Christ Church

John

The Apostles Creed 2: God the Father

Ben Zornes on

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
So we begin the Creed with the statement “I believe.” Believe in what or whom? We do not believe in a generic deity, with details to be filled in later. We begin with the confession that we believe in a personal God, identified by name, and revealed in His Son. I believe in God the Father.

The Text:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text:
This phrase in the Creed is not a stand-alone name. It is defined and filled out a moment later when we add that we believe “in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord.” In other words, we are not confessing our faith in a Deity who is in some vague metaphorical sense like a father. No, we believe in God the Father of Jesus Christ. This is a confession that is most specific.

The Structure of Salvation:
Speaking of the new unity between Jew and Gentile, the apostle Paul admirably summarizes the structure of salvation within the compass of one brief verse. “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” (Eph. 2:18). In a paraphrase, we would render it this way. “Through Christ we have access to the Father by means of one Spirit.” If I might employ something of a homely metaphor, the Father is the place we are driving to, the Son is the road, and the Holy Spirit is the car. The Father is where we are all going, Jesus is the way we get to Him, and the Spirit is the power that enables us to take that way to Him.

And this is why Jesus spoke of Himself in this way, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). Jesus is the way (hodos)—road or path—and the Spirit empowers us to travel on that road. We do not walk in the flesh, but in the Spirit (Rom. 8:4). We are instructed to walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16), and then again (Gal. 5:25). The Father is where we go, the Son is the way we go, and the Spirit is how we go.

When We Pray:
This is why, when Jesus taught us to pray, He taught us to pray to the Father (Matt. 6:9). This is how Christian prayer is supposed to function. We pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, in the power of the Spirit.

We are not neglecting the Son or the Spirit because we are not addressing them directly. It is a travesty of prayer when we separate out the persons of the Godhead and create factions in the church according to our separations. In some ways, this is far worse than “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos.” Liberals says they believe in the brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God (BOMFOG). But if you don’t have the Son, you don’t really have the Father (1 John 2:23), whatever you say. And charismatics focus on the Spirit—but the Spirit points away from Himself. It is the Spirit’s task to glorify Son (2 Cor. 3:18), whose task it is in turn to glorify the Father (John 17:1). Evangelicals focus on Jesus—but Jesus came to bring us to the Father.

Anthropomorphism Backwards:
In our glib unbelief, we say things like this—“We all have experience with human fathers, and so our ancestors naturally enough invented a ‘sky father,’ who would protect us, terrify us, provide for us, etc. But we have grown past that stage where we project our image into the heavens.”

In our arrogance, we think we have created God in our image. But the Scriptures say that God created us in His image (Gen. 1:27).

If there is no God, we are an inchoate mess. We are a shapeless lump of protoplasm, and have no image to project. We are what these chemicals would always do under these conditions and at this temperature. We cannot project our image onto the screen of the heavens because we have no projector, and no movie. We are nothing.

In our arrogance, we think that we have fashioned a heavenly Father out of our earthly fathers. But again, it is the other way around. “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:14–15). We derive our faint reflections of masculinity and fatherhood from Him, and most emphatically not the other way around.

Fatherhood as Ultimate Reality:
The central point of all reality is ultimate, infinite, absolute masculinity. Fatherhood is at the center because the Father of Jesus is at the center. But this overwhelming. We cannot handle absolute Fatherhood. He dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). We would crater under the slightest glimpse of it.

We cannot have the Father “raw,” but we must have the Father. What are we to do? Remember, he who has the Son has the Father. Remember what Jesus said to Philip. “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” (John 14:9).

But we preach Christ, not as a stand-in for the Father, but as the appointed and divinely fashioned way to the Father.

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The Resurrection of the Entire Cosmos (Easter 2016)

Ben Zornes on

INTRODUCTION

We know from Scripture that Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion. Jesus died and Jesus was raised. But what power did the raising? How was this done? We know that Jesus was raised, but who raised Him.

