Let the Wicked Return to the Lord

by Kevin D. Gardner

[Rev. Kevin D. Gardner is associate editor of Tabletalk magazine, resident adjunct professor at Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Fla., and a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on July 30, 2018.]

In the book of Isaiah, there is an abrupt transition at chapter 40. After many chapters of pronouncing judgment and the need for restoration, the prophet shifts gears: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isa. 40:1–2). So begins what has aptly been called the Book of Comfort or the Book of Consolation—Isaiah 40–66, a glorious recitation of God’s affection for His people and His promises of blessing for them.

In the midst of the Book of Comfort is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. Isaiah 55 begins with a plea from God: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (v. 1). The invitation—echoed later in Jesus’ words in John 4 and 6—is almost too good to be true. Who would believe that someone would offer food for free? And if someone did, surely the food would not be worth eating.

But no. God goes on to plead with His hearers to forsake their practice of pursuing food that does not satisfy: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” He then reveals the goodness of the food that He offers: “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isa. 55:2–3). The food is rich, and it is good. It is no earthly food; this food, the food that truly satisfies, is the Word of God. The one who listens to God will be filled.

This is not a call to abandon all other interests than the Lord but rather a call to recognize Him as the highest pursuit. Where are we ultimately finding satisfaction? In success, money, or power? Or in the One who made us, who knows us, and who calls us to Himself? The things of this world cannot ultimately satisfy, because they were not made to. We are called to forsake our empty, unfulfilling, self-focused endeavors and to come to God and be satisfied.

God offers this rich food to His people, the Israelites. The offer is in keeping with His promises to them in the past, as He notes by referencing His covenant with David in verses 3–4. The richness of the Word of God as revealed to Israel is so attractive that other nations will come to hear it (v. 5). For Israel, it is easy to hear this Word. But still, they are urged to “seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (v. 6).

But the call to seek the Lord, as hinted at in verse 5, does not go out only to Israel; it goes out to the nations as well. All nations and all peoples are called to seek the Lord. Moreover, “the wicked” are called to seek the Lord: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (v. 7). To the ancient Israelites, “the wicked” referred to those from the surrounding nations, the very people referred to in verse 5. They were the ones who did not know or serve the Creator of heaven and earth. And yet, here is a call for mercy, for pardon, for the very people who had oppressed God’s chosen nation.

Sometimes, we have a hard time thinking that God could ever reach a certain person. He is too bad or she is too far gone for God to reach, we think. This was how the Israelites thought of the gentile nations. Despite the fact that the call to minister to the nations was built into Israel’s very makeup (Gen. 12; 1 Kings 8), the Israelites had a hard time carrying out that mission. There was no way that God could reach those people. And furthermore, they didn’t deserve mercy. Their punishment was just. Right?

Wrong. God rebukes such thinking in the next verse. To those who think they know the way that God ought to operate, how He ought to dispense His mercy, God says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9).

This verse is often generalized to speak of God’s being something other than us. He is the Creator, and we are the creature. He is, by definition, higher than us, and we cannot access His thoughts. He has made Himself known to us, so to that extent, we can know the mind of God, and based on that, we can try to reason the way that He does—to think God’s thoughts after Him. But we cannot think in precisely the same way that He thinks.

While this verse can certainly be generalized legitimately, it’s important that we recognize the context in which it occurs. God is not speaking of His thoughts as generally higher than ours. He is speaking of His thoughts as higher than our thoughts specifically when it comes to how “the wicked” should be viewed—that is, “the wicked” are to be called to return to the Lord and to be welcomed.

This was likely a shock to the Israelites, and it can be shock to us, too. It’s easy to fall into the trap of dividing “us” from “them” and of thinking of “them” as unworthy. When we do that, we run the risk of placing our thoughts higher than God’s thoughts, thinking that we know better than He does.

But God delights to show mercy—and it’s a good thing for us that He does. While we’re busy dividing “us” from “them” or “the righteous” from “the wicked,” it’s easy to miss one simple fact: we are the wicked. The Israelites began to think that they were better than the nations, but they weren’t, and they should have known that (see Deut. 9:4–6). We also are not more righteous in ourselves than those who do not know Christ, yet God in His mercy has provided righteousness for us (Rom. 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:21).

The story of the Old Testament is God’s calling a wicked people to Himself and accomplishing His purposes in spite of their wickedness. God does this by means of His Word, the very same “rich food” we are called to eat in Isaiah 55:2. This Word in verses 10–12 is likened to the rain and snow that water the earth. As the rain causes plants to grow, so the Word of God makes things happen: “It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (v. 12).

This active, generative Word is God’s revelation in Scripture and especially in the person and work of Christ. The next verses tell us what the Word accomplishes: creation joins in song in praise of the Creator, and new life springs forth in a reversal of the curse of Genesis 3 (Isa. 55:12–13). This new life happens not only in the new heavens and new earth but also in the fallow ground of human hearts when they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit. For the sake of His own glory God does this: “It shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (v. 13).

Praise God that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts, for He has brought us, the wicked, near to Him, that we might feast on His rich food. And praise Him for the power of His Word, which has brought us to new life. May our lives shine forth the glory of His name.

The Free Offer of the Gospel

by Aaron L. Garriott

[Rev. Aaron L. Garriott is managing editor of Tabletalk magazine, resident adjunct professor at Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Fla., and a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on January 23, 2019.]

If we were to simulate an evangelistic conversation where you had forty-five seconds to explain the gospel to a person unfamiliar with the Bible, what would you say? Of course, you can’t say everything, so which components would you include, and which components would you omit? Grace? Love? Christ? The Trinity? The elements you choose to include and those you choose to omit tend to reveal what you regard to be the essential components of the gospel.

Would faith or repentance be among the elements you would choose to include? If these concepts would not be included in your presentation, perhaps it’s because faith and repentance are often categorized as responses to the gospel rather than as part of the content of the gospel. In one sense, this is an important distinction. Yet, it’s worth noting that Scripture rarely mentions the gospel apart from the appropriate response of the gospel.

Can you imagine what it would have been like for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus to learn Old Testament hermeneutics from Christ? I suspect not many of us, if given the opportunity, would miss Jesus’ lecture where He “[began] with Moses and all the Prophets, [interpreting] to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). What is it in the Old Testament that concerned Christ? Certainly, Christ and His work were foreshadowed throughout the pages of the Old Testament. Paul reminded the Corinthians “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). The death of Christ was according to the Old Testament Scriptures (see Ps. 22:15; Isa. 53; Dan. 9:26; Zech. 13:7). The resurrection of Christ was also according to the Old Testament Scriptures (see Ps. 16:10; Isa. 53:10; Hos. 6:2). It was in this regard that B.B. Warfield likened the Old Testament to a beautiful, unlit mansion where the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ turns the lights on so that we can more clearly see the beauty of what was always there. For instance, the book of Leviticus takes on a new sense of beauty when read with an eye cast forward on the new-covenant sacrificial Lamb and tabernacle of God.

Beginning to see the person and work of Christ in the pages of the Old Testament is an exhilarating adventure that often accompanies, or at least eventually flows from a conversion into Reformed theology. Yet, I suspect that even those of us who see Christ in all of Scripture often neglect to see a key component of the gospel foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Consider, for instance, Jesus’ words to the eleven after the Emmaus Road incident:

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:44–47)

Here again is Christ’s claim that the Old Testament long spoke of the atoning death and resurrection of the Messiah. What is more, Jesus also claims that the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness was likewise foretold in the Old Testament. It’s significant that repentance and forgiveness are Old Testament concepts as much as atonement and resurrection. They weren’t foreign to the Old Testament. In fact, Luke praises the Bereans not for their brilliance but for their unwillingness to accept any new teaching that did not accord with the Old Testament Scriptures (Acts 17:11). The Apostles weren’t teaching novel doctrine; rather, they were teaching things that were in step with the doctrine of God’s old covenant revelation. Thus, even the frequent call for faith and repentance was not a novel New Testament phenomenon. Rather, the object of faith just became clearer—that is, He became incarnate.

The presence of repentance for forgiveness in the Old Testament is clear, for example, in the Day of Atonement. On this one day of the calendar year, the high priest alone was allowed to enter the holiest place of the tabernacle in order to make atonement for the sins of the people. But contra classic Dispensational theology, although this offer of atonement was universal, its application was only to those in the camp who were the true seed of Abraham, those who “assembled” (Lev. 16:33) outside the tent and with faith trusted in the atonement offered by the high priest. The liturgy of the Day of Atonement taught Israel to repent of their sins and trust in the atoning sacrifice for forgiveness. Dozens of other passages could be noted, but it’s clear that the death and resurrection of the Messiah weren’t the only aspects of the gospel foretold in the Old Testament. The forgiveness of sins that is offered in His name is also foretold in the Old Testament.

