Christ Church

Alternative City Walls (State of the Church 2018 #2)

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Introduction

The need of the hour is for the church to help establish a defined counterculture. This requires much more than defined denominational boundaries, or sectarian carve outs. There needs to be a defined center (worship) and a defined mission field (the world). In order to accomplish this, we need brick and mortar to build the alternative city walls. We have been doing this for some decades now, and we know how we mix that mortar. Now one of the key ingredients in that mortar is unrelenting antipathy to the ways of the world. Our danger is that any success in this (what people call our community) will attract people who love the walls but do not like how we lay the bricks. They love the fruit but do not care for the orchard. They like how the church works because they are actually assuming the world (at its best) should be able to work that way.

The Text

“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you” (Luke 6:26–28).

Summary of the Text

Jesus teaches that when we finally have that “good testimony” we have been striving for, we ought to see a red danger light blinking on the dashboard. Something has gone terribly wrong.

But objections come immediately to mind. We note that some people know how to get everybody to hate them simply by being jerks. Pagans certainly hate one another (Tit. 3:3), and that doesn’t make the other despised pagan godly. Peter says that we should rejoice when we are persecuted for the sake of Christ (1 Pet. 4:14, 16), but goes on to add that we must be certain that it really is for the sake of Christ and not because we are a being pseudo-Christians.

So how can we tell if we are guilty of this false credit that takes as a badge of honor a sign that we are actually being disobedient? The answer is found in our text. Those who can take legitimate comfort from the fact that they are slandered are those who can love their enemies, do good to their haters, bless those who curse them, and pray for those who are malicious in their mistreatment. They come into your shop to buy something while sneering at it, and so you must give back scriptural change. If you pay them back in their own coin, then this encouragement does not apply. It only applies to those who can do a little jig when they are reviled (Luke 6:23).

Not an Obscure Teaching

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). This enmity between the “two seeds” cannot be erased, and attempts to erase it are actually attempts to go over to the other side. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). If you want to be God’s adversary, then simply make friends with the world. “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). This means that you cannot strive for Christ-likeness in this dark world without bringing down on your head something of what came down on Christ’s head. “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). Stop acting surprised at things that the Bible talks about all over the place. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you” (1 John 3:13).

“. . . And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved . . .” (Matt. 10:21–26).

Tombs of the Prophets

Jesus pointed out that after prophets are dead and gone, their reputations start to improve. And if enough time passes, the ungodly build memorials to the godly, lined with marble (Matt. 23:29). But whenever a living Christian leader comes back from a hot engagement at the front, with a couple of arrows through his hat, the careful men are quite willing to offer their critiques. It reminds me of Ambrose Bierce’s magnificent definition: “REAR, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.”

Why, the critics want to know, can’t you be more like the saintly men of old, whose marbled tombs grace the avenues of the city that people (not like us at all) built?

Like Spurgeon, who was vilified throughout the course of his ministry? Like Augustine, who wrote his famous Confessions because he was answering a smear campaign that was hindering his ministerial effectiveness? Or like Athanasius who stood contra mundum, that world being the Christian world, the world of accommodating bishops? Examples could be multiplied to the point of being pretty tedious.

The principles don’t change. The names do. This makes unprincipled people think that everything is different now.

Alternative City Walls

Remember that in our generation, feeeelllings are the queen of the land. People don’t want to know if a Christian apologist has actually wronged someone in the course of his ministry. They just want to know if the other guy felt wronged. And of course it took about ten minutes for the unbelievers to figure out that you could get most Christians to back off just by saying ow ow ow ow!

As for the infidels, our central offense is not the presence of what I call the “satiric bite.” It is not even an offense at all. Are you serious? They don’t care about that. The offense is where the jabs are aimed. These are the people who laugh at the taunting of late night comedians, who host banquet “roasts” that are filled with vile insults, and who otherwise sit in the seat of mockers. But as the old blues song puts it, “it ain’t no fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.”

When David went out to face Goliath, he was not looking for a dialogue partner.

“This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel” (1 Sam. 17:46).

And when Nehemiah established a great wall that separated the people of God from the unbelievers, the unbelievers did not take it well.

“And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you? Yet they sent unto me four times after this sort; and I answered them after the same manner. Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me in like manner the fifth time with an open letter in his hand; Wherein was written, It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel: for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king, according to these words” (Neh. 6:3–6).

You really should give up preaching. And blogging. And publishing. And declaring. And why? Gashmu saith it.

You Can’t Preach Jesus

The answer is, of course, to preach Christ. But it needs to be observed that it is not possible for a man to preach Christ while simultaneously ignoring the words of Christ. Preaching Christ means preaching both His words and His wounds. You cannot preach the cross, which is a scandal, without scandal. There is no such thing as sanitized gospel faithfulness. It doesn’t exist, and never has.

