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Gospel Presence II: Gospel Center, Gospel Edges

Joe Harby on April 7, 2013

Introduction

The gospel message provides a hard center for our lives, but we must make sure that we do not understand this as an isolated hard center. We want the gospel to be a taproot to the entire tree, and not an isolated boulder in a field of scattered boulders. The litmus test is whether you can find yourself moving from a conversation about anything to the gospel without changing the subject.

The Text

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time” (1 Cor. 15:1-8).

Summary of the Text

The gospel is something which can be declared, preached, and (clearly) summarized (v. 1). It is also something which can be received, and the person who receives it can take a stand in it (v. 1). This message is capable of saving those who remember it, not counting those who believed it in vanity (v. 2). Paul delivered to them what he himself had received, which is that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (v. 3). He was buried and raised to life, also in accordance with the Scripture (v. 4). This resurrection was witnessed—first by Peter, and then the twelve (v. 5). After that were 500 people, most of whom were still alive when Paul wrote this (v. 6), then James and all the apostles (v. 7). Finally He was seen by Paul (v. 8).

The Taproot

The Scriptures use the word gospel to describe this center. But it is a center that is connected to absolutely everything else. We can see this in other, broader uses of the word gospel. For example the four gospels are called gospels (e.g. The Gospel According to Matthew), and while they contain the facts that Paul points to in our text, they also contain much more. For example, the fact that Jesus went to Capernaum is part of the gospel (Matt. 8:5). Or take the fact that God preached the gospel to Abraham by telling him that through him all the nations would be blessed (Gal. 3:8). Or again, then author of Hebrews says that the law of Moses, given to the Israelites, was gospel (Heb. 4:2). Jesus arrived in Israel, preaching the gospel, but He clearly was not presenting the gospel the same way that we would (Matt. 4:23).

No False Choice

So in Scripture, the word gospel is as narrow as the cross, and is as wide as the world. We must be faithful to both uses. Liberals abandon the center—Christ crucified for sinners—and want to put some kind of happy face over the whole world. Sectarian conservatives guard the center fiercely, making sure that it remains disconnected from everything else. Seeing it as connected might bring the gospel into contact with sinful stuff, and we wouldn’t want to get our gospel dirty. But we have forgotten the power of the cross. When Jesus touched lepers, the healing went out . . . the leprosy did not contaminate Him.

A Fatal Error

One of the first steps in disconnecting the gospel from the world is the step of disconnecting “gospel” verses in the Bible from other kinds of verses (as we imagine them). For example, it is a very easy mistake to try to divide the Bible up into law verses and gospel verses, as though God had divided the Bible up, with happy faces next to some verses and frowny faces next to the remainder.

No. To the unregenerate, the whole thing is law. To the regenerate, the whole thing is gospel. What is more “law” than the Ten Commandments, but what does the preamble declare? God is the one who brought them out of the house of bondage (Ex. 20:2). And what is more “gospel” than the message of the cross—and it is the stench of death to those who are perishing (2 Cor. 2:16). The divide runs, not through the Bible, or through the world, but through every human heart.

Reconciling All Things

God’s purposes in the gospel are cosmic. Christ shed His blood on the cross, and why? So that He might reconcile all things to Himself, whether those things are in Heaven or on earth (Col. 1:20). Now that means that everything is related to Him.

But we do not “connect the dots” by reading big, fat books of theology. They are not tied together with abstraction string—they are all coherent because of the blood of Jesus. So we begin this glorious process by being reconciled ourselves, by receiving forgiveness for our wicked works (v. 21). And as we saw just a few verses before this, Christ is the one in whom all things are integrated (Col. 1:18). He is arche—the foundational beginning, the cornerstone, the axle.

He is therefore the center toward whom all the edges run. He is the sovereign Lord over all. He is the bedrock underneath all things. He is the root. He is the Head over all things. We noted a moment ago that everything is related to Him, and related in Him. But take a moment to reflect—what does that include? That includes carpentry, novel writing, weather reporting, roly poly bugs, lawn mowing, cake baking, leaf raking, software writing, star gazing, doctrine parsing, child teaching, and everything else that men might do. And since He is the one in whom all these things tie together, why can we not detect His presence in these things—a gospel presence—and live in the awareness of that presence as we deal with those who do not believe.