It’s worth acknowledging that Calvinists have often been accused of practices that are said to be inconsistent with their doctrine. The allegation usually looks something like this: If you believe in limited (or definite) atonement, how can you truly offer the gospel to everyone? Now, we must concede that there have been hyper-Calvinists who agree with this allegation and frown on those who want to uphold the legitimacy of the free offer of the gospel. William Goold described this tendency: “To counteract the tendency of the religious mind when it proceeded in the direction of Arminianism, Calvinistic divines, naturally engrossed with the points in dispute, dwelt greatly on the workings of efficacious grace in election, regeneration, and conversion, if not to the exclusion of the free offer of the gospel, at least so as to cast somewhat into the shade the free justification offered in it.”[1] Yet, only the one who believes in the sovereignty of God can have confidence of any sort that his evangelistic efforts are not in vain. Only the Calvinist can truly trust Jesus’ words that the harvest is plentiful (Luke 10:2).

Herman Witsius exclaimed:

Let it be remembered, that it is not as elect or non-elect, but as guilty and perishing, that men are invited to receive Christ and his blessings; and that the invitation is by no means restricted to those who are awakened and convinced. That the Gospel contains a free and full exhibition of Christ and his benefits to sinners of every class and of every character, is an important truth, clearly founded in the sacred oracles, intimately connected with the glory of the grace of God and with the honor of Christ. . . . The doctrine of a free and universal exhibition of Christ and his righteousness and blessings to men as sinners, is by no means a distinctive badge of any one denomination of Christians, but a tenet conscientiously maintained in common by enlightened and faithful men of various persuasions—men who are anxious to guard, with equal scrupulosity, against Arminian and Antinomian errors.[2]

Not only are the sovereignty of God and the free offer of the gospel compatible, but the free offer of the gospel is an integral outflow of the work of Christ. The death and resurrection are only part of the story. The other part is the call to repentance and the announcement of a free forgiveness for all: “Come. Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa. 55:1). The free offer of the gospel is an inevitable and essential consequence of the work of Christ. Our evangelism ought to include this dual proclamation of the historical data and the call to repentance for the forgiveness of sins found in Christ. Without the call to repent and believe, we’ve delivered only half of the gospel.

Notes

1. The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, n.d.), 5:2. 
2. Herman Witsius and Donald Fraser, Sacred Dissertations, on What Is Commonly Called the Apostles’ Creed, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: A. Fullarton & Co., 1823), 390. 

Evangelism as God’s Work

by Andrew Miller

[Rev. Andrew J. Miller is a Regional Home Missionary in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and coauthor of Glorifying and Enjoying God: 52 Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism. He is on X at @AndrewMillerOPC.]

It is both freeing and empowering to know that God is working ahead of us. Our evangelism joins the harvest that God has already begun. Whenever a person converts to Christ, God has already been working in that person’s heart. The groundwork has already been laid; thus, an evangelist can’t really take credit for conversion. Sometimes all an evangelist does is nudge the last domino. As in the parable of the sower, God has been tilling the soil.

This is important because one reason Christians struggle to evangelize is that we forget that God is out ahead of us. We think we’re alone. We think that people’s response depends on us and our presentation. But as A.W. Pink points out, “When God calls any of his people to go to a place, they may rest assured that he has fully provided for them in his foredetermined purpose.”[1] God’s servant Elijah, for example, went to the brook Cherith with God’s promise: “You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” (1 Kings 17:4). He went to the widow of Zarephath with God’s promise, “Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you” (1 Kings 17:9). It’s the same in the New Testament; in Acts 18:9–10, God tells the Apostle Paul, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”

God is ahead of us: this is a liberating truth for Christians in the great privilege of sharing the gospel. God has already been at work. You don’t know how God will use your witness in a person’s life. It may be at the beginning of God’s work, the planting of seed. It might be at the end of God’s work—the harvest. It might be during God’s work—the watering. But God gives the growth; He gets the glory. We see this very clearly in 1 Corinthians 3:5–9:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God’s building.

Every stage matters. This means that what you are doing is important and that its effectiveness belongs to the Lord.

Jesus declared in John 10:27–28 that people’s response of faith to His Word is rooted in His first making people His own. He said: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28). While “Calvinism” unfortunately gets dismissed by many Christians as being deterministic and anti-evangelism, you can’t get around the logic of Jesus’s statement: something makes a person Jesus’ sheep before they believe. The theological term for this is election.

Adolf Schlatter, who managed to hold influential scholarly posts in Germany and produce massively popular devotional material as an evangelical in the days when theological liberalism was taking hold, put it this way in his landmark biblical-theological study Faith in the New Testament: “Faith is preceded by an original relationship to God, which reaches its active conclusion and fruitful result in faith.”[2]

God creates a relationship of love and favor with His sheep, who will in time hear His voice—often through the feeble voices of messengers proclaiming His Word. Long before you or I ever share the gospel with someone, long before we’ve even met them, God has set His love upon them. After saying that God elects some to eternal life “out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works,” the Westminster Confession of Faith says that God has also ordained the means by which they will hear the gospel and be saved:

As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power, through faith, unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. (WCF 3.6)

In other words, God’s Spirit makes the gospel “effectual.” God’s Spirit must do this: “Convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 31). Whenever you share the gospel, God is at work behind the scenes.

This means that when a person converts and trusts in Christ, credit is not due to the one who shared the gospel.[3] This also answers the objection that people raise to election: that it saps evangelism. I was recently asked why I would church plant knowing that God has not chosen many people in my area. The response is simple: I don’t know whom God has chosen or how many. I know He has chosen some, and He not only chooses people, but He sends out messengers to herald the good news. My responsibility is faithfulness; God will produce fruitfulness. Sean McGever helpfully likens evangelists to mail-carriers’ bringing a great message to people.[4] When you receive a great gift in the mail, you credit the sender, not the mailperson![5] We don’t blame the postal service for delivering bills to us. Yet “in modern evangelism we celebrate, study, and idolize far too many messengers while minimizing the sender.”[6] As two Old Testament figures put it, are we in the place of God (Gen. 30:2; 50:19)? He is the Giver of life.

God not only elects people to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, but He also sends those who proclaim it (e.g., Luke 1:19). The very word apostle means “sent one.” God is a sending God, who sends His Son, His Spirit, His angels, His Word, and His people. As Pink points out, “When God works he always works at both ends of the line.”[7] He elaborates, in reference to God’s providence over the widow of Zarephath being in the right place at the right time:

If Jacob sends his sons down into Egypt seeking food in time of famine, Joseph is moved to give it unto them. If Israel’s spies enter Jericho, there is a Rahab raised up the shelter them. If Mordecai is begging the Lord to come to the deliverance of his threatened people, King Ahasuerus is rendered sleepless, made to search the state records and befriend Mordecai and his fellows. If the Ethiopian eunuch is desirous of an understanding of God’s word, Philip is sent to expound it to him. . . . Elijah had received no intimation as to where this widow resided, but divine providence timed her steps so that she encountered him at the entrance to the city. What encouragements to faith are these![8]

I would add, what encouragements to evangelism are these! The opportunities that we have for gospel conversations are not just because God put us in the right place at the right time, but because He also put others in the right place at the right time. We’re not alone in evangelism: God is out ahead of us.

This should be especially encouraging for pastors who proclaim the gospel each and every Lord’s Day. Your preaching hits home not because of its particular elegance—which might be entirely lacking—but because God’s Spirit worked in your preparation and delivery and because He worked in the hearers, not only during your sermon, but before. Moreover, God’s Spirit will work after your sermon is over. I can still remember hearing sermons that God particularly used in my life though they were probably long forgotten by the preachers who delivered them.

These truths should encourage all of us, pastor or not, to join God’s bountiful harvest by sharing our hope with the lost (Matt. 9:37–38). We share God’s Word, knowing that His activity goes before us and will continue after us. After all, the great gospel commission of Matthew 28 sandwiches the commission in between Jesus’ pledges of His power and presence:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18–20, emphasis added)

Notes

1. A.W. Pink, The Life of Elijah (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 2024), 46.
2. Adolf Schlatter, Faith in the New Testament: A Study in Biblical Theology (Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Academic, 2022), 158.
3. McGever points out that we often fall into “a logical and theological fallacy: correlation is causation.” Sean McGever, Evangelism: For the Care of Souls (Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham, 2023), 9–10.
4. “The core of evangelism is being a messenger. The message is not ours, and the effectiveness of the message is not ours.” McGever, Evangelism, 59.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Pink, Elijah, 54.
8. Ibid.