THE TEXT:

“I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command- ment have I received of my Father” ( John 10:14–18).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:

Jesus identifies Himself as the good shepherd. Shepherding here, which is to say the good shepherding here, is a function of knowledge. Jesus says that He knows His own, and that His own know Him (v. 14). He also says that this knowledge between shepherd and sheep is analogous to the knowledge the Father has of Him, and the knowledge that He has of the Father (v. 15). Right after He says that He and the Father know one another, He adds that He lays down His life for the sheep (v. 15). In addition to the flock in His current fold, Jesus tells us that He has other sheep that are not of “this fold.” This is probably a reference to the inclusion of the Gentiles (v. 16). He will bring them in, and they will heed His voice as well. When that happens, there will be one flock (Christian) and one shepherd (Christ).This is why the Father loves Him—because He lays down His life in order that He might take it up again (v. 17). Jesus then says something astonishing. Do not be deceived by the soldiers, the rigged trial, the accusers, the men with whips, and the men who nailed Him to the cross. Jesus says “no one takes it from me” (v. 18). Jesus says that He surrenders His life of His own accord. He was given authority to lay down His life, and He was given corresponding authority to take it up again (v. 18). This was the charge He received from His Father.

TRIUNE UNITY:

In Scripture, we never find the persons of the Trinity pulling in opposite di- rections. We are not Unitarians, and we are not tri-theistic polytheists. We are Trinitarian monotheists, not to mention monotheistic Trinitarians, which means that the new Israel always needs to hear, just as the old Israel did, that the Lord our God is one Lord (Deut. 6:4). We believe in one God, three per- sons. And we also believe that all of God does everything that God does. The persons of the Trinity are everlastingly distinct, and relate to God’s actions differently, but are not ever at cross-purposes. Take the sheep in our text—the Father elects, the Son redeems, and the Spirit quickens. But they are never trying to save different groups of people.

THE WORK OF THE FATHER:

The same thing is true when we consider the resurrection of Jesus. Who raised Jesusfromthedead?TheBiblesaysthattheFatherdid.“TheGodofourfathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” (Acts 5:30).

And just as Abraham believed in God, so also we believe in God. Which God do we believe in? We believe in the Father. “But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom. 4:24).

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT:

But God the Father works through agency of His Spirit. When God created the world, the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. In the same way, when the Father raised Jesus He did so in the power of the Holy Spirit.

“But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11).

THE WORK OF THE SON:

But the Son Himself was not passive in this glorious event. In addition to our text, we also have statements like this one: “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” ( John 2:19).

In our text, Jesus describes His death as an authoritative act on His part. Jesus had been given authority (by the Father) to lay down His life ( John 10:18). Not only that, He had been given authority to take it up again ( John 10:18).

Theologians sometimes speak of the active obedience of Christ and the pas- sive obedience of Christ. All the obedience of Christ is imputed to us, both the obedience of His perfect life and the obedience involved in His perfect death. But we need to be careful not to misunderstand this. The word passive refers to obedience of Jesus suffering (His passion), not to Jesus doing nothing, or being somehow spiritually inert. When Jesus was dying, bleeding, writhing. . . He was conquering, and He was doing so with authority. His body was stone cold dead with authority. And when the appointed time for the resurrection of the entire cosmos to begin, Jesus reached out and took up His life again.

FOR OUR JUSTIFICATION:

Why did He do this? The text says that He laid down His life “for the sheep” (v. 15). Jesus did not die an indiscriminate death. He did not die with nebulous inten- tions. He did not die He died for sheep that He knew. Jesus died for names. And this personalized attention did not cease with that. Jesus was raised for the same people He died for. He died so that you might be forgiven, and He was raised so that you might be justified. “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).

And so because of what Jesus did, we rejoice in who He is. “And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4).

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Love, Death, & the Glory of God

Ben Zornes on

Text: John 11:1-46

Introduction:

In our passage in John, three realities drive the story–love, death, and the glory of God. Jesus has a deep ty-knight-love death glory of god-sermonlove for Lazarus and his two sisters, and they love Jesus. But Lazarus dies. Jesus even intends for Lazarus to die. How can the love of Jesus and the death of Lazarus fit together? Love and death both lead to the glory of God. And the only way for them all to hold together is by Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life. Jesus is able to bring glory even out of death so that we may believe. Love, death and glory are central, not only to this story, but to the Gospel, God’s work in the church and our lives.