Gospel Presence I: The Resurrection of the World

Joe Harby on March 31, 2013

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Introduction

The resurrection of Jesus was not an odd circumstance in an otherwise unchanged world. This world is not what it used to be because this world is the place where a man once came back from the dead. And when He came back, it was not as a resuscitation, as happened with Lazarus, but as a true resurrection. And as the Bible plainly teaches, when a man comes back from the dead, He pulls the whole dead world after Him. The resurrection was the introduction of an irrevocable principle into a dead world—and there is not a single thing that dead world can do about it except to wait on the approaching life.

The Texts

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:17-21).

Summary of the Text

First we are told what happens when a man is in Christ. When a man is in Christ, he becomes a new creature. Everything old passes away, and everything becomes new in and through Him (v. 17). This is what happens to any man who is in Christ, but how extensive is this phenomenon? The answer is global in scope—all things are of God, who has reconciled the Church to Himself (already) and has given to this Church the ministry of reconciliation (for everybody else). So the message is broadening, and it is enormous in scope (v. 18). What is the heart of that ministry of reconciliation? Paul lays it out—God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing the world’s sin to it, and as a result committing the ministry of reconciliation to us (v. 19). As a consequence we are Christ’s ambassadors, as though God Himself were speaking through us (v. 20). We therefore implore everyone—be reconciled to God (v. 20). This is all based on a glorious and unbelievable exchange (v. 21). But even though the transaction is unbelievable, we are called to summon the whole world to believe it.

Heralds or Campaigners?

As we think about the task of evangelism, it is crucial that we get our mission straight in our heads before charging off to fulfill it. Alacrity in obedience is no virtue if you have gotten your task all muddled in your head.

So here is the issue. We are heralds announcing a salvation for the world that has already been accomplished. There are certain things that people in the world must do because it has been accomplished, but one of the things they don’t have to do (and indeed, must not do) is install what has already been installed. Another way of putting this is that we are heralds, not campaigners. We are proclaiming that Jesus has been enthroned; we are not canvassing for votes trying to get Him elected. We are not manning the phone banks on election night. Jesus has been wearing His crown for a long time.

Our message is x has been done, and so we summon you to y. It is not x is desirable, and so we invite you to join us in making x a reality. The gospel is good news; the gospel is not a good platform.

Man in Christ, God in Christ

If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. We are then told, by implication, that “all things are new,” which is to say, that God has reconciled the world to Himself in Christ, and He was able to do this because God Himself was in Christ. Nothing can be the same. Nothing is the same. We have no authority to consider anything outside of Christ.

The key is to learn how to “implore” those who are not yet in Christ (through faith) in a way that does not drag us into their unbelief. The sun is up, and we implore those hiding in coal cellars to come out and lift their face to the sky. We must never beg them to come out of their coal cellar so that the sun might come up, and so that we might live in this new world.

One other thing must be said in this regard. Note that God is making His appeal through us, and note that it is not supposed to be a lackluster appeal. We implore, plead, beg, beseech non-believers to come to Christ—and we do not do this because we are frail, emotional humans and have run out ahead of the taciturn decrees of God. No, when we plead, God pleads. When we implore, God implores. How can He do that? God was in Christ, remember? God was in Christ, bleeding for the world, and can He not weep for the world? God was in Christ, shedding tears over Jerusalem, and can He not shed tears over a world that He has already purchased? Why will you die, o house of Israel? The world is alive—there is no point in you staying dead.

The Resurrection of the World

What has God done for the world? What has God already done for the world? It says here that He has reconciled the world to Himself. It says, second, that He is not imputing their trespasses to them. And it also says— undergirding this—that we have had the word of reconciliation entrusted to us. But since that word has been given to us, as in a trust, we must take care to be faithful to it.

In Christ, we were raised to life again. In Christ, the Church was raised to life. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself. In Christ, we plead with the world to be reconciled. Now there is no reconciliation apart from resurrection, and this is why we declare that (in principle) the world is a world of resurrection. We are preaching the resurrection of the world in the resurrection of Jesus.

And so this is the glorious pattern of the indicative and the corresponding imperative. You have been reconciled; therefore, be reconciled. This has been done; therefore believe that it has been done.