Union with Christ and Mission

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ and was originally published July 7, 2019.]

We have been exploring the great biblical truth of the believer’s union with Christ. We’ve seen that union with Christ defines our identity, creates a community, and produces a spirituality. There is a kind of progression involved here. We have communion with God as we are in Christ by the Spirit. Our new identity places us in a new community in the context of which we practice a new spirituality. Our purpose in this final article is to show that the end of our union with Christ does not rest on us, or even on the church. The goal of union with Christ moves from each of us toward others in the formation of Christ’s new community, the church, and on outward once again toward the world in mission as we seek to draw others into communion with God. To be united to Christ is to be sent into the world as the agents of the triune God, who gathers worshipers from the ends of the earth.

The Doxology of Union with Christ

As we think about union with Christ and mission, it will be wise to consider first the doxological purpose of union with Christ. Union with Christ is about the glory of God. This is nowhere more clearly seen than in Ephesians 1:3–14. Paul surveys the whole landscape of salvation from eternity in the electing purposes of God the Father, through history at the cross of Jesus Christ, into our experience when we believed the gospel. Each phase is explained as an aspect of the Christian’s union with Christ. We are chosen in Christ. We are redeemed by the cross in Christ. We believe into Christ. But let’s be sure to notice the goal of God in our union with Christ. What is God after in uniting sinners to His Son by the Holy Spirit? He is working that all might be “to the praise of his glorious grace” (v. 6), and that we ourselves might “be to the praise of his glory” (v. 12, 14).

What is God after when He predestines and applies to sinners their union with His Son? He is pursuing His own glory. Or, to put it another way, union with Christ is about doxology. It is about worship. It is about the exaltation of the triune Lord—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the one God, who is blessed forever. Ephesians 1 makes the same point Paul makes again in Romans 11:33–36. In the first ten chapters of his letter, he surveys the wonder of free salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, the great mystery of election, and the global plan of God to bring that gospel to the ends of the earth by means of preaching the Word. After all this, it seems that Paul can’t contain himself any more. He bursts into doxology: “Oh the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” What are we for? Why are we united to Christ, brought together in Him into a new community and given access to the throne of glory in authentic spirituality? What is God doing? He is working to display His glory. He is unveiling to the whole created universe the excellence of His wisdom, mercy, and grace.

And that is vital to see as we begin to think about mission because it puts the breaks on unconstrained pragmatism. There is a bigger consideration that must be brought to bear on all our efforts to serve Jesus beyond the question of whether it’s popular or attractive or whether it “works.” We need to ask, Is God being honored? Does it glorify the God who has revealed Himself in Christ by the Scriptures? Is it man-centered, or is it God-centered? The goal of union with Christ, individually and together in churches, is doxology. It is making much of God in Christ through the gospel.

The Missiology of Union with Christ

Now that we have seen the doxological purpose of God in electing, calling, converting, and sanctifying sinners, we are in a place to consider the missiological mandate of union with Christ. If the goal of union with Christ is doxology, we need to ask how that plays out. How do we achieve that goal? We began to answer that question in the previous article when we talked about spirituality. We were thinking about worship, about communing with the Trinity through the means of grace, individually and together as a church. That’s part of the answer. But another part of the answer has to do with missions.

You may know the now famous statement with which John Piper begins Let the Nations Be Glad!, his excellent book on missions. He says: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn’t.”[1] We will worship forever. But we won’t do evangelism forever. We will be engaged in unceasing doxology when we come face-to-face with our exalted Savior. But there will be no more missions, no need to share the gospel. There will be no one to bring to Christ because when the new creation comes, everyone who lives there will know Him even as they are known. So, why do we engage in missions here? Because there are still men, women, boys, and girls around the world who do not know Him and do not worship Him. So, then, if the purpose of union with Christ is doxology, and the purpose of mission is doxology, there must be an intimate connection between missions and union with Christ. They both have the same goal, the same purpose.

Second Corinthians 5:14–6:1 is one place where Paul spells out the link between his missionary work and the doctrine of union with Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, he reminds us that we are new creatures in union with Christ, and in 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 that we are reconciled to God because of our union with Christ. The implication of that for Paul’s own ministry is clear:

Therefore,” he says—since we are united to Christ like this in the gospel—“we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain (5:20–6:1).

We represent Christ, Paul explains, because we are united to Him. We speak on His behalf to the world, pleading with everyone to be reconciled to God. Indeed, we work together with Him. God Himself makes His appeal through us. That is an electrifying thought. Whether from the pulpit on a Sunday, or in a coffee shop over a muffin, when those who are united to Christ plead with the lost to be reconciled to God, God Himself makes His appeal through them. Do you see the connection between union with Christ and missions and evangelism? Because we are in Christ, Christ speaks through us, and uses us, even as we represent Him.

What are the implications of that for us? There are many, but I will mention three. First, there is boldness. Because we are in Christ and He is in us, we’re not left to our best wisdom. We don’t need to have all the answers or know all the words. We need to share the gospel simply, clearly, and lovingly, even if fearfully and tremblingly. And the power to raise the dead, and make the deaf hear, and the blind see—the saving power—lies in Christ, who will use us, despite our failings, for His glory. Fight fear with the knowledge that you are in Christ, and therefore you are His ambassador. He makes His appeal through you.

Second there is joy. Evangelism is about doxology. We are in Christ, and we get to display Christ to the world, to make much of Christ and to show the nations that life apart from Him is a dull threadbare fabric, and life in union with Him is a rich tapestry.

Third, there is vision. Mission has to be at the heart of a healthy church because the church is the community of disciples united to Jesus. Union with Christ leads to community and results in mission to the glory of God. A church is not worthy of the name if it is not working to bring men and women, boys and girls to faith in Jesus Christ and to enfold them into the life of the congregation. Union with Christ compels mission. It demands it. We betray the Savior who joined us to Himself if we keep Him to ourselves. That’s why our church’s vision is to glorify God by making disciples on the North State Street corridor, the greater Jackson area, and around the world. If we are in Christ together, we must be in Christ together for the world. To be in Christ as a church means we are a church for our neighbors and our friends and our colleagues who don’t know Jesus yet. Insularity and union with Christ are incompatible. To grow up into Him who is the Head means, in part, to go out into the world to make disciples.

Notes

1. John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1993), 11. 

Union with Christ in 3-D

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ.]

I must confess that I am not a fan of 3-D movies. To this Scotsman at least, it feels like a gimmick designed mainly to part me from my money. Invariably, I leave with a headache. Sometimes I find the effect singularly unconvincing. But my children are less cynical. They find the experience captivating. The sense of entering the world on screen lends depth and dimension to the whole experience. As we explore the doctrine of union with Christ, it is important that we see the three dimensions in which the New Testament describes it. Seeing this doctrine in 3-D will bring color and depth to every other aspect of our Christian lives.

The first dimension to be explored, albeit very briefly here, is our union with Christ in the eternal plan of God, that is, union with Christ in election. Ephesians 1:3–6 reminds us that God “chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” In a beautiful passage, John Calvin explains Paul’s meaning:

When Paul teaches that we were chosen in Christ “before the creation of the world” [Eph. 1:4a], he takes away all consideration of real worth on our part, for it is just as if he said: since among all the offspring of Adam, the Heavenly Father found nothing worthy of his election, he turned his eyes upon his Anointed, to choose from that body as members those whom he was to take into the fellowship of life. Let this reasoning then prevail among believers: we were adopted in Christ into the eternal inheritance because in ourselves we were not capable of such great excellence. (Institutes, 3.22.1)

The Father elects damnable sinners in Christ. It is not that God saw that we would obey or believe of our own free will and then chose us because of our foreseen faith. Rather, it is that God saw—indeed, ordained—that Christ would obey, bleed, die, and rise again for us. God chose sinners for salvation based on the merit and atonement of Christ, His promised sacrifice. We are in Christ in eternity.

But there is a second dimension to our union with Christ. We are in Christ, we might say, redemptive-historically (i.e., in what God actually did for us in time in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ). Paul always describes a Christian as having died with Christ, having been buried with Him, and having been raised with Him. It is by virtue of His obedience that we are counted righteous (Rom. 5:19). It is by virtue of our union with Him in His death and resurrection that we are spiritually alive to God (Eph. 2:4–6). It is “in him” that we have “redemption through his blood” (1:7). When Christ acted during the days of His earthly ministry, He acted for His people as our representative and our substitute. Thus, when Satan tempted Him in the wilderness, it was not merely to provide an example for us of how to deal with temptation. He was obeying God in the face of temptation, as His only begotten Son, in the wilderness of a fallen creation. Adam, the son of God (Luke 3:38), failed to obey in the garden of an unfallen creation. Israel, God’s son (Ex. 4:23), failed to obey in the wilderness of Sinai. But Christ obeyed. This obedience He accomplished not only for Himself but for all whom He represented, for all who were “in him” according to the electing purpose of God.

