Christ Church

Christ Entire

Ben Zornes on

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Introduction:
You may have picked up on “one of the things we say around here,” which is “all of Christ for all of life.” But what do we mean by that exactly? It may sound very spiritual, but if it doesn’t mean anything, it can’t mean anything very spiritual.

The Text:
“And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Col. 1:17–18).

Summary of the Text:
Jesus Christ is our entry point into everything. He is before all things (v. 17), prior to all things, antecedent to every contingent mote of material reality. He is the Head of the body, His own body, which is the church. We as believers make up that body, and so it is that He is the head for us. Paul then says that Jesus Christ is the arche. The translation here says beginning, but do not think of beginnings as measured by stopwatches. It is the same word that is used in John 1:1. Rather Paul is saying that Christ is the ultimate unity, the integration point for all things, the cornerstone and capstone both. He has been manifested as the heir of this position by His resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4), or as Paul puts it here, He is the firstborn from the dead. The end result is that we are to see Christ as having the preeminence over absolutely everything (v. 18).

The Fragmentation of Death:
Now I used the phrase integration point. Why is this important? As naïfs schooled in the catechisms of modernity, we tend to think of death as cessation. If something dies, that means it konked. If someone dies, that means their atoms return to the great cosmic slurry, and “they” cease to be (whatever “they” were). Even if we deny this formally as Christians who believe in the resurrection, we are still too much affected by the assumptions that swirl around the idea of death as cessation.
But death is actually separation. When our bodies die, the soul and body are separated (2 Cor. 5:8). When our first parents took the forbidden fruit, they were separated from their fellowship with God (Gen. 3:8). This was spiritual death, which is spiritual alienation. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world” (Eph. 2:1–2).

So intellectual death is also separation—intellectual fragmentation. You have so many opinions, but they are all shattered on the floor. Nothing ties them together, which is why the Christian task is to bring all those thoughts into submission to Christ. “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). Before they are brought to the obedience of Christ, they—like the thinker generating them—are dead. And if you manage to get them published, and into libraries and bookstores, that just makes them deader.
Only in Christ can we find life, which means that only in Him can we live in a universe. Only in Christ can there be such a thing as a university. If Christ is not raised, then all our thoughts are nothing more than ten thousand tons of confetti dumped into an F-5 tornado. And the tornado really is a poor image of this, in that it exhibits far too much order.

A Ministry of Reconciliation:
Now if death is separation, then restored life is a reunification. Resurrection means reconciliation, and the message of the resurrection is the ministry of reconciliation.

“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” (2 Cor. 5:18–19).

This is the grand project. Notice that phrase—in Christ, reconciling. That is as much as to say in Christ, resurrecting. This is what God has determined to give to a world that did not deserve its restoration. This is the word that we have had entrusted to us. This is what we are talking about.

“That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him” (Eph 1:10).

“And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (Col. 1:20).

Grace and Peace:
Now all of this should rejoice every believing heart. But let’s push it into the corners, shall we? In what ways have we among the Reformed made their accommodations with the ideology of death? Systematic theology is one of the glories of the church, but done the wrong way it results in us going into the mausoleum instead of the museum, and results in us sorting out bones instead of studying the exhibits. What do I mean by “the wrong way?” I mean separating things instead of making distinctions between them. The former is the death of the mind; the latter is the life of the mind.

Our temptation is to separate the doctrine of God from God Himself. It is to separate the graces of God from God Himself. It puts the truth about God here, and God over there, somewhere. But God does not store love, joy, peace, patience (or any other grace) in vats. They are not impersonal spiritual fluids running down to your deep sea diving suit through a hose. If you have anything at all from God, then you have all of Christ for all of life. Christ is not parceled out to us in bits and pieces.

Remember that virtually every New Testament epistle begins with “grace and peace” from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a separation of these graces from two persons of the Trinity, and an exclusion of the Holy Spirit. As Jonathan Edwards argued, this is likely saying that the Holy Spirit is that grace and peace, and proceeds from the Father and the Son. And this makes wonderful sense. As C.S. Lewis put it once, “He has, in the last resort, nothing to give us but Himself.”

