free St. George\u2019s Church in Edinburgh, said that when he reaches heaven, after he has met Christ himself, the person he wants to meet more than any other was this angel.
\nSurely you understand that? Alexander Whyte presumably didn\u2019t know how to exegete this particular verse. But perhaps when all things are made clear, and he\u2014and we\u2014no longer see through a glass darkly\u2014perhaps then something of the answer will be ours.
\nOf course, once the angel comes (so we think)\u2014all will be well, won\u2019t it? You might think so, judging by some current books on the angelic. When an angel comes, everything is wonderful . . . isn\u2019t it?
\nIs it?
\nAfter the angel came, things were far from being wonderful.
\nNotice the striking statement that follows: \u201cAnd there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly.\u201d54
\nOur Lord must surely have been grateful to God for the ongoing strength given from heaven. But it did not lessen the intensity of his struggle. It simply made it possible for him to continue it to the end. (Notice, incidentally, that Jesus did not \u201cdraw down\u201d some special power from his deity at this point\u2014his deity and humanity are never confused, or compounded, in this way. Rather, he received help from his Father through the visit of an angel.)
\nDonald Macleod underlines the poignancy of all this when he writes:<\/p>\n
In these things Christ still stands beside those who are emotionally overborne, finding their grief and bewilderment insupportable and likely to be fatal.55<\/p>\n
What compassion. What commitment!
\nWe must consider one further dimension in which the Lord Jesus is the Suffering Servant.
\nContrast
\nAt last Jesus rises from prayer.
\nNow the wrestling is over.
\nIn contrast to his earlier prostration, Jesus now returns calmly to his disciples.
\nNow he is ready to walk the Via Dolorosa.
\nNow there is no doubt that he will go down this path of suffering to its end.
\nNow everything he has anticipated in these dark moments in the garden will become reality.
\nThe angel has come. He has strengthened him. He is on his feet. He has endured Gethsemane. He returns to his disciples. They\u2014despite his exhortation to watch and pray\u2014have fallen asleep. But he has taken the cup into his hands; he will now raise it to his lips.
\nLuke very graciously says that the disciples were exhausted from sorrow. But perhaps he is not just being gracious. Luke was a physician. He was interested in the nature of Jesus\u2019 sweat. Perhaps he is giving us an insight. These young men were caught up in an overwhelming experience. They couldn\u2019t bear it, either. The wonderful thing, of course, is that Jesus addresses them one more time: \u201cWhy are you sleeping? Let me give this to you once more. Here\u2019s what you need to do. Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.\u201d
\nThen, as the soldiers come with Judas to arrest Jesus, he steps out in front and says, \u201cI presume you\u2019re looking for me.\u201d There is no cowering here; there is no running, no hiding.
\nIt was partly in the light of this intense passion of the Savior that Martin Luther developed his deep concern about the state of the church in his day. It had become materially strong and was awash with its own sense of power, glory, and triumphalism. It had what Luther called a theologia gloriae\u2014a theology of glory, its own glory. What it needed was a theologia crucis\u2014a theology of the cross.
\nIt is this theology of the cross that we find here. God grant that in seeing Christ as the Suffering Servant we will be done once and for all with the superficial triumphalism that sadly emanates from too many Christian organizations and churches.
\nHave you ever considered the fact that on the average Sunday, pastors minister to congregations of people whose lives are marked\u2014and often marred\u2014by quiet desperation? Sadly, some churches, and the finance-seeking \u201cministries\u201d that sprout in abundance, have become very skilled at masking all this with promises of victory and a life beyond the reach of pain and sorrow.
\nMasking tape to cover deep needs is always a profoundly unhelpful and unrealistic antidote for broken hearts. Using it betrays a deeply unbiblical\u2014and indeed ultimately cruel\u2014theology. And, sadly, the broken and overwhelmed and shattered and sordid and sad are never pointed to the Suffering Servant, who will love them, sympathize with them, save them, and graciously and gradually transform them.
\nOur churches will have all too little ministry to the least and last, the lost and left out, until we are prepared to acknowledge that Christ himself was a suffering servant who entered into the depths of our humanity. We therefore, as followers of Jesus, albeit still sinners, must be suffering servants also.
\nOur smiles of superficial triumph repel rather than attract those who are wrestlers with the troubled sea of life. The silly affirmations of God\u2019s intervention in our lives taking us beyond the realm of trial and difficulty, the sort of testimony to the work of Jesus that seems to suggest that if you are a Christian in a hurry, then all the traffic lights will go in your favor, or that your daughters will be pretty, or that your sons will be handsome and get the best jobs, or that you will always gets A\u2019s on your test\u2014all this is demolished by the biblical gospel. Christians are indeed winners, but the prize is waiting on the other side of suffering.
\nHow could we ever imagine it would be different, when our Lord and Savior came as a suffering servant?
\nA Suffering Savior for Outcasts
\nThink of the untouchable community at the bottom of the traditional caste system in India, the vast numbers of people who are Dalits by birth. They live without hope. They are the offscouring. They are the wounded. They are the unemployable. Then someone goes and tells them of Jesus, of a Savior who was despised and rejected by men, a Master who was a man of sorrows, familiar with grief\u2014that Jesus Christ is the Son of God from whom people hid their faces\u2014as though he belonged to the Dalit caste!
\nThe Dalit responds: \u201cWe never knew there was such a person. Who is this?\u201d Is it any wonder that many of these people are attracted to Christ?
\nThis is all very different from some American Christianity, isn\u2019t it? Or some Australian, or some British, or some South African Christianity. Here the appeal is to the quarterback, to the TV personality, to the cheerleader, to the business success. But we didn\u2019t get that from our Bibles. It is time to be done with all this if, in the twenty-first century, we are going to be able under God to bring the gospel to the needy and marginalized.
\nWe want a Jesus who does all the suffering, don\u2019t we? As A. W. Tozer said, prophetically, years ago, \u201cWe want to be saved but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of Mansoul and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.\u201d56
\nBut what do you find in the Gospels? This: after Jesus tells the disciples, \u201cThe Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed,\u201d he tells them: \u201cIf anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel\u2019s will save it.\u201d57
\nIn the same way, by the time Paul is wrapping things up and writing his final letter to Timothy, he urges him: \u201cShare in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. . . . Share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.\u201d58
\nYes, the servants of the Suffering Servant must suffer with him. It is the pathway to glory.
\nSo, today, if you hear God\u2019s voice, do not harden your heart.59<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jesus Christ, the Conquering King \u201cNow after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, \u2018The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel\u2019\u201d (Mark 1:14\u201315). The ministry of Jesus began with this announcement. Jesus often spoke about the kingdom … <\/p>\n