Then there is a third dimension to our union with Christ, which rests firmly on the first two. It finds its source in the eternal covenant and plan of God, electing sinners in union with Christ. It is founded on the obedient life and death of Christ as the representative of His people in history. But it erupts into the hearts and lives of Christians in their present experience through the work of the Holy Spirit. We might call this experiential or existential union with Christ. It takes all that Christ accomplished in history on our behalf and makes it ours presently, vitally, really. It brings to fulfillment the eternal counsel of the covenant of redemption, purposed before the stars were hung in their places. Ephesians 2:4–10 is a classic statement of this very point. Though were dead in our sin,

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

We are given new life in Christ by the gracious gift of God, which includes the faith in the gospel that He grants to us. We become new creatures in Christ. The bond of our union with the risen Christ is the Spirit of Christ. As Jesus taught His disciples in John 14:16–18: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” The way Christ comes to us is by the Spirit of truth, whom Jesus styles “another Helper,” or, more literally, “another Helper like the One they now have” in Jesus. The Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of sonship, communicates to us not only the benefits of our redemption but Christ Himself. He comes to us. We are in Him and know Him and commune with Him. His righteousness is ours. Our life is resurrection life. Our sanctification makes us resemble Him. Our adoption is sonship in the Son. Our glorification is entry into His glorious presence, reflecting His radiance and delighting in His reward. All this we have in union with Jesus. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).

May God help us to see our Christian lives in 3-D, united to Christ in eternity, in history, and in experience. When we see our Christian lives that way, it’s like discovering a new landscape full of wonder and beauty where we find security and rest forever, where we are satisfied.

What Is Real Spirituality?

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ and was previously published February 8, 2019.]

Union with Christ is, as we have begun to see, one of those architectonic principles that shapes the fabric of the Christian life. In this article, I want to highlight a few of the implications of our union with Christ for our spirituality. To be sure, spirituality is fascinating to people today. Usually when we run across the idea, it suggests the pursuit of subjective spiritual experience, often linked to mental and emotional well-being, sometimes suggesting practices like Eastern meditation and mindfulness. But true Christian spirituality has little in common with that way of thinking. And the fundamental point of difference has to do with the center—the object, the focal point. In the models of spirituality common in our culture, the self is the focal point. We pursue spiritual experience for the sake of experience, or possibly for the sense of well-being it is alleged to promise. But in authentically Christian spirituality, experience—though present and vital, rich and real—isn’t the goal and the self isn’t the focus. In Christian spirituality, God in Christ by the Holy Spirit is the focus. Knowing Him and delighting in Him are our objectives. Insofar as thoughts of self have a place in Christian spirituality at all, it is a small one. This view of spirituality helps us see ourselves truly only insofar as we come to know God truly.

For our purposes, I am defining “spirituality” as the pursuit, by means of scriptural disciplines, of an ever-growing, deeply felt communion with the triune God. My argument is that the doctrine of union with Christ is at the very heart of all our fellowship with God and every discipline or habit of grace by which that fellowship may be cultivated.

Union Leads to Communion

In John 14:16, Jesus promised the disciples that He would ask the Father to give them another Helper, whom He identifies as the Spirit of truth. The phrase “another Helper” means another of the same kind. Jesus was departing to the Father, by way of the cross, but He would send another helper of the same character as Himself. This Helper is the Holy Spirit, who would dwell with the disciples and be in them. But in verses 18–19, we learn that the link between Christ and the Spirit is far more profound than we might first think. Jesus says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me” (emphasis added). Jesus, though departing, would come to His disciples. This isn’t a reference to the resurrection or to the second coming of Jesus at the end of the age. This is a reference to the coming of the Holy Spirit. There is a union between Christ and the Spirit such that the Spirit communicates to us the presence of Christ. Jesus comes to us and indwells us by the Spirit. When Jesus says, “Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you” (vv. 19–20), He is telling us the consequence of the Spirit’s mighty work. In the Spirit, we are united to Jesus Christ.

Jesus helps us see the wonder of that union in verse 20: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.” Jesus and the Father are one. There is a union and communion between the Father and the Son in the fellowship of the blessed Trinity. The Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, communicates to us, mediates to us, our union and communion with Christ, who is one with the Father. The Spirit’s ministry will be to help us know, experience, and enjoy the fact that Christ is in the Father and that we are in Christ and Christ is in us.

That is what the Apostle John meant when he said in 1 John 1:3 that his purpose in preaching Christ was “so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” What is the full glory of the fellowship we have with the Apostolic church when we come to believe the gospel John preached? It’s not just that we enjoy fellowship with one another, but rather, with one another we have fellowship with the Father and with the Son. That is stunning in its scope and glory. When the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ when we believe the gospel, we are swept up into communion with the triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Ephesians 2:18 puts it, “For through him [Jesus] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” The Spirit brings us to Jesus, plants us into Christ, and in Christ we have access to the Father.

I’m making a plea for an experiential, felt Christianity. I’m making a plea for a felt Christ. It is the work of the Spirit always to lead us into deeper and more soul-nourishing communion with Christ. We are not rationalists. We are supernaturalists. We believe in the Holy Spirit who brings us into real communication and communion and fellowship with the risen and exalted Christ Himself, and, in Christ, with the Father. If that makes us uncomfortable, if our theology is satisfied with doctrines and practices only and knows nothing of spiritual intimacy with God, it may be that we are still not yet converted.

Union, Communion, and the Ordinary Means of Grace

But how do we grow into a deepening experience and understanding of communion with the triune God? Is it just something that comes over you, like a chill, when you’re not expecting it? Is it some eerie, spooky mumbo-jumbo that only the super-spiritual can know, the fruit perhaps of some second blessing? Or at the other end of the spectrum, is a deepening communion with God the product of the right application of technique? Can spiritual experience be manufactured? Can you produce an experience of God with the right ambience, with maybe a few candles and the right aesthetic?

Westminster Larger Catechism 154 asks, “What are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation?” Having described our union with Christ, our question now is, How do we enjoy the benefits Christ has won for us? Now that we are “in Him,” how do we commune with Him? Listen to the catechism’s answer: “The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to his church the benefits of his mediation, are all his ordinances; especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation.”

All the ordinances, all the disciplines and practices ordained by Christ in His Word are the outward and ordinary means. Then it lists the three central and primary means, of which all the others are derivative. Christ communicates His benefits to us by the Word, the sacraments, and prayer.

But, before we go much further, we need to recognize that the means of grace fall into two broad categories. There are private means of grace, and there are corporate means of grace. Strictly speaking, they are not two separate sets of disciplines, but they are different applications of the same three means: the Word, the sacraments, and prayer.

Christ has ordained the public (and private) use of the Word and prayer, and the corporate use of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, that by the diligent, believing use of them the fact of our union with Christ might be enjoyed in growing communion with Him. If we are longing for a deepening experience of Jesus, if we want more of the felt presence of Christ in our Christian lives, we do not need to attend special meetings. We do not need to undergo some kind of spiritual catharsis or any kind of second blessing. We need to go to corporate worship. We need to sit under the faithful exposition of the Word week in and week out. We need to open our Bibles at home and drink in its truth. We need to cry to God for the work of the Spirit in our hearts. We must not neglect the Lord’s Table; rather, we must join with our brothers and sisters in eating the bread and the wine.

By such means Christ has promised to strengthen our faith, to kill our sin, to comfort our hearts, and to deepen our assurance that we are indeed in Him and He in us. May God help us use the means of grace with faith and expectation that we might enjoy the glories of our union with Christ to the praise of His great name!

The Church Is Not Optional

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ and was originally published on January 28, 2019.]

In the last article, we considered how union with Christ transforms how we think about and form our identity. This time, we’ll consider how union with Christ produces new community. In a 2014 article in The Atlantic, Julie Beck recounts the findings of a study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior that examined the phenomenon of oversharing online, especially on Facebook. Her conclusion is that oversharing is an attempt to project to our friends and acquaintances something about us that we wish were better appreciated. However, the desired results—inclusion and acceptance—are rarely achieved:

Posters sought attention and a feeling of inclusion, but were seemingly less interested in expressing caring for others. They treated Facebook like a drive-thru window, seeking a quick and easy dollar-menu pick-me-up.

