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Have Yourself A Covenantal Christmas (Advent Grab Bag #4) (King’s Cross)
Grace Sensing on December 24, 2023
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Deck Your Idols (Advent Grab Bag #3) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

There is great confusion in the modern church over the doctrine of repentance – over the fact that the good news of the gospel includes the command to turn from sin and idols. This command, just the like the command to “believe,” is a command in which Christ gives what He commands. And what He gives is Himself. Therefore, repentance is entirely grace, but it is a potent and powerful grace because precisely because it is primarily aimed at God’s glory.

The Text: “Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting…” (Mic. 5:1-15).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In the midst of calling Israel and Judah to repentance, Micah (a contemporary of Jeremiah, cf. Jer. 26:18), foretold the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:1-2, cf. Mt. 2:5-6). Not only that, but this is one of the texts that teaches that this Christ who was born of Mary was eternally begotten of the Father, “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2). While there will be great travail in Israel, the Messiah will stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, bringing great peace and deliverance from their enemies (Mic. 5:3-6). A remnant of Jacob will be as dew and showers upon the grass and as a lion among the Gentiles, cutting off many enemies and strongholds (Mic. 5:7-11). And God will cut off all witchcrafts and graven images and idols with great vengeance (Mic. 5:12-15). 

THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE

Jesus came preaching repentance (Mt. 4:17, 9:13, Mk. 1:15, 2:17, Lk. 5:32), and He continued with the same message to the churches after His ascension (Rev. 2:5, 16, 21, 22, 3:3, 19). This was also the message that the apostles preached (Mk. 6:12, Lk. 24:47, Acts 2:38, 3:19, 5:31, 17:30). Repentance means to turn around, to stop doing one thing and going in one direction, and begin doing something different and going in the other direction. Repentance means putting off childish folly and growing up into Christian maturity (Eph. 4:14-15). It means putting off the old man corrupted with deceitful lusts and putting on the new man which God is creating in us in righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24). 

Repentance means putting away lying and telling the truth (Eph. 4:25). It means putting off fleshly anger and not letting the devil into your home by going to bed with a grudge or bitterness (Eph. 4:26). It means not stealing from anyone and instead working hard and paying your own bills, until you have extra to share with those in need (Eph. 4:28). It means refusing all corrupt communication, bitterness, foul language, and instead speaking what is edifying, kind, tenderhearted, and full of forgiveness (Eph. 4:29-32). The Bible describes this process as a kind of holy violence and warfare: plucking out eyes and cutting off hands to avoid Hell (Mt. 5:27-30), reckoning yourself dead to sin (Rom. 6:11), and putting to death sexual immorality and idolatry (Col. 3:5). This requires a holy hatred and vengeance against your sin and idols. 

REPENTANCE IS A GIFT

We see that repentance is a gift in the fact that ministers must patiently instruct those in disobedience with the hope that God will grant them repentance (2 Tim. 2:25). The Christians in Antioch rejoiced when they heard that God had given the Gentiles repentance (Acts 11:18). This is part of the work of the Holy Spirit of grace that allows sinners to see Christ pierced for their sins and mourn with deep bitterness for their sin, like one whose son has died (Zech. 12:10). 

One of the most remarkable things that the Bible teaches is that the gift of repentance isn’t primarily for our good, but rather it is for the benefit of others watching and the glory of God: “Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loath yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways… Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord built the ruined places, and plant that which is desolate… and they shall know that I am the Lord” (Ez. 36:31-38). This may be one of the chief reasons for failure in this area: we want repentance because we want to feel better or be better, but God wants us to repent for His glory. 

APPLICATIONS

Let the violence of the Bible teach you what God wants you to do with your sin: drive a stake through its head like Jael did with Sisera (Jdg. 6:26), hack it to pieces like Samuel did to Agag (1 Sam. 15:33 ), chop off all their heads and put them in baskets at the gate of the city like the men of Samaria did with Ahab’s sons (2 Kgs. 10:8). Destroy the pagan altars, break down the images, cut down the sacred groves of trees, and burn the graven images with fire (Dt. 7:5). And of course, at the center of it all is Jesus Christ, “who bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live to righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24). Don’t just say you’ll try to stop. Make real changes to your life in order to stop sinning because Christ is worthy. Plead with God to do whatever it takes and take action. 

Christ was born in Bethlehem in order to destroy all idols. You cannot celebrate Christmas and cling to any sin. Where is the altar to a false god in your life? What is that old idol you keep going back to? Worry? Envy? Lust? Anger? Bitterness? Drunkenness? Respectability? Israel was still worshipping Egyptian gods almost a hundred years after the Exodus (Josh. 24:14). Haven’t you seen the wonderful works of God? 