The Case for Love (John 11:1-6)

In the first six verses, John introduces the characters, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, and Jesus. But there’s a problem. Lazarus is sick so the sisters send for help (John 11:3). Notice how they speak of Lazarus. He is not a stranger, a beggar on the side of the road. The sisters remind Jesus of his affection and commitment to Lazarus. Probably all of us have done the same. We have sent to Jesus. We have cried to him. “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). Jesus loved Martha and Mary and their dying brother Lazarus, THEREFORE he stayed where he was (John 11:5-6). John wants to stress that Jesus’ action of waiting two extra days was motivated by love. The gut wrenching question is, “How is it love for Jesus to wait so that Lazarus dies?” Our understanding of love may need to be tweaked. Love can’t just be trying to make life easy for someone else. This kind of love would lead them to experience the Glory of God.

Glory: the Father’s Delight in his Son

We need to say a few words about Glory. But I feel like a child standing on the seashore holding a bucket of water about to tell a crowd about the Pacific ocean. How do you begin to explain, let alone experience, the Glory of God? Peter explains when he observed glory on the Mount of Transfiguration in 2 Peter 1:16-18. Glory is the Father’s voice thundering, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”C.S. Lewis in his sermon The Weight of Glory describes his understanding of glory as approval, like that of a young child’s great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. “This heavenly glory is fame with God, approval, or (I might say) ‘appreciation’ by God…nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.'” Glory is the “Watch this” from the child and the “Well done” from his father. Glory is the Father delighting in the Son and the Son pleasing his Father. It’s the perfect relationship of the Triune God, the Godness of God. Glory is delight in the Son AND it is the death of a brother. Glorious is the Crown, and Glorious is the Cross that leads to the Crown. Jesus is the King of Glory, he is the Word that became a Man, to draw near our doubts, tears and despair (John 1:14). Mary and Martha and the world will soon see the Glory of God because Jesus is drawing near.

Truth against Doubt (John 11:17-27)

When Jesus arrives, Lazarus has already been in the tomb four days (John 11:17). Martha comes to meet him and is torn between doubt and hope (John 11:21-22). Jesus gives her the truth, “Your brother will rise again” (John 11:23). Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Today is that day, because Jesus is the Resurrection. and the Life. And this resurrection is not just for this one man, the promise is to everyone who believes in Jesus. Because Jesus will be resurrected, we can be resurrected. Because Jesus lives, we too can live. Do you trust the word of Jesus about death, life and resurrection? “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world” (John 11:27).

Grace against Despair (John 11:28-37)

Now Jesus gives grace to fight the despair of Mary. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). Mary did not speak this like Martha, she wept those words. Jesus doesn’t launch into a theological discussion. He meets Mary where she is at–overwhelmed in grief. Mary had listened to Jesus teach while she sat at the Lord’s feet (Lk. 10). And now she weeps at his feet. Jesus is the sympathetic High Priest from Hebrews 4 that we can “draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.” Jesus is described as “deeply moved in his spirt” (John 11:33). The phrase “deeply moved” has the root meaning of “to snort” like a horse. The word picture brings up is war horse snorting before charging into battle. But what is Jesus angry at? The King of Glory is angry at the whole situation of death and sorrow and the cause of it all, sin. This is the battle that is before him.

Battle against Death: Watch This! (John 11:38-46)

Jesus marches to the grave and orders that the stone be rolled away. Martha protests that it will stink. “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:39). Jesus tells her to watch what he is about to do, and she will see the glory of God. Jesus lifts his eyes from all the difficulties and the doubts and fixes them on his Father. All of this, the prayer, the tears, the delay, the death was so that people would believe that God the Father sent his Son as the Christ, the deliverer, the only one to defeat death. “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43) and the man who had died came out. The love of Jesus calls his friend from death. And many of the Jews see what Jesus had done, and they believed in him. They see and believe and come into come into glory.

Lazarus Death and New Life

The same one who called Lazarus from death, speaks today. We are all sick, like Lazarus. This disease, this cancer of sin, entered us with the disobedience of Adam and Eve. But the God of Glory so loved the world that he gave his son, the one whom He loved, that whoever believes in him, will live. At the cross, death is not the end but the Glory of the Son of God. The love of God sent Jesus to die. And what is this? GLORY! Jesus says, “Watch this, Father.” And the Father says, “Well done, my beloved Son.” Like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, we may only see sickness, questions, death, grief. But Jesus knows the end–the Glory of God, resurrection, belief. Does the Father love you? Is there any kind of sickness or death in your life? Then you can pray, “Watch this, Father!”

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