And it seems their friends could tell.

“Those who express the true self do not receive more wall posts from others in response to their greater expressiveness,” the study reads. “Their self-oriented motives may be apparent to their Facebook friends, causing them to not respond in kind.”

The study also acknowledges another, sadder possibility: “Alternatively, there could be a disconnect between the levels of self-disclosure with which these users and their friends are comfortable.” Oversharers might just be reaching out for a human connection, and we slap their hands away because we’re uncomfortable with their need.[1]

That last line, I suspect, speaks to something very common in the experience of most of us. Here it is again: “Oversharers might just be reaching out for a human connection, and we slap their hands away because we’re uncomfortable with their need.” It’s poignant, isn’t it? People want to belong. I want to belong. You want to belong. But we don’t do it very well. It’s not that easy to find community, to find our people, among whom we just seem to fit. We crave it, but we don’t know where to turn to find it. To be sure, social media offers one type of community, but it is necessarily superficial and illusory, and it is ultimately profoundly unsatisfying. John Stott once said:

The modern technocratic society, which destroys transcendence and significance, is destructive of community also. We are living in an era of social disintegration. People are finding it increasingly difficult to relate to one another. So we go on seeking the very thing which eludes us—love in a loveless world.[2]

Deep down, we know we were made for face-to-face, life-on-life, loving community.

That’s why at the heart of the Christian gospel is the promise not just of a new life or a new identity but of a new humanity. What Jesus brings is never solely a private, individualistic thing. It is also a corporate salvation, a salvation known and enjoyed in the fellowship of the church. When we get Jesus, we get a fellowship, a koinōnia, a communion and a community. When we get Jesus, we get all those who get Jesus too. That’s why the Westminster Confession of Faith makes the staggering claim, first articulated by Cyprian of Carthage in the third century, that “outside of the visible Church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”[3] It’s why Calvin, in an equally famous statement speaking of the church as a mother, said:

There is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels. Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives. Furthermore away from her bosom one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation.[4]

The church, the community of Christ, isn’t incidental to the gospel. We don’t get a personal salvation if by personal we mean individualistic and private. We are grafted into the church when we are grafted into Christ.

One fruitful way to see how the New Testament makes that point is to consider the major metaphors it uses for our union with Christ. None of them are individualistic. They all focus on a community of people who are united in Him. So, for example, in John 15, Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches. He is the true vine, He says. We are the branches. We must abide in the vine and so bear fruit. If we abide in the vine, we will be pruned by the vinedresser, God the Father, who will train and discipline us by His Word and Spirit and in His sovereign providence. If we do not abide in the vine, we will be cut out, thrown away, and burned. It’s a sobering picture, but we miss essential truth if we miss the fact that this image was used with the disciples, who are “branches” together united to one common vine. The sap of the vine, the same life, the life of Christ, flows from the vine to each of the branches.

Another image of our union with Christ is the temple. Jesus said, in speaking about His death and resurrection, that He is the true tabernacle, which if it were destroyed would be rebuilt in three days (John 2:19). He is the true temple where God came down to meet with us. The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2 adapted the metaphor. Christ is the stone the builders rejected that God makes the capstone. We are living stones, and as we come to Him we are being built up into a spiritual house. The heart of the image is the doctrine of union with Christ. We are stones fitted into Him, finding our dimensions in reference to Him. But we are all being fitted to one another as well, as we are made to fit into Christ. So, the whole edifice, this temple that God is building, is the church—not the physical church building, but the lives joined together into Christ, a dwelling place for God by His Spirit.

Or, try another key metaphor for union with Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the image of the body:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. (vv. 12–14)

In union with Christ, by the Spirit, the church is one body with many members. When Paul develops the image, he describes two absurdities. The first is the absurdity of one body part ruling itself out, declaring, “I don’t belong, because I’m not a hand, or I’m not an eye” (vv. 14–19). The second absurdity is each body part denying a place to the others because the others are different (vv. 21–26). A body that is all ear or all foot would be absurd. There is diversity and pluriformity and complexity—a place for all sorts of people with all sorts of gifts and personalities and backgrounds in the body of Christ. Paul concludes his argument in verse 27: “ Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” We are the body of Christ. We are one, and we belong together in Christ, only because we are in Christ.

We could go on piling up New Testament images and expressions that highlight our union with Christ and with one another, but the basic point is clear. If we come to know Jesus, the Bible cannot conceive of us as refusing to belong to His church, which, of course, is one important reason that refusing to join a local church is so wrong. We don’t get to say Jesus: “I love you—but the church? Not so much!” To be sure, the church is a messy place, full of screw-ups and failures. It will often let us down, it’s true. But isn’t it clear that Jesus loves that church? This Jesus whom we say we love and want to follow, haven’t we seen in the Scriptures how committed He is to His messy, sinful, compromised church? He loves His church and calls her His bride. He gave Himself up on the cross for her (Eph. 5:22–32). It’s really not possible to say we are committed followers of Jesus Christ and not to be committed members of the church for which He lived and bled and died and rose again.

To be united to Christ is to be united to the whole church, on earth and in heaven. It is to be called into fellowship with Jesus and in Him with all His people. We are to love and be patient with the church, all her faults and failures notwithstanding, knowing that we ourselves belong to her, and Christ, who loves His bride, is patient with us. Union with Christ creates true community, and this doctrine calls us to love the church.

Notes

1. Julie Beck, “Study: People Who Overshare on Facebook Just Want to Belong,” The Atlantic, June 16, 2014, accessed September 6, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/study-people-who-overshare-on-facebook-just-want-to-belong/372834/. 
2. John R.W. Stott, The Contemporary Christian, (Leicester, England: IVP, 1992), 232–33. 
3. Westminster Confession of Faith 25.2. 
4. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 4.1.4. ↩︎

How Union with Christ Shapes Our Identity

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ and was previously published January 14, 2019.]

In the last article, we considered the three dimensions of the Christian’s union with Christ. We are one with Him in the eternal counsels of God, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. We are one with Him in history, at the cross, as He bled and died as our representative and substitute. And we are one with Him in our experience when, by the mighty work of the Spirit, we are made new creatures and given the gift of saving faith. In this article, I want to begin to tease out some implications of our union with Christ, starting with the question of identity. How should our union with Christ change how we understand ourselves, our identity as human beings in the world?

Society offers a number of identity options. Let’s consider three of the most common.

1. “You are your work.” This is identity through performance. In this view, our busyness and activity, especially our employment, fill the identity void in our hearts and help define us.
2. “You are your history.” This is identity through pedigree. In this view, our backgrounds, family life, and social connections locate us within a certain community and entitle us to certain benefits.
3. “You are your sexuality.” This is identity through passion. In this view, sexual desire is the most basic reality about us that determines how we interact with the world and conceive of ourselves.

We need to train ourselves to hear in each of these proposals the echo of the serpent’s words to Eve in the garden: “You will be like God.” Satan’s first temptation was really a temptation to define our identity on our own terms. He was saying: “Do this and be like God. Take matters into your own hands and form your identity for yourself.” Satan’s first temptation was a temptation to define our identity on our own terms. But the great tragedy of the fall is that instead of arriving at liberating self-discovery, human beings have found themselves enslaved to self-made identities. We make idols of work or sex or family, and instead of finding ourselves in them, we lose ourselves as they demand more and more from us and deliver less and less to us. They enslave. They do not set us free.

But when we come to know Jesus Christ, we are made new. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Now, Jesus defines us. Who we were then is not who we are now. The tyranny of the identity-shaping idols we once pursued is overthrown. Now our fundamental identity is in Christ. And that has massive implications.

First, we no longer need to shape identity by our performance. Instead, we can say: “I am accepted and counted righteous in Christ. God looks at me in Jesus. That’s where my identity comes from. My identity doesn’t come from my success in business or from my promotion. My value and worth are not located in my accomplishments. It is not located in me at all. It is located in Him, in Jesus. I may still be busy. I may get busier. But I work not to win acceptance or form identity. I work because I am accepted, and my identity is secure in Christ.” Union with Christ shapes our identity and kills workaholism. It is the enemy of workaholism. If we really get it—and take it down into the core of our being—that we are accepted and beloved not because of our work but because of Christ, our whole approach to work will change.

Second, we no longer need to shape identity by an appeal to our pedigree. If we feel entitled or begin to lean on our family name, our social networks, or our background for who we are and what we’re worth, we will inevitably think those who do not share our pedigree are somehow less than we are.