A Face Like Flint (Palm Sunday 2013)

Joe Harby on March 24, 2013

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Introduction

As believers in the Lord Jesus, we have to learn how to see Him as our substitute in all things, and not just in His death on the cross. Jesus did not just die in our place (although He did do that), He also lived in our place. The sacrifice of Jesus was for us, but so was the obedience of Jesus for us. The blood of Jesus was for us, but so was His courage.

The Texts

“And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).

“I gave My back to those who struck Me, And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed” (Is. 50:6-7).

Summary of the Text

As we consider this text, and the courage of the Lord Jesus, there are four events we should keep in mind together. The first occurred earlier in this chapter (Luke 9:31), when the Lord was transfigured and met with Moses and Elijah. One of the things they discussed on that mountain was the “exodus” that Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. The second event is this one—the Lord, when it was time for Him to be “received up,” set His face steadfastly in the direction of Jerusalem, which was to be the place of His passion. The third event is His triumphal entry to Jerusalem, the event that we are marking on the church calendar today (John 12:13). The fourth event was His agonized prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32). The Lord knew what the Scriptures had prophesied, He knew the Father’s will, He had set His face already to do that will, and He was willing to go. Our passage from Isaiah concerns the suffering servant, who is the Lord Jesus. He knew the abuse He would receive from the authorities in Jerusalem. His face would be abused—beard plucked out. But He refused to hide His face, and in His courage He set His face like flint in order to pay the price for your salvation and mine.

A True Man

The Lord Jesus had a sense of His calling from the time He was twelve (at least). This was confirmed to Him at His baptism, when God spoke from Heaven, and the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove. But remember that we confess that He was not only fully God but also a true man. Indeed, He was the true man. This meant that He felt and fully experienced the gradual approach of a day of dread. He knew what was coming, but when it was a week away instead of years away the burden was much greater. The Lord Jesus required courage, which He displayed, and the Lord Jesus had to carry the burden, which He did.

He spoke with Elijah and Moses about the great exodus He would accomplish. He resolved to do it, setting His face toward the cross at Jerusalem. He empathized with the rejoicing at His triumphal entry—He supported it and did not think it out of place. Incidentally, it always bears repeating that we have no biblical basis for supposing that the crowd with the palms and the crowd crying out crucify Him! were the same crowds. This was not about the fickleness of the masses.

Active Obedience

Christ is everything to us. He lived His entire life as a public person, as the last and final Adam. Everything He did was for us and to us, and God imputes to us all of His obedience, and not just His obedience of suffering on the cross. Theologians distinguish this by calling one His passive obedience (His suffering obedience on the cross) and His active obedience (His entire life of faithfulness to God). All of this is imputed to us, credited to us.

It was not just necessary for the people of God to pay for their sins. It was equally necessary for them to fulfill the vocation that God assigned to us. This is why Jesus identified with us from the first moment of His ministry (in His baptism). This is why He fasted forty days in the wilderness (remember forty years in the wilderness?). This is why He was tempted there. Who else was tempted there? This is why He invaded Canaan as the greater Joshua, and undertook a great warfare there, expelling demons. Christ is Israel, and Christ is Israel, finally doing it right. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

When Courage is Called For

Let us bring this down to particulars. Every Christian is called to take up the cross daily (Luke 9:23). But this is not a solitary cross (although it will often feel solitary enough). It is not solitary because Jesus invites us to take up the cross in order to follow Him with it. He promises, in the next breath, that whoever loses his life for the sake of Christ will save it (Luke 9:24).

If we are believers, we are in Christ. If we are in Christ, then our crosses are within His cross. We are never alone in what God has apportioned to us. If we are called upon to show courage, then our courage is located where it must be located—inside His courage.

Courage is needed when you don’t think you can do the work anymore. Courage is required when the pain continues to go on and on, and you don’t know what to do with it, or where to put it. Courage is required in the face of uncertainty—perhaps you are threatened by a diagnosed illness, or financial troubles. Courage is required when your reputation is threatened by those who would slander you—not because your work is deficient, or because you have been dishonest in any way, but because you identify with Jesus Christ. Now identifying with Jesus does bring this kind of hostility. But identifying with Him also brings a great and glorious blessing. Why is that? Because His courage is given as a gift to you. The one who gives you this blessing of high-heartedness is the one who set His face like flint in order to go to Jerusalem to purchase you out of the slave market of sin.