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Apostles Creed 8: Born of the Virgin, Mary

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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:
We have been working through the Apostles’ Creed phrase by phrase, but this week I thought it important to take two phrases at once. We are talking about that most remarkable of women, Mary. If some have erred through excessive devotion to her, we are not going to fix anything by withholding from her the honor that is due her. There are five persons named in the Creed—the Father, Son, and Spirit, and Mary, and then Pilate.

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:
“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:34–35).

Now the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee, the city of Nazareth (Luke 1:26). He there appeared to a virgin whose name was Mariam (we know her as Mary), and greeted her as one highly favored among women (vv. 27-28). She was troubled by this and tried to figure out what it could mean (v. 29). He told her not to fear because she had found favor with God (v. 30). He then told her that she would conceive a son, and the promises Gabriel then made concerning Him constituted a complete fulfillment of all the hopes of Israel (vv. 31-33). Mary asked how this was possible, in that she was a virgin (v. 34). The angel replied that she would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit, such that her child would be called the Son of God (v. 35). He also told her about her cousin Elizabeth conceiving in her old age, and of the greatness of God’s power (v. 36). Mary submissively accepted her assignment, and the angel departed (v. 38). Later, when the shepherds departed after their visit to the newborn Messiah, we are told that Mary treasured all these things in her heart (Luke 2:19). She is clearly Luke’s source for all this early material.

Clearing Some Debris:
We have come to an area where there is some overlap between classical Protestant theology and Roman Catholic theology, and so it is that some terms have gotten muddled up. We have to engage in some of what Wikipedia likes to call disambiguation. The Roman doctrine of the Immaculate Conception does not refer to the miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb, but rather to the miraculous conception of Mary in the womb of her mother, a woman named Anna (according to tradition). They were attempting to solve the problem that we addressed earlier when we said that sinfulness is covenantally imputed through the line of the father.

And you will notice that in our version of the Creed, we say that Jesus was “born of the virgin, Mary,” instead of saying “born of the Virgin Mary.” The difference is this: the former means you are referring to the doctrine of the virgin birth. The latter use of Virgin as a title indicates a belief in the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. This is a teaching that holds that Mary conceived Jesus as virgin, which all orthodox Christians hold, but that her virginity was also miraculously preserved through the birth of Jesus, and that she also remained a virgin throughout the rest of her life. While some of the early Reformers accepted this, the general movement of Protestant theology has strongly rejected it.

“Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS” (Matt. 1:24–25).

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him” (Mark 6:3).

So Jesus had four named brothers (adelphoi) and at least two sisters (adelphai), which means that, counting Jesus, Mary had seven children. The virgin birth was an exaltation of her Son, and an honor to her, but not an exaltation of virginity.

Seed of the Woman:
The first Messianic promise in Scripture (Gen. 3:15) is one that comes in a threat to the serpent. God promises that the woman, deceived by the serpent, would have her vengeance. There would be two parallel lines down through history with perpetual enmity between them. There would be the seed of the serpent, that brood of vipers, and there would be the seed of the woman. When the great moment of deliverance finally came, the seed of the woman (Christ) would crush the head of the seed of the serpent (Satan). “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Rom. 16:20).

The Woman Gives Food:
When our first mother was deceived (2 Cor. 11:3), she gave Adam the fruit and he ate. We fell in our first father (Rom. 5:12), but it was because of food that our first mother gave him. Condemnation came through that present of food. And where Eve was deceived, Mary was not deceived. Eve disobeyed, and Mary obeyed. “Be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Jesus is the bread of life, and Mary was the woman used by God to hand that food to us. And so it was that the woman was fully avenged.

Remember, the destructive or redemptive work was done by the respective Adams. But don’t leave the women out of it—particularly don’t make the mistake of including Eve and leaving out Mary. There is a divine symmetry in all of this.

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Mary the Mother of Jesus

Ben Zornes on

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Luke the historian (Luke 1:1-4) and Mary as a source (Luke 2:19).

Why Mary includes the story of Jesus staying back in the temple when he was twelve (Luke 2:41-52)

 

Glory only in the Lord
Mary as a ‘real’ mother.

 

How do we interpret the history?

 

Motives:
His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.”

 

Reasons:
And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

 

What is the Father’s business and is this news to Mary?

 

Who is to benefit from this history?

 

Mary’s preparation.
Our understanding.

 

Take aways:
What is in God’s Word is there for a reason.

Mary (in particular) and Joseph were children of Adam needing redemption like all of us.
God was merciful to Mary

God is merciful to us. God through Mary and Luke included this history of Jesus’ life to remind us that God is always working. Always working toward His purpose of saving the world. He is saving the world through His Son and through His Bride. We are His Bride and He is cleansing us, strengthening us and beautifying us so that the light of the Gospel might shine through us in the world that the world may be drawn to the Head of the Bride, the Lord Jesus.

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