But when we understand that we are men or women in Christ, accepted and beloved in Him, renewed in the image of God in true righteousness and holiness, when we begin to recognize that our essential worth is a gift of grace, that God values us, not because of us or our family or our fraternity or our social networks, but because of Jesus, we start to look at people differently. We are not dazzled by the power and pedigree of the great and the mighty, and we do not sneer at the little guy who has none. We see instead our fellow image bearers, whose beauty remains marred and shattered by the fall, by sin. And we long to bring them with us into Christ to be made new.

Third, we need no longer shape our identity by passion. It has become common to define ourselves by our sexual desires. But our sexual desires—whether they accord with God’s original design or not—can never be the central fact about us. To make them such will distort and twist the order of things. When we put sexual desires at the heart of identity, then to deny what our sexual appetites desire is ultimately to deny our essential selves. And the great pursuit of our age, after all, is to “live your truth! You do you!” The self must be satisfied. And if the self is fundamentally and essentially a sexual self, then restraint and transformation of our passions cannot really have a lasting place in our identity.

But when we come to realize that we are in Christ, that He defines our true identity, then whatever sexual desires we may find in our fallen hearts, they do not ultimately define us. Instead, we must put off the old self and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Col. 3:9–10). We are to die to self. And live to Christ. Christ is where our identity is found. Not self and not sin. If we battle sinful sexual desires and lusts, but we define ourselves in Christ, our refusal to indulge our sinful passions and our crucifying them and seeking their replacement with holy desires are not a betrayal but an embrace of our true selves. Our true selves are in Jesus. Not in our sexual desires.

Christian identity must be shaped by the most fundamental truth about ourselves: we are men and women in Christ, and in Christ we are new creatures. He defines us. Not sin. Not the idols of the world. And in Him we find true freedom from the tyranny those idols exert.

Union with Christ: A Neglected Truth

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series union with Christ and was first published on January 4, 2019.]

I was born and raised in Scotland, but I’ve lived in the United States for many years, and my family has begun to plan to become citizens. But I must confess to feeling a surprising reticence during discussions of those plans. Probing my feelings on the subject has been revealing for me. I have seen that my reluctance has nothing to do with a lack of love for my adopted country. My family and I have felt welcomed and at home here since we moved from the U.K. ten years ago. So why the reluctance? I think it has to do with a deep sense of rootedness in my native land. Its people and culture and history, its landscape and language, have shaped my identity so that even when I do finally become a naturalized American, I will never be an American. I will always be Scottish.

The doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ is a foundational truth. But, like the many unexamined ways my homeland has shaped me, very often our union with Christ exerts a profound but unexamined influence. At the risk of pressing the analogy too far, we might say that our union with Christ is the believer’s native country, and it shapes and forms him or her in a myriad of subtle ways. Whatever else we might say of a Christian believer, this much we must always say: he or she is a man or woman in Christ.

A brief survey of the New Testament will quickly reveal the importance of the idea of union with Christ. This idea is given special emphasis in the writings of Paul, as one finds the Apostle describing virtually every aspect of Christian privilege and experience as “in Christ” or “in Him.”

In this series of short articles, it is my purpose to highlight some of the glories of this vital truth. In this article, however, I want to ask and try to answer this question: If union with Christ is foundational to the Christian life, and if union with Christ is found everywhere in the pages of the New Testament and in connection with almost the entire encyclopedia of Christian truth, then why is this union so widely neglected and misunderstood in the church today?

I can think of three answers to that question. First, we must confess that the doctrine suffers from a degree of inevitable abstraction that makes it hard to comprehend. Not all truth is easy. Not every doctrine can be reduced to 140 characters. Sometimes, our best efforts notwithstanding, we remain frustrated by an element of profound mystery. And while recognizing the limits of our understanding and the profundity of the doctrine ought to mitigate our frustration as we wrestle with this teaching, union with Christ, because it is a difficult idea, is often overlooked in preaching and in the regular course of Christian discipleship in favor of more familiar and easier-to-explain doctrines.

And that leads to the second reason for our neglect of this truth. In the history of evangelical preaching and catechesis, union with Christ has not received the attention it deserves. Justification by faith alone, the necessity of the new birth, the call and obligation of sanctification, the inerrancy of Scripture, the doctrine of God—all these have occupied the attention of evangelical churches since the Reformation. Sometimes this dynamic is driven by contemporary threats to orthodoxy. Sometimes during seasons of revival, particular truths quite appropriately receive special emphasis. There are good reasons for the focus on each of these vital doctrines in church history. But a simplistic reading of the past can lead to a formulaic presentation of truth in the present. That’s how vital doctrine gets left on the shelf.

A third reason why union with Christ is often neglected, I suspect, has to do with the scope of the doctrine. Unlike other components of the biblical teaching on Christian salvation, union with Christ cannot be identified with any one link in a chain of saving blessings communicated to sinners who come to trust in Jesus. We may have become accustomed to thinking about the ordo salutis (order of salvation) as a way to describe the logical order of God’s various acts and works in the application of redemption. Seminarians learn it as an outline in preparation for ordination exams. We speak of effectual calling and regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, and definitive and progressive sanctification. We might add the believer’s perseverance and conclude with the great truth of future glorification. Unquestionably, there is great value in mastering that outline. But where should we place union with Christ?

According to Paul, the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3, emphasis added). We are united to Christ in the election of grace in the eternal counsels of God. We are united to Christ at the cross when Jesus died for sinners as our representative and substitute. We are united to Christ in our experience when we are born again from above by the Holy Spirit. We are justified in Christ, adopted in Him, sanctified in Him, glorified in Him. Union with Christ, to return to the analogy with which we began, is the country within which every facet of the believer’s new life and identity becomes his. It is the environment for every spiritual blessing. It cannot be located at any one point but must be woven through the whole fabric of Christian teaching about the way God saves.

Union with Christ is a vast, comprehensive, glorious truth. It is well beyond the scope of six articles to explain. And yet, as we may have already begun to see, despite its relative neglect, it is precious truth. It is like a pair of tinted spectacles through which we are to view the world. Everything is colored by it; nothing is unaffected by it. In this series, I hope to show how viewing the scope of our salvation through the lens of union with Christ helps us avoid some dangerous pitfalls and leads us to appreciate anew the beauty and glory of Christ Himself, who is the gift of God to all who believe.

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Episode 46: How Jews Think And Act

The Cross and the Believer’s Home

by Nick Batzig

[Rev. Nicholas T. Batzig is senior pastor of Church Creek Presbyterian in Charleston, S.C.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series and was originally published on July 27, 2018.]

By the time I turned forty, I had lived in twenty-five different houses in seven different states. Relocating became standard fare for me during what many call “the formative years.” By way of contrast, my wife lived in the same house until she left for college. For the past nine years, I have pastored a church in a military town that has 400 percent turnover. I suppose that my upbringing helped prepare me for weathering the unique dynamics that come with pastoring a church in such a town. Nevertheless, where Christians live is not something incidental or unimportant. The Scriptures actually have a great deal to say about the significance of where we live. Jesus went to the cross to prepare a final home for believers in the new heavens and new earth.

As He approached Jerusalem and the sufferings that He was about to endure there, Jesus told His disciples: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1–3). The imagery of “the Father’s house” is drawn from the language about the temple in the Old Testament. Solomon’s temple was the place of God’s dwelling with His people. In the temple, there were rooms for the priests to live in and from which they served. Jesus was eternalizing what the temple had typified and speaking about the implications of it for the believer in the hereafter. He had come into this world to “prepare a place” for believers. He was going to the cross to make room for those He came to redeem by shedding His blood for their sins. By shedding His blood, Jesus made room for His people in the everlasting temple—the new heavens and new earth in which He would dwell with His own for all eternity.

In turn, Jesus’ teaching about securing a dwelling place for His people in the eternal temple is built on the biblical teaching regarding the various dwelling places of God with His people throughout redemptive history. The biblical metanarrative carries us from the garden of Eden (the place of man’s original dwelling) to the new heavens and the new earth. As it does, it moves us from the garden of Eden to the land of Israel, from the land of Israel to the incarnate Christ, from the incarnate Christ to His dwelling in and with the church by His Spirit, and from His dwelling in and with the church to His dwelling with His bride in the new heaven and earth. The Scriptures carry us along the stepping stones of these various “dwelling places” until we finally arrive at the garden-city bride (Rev. 21–22). The Apostle John envisioned the church—the redeemed bride of the Lamb—coming down out of heaven to dwell with Him in the new heaven and earth. The connection between the garden of Eden and the new heaven and earth is the theological significance of “the ground” out of which God made man.