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Easter 2017: A New Kind of New

Ben Zornes on

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Introduction:
We have all heard about the new life in Christ. It is not possible to function in Christian circles without hearing that phrase. It is not possible to read through your Bible without realizing that Christ says that He makes all things new (Rev. 21:5). And if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation—old things have passed away (2 Cor. 5:17). But our hearts are slippery, and so we often miss the point by equivocating on the meaning of the word new.

The Texts:
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him” (Rom. 6:1–8).

Summary of the Text:
Paul has started to answer objections to the gospel that he laid out in the first chapters of Romans. If we are saved by grace, plus nothing, what is to prevent us from becoming morally dissolute? The answer to that question is that grace comes to sinners in one form only, and that form is the glory of death and resurrection. Sinners cannot take advantage of grace, because when grace comes near the sinner dies.

Shall we abuse grace by continuing in sin (v. 1)? God forbid it, Paul says. How can people who are dead to sin continue to live in sin (v. 2)? Do you not know that everyone who is baptized into Christ is baptized into His death (v. 3)? That is what baptism with the water of grace means. So if we were baptized into His death, this means that in an analogous way we are raised up from the dead by the glory of Father, in order that we might walk in newness of life (v. 4). If we have been planted in the pattern of His death, this means that we will also be planted in the pattern of His resurrection (v. 5). We know this. Our old man, our body of sin, is both crucified and destroyed, so that from this point on we might no longer be slaves to sin (v. 6). Freedom from sin is attained by those who die (v. 7). So if we are dead with Christ, it necessarily follows that we will also live with Him (v. 8).

Union with Christ:
As you have heard many times before, Jesus did not die so that we might live. It is appropriate to say that in a form of shorthand, but only if it is shorthand, and only if you know what it is shorthand for. The truth of the gospel is here: Jesus died so that we might die. He was buried so that we might be buried. He was raised from the dead so that we might be raised from the dead. He ascended into Heaven so that we might reign with Him from the right hand of the Father. The gospel is the gospel to us only through true union with Christ.

In this short passage, Paul makes this profound point three times. If we share His death, then we will share His resurrection (v. 4). If we have been planted together with Him in the likeness of His death (which is what baptism is), then it will be the same with the resurrection (v. 5). If we are dead with Christ, we will also live with Him (v. 8).

Different Kinds of New:
There are two ways that we could take the word new. One is quantitative and the other is qualitative. A new day would be a quantitative illustration. Today is Tuesday, not Monday, but it is another day just like the previous one. You got a new car, but it was a used new car, meaning that it was new to you. New to you, but not new. But there is another sense we need to have if we are to understand the potency of the gospel. Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, on Sunday. But this day was qualitatively different. There had been a previous Sunday, just seven days before, but this Sunday was entirely and completely different. The world had been born again. The times of regeneration had been inaugurated. Jesus really had made all things new.

Water New or Spirit New?
Paul is explicit here on what our baptism means. We do not have the authority to contradict the meaning of our baptism on the basis of the meaning of our carnal logic. In other words, we are not allowed to say that grace means liberty to sin when our baptismal grace says that it means death to sin. Look down a few verses (Rom. 6:14). If we persist in contradicting our baptisms in this way, it will not be long before our baptisms rise up in order to contradict us. If Tyre and Sidon will be able to accuse Capernaum on the last day, then the baptisms of hollow Christians should certainly be able to rise up to accuse them.

“But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit [same word for newness], and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7:6). The newness that indicates salvation is a spiritual newness.

Both Kinds of New:
Someone can move into Christianity the same way you might move into a new house, or buy a new car, or take a new job. It is new in the quantitative sense. This is not a sinful thing, and it does apply to everyone who comes into the faith. Someone might be truly converted, and still need to get used to the ordinary new things. Christians form an actual subculture on the earth, and the lingo and the customs and the government might be new to you in the same way that the analogous things would be new if you joined the Navy. But those who are actually planted together with the Lord’s death are those who actually walk in a qualitative newness.

If this has happened, then it means that you are walking where Jesus is. And where He is must be described as being on this side of death to sin.

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Easter 2012: The Father of all the Living (Father Hunger 4)

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a glorious sermon that was preached by God the Father. When the Father said that He was well-pleased with the Son at His baptism that declaration was not all the Father had to say. In the resurrection, He now declares the entire truth, holding back nothing. In the gospels, Jesus told the demons to keep their knowledge of who He was to themselves, but now we are told to tell every last creature about it. Why the change? Now that the Father has declared His message fully, we may do so also. Not only may we do so, we must do so.