Our land is under a great curse because we refuse to destroy our idols. But we serve a jealous God and the more we celebrate the birth of Christ the Idol-Crusher, while continuing to serve our idols, we provoke the living God. As God judged Israel, He still judges the nations and His Church in particular (cf. Rev. 2-3). He will destroy all the idols, and the only question is whether we will be destroyed with them or whether we will turn from them and be saved. But Christ was born to save. So repent. And glory to God in the Highest. 

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A Theology of Stuff (Advent Grab Bag #2) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

One of the more puzzling lines in the Definition of Chalcedon is where it says, “as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the virgin, the God-bearer.” What does it mean to confess that Mary is the “God-bearer?” We should note that this title is carefully qualified by the phrase “as regards his manhood,” which comes immediately after in the original Greek. But there is a very important point being underlined about the personal nature of our salvation. The One born in Bethlehem is the Logos/the eternal Word of the Father who embraced His creation for us men and for our salvation. 

The Text: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made…” (Jn. 1:1-14)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

“In the beginning” intentionally echoes Genesis 1, but the word “arxe” also means “preeminence, first, chief, principle, power,” and it’s immediately obvious that this “arxe” refers to something even “before” the beginning of Genesis 1, when the Word was with God and the Word was God (Jn. 1:1). That Word of God was in the beginning of Creation also, and that same Word made all things (Jn. 1:2-3). He is the source of all life and light, and He is the kind of light that darkness cannot comprehend or approach at all (Jn. 1:4-5, cf. Js. 1:17, 1 Tim. 6:16). 

John was sent from God as a witness of that Light, the true Light who gives light and life to all men (Jn. 1:6-9). He was in the world and made manifest by His creation but unrecognized because of sin (Jn. 1:10, cf. Rom. 1:19-20). So He came to His own, but even His own people rejected Him (Jn. 1:11). But to those who received Him and believed in Him, He made them sons of God by the power of God (Jn. 1:12-13). And this was accomplished by the Word becoming flesh to reveal the glory of the Father, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:14). 

CHRISTOLOGY AS SOTERIOLOGY

Donald Fairbairn has pointed out that in the early church the focus on the Trinity and Christology was not unrelated to soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). For example, since Christ is the “only begotten of the Father,” salvation means being born again not of blood or the will of man but by the power of God (Jn. 1:12-14). What Christ has by nature in the Godhead (Eternal Son), He has become man in order to share with us in salvation (sons by adoption). As John Piper has put it, “God is the gospel.”

And we see this particularly highlighted in John: “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (Jn. 6:57). “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” (Jn. 10:15). “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me… And will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter… the Spirit of truth… at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (Jn. 14:11, 16-17, 20). Who was born of Mary? The Eternal Son, the Word who is God. As the hymn says, “Christ our God to earth descendeth.” Why does this matter? Because the very same life that Christ shares with the Father by nature, He came to share with His people by His Spirit. 

UNION WITH CHRIST

The Definition of Chalcedon is clear that the divine and human natures come together in Christ “without confusion,” and so the Creator-creature distinction remains fixed. But precisely because Christ holds those natures together “without division, without separation,” by the power of the Spirit, that same Spirit is able to unite us in fellowship with the Father in Christ. This is no mysticism or merging of natures; this is a true covenant union in Christ. This is the power by which mere fallen creatures, become children of God, born not of blood nor the will of man, but the will of God, which is all grace. This is why the New Testament talks so much about our salvation “in Christ” (Rom. 6, Eph. 1, Col. 2, etc.).

APPLICATIONS

The Goodness of Stuff: Christmas celebrates God’s union with His creation. The Word who made all things became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. How did we behold the glory of the Father? In the flesh of Jesus Christ, in the stuff that He made. Christ made all things and made us to make things and enjoy all things as part of our enjoyment of Him. Sin distorts this, causing us to suppress God’s glory in creation and to idolize creation, but the answer is not to disdain creation or ignore it. The answer is to see every bit of creation as a burning bush, where we may see His glory and taste and see His goodness and worship Him. 

So Christmas rightly celebrates the stuff that Christ made and the stuff He came to restore to its rightful glory. All of creation groans with the weight of our sin, but the heavens still declare the glory of God. And so we make our houses sparkle like the heavens with lights. And if Christ has given us bread and wine to remember Him and feed on Him and enjoy His life, all food has been given to enjoy as His gifts: steak and fudge and wine and eggnog and gifts. But think of all these gifts as tokens of the infinitely greater Giver.  

Fellowship with the Father: Mary was an ordinary woman of extraordinary faith, and as such, she pictures what Christ intends to do by His Spirit. He intends to live in us, to share true fellowship with us: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full” (1 Jn. 1:3-4). This jyful fellowship is only maintained by confession of sin and the cleansing blood of Christ (1 Jn. 1:7-9). 