Eden was a special dwelling place—a unique land—in which God placed man at creation. God had created man from “the ground” outside of the garden and then, by His grace, placed His image bearer in this paradisiacal sacred space. It was a precursor to the promised land. God formed man out of the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7). The ground (Hebrew adamah) was man’s original environment. In fact, there seems to be an intentional play on words in Genesis 2:7, where we are told that the Lord formed adam (man) out of the adamah (the ground). There is a clear connection between the ground and the man who was formed out of the ground. The name Adam means “red.” Since he was made out of the reddish clay of the ground, the name is a play on the word “ground” (adamah).

The ground was the sphere of blessing and fruitfulness for mankind at creation. Eden was the sphere of God’s richest blessing. God intended to create an image bearer who would work the ground and who would turn the world into the temple, extending the borders of the garden-temple out into the far reaches of the earth. Because God made man from the dust of the ground, this sphere of blessing would become the source of fruitfulness. Man was taken out of the ground and was created to work the ground. Adam was made to be fruitful and multiply, and to dress and keep the garden. Adam was to work the ground and take the garden out into the world. His task was to turn the world into the garden-temple.

No sooner do we read about the garden-paradise of Eden than we read about man forfeiting his privilege of dwelling with God in this place. In the pronouncement of judgment on man (Gen. 3:17–19), we find that the sphere of blessing—the place of man’s origin—was turned into a cursed, thorny, barren wilderness. Man would now have to suffer toilsome labor in order to cultivate the ground out of which God had made him. The ground was cursed on account of Adam’s sin. Adam was taken from the ground, but Adam rebelled against his Maker, so God cursed the very place out of which He made man.

Adam’s sin—together with the depravity and corruption that he brought on all his descendants—manifested itself in the worst way in the life of his firstborn son. Cain killed his brother, shedding Abel’s blood into the ground that Cain, incidentally, tilled as a vocation. The Lord confronted Cain with these words: “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). Cain had sought to hide the body of his brother in the ground, but the blood of Abel cried out to God for vengeance and judgment on Cain.

The author of Hebrews picked up on the idea of Abel’s blood crying out when he set out the privileges that belong to the members of the new covenant church:

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem . . . to Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb. 12:18–24)

Abel was a righteous man who put his faith and trust in the promised Redeemer (Gen. 3:15). Abel also serves as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Cain—the seed of the serpent—murdered Abel, the seed of the woman, so the apostate Jews and unbelieving Romans murdered Jesus (Matt. 3:7; Luke 3:23–38; John 8:44; Rev. 12:1–5). There is, however, a contrast between Abel and Jesus. The blood of Abel cried out from the ground for judgment on the ungodly; the blood of Jesus cries out for redemption and salvation for all those for whom Jesus died. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus agonized under the realization of what He would suffer for His people. Luke tells us that His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. The blood of Jesus fell into the cursed ground when He was in the garden and when He hung on the cross. On the cross, He secured the restoration of this world that had been subjected to futility on account of Adam’s sin (Rom. 8:20). When He hung on the cross, Jesus wore the crown of thorns—the symbol of the curse of God upon the ground. He was showing Himself to be the sin-bearing last Adam who came to regenerate the entire cosmos by His death and resurrection. The Apostle Paul captures this truth when he says that God’s eternal plan was to “unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).

This idea is strengthened by the linguistic relationship between the Hebrew word for land and earth. The word aretz can be translated either as “land” or “earth.” It is used in Genesis 12:1, where God promises Abraham that he will inherit the “land.” One can immediately see how Paul understands the development from the idea of the land of Israel (as being the typical inheritance) to the inheritance of the entire world. God’s promise to Abraham functioned on two levels: (1) the typical, earthly promise, and (2) the eschatological realization of this promise in the new heavens and new earth.

It is, in fact, the case that Abraham’s descendants (those who have faith in Christ; see Gal. 3) become heirs of the “world” in Him who overcame and received the inheritance of the world from His Father. In Christ, we too become heirs of God and of the world. This is also the explanation of the words of our Lord, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5), and Peter’s reference to new heavens and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13). Believers will come to possess “all things,” as the Apostle explains in Romans 8.

In the book of Revelation, all of the places that were representative of the sphere of God’s blessing (the garden, land, and city) become descriptions of the church. Redeemed humanity becomes the sacred space of God’s dwelling, the eschatological sphere of blessing. The covenant promise that God would dwell with and in His people is typified by His various dwelling places from Eden to Christ, and then from Christ to the new heavens and new earth.

The interchangeability of biblical language—in which the church is likened to a garden, land, city, and temple—is founded upon the fact that man is taken from the original dwelling place of God with man (the earth/land/ground). It is only through the shed blood of our Savior Jesus Christ that the ground is redeemed, and man again enjoys (and now to a much greater degree) the blessings of God on the land. The blessings of Christ on the land are really typical of His blessings on His people. It will be fully realized in His dwelling with His people in the new heavens and new earth—a completely renovated habitation in which only righteousness dwells. It is image bearers with which God is most concerned. The environment of God’s dwelling with redeemed mankind is the totality and comprehensiveness of His riches in Christ Jesus. The writer of Hebrews suggests that all of this was God’s original intention for Adam and has been now accomplished by the last Adam, Jesus Christ. “We do not,” he wrote, “see all things put under mankind” in world to come, “but we see Jesus.” He has secured this habitation by His death on the cursed tree. In this way, we can say that “he came to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

How Jesus Brings Peace

by Nick Batzig

[Rev. Nicholas T. Batzig is senior pastor of Church Creek Presbyterian in Charleston, S.C.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series and was first published on October 5, 2018.]

Anumber of years ago, our church decided to include a section for “prayer requests” on a visitor card that we handed to first-time visitors. Needless to say, after numerous visitors took a cue from the world of celebrity award shows and wrote “pray for world peace,” we decided to discontinue that section of the card. It was obviously not because we do not desire world peace. Rather, we sensed that out of a sense of obligation, people were simply grasping for what they believed to be the greatest of needs. After all, it’s hard to top “world peace” as the greatest need for which one could intercede on behalf of humanity.

Quite significantly, the Scriptures have much to say about world peace. World peace belongs squarely within the realm of the horizontal dimension of the cross. One of the great implications of the substitutionary, atoning, propitiatory, Satan-conquering, fallen world-overcoming, new creation-securing work of Christ crucified is that of the reconciliation of a people out of every tongue, tribe, and nation. The cross brings about peace between differing people groups who once lived in hostility toward one another.

When Jesus reconciles His people to God through His death on the cross, He reconciles His people to one another. Jesus came into the world to redeem a people for Himself out of every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. In Ephesians 2:14–16, the Apostle gave us what is perhaps the clearest statement about the horizontal dimension of the reconciliatory work of Christ crucified when he wrote:

He himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility . . . that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

The “both” and “the two” to which Paul refers in this passage are the Jews and the gentiles. No greater division existed in all of human history than that which stood between these two people groups. It was a division established by God Himself when He called and separated the theocratic old covenant church to Himself. God gave Israel a litany of laws that functioned as something of a wall of division to keep the idolatrous influences of the gentiles far away from His people. For instance, the dietary laws of the Old Testament served to represent these two groups. Israel was represented by the foods that God deemed “clean” and the gentiles were represented by the foods that God deemed “unclean.” One of the purposes of this division in redemptive history was to keep God’s people from having meals with the people of idolatrous nations. It would be very hard for you to engage in idolatrous practices if you couldn’t even have a meal with those who worshiped other gods. When Jesus came, He fulfilled all of the ceremonial laws that God had given to Israel in the old covenant so that there was no more need for them in the form in which they had been given (Mark 7:15; Acts 10:9–16; 11:4–17). Jesus came to fulfill the ceremonial laws that separated Israel from the nations. They were the shadows; He is the substance. This showed that he had come to break down the middle wall of separation between Jews and gentiles.

Simon Peter, of all the Apostles, should have understood the truth of the reconciliation of Jews and gentiles in Christ because he was the one to whom God had given the vision of the sheet with the clean and unclean animals (Acts 10:9–16; 11:4–17). However, when Peter purposefully separated himself and refused to eat with the gentile believers in Galatia, he was rebuilding the wall of division that was broken down by the death of Jesus on the cross. In this sense, he was denying the truth of the gospel by rejecting the implications of the gospel.

In Christ, God “create[s] in himself one new man in place of the two.” Paul puts this new spiritual reality and new spiritual identity in the strongest of terms when he says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). This does not mean that there are no more cultural distinctions or practices that distinguish members of different ethnic groups. What it does mean is that our union with Christ produces a union with one another that transcends any of our other associations in this fallen world. As blood is thicker than water in our natural relations, so the Spirit is stronger than both in our union with Christ.