The Text

“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).

Summary of the Text

For many Christian apologists, the resurrection is something which needs to be proved. But in the Scriptures, the resurrection is itself a proof. For example, God has proven that Jesus will judge the whole world, and He proven this by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:31). In our text here, the resurrection is God’s declaration of Christ’s identity—He is declared to be the Son of God by this great event. But this declaration is not a mere datum in theology. The power that raised Jesus from the grave is a power that attends the ongoing declaration of Christ’s person and work. “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:19-20). The power at work in the resurrection is not a power or authority that was cordoned off in the first century. Neither is it a power limited to Christ’s grave site. Christ’s life is everlasting and eternal, as is the declaration of that life. This includes the potency of His life in us, and particularly in the ways we echo the great declaration of the Father. We are privileged to declare the gospel in and through everything, but particularly through fatherhood.

Life and Power

The resurrection means that Jesus has life—the kind of life that rose from death. And this means in its turn that this is a potent life. All life is potent, actually, but we take things for granted so easily that it requires a drastic elevation of life from non-life to enable us to see it clearly. God the Father gave life to the Son, such that He would see the travail of His soul and be satisfied (Is. 53:11), and even though He was bruised in death, He would be able to see His seed flourishing (Is. 53:10). Jesus has life and power, but He also models for us how this is to be obtained. Life is given to those who have died, and power is given to those who have died in humility. There is no by-passing the cross in order to obtain the crown more readily. The grave is a place of corruption, but for those who have risen, it may be considered a detox center, now left behind.

Fruitful Intent

So the resurrection shows us what God the Father is up to. The barren woman is the New Jerusalem, the Christian Church, the bride of Christ (Gal. 4:26-27). And we Christians are the children of promise. This is talking about us.

Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; And thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited” (Is. 54:1-3).

Couple this with the charge that Paul gives to Christian fathers (Eph. 6:4). We are to bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And why? The answer is because we and they are the children of promise.

The Barrenness Bane

Christian men should love fruitfulness. Godly men should honor and glorify their wives. The glory of an apple tree is the fruit of it. The glory of a man is his wife, and an important part of this glory is the grace she has been given—the grace of fruitfulness. A man cannot just “declare” himself a father. If fatherhood is a crown, a woman must be the one to place it there.

A man by himself is barren. A man with another man is barren. A man who pays for abortions is barren. A man who is an eco-freak is barren. A man who impregnates and then leaves (in various ways) is barren. Barren souls, barren minds, barren hearts are all reflections of an anti-gospel. Fruitfulness is a blessing (Gen. 9:1,7; Lev. 26:9; Dt. 28:2-6; Ps. 127; Ps. 128). But this is not an automatic blessing for lazy fathers. A son who sleeps through harvest is an embarrassment to his parents (Prov. 10:5). Having five sons doing that is not an improvement. And so when I said a moment ago that a Christian man should love fruitfulness, it should be noted that this is not the same thing as being opinionated about it.

Just as fatherhood is a gift of grace, so widespread cultural barrenness (instigated and led by rebellious men who ought to be fathers), is a judgment from God. It is not just something for which there will be later judgment, self- inflicted barrenness is itself a judgment on men (Rom. 1:18, 26; Prov. 22:14; Eze. 20:26).

Humble Potency

The call is therefore for Christian fathers who will sacrificially die. This is not because God wants you dead and gone, but rather because God wants you really alive. When we say as Christians (as we often do) that we are to die to ourselves, this is just another way of saying that we are to die to death. And when you die to death, the result in God’s blessing in life.

And when you die, you are not establishing the gospel (as Jesus did when He died). When husbands are told to give up their lives for their wives, this is not a reduplication of that atonement. But it is a sermon preached about that atonement, and not only so, it is a powerful sermon. And so fathers, teach with authority, and not as the scribes.