Spiritual Disciplines III: Work

Joe Harby on March 17, 2013

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Introduction

God breathed the breath of life in Adam, and he became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Having created him as a living soul, He gave him an abundance of food to eat (Gen. 1:29). The third thing that happened was that God gave him a task (Gen. 2:15). His immediate task was to tend the Garden, and his long term task was to subdue the entire earth. So there we have the full curriculum of the spiritual disciplines—breathe, eat, work.

The Text

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:27-28).

Summary of the Text

Notice that the creation of man as male and female was essential to the task that was later assigned. First, mankind as male/female is how we bear the image of God (v. 27). Mankind was given dominion over the earth as the vice- gerent of God, and if we are stopped and asked what authority we have for doing this or that, we must show our papers. And what are those papers? The answer is the fact that we bear the image of God. All attempts by evolutionists to deny that we are created in the image of God are either attempts to abdicate the task entirely, or are attempts to usurp the authority from God, and to rule in our own name. It is usually the latter.

The dominion and stewardship that Adam was called to exercise was absolutely dependent upon the wife he was given. Prior to Eve’s formation from the rib, he could have been told to trim a bush, or cut a path, or build a monument. He could have done such things by himself. But the globe was always going to be enormous, and Adam would have remained a solitary guy. The command was to be fruitful and multiply. How could Adam do that by himself ? He could not. If Adam was commanded to dig a hole, he could have figured out a way to do it. But he was commanded to replicate himself.

A True Image

This is why incidentally, the whole debate over homosexual marriage is an instance of high rebellion, and is not just a public indulgence of a petty vice. In response to such follies, our task is to present the image of God accurately, as well as to present a living model of Christ and the Church. We have the privilege, in our marriages, to testify both to creation and redemption. Marriage is high theology.

The Cultural Mandate

Man therefore has a right to tend and supervise what is happening on the earth. Good stewardship is our responsibility, assigned by God. This awesome responsibility was made much more difficult and complicated when our race fell into sin. The task was now far beyond us, but the task was not removed from us. After the judgment of God that fell on the earth with the Flood, this cultural mandate was repeated (Gen. 9:1). Despite our sin, we still have all the same responsibilities. Because this is our house, we are the ones who have to mow the lawn.

But God saw our inabilities and promised a Messiah, one who would enable us to fulfill and discharge the responsibility that He gave to us. Even after the Fall, the psalmist is amazed at the dominion responsibility that God gave to man (Ps. 8:6). And the author of Hebrews notes that it was not until Christ came that the true fulfillment of this was even remotely possible (Heb. 2:8-9). We do not yet see everything subject to man, the way it ought to be, but . . . we see Jesus.

A Caution

Unconverted men do not want to follow God’s order. They want to be saved “by works,” which means ultimately, that they believe the order is work, live, eat. But we are not saved by good works, but rather we are saved to good works (Eph. 2:8-10). God gives life first, strength second, and the task last. To this I labor, Paul says, struggling mightily with the energy He supplies (Col. 1:29). And in another place he says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in us, to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13). Work out what God works in—that is, life and strength. Lots of good works, but no autonomous good works. It is all grace.

Another Caution

As we exercise stewardship, we have to be extremely careful to pay attention to the boundaries of our stewardship, which are marked out by God in the institution of private property (Ex. 20:15). Just the prohibition of adultery presupposes the institution of marriage, so also the prohibition of stealing presupposes the institution of private property. And the state has no more right to confiscate property willy-nilly than the sultan has the right to gather up his nation’s wives into his harem.

Man in Microcosm

Adam and Eve are the paradigmatic couple. The way they got married sets the pattern for all mankind—a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two become one flesh (Matt. 19:5). Paul applies this to the matter of calling and vocation as well (1 Cor. 11:8-9). The man was made for the task, and the task of the woman was the man. The man tends the garden, and the woman tends the man. These are not watertight categories, obviously, but Scripture does describe this authoritatively as being our foundational orientation.

Baskets of Fruit are Heavy

Now the thing that we are to take away from this pattern of breathe, eat, work is that the task of mankind is that of management. We do not create wealth ex nihilo—we manage it as it comes off the tree. We are stewards of a multiplying world.

