Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Matthew

  • Comfort That Changes the Mourner

    Comfort That Changes the Mourner

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Matthew 2:13-23” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 18, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Jeremiah 31:15’s weeping Rachel belongs to the larger story of Israel’s exile, and the comfort of Jeremiah 31 requires God to change Rachel herself. In his flight into Egypt, Christ enters that same exile on his people’s behalf. Comfort on these terms goes far deeper than a change of circumstances.

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    Sermon transcript

    We begin our scripture reading this morning in Jeremiah chapter 31, and we are beginning in verse 1. Give your attention to the reading of God’s holy words. At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee.

    Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O Virgin of Israel. Thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria. The planters shall plant and shall eat them as common things.

    For there shall be a day that the watchman upon the Mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God. For thus saith the Lord, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations, Publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel.

    Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together. A great company shall return thither, and they shall come with weeping and with supplications will I lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble. For I am the Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

    Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattereth Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the Virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together, for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. and I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord.”

    Thus saith the Lord. A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not. Thus says the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears. For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.”

    And then turning over to Matthew chapter 2, verse 16. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wrath, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Ramah was there a voice heard lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they are not. Pretty.

    Our God, we are in great need of the means of grace. And Father, we have gathered here today in order that we might be blessed of you in keeping with those means. Hear us, O God, that your word would prove effectual for us. We know, O Lord, that it does not return to you void. We pray our Father with all earnestness that he would have its full effect in our lives. Bless us, O God, as we increasingly understand that our life is not only by your word, but in it. This we pray through Jesus Christ, our Savior, who is exalted at your right hand. Amen. Now undoubtedly, we know a great deal about the Exodus. But how much do we know about the Exile?

    In the former event, the exodus, Israel as a nation was born. In the latter event, the exile, Israel as a nation was destroyed. The exile began about 700 years after the exodus, when in the year 721 B.C. Sardan of Assyria overran the territory of the ten northern tribes of Israel, destroying their capital city, Samaria, taking their chief population into captivity and resettling the land with non-Jewish aliens.

    To the south, prophets such as Isaiah and Micah warned that a similar fate awaited the remaining two tribes of Benjamin and Judah, together with their capital city, Jerusalem, if there was no true devotion to the Lord, no true desire to follow Him. The end finally came in the year 586 B.C., some place it a year earlier, at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. who rose to power twenty years previously because of his great victory at Karchemish over Niko, the ambitious pharaoh of Egypt. In a very short time, Nebuchadnezzar took over Syria and the former territory of the ten northern tribes. He then forced Judah as the remaining sovereign kingdom of the Jews was called, to become a client state to the Babylonian Empire. Shortly after Nebuchadnezzar’s subjugation of Judah, some temple furniture was taken off into Babylon, and then a number of officials and high-born Jews, including Daniel, were also taken off to Babylon.

    A few years later, in the year 597, Nebuchadnezzar returned to Jerusalem to crush a revolt. This time he carried off the king, Jehoiachin, with many others, including Ezekiel. Jehoiachin’s uncle was placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar so that he became a puppet governor.

    Zedekiah was a very weak man who was himself ruled by a particularly zealous nationalist war party from within the state. This war party advised Zedekiah to revolt against Babylon. There was a prophet speaking at this time, Jeremiah by name. He counseled the king against this alliance of court prophets, elders, and priests. and against their advice to revolt against Babylon and to turn to Egypt in order to find support and help there. In 588, Zedekiah took the bait offered him by his counselors, and Nebuchadnezzar was on the march.

    In two short years, Nebuchadnezzar had crushed the Egyptians, the hope of Judah. He had destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and he had totally humiliated Zedekiah by executing his sons. And then, immediately after having done that, he put out Zedekiah’s eyes so that the last thing that he saw was the death of his children. Blind Zedekiah and many of Judea’s dignitaries, together with the strength of Judah’s population, were carried off then into captivity. It was the end. Total devastation. It was as if death had come in its complete and utter finality. Jeremiah had foreseen the devastation. He spoke of it this way in his ninth chapter.