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Easter Sunday 2011: A Rest Remains

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

We are celebrating Easter, the day on which we commemorate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. But not only did He rise, but all things were restored in Him, which is something we model, not only annually, but also on a weekly basis. We worship on the first day because we are privileged to have a weekly Easter, a weekly memorial of life from the dead. Eventually we may be able to shake the name Easter (a Germanic fertility goddess, for crying out loud), but in the meantime we can rejoice that the names of the baalim don’t mean much to us anymore (Hos. 2:17). Thursday is Thor’s Day, and who cares anymore? This is an endearing quirk of English- speaking peoples—everywhere else Christians have the good sense to speak of Pascha. During the transition, if someone objects that Easter used to be a pagan name, we can reply that this seems fitting—we used to be pagans. But now we are Christians, and Christ is risen.

The Text

“There remaineth therefore a rest?? to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Heb. 4:9-10).

Summary of the Text

The Scriptures in the older testament speak of different rests—all of which the believer is invited to enter into on the basis of faith. God created the world and He rested. God promised Abraham the land of Canaan, which was another rest. And God promised that Jesus would come to bring an ultimate salvation rest. This means that believers throughout history were invited to enter into the antitypical rest of Jesus by approaching every lesser rest with the eye of true and living faith. But now that Jesus died and rose in history, this does not mean that we have no tangible rests to work through any more. No, God helped the Old Testament saints look forward to the resurrection, and He helps us look back to it. There remains a Sabbaath-rest for the people of God (v. 9). But why? Verse 10 often throws us because of the dense cluster of pronouns. We still have a Sabbath-rest because “he” has entered a rest, and has ceased from “his own works,” in just the same way that God did at the creation (v. 10). We need to fill this out.

It is sometimes assumed that the he here is a repentant sinner, ceasing from the futile labor of trying to save himself. But why would we compare the ungodly labors of self-righteousness to the godly work of creation? Why would we compare a foolish sinner to a wise God? Why would we compare an incomplete and botched work to a glorious work that was fully completed? It seems like a really bad comparison.

But what if the He is understood as Jesus? Jesus has entered a rest, just as God did. Jesus recreated the world, just as God created the world. Jesus said it was finished, and God looked at what He had made and said that it was very good. Jesus ceased from His labor of recreating the heavens and earth, and entered into the reality of the new creation. God labored for six days and nights and rested. Jesus labored for three days and nights and rested. Therefore, the people of God still have a Sabbath rest. Therefore, we worship God on the first day of the week (the day He entered His rest) instead of on the seventh day of the week.

A Regulative Reality

First, some background. We do not have the right to worship God with whatever pretty thing comes into our heads. The apostle Paul elsewhere calls this tendency “will worship” (Col. 2:23). In Reformed circles, the desire to honor this truth has been called the “regulative principle”—that which God does not require of us in worship is therefore prohibited. All Protestants need to be regulativists of some stripe, and the best expression of this principle that I have found is this one: “Worship must be according to Scripture.”

But there is a strict version of the regulative principle which is impossibly wooden, and it is not surprising that there are many inconsistencies. We can’t have a piano, because they are not expressly required. We can’t sing songs by Charles Wesley because he and other hymn-writers are not authorized. You get the picture. But we also have no express warrant for serving communion to women, or . . . worshiping God on Sunday.

A Few Hints

The most we have are a few hints. John tells us that there was a specific day that he called “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). The apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that they should set money aside “on the first day” (1 Cor. 16:2). We are told of an instance where the disciples gathered on the first day of the week to break bread and Paul taught them (Acts 20:7). But if we are looking for express warrant, this is thin soup.

The Real Reason

How does God require things of us? What does He do to get the message to us? Are His actions authoritative? Well, yes. The material universe was created on Sunday (Gen. 1:5). The Jews had been observing the seventh day Sabbath for centuries. God appears to have told the Jews that the seventh day observance would be an everlasting covenant (Lev. 24:8). But then the day shifted from the seventh to the first without any notable controversy. How could that be? What could account for this? Nothing less than the total recreation of all things. Behold, Jesus said. I make all things new (Rev. 21:5; 2 Cor. 5:17). He came back from the dead on the first day of the week (Mark 16:9; John 20:1), meaning that this was the day on which the reCreator entered His rest. Jesus made a point of appearing to His disciples on this same day (John 20:19). His next appearance to them was a week later, on the following Sunday (John 20:26). The Holy Spirit was poured out fifty days later, also on Sunday (Acts 2:1). And in the main, the Christian church has never looked back.