This world needs to trimmed, managed, shepherded, replenished, and we are to do it in the name of Jesus and a good amount of sweat. The institution of work is a pre-fall institution, just like marriage is. We are to learn how —in Christ—to resist and overcome the effects of the Fall on our labors. And the more we do, the more it multiplies.

Spiritual Disciplines II: Eat

Joe Harby on March 10, 2013

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Introduction

So there are three imperatives we are considering as we look at the spiritual disciplines. They are breathe, eat, and work. We have already seen the need for the gift of breath, and we will now look at the charge to eat.

The Text

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17).

Summary of the Text

As we have considered, Adam was shaped from the dust of the ground. Eve was therefore a granddaughter of the soil, taken from the side of Adam, just as Adam had been taken from the side of the earth. After he had been shaped, God breathed into him the breath of life. Once he had become a living soul, it became apparent that this living soul would need ongoing sustenance. Here in our passage, the Lord God gave him all the food in the garden, with one exception. He was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but every other tree was free and available to him. This included, incidentally, the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). That tree was only shut off to him after the Fall, most probably as an act of mercy. But the simple need for food in an ongoing way is plainly a design feature, unrelated to sin.

God Gives the Increase

The gift of physical life is sustained by the gift of physical food. Man was created an eating creature. So in the same way, spiritual life is sustained by spiritual food. Life seeks out food, and life incorporates food. But how food is able to do what it does is a grand mystery. Although this passage is about a plant being nourished and growing as a result, the principle is the same for all living things. “So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase” (1 Cor. 3:7). You don’t eat a sandwich and then set aside the next half hour for issuing commands down to your digestive system to make sure everything goes where it needs to. That part of it is built in. You just put food in, and life does something with it. How? God gives the increase.

The Menu

So just as a living body needs to import nutrition, so also does the soul. We have already considered the reality of it. But what are we supposed to eat to nourish our spiritual lives? In what ways are we instructed to feed?

Another way of asking this is to wonder what menu God has prepared for us. Here are some of the key items that feed us.

The Word of God feeds us. Man does not live by bread alone (Matt.4:4), but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We are called to eat teaching, eat doctrine—and not sporadically either (Heb. 5:14; 1 Pet. 2:2).
The sacraments feed us. They are explicitly described for us as spiritual food (1 Cor. 10:1-4; 16). We are instructed to take care that we eat in a particular way, but when we do, we are nourished by Christ Himself.
Music feeds us. We are to teach and admonish one another by psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). This is clearly a combination because the words are the Word of God also, but God wants us to feed on the Word while singing it.
Prayer feeds us. We too often think of prayer as outlay instead of intake. But Jesus said that prayer understood properly strengthens rather than drains (Mark 9:29).
Doing the will of God feeds us. The Lord told His disciples that He had nourishment that they didn’t know about (John 4:31-34). He told them this after He had ministered to the woman at the well.
And fellowship feeds us. We see this as one of the things the new believers on Pentecost naturally sought out (Acts 2:42).

Balanced Diet

We have made the point that healthy life doesn’t need “hungry lessons.” At the same time, if you established all your physical eating habits as a small child, you might now be subsisting on a diet revolving around deep-fried Oreos. This is the way of the libertine. But there is also the legalist, the one who wants to be put right or kept right with God by means of some healthy sounding thing that you can sprinkle on your salad, like pine bark shavings.

Use the dining table to illustrate the point about your Bible reading, or any other form of spiritual grazing. Why do you eat? For most people, you should eat for two basic reasons—first, because you are hungry, and second, because its dinner time. Why do you need other reasons? And if other reasons are front and center, you are probably over-thinking it.

Christ in All of It

So we feed on the Word of God. Christ is the Word (John 1:1). We are nourished by the sacraments—but the Old Testament saints are said to have been nourished by Christ. They drank Christ; they ate Christ, the bread from Heaven (1 Cor. 10:1-4). We are baptized into the death of Christ (Rom. 6:3), and we are made partakers of Christ in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10:16). We sing Christ (Col. 3:16). Christ prays for us (Rom. 8:34), and whenever we pray, we are praying in Christ. Because we know it is true that of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, we offer our bodies a living sacrifice, which proves and establishes the will of God (Rom. 12:1-2). This nourishes us. The fellowship we enjoy with one another is fellowship that is grounded in walking in the light as He is in the light (1 John 1:7). In short, it is Jesus everywhere.