    For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we ruined? We are put to great shame, for we have left the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. Now hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor adore. For death has come up through our windows. It has entered our palaces to cut off children from the streets, the young men from the town squares. Speak, thus declares the Lord. The corpses of the men fall like dung upon the open field and like the sheave after the reaper. But no one will gather.

    Relating Jeremiah’s words from his ninth chapter here, referring to the exile, to what we know about the Exodus, and say a text like Exodus 15, I dare say that while Israel’s joy had never been greater than it was at the Red Sea. Her distress and abject depression had never been greater than it was at the Exile. At the Exodus, the joy was that of birth into liberty and into triumph. at the exile, the distress was that of death in confirmation of futility and hopelessness. Read Jeremiah in its entirety, but particularly read his book Lamentations to catch the sense of overwhelming devastation registering upon the souls of these Jews at this time.

    It is as if they are no longer alive. It is as if they are but shades condemned to wander among the rubble. At every turn, Wherever they may look, they are compelled to gaze upon the end of their people, the end of their nation, the end of the Davidic dynasty, the ruination of their inheritance. The uselessness, now in their own minds, of that which they had undergirding them previously, the uselessness of the law, and the evaporation of all the promises of God. It was as if it was all lost. They were as good as dead, and for all intents and purposes, the promises of God were dead as well.

    Now, no passage quite captures the mood of this dismal setting like Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 15. No passage quite captures the mood or so succinctly states the case. Thus says the Lord, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.”

    Here, the writer himself summarizes the impact of the Babylonian invasion and the subsequent exile. as it registers upon the consciousness of the inhabitants of the land. They are as a single person. They are as a woman, says the Lord, who is bereft of her children. From the center of the land, that is from Ramah, in the territory of Benjamin, her voice goes up in the most extreme bereavement. in the most extreme bereavement. She is like Rachel, whose weeping and lamentation were heard so many centuries previously. She mourns, Israel mourns, as a woman facing total loss. Total loss!

    Whereas the historical Rachel wept for herself, because as death approached, it was now clear to her that she was about to lose the world for which she had lived. Here in Jeremiah, Rachel is portrayed as weeping for her children, because as death overtakes them, it is clear to her she is about to lose those by whom she might yet have access to the world and its dominion. In the earlier case, in Genesis 35, the historical Rachel weeps for herself because in her death she now knows she is about to lose the world for which she has lived. In Jeremiah, Rachel is portrayed as weeping for her children Because as death overtakes those children, it is clear to this Rachel that she is about to lose those by whom she might yet have possession of the world.

    And in either case, the refrain can be played and stated, she refuses to be comforted. She refuses to be comforted. This refusal on her part is the indictment of her. In Genesis, the historical Rachel refuses to be comforted and she dies defiantly. In her death, with her last breath, she names the child that has been the cause of her death, Benanni, a name that means son of my sorrow. In this, the naming of this child She seeks to memorialize herself and her great grief in her death so that the child that lives will speak of her, her great disappointment and her severe depression. son of my soul.” In the Jeremiah text, there is no means for her to memorialize herself, you see, because all of her children are dead. There is no one to name. They are no more, the text says. But neither is there any way for her aspirations for a place in this world to be maintained. Such hopes have been completely dashed.

    Therefore, she—afresh, as it were—refuses to be comforted, not just because of the natural consequence of great grief, such grief, so to speak, as we might expect from any grieving mother. Rather, her refusal is a statement. It is a protest. It is a resolute, determined, and deliberate protest. Her mourning, her continued lamentation then, becomes a memorial for her because she has not been given what she wanted. In fact, because the means for securing for her what she wanted has been taken away from her. Therefore, she will not—she is determined not to be—competent.