Not one Christian in ten thousand could give a decent biblical defense of our practice of worshiping God on the first day, and yet here we all are. Look at us go. Can we account for this through an appeal to the stupidity of blind, inexorable tradition? No—we should actually attribute it to the fact that two thousand years ago God overhauled everything, raising His Son from the dead in broad daylight. Jesus entered His rest, and consequently we may rest and rejoice before Him.

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Many Infallible Proofs

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The last description of Christ’s resurrection appearances is found in the very first part of Acts. As we celebrate His resurrection, we want to take care that we learn everything that the Scriptures teach us about it.

The Text

“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:1-3)

Summary of the Text

Luke is here introducing the second volume of his work. In the first, also composed for Theophilus, he had gathered up the accounts of eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, and set them out for us in the third gospel (Luke 1:1). He refers to that here as the “former treatise,” and it was about what Jesus began to do and teach (v. 1). What the Lord continues to do, He will do in and through His body, throughout this second treatise. What the Lord began to do, He did in Luke, and what He continues to do, He continues through the book of Acts. Jesus gave us a lived- out example and He also taught until the day of Ascension—which occurred right after He gave His commandments to the apostles through the Holy Spirit (v. 2). After the Lord’s passion, He showed Himself alive, and this showing was by “many infallible proofs (v. 3).” He was seen by them over the course of forty days, and during that time He taught them about the kingdom of God (v. 3).

A Sure Sign

The word translated here as “infallible proofs” is a word that is used only this once in the New Testament. But from the time of Aeschylus on down, it meant something from which a matter is “surely and plainly known”—it points to “indubitable evidence,” and establishes something beyond all reasonable doubt. And Luke here uses the plural, and says that there were many of these proofs.

This was after His passion, after His suffering. He had been taunted, tortured, flogged, and crucified. A spear had been run into His side to ensure He was really dead. Then He was taken down, wrapped in burial clothes, and placed in a cave for three days and three nights. A heavy rock was in front of the cave, and a guard was posted there. He was dead, and if the disciples knew anything, they knew He was dead.

What then, did these proofs consist of? Clearly, if the disciples knew that Jesus died, and they also knew the one in front of them was alive (moving, speaking, etc.), the thing that would need to be proven is that He was the same one who had died. “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). What is Jesus demonstrating here? What is He proving? Two things—that He is not a spirit or a ghost, and that “it is I,” the same one who had died. They could have touched His back to determine that He was not a ghost, but He shows them His hands and feet—the wounds still visible— in order to show them that the body in front of them was the same body they had seen on the cross. There was true historical continuity—that same body bridged the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection. When they found the tomb empty, it was because the one body that was there had been raised. God didn’t destroy one and create another. It was the same body. Neither did a ghost emanate from that one dead body. Christ’s body was always physical.

Forty Days

Jesus did this for the disciples over the course of forty days. He persuaded them with many proofs. On what basis are we persuaded? If we are persuaded because we are in the Christian line-up, then we are of Christ the same way the Pharisees were of Moses. Once a culture has started, it is pretty easy to stay in the groove—although it is very hard to grasp the spirit of those who made the groove in the first place. But if we are Christians by true, evangelical God-given faith, then two things will be true in our experience. First, we will understand that the resurrection is not so much something that needs to be proven as it is (for us) the proof itself. How do we know that Jesus is the Son of God? The resurrection shows us (Rom. 1:4). How do we know that Jesus will come to judge the world (Acts 17: 31)? We know because He rose from the dead. Add one more thing. The world will know because love has been raised from the dead in us (John 13:35). Resurrection life is here and now.

Words of the Kingdom

What did Jesus teach during this time? Luke tells us that He taught them about the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. This was His great theme throughout the gospels, He taught this after His resurrection, and His disciples taught the kingdom of God all the way through the book of Acts (e.g. Acts 8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 28:23).The gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection cannot therefore be separated from a declaration of the crown rights of King Jesus. His resurrection was not ghostly. Why would His reign be?

What is this kingdom? What is it that we should be preaching and teaching? The kingdom of God refers to the rule and realm of the Lord Jesus Christ. His rule refers to His personal authority (John 14:15; 15:17). His realm refers to those places where His rule is legitimate, which is to say, everywhere (Ps. 72:8). The gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection cannot therefore be separated from a declaration of the crown rights of King Jesus. His resurrection was not ghostly. Why would His reign be?

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