We would sell ourselves short if—in our consideration of the vertical dimensions of the cross—we focused only on the way in which God reconciles different people together in Christ. The Apostle Paul takes the vertical dimension of the reconciliation accomplished at the cross to the cosmic and consummative realm when he intimates that Jesus died to reconcile “all things in him, things in heaven and on earth” (Eph. 1:10). While the Scripture rejects any idea of universalism (clearly teaching eternal damnation of fallen angels and unregenerate men and women), it gives us the picture of the cosmic reconciliation of unfallen angels and redeemed mankind. The Scottish theologian John Eadie captured the essence of this aspect of the cross when he wrote:

The one Reconciler is the head of these vast dominions, and in Him meet and merge the discordant elements which sin had introduced. The breach is healed. Gabriel embraces Adam, and both enjoy a vicinity to God, which but for the reconciliation of the cross would never have been vouchsafed to either. . . .Thus all things in heaven and earth feel the effect of man's renovation.

While Jesus did not die to redeem unfallen angels (Heb. 2:16), His death has implications even for their being secured in holiness and reconciled to the redeemed humanity for whom they served as ministering spirits. James Henley Thornwell explained this idea when he wrote:

In his public character as the representative of men and unfallen angels [Christ’s] mission upon earth was to redeem the seed of Abraham and confirm the angels that kept their first estate. His work was much more extensive than that of Adam. The benefits of Adam’s obedience we have no reason to believe would have transcended his own race; those of Christ’s were to extend to principalities and powers, to angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim.

Cosmic, consummative worldwide peace is entirely dependent on Jesus’ death on the cross. The effects of creaturely reconciliation are felt for all of eternity on account of His saving works. The vertical reconciliation of fallen men to God is foundational to the horizontal reconciliation of man to man. The former necessarily accomplishes and secures the latter. Our union with Jesus in His death and resurrection reconciles us to God. And, since we are redeemed by the same Christ, united to the same Christ, and made the beneficiaries of the same benefits of union with the same Christ, we are thereby united to one another in the same body.

We must be exceedingly careful not to reverse the order or else we will inevitably fall into the snare of a humanitarian gospel—which is no gospel at all. All forms of the social gospel that pervaded the mainline churches in America throughout the twentieth century were built on the idea that Jesus’ death was primarily concerned with world peace and the reconciliation of men to men through the example of Christ. This is not the teaching of the Scriptures. The Scriptures do not teach the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of men. Rather, Scripture holds out to us a far more glorious picture of reconciliation through the atoning work of Christ.

The cross of Christ provides everything that we need as individuals before God as well as everything we need as creatures living in relationship with other created beings. The cross is God’s great solution to all of the problems of this fallen world—whether it be our sin, the power of the evil one, the opposition of the world, the unrighteousness of the world, or the hostility of men toward one another. There is nothing that cannot be remedied by the work of Jesus on the cross at Calvary. May God give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand that we may turn to Him and be forgiven, healed, delivered, preserved, and made the beneficiaries of all the blessings that Jesus purchased for us on that cross.

What Did Jesus Mean by “The World”?

by Nick Batzig

[Rev. Nicholas T. Batzig is senior pastor of Church Creek Presbyterian in Charleston, S.C.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series and was originally published on August 31, 2018.]

In his excellent little book The Emotions of Jesus, Robert Law offers a passing contemplation about how the Savior would have seen the world through the lens of sinless human experience. He writes: “Though little is directly reported of it in the Gospels, this also belonged to the perfection of our Lord Jesus. No one has ever lived in such a marvelous world as he, to whom ‘the glory in the grass and splendor in the flower’ continually revealed the diviner miracle of a Heavenly Father's munificent love and care.”

If anyone could have sung the words of the hymn “This Is My Father’s World” with a heart full of delight at the manifestation of the glory of God in the intricately created plants, trees, animals, fish, sunsets, oceans, seasons, minerals, gems, rocks, scents, food, and drink, it was the sinless Son of God incarnate. And yet, there was another world that the Savior viewed from the side of sinless humanity. These two worlds collided when the Son of God entered the first world in order to redeem men out of the second. The mystery of the incarnation is that “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” (John 1:10).

As He walked the dusty Palestinian streets, moving ever closer to the cross, Jesus declared the essence of what He had come into the world to do. In addition to coming to atone for the sins of His people—and in addition to conquering the evil one—Jesus came to overcome the world. He made this clear when He said, “Now is the judgment of this world” (John 12:31). Again, as He brought the Upper Room Discourse (John 13–17) to a close, Jesus told His disciples: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Judging and overcoming the world was an essential part of Jesus’ work on the cross.

Of course, in order to rightly understand the nature of Jesus’ victory over the world, we have to come to a right understanding of His use of the word “world” in these two places in John’s gospel. Jesus surely did not have creation per se in mind. Though it is subjected to futility on account of the sin of man (Rom. 8:20), there is nothing inherently evil about creation. It couldn’t be that Jesus was frowning on the world that He had created together with His Father and the Holy Spirit. It must have been another “world” altogether.

The Apostle John spelled out what Jesus had in mind when he described the world of which Jesus spoke: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15–17). It is the world under the sway of the evil one to which Jesus referred when He spoke of overcoming it. He had come to conquer the prince of the power of the air—the (little r) ruler of this world—and to overthrow the dreadful results of the rebellion into which the evil one had led mankind. One writer captured so well what Scripture has in mind when it speaks of this fallen world:

It is the world with its power and might, its knowledge and wisdom, its commerce and industry, its culture and civilization, without God and in opposition to Him; the world with its pride and self-exaltation, its trust in man and in the power and wisdom of man, its hatred for God and of one another, its covetousness and lust for power, and for the glory of man; the world with its lust of the flesh, its idolatry and adultery, its profanity and deceit, its striving after pleasures and treasures, its . . . vanities; the world, too, with its strife and debate, its unrest and revolutions, its wars and destruction.[1]

Just as Jesus came to conquer the sin of His people and the stronghold of the evil one, He came to overcome this present evil world by His death on the cross. But, how could He say that the judgment of the world had already come when He was on the earth? After all, Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of the world.” The answer is found in the already/not-yet of His finished work on the cross. In the death of Jesus, the world was put on trial. When the Son of God was being condemned before human judges, the Judge of all the earth was condemning this fallen, evil world. When He hung on the cross, the Son of God was tearing away the facade of goodness with which the world masks its idolatry, pride, foolishness, self-righteousness, and lawlessness. When we see Christ crucified, we see the world as it really is—in all of its rebellion and deceit. There is a day coming in which the verdict, which was rendered at the cross, will be fully and openly manifested. In that day, all of the world’s deceit and hypocrisy, falsehood and wickedness will be laid bare and viewed in light of the righteous judgment of the Son of God.

The implications are enormous for those who have been united to Christ by faith alone. In the first place, the believer must learn to live his or her Christian life in light of the relationship that he or she now sustains to the overcome world. At the end of the letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul made that glorious declaration about the result of the death of Jesus in regard to his relation to the world: “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). The great Scottish pastor William Still explained:

We like to think of the double crucifixion, envisaged here, in theatrical terms. There stand the world, and there stand I, and between us stands the cross. Viewed from the world’s side I am crossed out, because branded with that hateful cross the world has no time for me. Viewed from my side the world is crossed out, for through my faith in Christ’s death I have also died to the world; so that I and the world are agreed on one thing, and one only; that through Christ we have equally and mutually no time for each other.

In the second place, there is a promise to believers that no matter how much the world may persecute, oppose, oppress, scoff at, and deride them, Christ is the victorious King and Savior of those He chose out of the world and for whom He gave Himself on the cross. The victory is already won. There is nothing that the world can do in all of its persecuting malice to separate the believer from the love of God in Christ. This is the reason why the Apostle cried out, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39). In the world, believers will most certainly have tribulation. “But,” Jesus says, “take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

In the third place, there is a cosmic implication to Christ’s victory over the world. Jesus has conquered this fallen world and secured a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. This does not mean that Jesus is going to scrap this present world and create one that is altogether new. It does mean, however, that because of what Christ has accomplished at the cross, God will purify this present world of all of its evil, pollution, and corruption and bring something new and righteously beautiful out of what was old and corrupt. In our next article, we will look in more detail at this dimension of the cross.

Notes

1. Herman Hoeksema, The Amazing Cross (Jenison, Mich.: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2018), 10–11.