    She refuses comfort. In this picture, then, her perpetual grief is as deep and complete as her hopelessness. So strong is her refusal of comfort that left to herself not even news of revival. Not even news of restoration, not even news of resurrection, new life and new covenant can cheer her. Her grief is because she has lost what she wants, and she has lost all hope of getting it.

    And as she, left to herself, considers the work of God, the work of God brings only what she doesn’t want, and grants to her a hope for that in which she has no interest ultimately. The situation, therefore, is utterly and completely desperate, both from Rachel’s side, and from the side of faith and righteousness, except God himself. Look, Rachel refuses to be comforted, therefore the only way that she can be comforted is if God changes her. and makes her something different than from what she is. It is therefore necessary for Rachel to be changed. It will not do for her to consider change within herself. She cannot change herself. She doesn’t want to be changed. She has no interest in being changed.

    She mourns, she laments, that is her life. She protests, that is her existence. That defines her. That is what supplies content to her character and personality. If she is to be comforted With the comfort that God is able to give, she must be transformed. She must be changed. She must be enabled to receive comfort. She must be enabled to delight in the works and in the person of God. Scripture, all of Scripture, is Calvinist. Isn’t it obvious?

    She doesn’t want to be comforted. The only way she will be comforted properly is if she is changed. She must be changed. She must die. That she might be born again. The great promise of God is that he does not leave the Rachel of his people in this condition. The great wonder of Jeremiah chapter thirty one overwhelming testimony is to defend. He does not leave her in this situation. He will change.

    With her transformation, her tears will be dried, and lament will be chased from her. In her transformation, her hopes will be more perfectly aimed and honed. And in her transformation, she shall not only witness her own resurrection, but the resurrection of her dead children. and that for purposes not hers, but God’s.

    In Genesis, the transformation and the revival of hope is seen in the child that was the cause of Rachel’s death. The dying Rachel has named that child Benani, son of Mysoros. Jacob then comes and renames the child. He calls the child Benjamin, son of my right hand. A name, regardless of what it may indicate concerning Jacob’s intention to memorialize his own strength, speaks far-reachingly of the messianic expectation and that one who is truly the son of the right hand, the Lord Jesus himself, the embodiment of all hope. There will be purification for Jacob in all of this as well.

    But now here in Jeremiah, the transformation and the revival of hope is not seen merely in the children who are promised resurrection and restoration, but in the woman herself. The exile is a severe—one can’t imagine anything more severe. The exile is a severe and bitter discipline. by which the woman, Israel herself, is brought to her end, to death itself, in order that she, by the power of God, might rejoice in Him alone, who has the power to raise the dead and to transform hell-bound sinners. Our God will teach these lessons not just in parables, not just in aphorisms, not just in moral maxims, but in the concrete realities of history as they push in upon us. History is what God does to us. It forces us against our wills. And as it is the truth concerning his providence, it makes of us what we aren’t.

    The exile, therefore, the end of Israel, as we see here, is actually according to the grace of God, the beginning, in which by the power of God, Israel is reborn, refined, and redefined, having been transformed out of the old life and brought sovereignly into the new life.

    But as you know, the historical exile will not reach its full fulfillment. until the coming of Jesus Christ, who for the sake of his people has thoroughly been identified with them, and in his life is driven into exile, and with the slain children of Bethlehem, becomes as a child that is no more he taking their condition to himself only to be preserved by the power of God and raised up by his father. Neither will the exile reach its full fulfillment until Jesus Christ is clearly set forth as the purpose of the exile. Until it is clear that the exile was about Jesus, not just about Jews in Palestine. The one for whose sake Israel is brought low in order that she might be exalted according to the truth of God’s eternal kingdom. And in that day, when the exile reaches its full fulfillment, It will be Christ’s cross and resurrection that shine forth as the means of the transformation of God’s people.