Christ is re-making a race of men and women, who are more masculine, more feminine, more truly human: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). The center of this glory is in the Word read and preached, but it is that same Word that created all things and shines in all He has made. So see Him there, know Him, and love Him more.

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The Politics of Christmas (Advent Grab Bag #1) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION 

As is our custom, we began using the Definition of Chalcedon this morning for our Creed, which was adopted and published in 451 A.D. The purpose of the Definition was to further defend the full divinity and humanity of Christ from several heresies, while preserving the Creator-creature distinction. 

All non-Christian societies are fundamentally what Peter Jones calls “oneist.” Oneism teaches that everything is essentially one, part of the same basic substance, and therefore oneism is pantheistic. Christianity is the lone religion in the world that teaches “twoism,” that there are fundamentally two different realities: God and everything else. This has profound implications for all of life, including how we think about politics and power. 

The Texts: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:21-23).

“Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end” (Ps. 102:25-27). 

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXTS

The center of human rebellion is the refusal to acknowledge God as He truly is and that is “uncorruptible” and utterly unlike anything in creation, all of which is “corruptible,” and refusing to be thankful for this reality, people become foolish idolaters (Rom. 1:21-23). Likewise, Psalm 102 describes God as the Creator of all things in heaven and on earth, and the difference between the Creator and His creation is that creation perishes, wears out, and changes, but the Creator endures, remains the same, and has no end (Ps. 102:25-27). Finally, the Bible says there is only one God and one mediator between God and man: Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). 

THE COUNCILS & HERESIES

Leading up to the Council of Nicaea in 325, a pastor named Arius taught that Jesus was not fully God, but rather was a man who was very much like God. Arius taught that there was “a time” (so to speak) when the Son was not. He said, the Son had a beginning. Athanasius and others argued that Christ was fully God and was therefore of the “same substance” with the Father (“homoousias”). The later Arians would say that Christ had a “similar substance” with the Father (“homoiousias”). This really is a watershed issue. If Jesus is merely the highest created being, the most exalted creature, right next to God, then the Creator-creature divide has collapsed. Instead of the infinite chasm between God and His creation that the Bible teaches, there is a ladder, a hierarchy or gradation of “being” that may ascend to Godhead. 

The Council of Nicaea concluded that Athanasius was correct and published the Nicene Creed which affirms that Christ is fully God and fully man, eternally begotten, “not made,” and of the same substance with the Father. The Council of Chalcedon came along in 451 and further nailed the coffin shut on Arianism (and other Christological heresies), insisting that the Divine and human natures come together in Christ “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” While this might seem esoteric or pedantic, it really is glorious. It is saying that the Creator-creation distinction remains intact even in the one mediator between God and man. There is no hierarchy of being ascending and merging into God. There is only God and everything else, and Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and everything else, and in His person, those two natures are united “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union.”

CHALCEDONIAN POLITICS

The political ramifications for this are enormous. The tendency of all cultures dedicated to “oneism” is toward the Tower of Babel: consolidating global resources and power in an effort to ascend to Heaven, whether literally or simply by achieving heaven/utopia. This process always includes leaders claiming the authority of God/gods. In the ancient world, Pharaoh was the human representative of the sun god, Ra, and in Rome, Caesar was hailed as the divine “lord” and son of Jupiter. When the early Christians acclaimed Jesus as “Lord” and “Son of God,” this was in direct defiance of the emperor cult. Later, when the Roman Pope claimed to be the universal pontiff and exercised massive political power, it was somewhat based on the supposed authority to change bread and wine into the flesh and blood of God. Political power has often been exercised under the guise of unlimited divine power. But the Biblical religion has always insisted that all authority comes from God and is therefore “under God” and limited by God and His Word. While modern governments have not yet had the audacity to openly claim this divinity, this hasn’t stopped them from acting like it in their totalitarian claims on our property, income, children, and healthcare. 

APPLICATIONS

What we are celebrating at Christmas is not only our eternal salvation but also freedom from every kind of tyranny, beginning with death itself, but also sin, the Devil, and all Satanic manipulation, oppression, and power grabs. The state is not God, nor is it the mediator between God and man. And no one can ascend to God or Heaven. The One born in Bethlehem, He is the eternal Son of God, the Lord and only mediator between God and Man. All earthly authorities answer to Him. Christmas means limited government. 

And this is why the Kingdom goes forth as proclamation, baptism, communion, and worship. There is nothing that we can do to ascend to God in Heaven. There is no way for us to cross that chasm, and our sin only makes the distance greater. Only God can come to us, and so He has.

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