    Even the means for the bestowal of an eternal comfort upon those who, like Israel, when left to themselves, are determined to grieve bitterly over the loss of things they had held so dear. That cross and that resurrection, as well as the exile that leads up to them, and even the slaughtered children of Bethlehem, together with their grieving mothers, continue to be instructed to us, lest we forget God’s great power to save and His everlasting love.

    How much history, O God, is necessary to teach us not to hold on to the world, lest in having the world we lose our souls? To what lengths, O God, will you go in order to teach us that we must lose our lives in this world that they might be gained for you in eternity. Father, the exile is calculated in the councils of eternity to teach this lesson, which will be spelled out in full when your son, the very Word of God, comes to this world and makes it plain. And Father, he having made it plain, may we not remain fools. Father, we plead your mercy that we would not lament things we cherish, but delight in things you give. We pray this through Christ. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Rachel’s Weeping, True Hope

    Rachel’s Weeping, True Hope

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Matthew 2:13-23” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 11, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Rachel’s history, including a greed the Old Testament does not hide, stands behind the weeping Matthew quotes from Jeremiah 31 at the slaughter of the innocents. That weeping differs from false hope, which expects circumstances to change. Real hope rests on God’s sovereignty, whatever happens in view.

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    Sermon transcript

    Jeremiah 31, verse 15, give your attention to God’s holy word. Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears. For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.”

    I have surely heard Ephraim demoting himself thus. Thou hast chastened me, and I was chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh, I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.

    Set thee up, waymarks. Make thee high heaps. Set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou rentest. Turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again. to these thy cities. How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth. A woman shall compass a man. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, as yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity. The Lord shall bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness. And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof, together husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks.

    And I, for I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” And then turning over to Matthew’s Gospel, the second chapter. Reading from verse sixteen, Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wrath, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

    Let’s pray together. Today, O God, your word is proclaimed throughout the world, and Lord, all of us have a participation in that proclamation if it is brought by our gift and by our prayers. But Father, we would sanctify even these by our prayer, that Lord, you would prosper your word, that it would prove most helpful to your people, and quite convicting to those who would be drawn into the assembly of your church. Lord, even here, may you look upon us and may you hear our prayers and answer in your mercy for Christ’s sake. Amen. Rachel is truly one of the great figures of all literature. Not just biblical literature, but all literature. Here is a woman well worth studying.

    We meet her first in Genesis chapter 29, She is introduced to us as the daughter of Laban, Laban himself being the grandson of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. Jacob, you will recall, is the son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, and he has journeyed north from the territory of Canaan in order to escape the murderous wrath of his brother Esau.

    In the territory of Padan-Haram, Jacob meets Rachel, she the younger of Laban’s two daughters. He meets her at a well where she regularly brings her father’s sheep in order to water them. Jacob falls in love with Rachel. whom we are told in the Bible who is exquisite in form and beautiful in appearance.

    Jacob, as the story goes, promises Laban seven years of hard work for the privilege of Rachel’s hand in marriage, only to be tricked outwitted by Laban, and given the older daughter, Leah, whom Laban contends must be married off first because it is the custom of the territory in which he lives.

    Thus we have one of those marvelously crafted understatements from Scripture. And it came to pass that in the morning, behold, it was Leah. But Jacob wanted the beautiful Rachel, not the weak-eyed Leah as she is described in Scripture. So for the price of seven more years of labor, Rachel is also given to Jacob.

    Rachel was to Jacob his well-loved wife, while Leah is the spurned. But as unloved as Leah was to Jacob, she is well-loved by God, who in Seeing in her his people, the rejected and the despised, took pity upon her and granted to her many children. Meanwhile, Rachel is barren. And as a consequence, she lashes out against Jacob as against God. because as yet she has not had a child generated in her womb.

    Subsequently, Rachel gives to Jacob her maid, Bilhah, so that she might gain children through this maid. And it is from this point that Rachel becomes the most intriguing and most complex figure, truly one of the most instructive figures in all of the Bible. She will name the children gained to her through her maid, Bilhah, in ways that memorialize her struggle with her sister.

    The firstborn is Dan. His name means judged. This name, then, as the child himself, a monument in Rachel’s eyes to God’s vindication of her over against her sister, Naptali, the secondborn. bears a name that is related to the Hebrew word for wrestling, of all things. And this name is chosen by Rachel because, as she says, I have wrestled with my sister and I have prevailed. shows herself a woman who lives for the advantage.

    Who, because of her incessant drive to best others, to gain the advantage over her sister, who, because of her intense competitive interest, never knows any real peace, let alone any sense of lasting satisfaction. Even when the Lord finally grants to her children from her own body, she continues to express an underlying bitterness. Not even children of her own, from her own body, are enough for her.

    Her firstborn is named Joseph. His name means addition. You may be thinking that here is an appropriate name for this child because God has now added to her. Oh no, oh no. She chooses that name because it serves as something of a prayer, a profane prayer, a prayer that God would add to her yet another child.

    But Rachel’s drive for the advantage, for the position of prominence, for a position of power, is not reserved for her battles with her sister. It also includes her struggles with her father and with her brothers. When Jacob finally makes a break for it, When he finally escapes from his uncle’s house and leaves the territory of Pat-An-Aram, you may recall from the texts in Genesis that Rachel steals her father’s household gods.

    Now, you might be a bit mystified by that action. It may not register on you exactly what the significance of that action is. Where would it be that Rachel would steal her father’s household gongs? You may think, well, maybe she hoped to sell them. Maybe they had value as trinkets. Maybe they were collectibles. But there are many reasons why she steals the household gods. First of all, she had not really forsaken them.

    And as the Israelites later carried Egyptian religion with them out of Egypt, and even used the pattern of Egyptian gods for the golden cap that they had made at Sinai, So Rachel now carries her father’s gobs with her. And in this, you see, Rachel stands in direct contrast to another figure that appears later in the story of salvation, the figure of Ruth, who forsakes totally the pagan gods of Moab for the true and living God of Israel. But there’s another reason why Rachel steals her father’s gods, because they are passport for her, in some sense, back home. It is as if these gods are a security for her in the event that things don’t work out in the territory to which she is going, in Canaan. or even better, these gods represent her attachment to the properties of her father, those that she has just left. They are representative of her inability to leave the old life behind and cling to the new, an inability to cling to the god of her husband and entrust herself to that God as she makes her way out of that world of which she has been a part. Just as the Israelites will look longingly back towards Egypt after they have been delivered by God, Rachel will hedge her bets and keep her options open. Thirdly, and most significantly, Rachel steals her father’s gods because in ancient societies such as the one in which she lived, whoever controlled the household gods controlled the inheritance.

    They had the final say. And that is why Laban, her father, is so desperate to retrieve those gods. Rachel, therefore, carries with her the supreme prize, the mark of her dominance, the testimony to her victory. and her claim upon the world and its wealth. By stealing those gods, she holds on to life in this world and inheritance in it. That is the object of her life.

    Later, Jacob would bury those household gods under an oak tree in Shechem, in the territory and thereby declare that he would seek no imperatence mediated by such gods, nor would he seek any wealth among Rachel’s people. Whatever advantage Rachel hoped to gain is now lost. The gods are buried, they are gone. The satisfaction she should have found in the true God and in his provision for her, she cannot and will not enjoy. In the end, seeking to save her life in and for this world, she loses it. She was not content with God, or with her husband’s love, or with the child that had been given to her, Joseph. She demands more. She is always demanding more. She wants it all.

    But her extreme anguish in the end, as she is giving birth to a second child, is more than she experienced in the pangs of childhood. to be sure that second child, who would be called finally by Jacob, Benjamin, would be literally the death of her. That child, Benjamin, would memorialize her sorrow as she, in her last moments, weeps to the realization that all her efforts to gain the advantage, to have the prominence and the power, have been worthless and empty. She dies weeping, unable to be comforted, unable to be consoled. She has lived for the advantage in the world Now she is leaving that world in which she has sought to gain the advantage. And what has been the use of it all? Just as she had left Tad-An-Aram with Jacob, now she leaves this world, the only arena in which she has placed her confidence and her hope. She died, we are told, in Ephra, or Ephratah, another name for the town of Bethlehem.

    The prophet Jeremiah resurrects the image of weeping That image appears as we now know because of our reading this morning in Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 15. But you will notice that Jeremiah here, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, does a very interesting thing with the image of weeping Rachel. He inverts it. That is, he turns it inside out. In the Genesis story, Rachel died, but her children lived on. But in Jeremiah, Rachel’s children die, but she, as it were, lives on. In the Genesis story, Rachel dies, but the children live. In Jeremiah, the children die, but Rachel lives.

    Now, what is the meaning of this inversion? Well, you will note that in either case, the constant is the weeping Rachel. The key to the inversion is found in the weeping, and the reason for the weeping. In the Genesis account, as we’ve already seen, Rachel’s tears fall because of the great sense of futility and hopelessness that has overcome her personally. She, in her death, is leaving the world for which she lived. Thus, she weeps.

    But the Prophet’s point is that even weeping like this, as severe and distressing as it is, is not enough. You see, Rachel’s weeping in Genesis, particularly the text Genesis 35, is not desperate enough only to be sure it is tragic and it is indicting of her in her sin. Only it is not tragic and indicting enough. For though Rachel dies, her children live.

    And because that is the case, it is possible for there to linger a possibility of hope. Now, you’re really confused, aren’t you? Because it sounds as if I’m preaching a message of hopelessness, and that is exactly what I am doing presently. We will not end there, but it is imperative that you see that in order to get to the conclusion.

    That is what God is doing in the story of Rachel. He is taking hope away from you. Jeremiah will accent that. He will play the story out in reverse, in order that the situation may appear to be utterly and completely hopeless. And there is reason for that. Jeremiah, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, resurrects the figure of Rachel in order to slay hope.

    Consider it. If Rachel thinks for a moment, and from that moment gives birth to an entire philosophy of life, that her children can be those in whom and by whom a hope persists, for gaining not only the advantage in this world, but the world itself, then it is not enough that she die hopeless. It must go on. Her children, in whom she would place her hope, must die as well. God knows that she And the people of God must be stripped of all such hope, because in her and in their sin, they will always come up with the wrong hope.

    The right hope cannot be an ambition for a place of dominion and power in this world. It cannot be an ambition for the children that we generate, coming to a place of dominion and power and authority. in this world. Such hope is always misdirected. It is flatly and plainly sinful. To boot, it is based upon human strength, the confidence in that strength and power, and it is born of human pride. The only right hope is God himself for his own sake. a hope that is resting in him, a hope that is true and powerful and living because of him, a hope that is real because it is based upon his power, strength, and majesty.

    Jeremiah, the prophet, writes during the time of the exile, Israel has come to the end of its life, much like Rachel came to the end of her life. This picture of the weeping Rachel deals with the complete hopelessness of the situation that Israel faces. As Rachel, through and in her sin, goes down into death in the account of Genesis, So Israel now, through and in its sin, goes down into death in the exile.

    The only hope is in the God who raises the dead. You see what the Lord is doing in the course of the Old Testament. He is forcing you to the conclusion that the only hope is a God who can raise the dead. That’s it. And thus it is. As every Calvinist knows, only God can save. Nothing in me, not my boast, not my strength, not my confidence, not even what hope I may generate from within myself. It will not do. It is all tainted by sin. In the end, I cannot accomplish it.

    God must do it. And the wonderful truth is that He is pleased to do it. Only He can say, only he can raise the dead. He has to place us in a hopeless position in order to demonstrate his power, as well as his mercy and his love. That’s the way it is, even after The Jews come back from Babylon, you remember? And what is liable to Jewish consciousness now? We went into exile, we survived that, we’re back in the land, we’re populating it again, we’re thriving and increasing. God must now rob them of the boast that has come to them through the restoration from the exile. And thus, Bethlehem, we go back to Bethlehem.

    He may be greatly offended by the execution of the children in Bethlehem. You must come to terms with that in your religious life. If you don’t, you are going to end up short of the God of the Bible. You must bow before him, not he before you. But now we’re back to Bethlehem. And even what hope there may have been for Israel on the backside of the exile is being taken away from them. And the only hope is the child whom God preserves baby Jesus and in him your life will be found in the end God will raise him from the dead, and here will be the focus of all true and lasting hope. Is he not the source and substance of your hope this morning?

    I pray so. Oh God, left to ourselves, we will construct a hope that is after our own liking. But Lord, how wonderful you are to rob us of that hope which we have made, that we might in fact delight in the hope that you supply. Father, teach us the truth about ourselves, about those we meet in the Bible, about the events, even the shocking events that confront us there. that we, in our confession of the truth, might be found to be your children indeed. And having lost, Lord, a false hope, even, Lord, forsaking this world, may we know that we have been given the hope of glory in Jesus Christ, a child who stands so conspicuously in the verses of Matthew 2, as that one preserved of you, enduring even through death unto resurrection, that our confidence and faith may be full in him. Hear us, Father, for Jesus’ sake, in our pilgrimage unto the end to which we press, even the resurrection from the dead. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Herod, Pharaoh, and Two Deliverances

    Herod, Pharaoh, and Two Deliverances

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Matthew 2:13-23” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 21, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Every passage in the Bible is finally about Christ, this review insists, and Matthew’s Herod is deliberately read as a new Pharaoh, opposing a new Moses. The deliverances of Moses and of Christ are set side by side here as a single, continuous act of God rather than as two loosely related events. Galatians 4 supplies Paul’s own theological reading of exactly this pattern.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we begin our reading of the scripture in Galatians chapter 4, and we are beginning with verse 21. Give your attention to God’s holy word. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free But he who was of the bombed woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.

    Which things are an allegory? For these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai. in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

    For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry thou that for the desolate hath many more children than she that hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the scripture? Cast out the bombed woman and her son. for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.”

    At verse 13, Matthew 2, verse 13, And when the wise men were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Rise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word. For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night. and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

    Lord, your word has come out of heaven, we believe this. And Lord, it has meant life to us and it has meant provision. And Father, as you teach our hearts, we are convicted that our desire must be for the benefit of this word to your people throughout the world, even as you call your own by that word this day. Father, may we hear of the mighty workings of your word as the word itself increases in its power and effectiveness for the gathering of the elect to the ends of the earth.

    We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. We have been spending our time of late in these morning messages, considering the very fundamental question, how might we better hear, read, and study our Bibles? And in these messages, we have been using Matthew 2, verses 13 through 23, as a text to help us along our way. Last week, I concluded the message by suggesting to you that when you consider a passage in Scripture, that you let your mind go.

    I call this the open-mind principle. Now, of course, my comment about letting your mind go was a bit of an overstatement. It was hyperbolic. In letting your mind go the way I have in mind, I certainly do not mean letting your mind go beyond the clear limits of the story of salvation which the Bible presents to us. I certainly do not mean letting your mind go beyond the tried and true positions of our precious Reformed faith that have been thoroughly tested by the Word of God. Letting your mind go improperly is the fast track into a cult. At the same time, I am very serious when I say that I want you to let your minds go when you hear, read and study your Bibles. I want you to be alert, as you let your mind go, to the possibilities of the text.

    Matthew 2, verses 13 through 23, is a very opportune test for helping us see the possibilities in Scripture passages. Let me remind you of some of the possibilities we have picked up on. You will recall my treatment of the prophecies that are cited here by Matthew as we make our way through this text. You see them once more, verses 15, 18, and 23. And you will recall what observations we made of the proclamation of those prophecies set forth there. We observe in them a pattern, while when we consider them, it seems as if they move deliberately in a chronological fashion. They move deliberately, chronologically, through the important events of Israel’s past history.

    Thus, verse 15, and the citation of prophecy there, the Exodus. Verse 18, and Matthew’s citation of Jeremiah at that point, the Exodus. And verse 23, although we cannot find a specific Old Testament text that has these words in it, nevertheless, this citation by Matthew serves as a cumulative assembly of prophecies indicating reference to the time of restoration in the preservation of a remnant in the righteous branch. promised by God. Now, in giving explanation to Matthew’s use of these Old Testament texts, we call attention to the gospel truth, that the Lord’s Christ, the Lord’s Messiah, was given over to a thorough identification with his people’s prior history, living through it as it were with them.

    You see how that worked out. All of these events are now being applied to the Christ, and it says, By looking at the life of the Christ, we see a recapitulation of the life of Israel in its prior history. The Christ giving himself over to an identification with his people actually living through that history in his person. The lesson we took from this was this.

    Just as Jesus in his early life, his infant life, was identified with the people of God in their infant life, so in his later life he would be identified with us, his Church, to the full extent of our existence. In other words, there is no circumstance which we as Christ’s Church face, that Christ does not face with us. Even more, there is no part of our history that Christ has not taken to himself. Before we live it, Christ has experienced it.

    He’s already been there. He’s already done that. This, of course, is what makes ours THE religion of grace. Before you lift your little finger religiously, Christ has already been there and done it. You merely enter into his accomplishment, which is complete and lacks nothing. As the Apostle Paul can so emphatically declare, Christ is all and in all.

    Now just how much this is the case was suggested to us by our consideration, you may recall, of the dreaming Joseph in Matthew 2. The dreaming Joseph of Matthew 2, now along the lines of the principle of the open mind, along the lines of letting your mind go, made us think about another dreaming Joseph. Joseph from the book of Genesis.

    And when we compared and contrasted the story of these two Josephs, we realized that neither of them was the main character in the story in which they appeared. The main character was the child, the seed of promise. who now appears so prominently in the Matthew story. He is actually the main character in both stories.

    But do you see what this means? Do you see how such a consideration deepens our understanding of what is going on in what Matthew writes, particularly as he quotes those Old Testament prophecies in verses 15, 18, and 23. These Old Testament prophecies beautifully summarize Israel’s past history and powerfully preach to us the love of God as Jesus is identified with his people, but they also declare that the events that transpired in Israel’s past history are actually about Jesus Christ. Look once more at verse 15, and the quotation here that Matthew makes of the prophecy of Hosea, chapter 11, verse 1. You may even want to check out that text in the Old Testament.

    You will find that it reads this way, “‘When Israel was a youth, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.’” This statement, as we have already pointed out, refers, does it not, to the exodus from Egypt under Moses. But connect this with what we have said now about the two Josephs. particularly to what we have said about the Old Testament Joseph from the book of Genesis.

    If his story is about not himself, but Jesus Christ, then the story of the Exodus is not ultimately about the Israelites or about their leader Moses. Rather, it is a story about Jesus Christ. That is its intention. So when Hosea writes, out of Egypt I have called my son, even though he has specifically in mind the exodus from Egypt under Moses, he is truly writing about Jesus Christ and the salvation that would be accomplished in there. is about Jesus. You might also note how Jesus himself, a mature man now, teaching in Jerusalem, plays upon this reality so beautifully when he argues with the Jews. I direct your attention to John’s Gospel, the forty-sixth verse.

    Here, Jesus says to the Jews, who are refuting him, who are disputing with him, here he says to them, if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. Now, you might think to yourself, well sure, Moses wrote a few passages that are about Jesus. That’s not what he has in mind when he makes that statement to the Jews. He is saying that the entirety of the Torah is about him, that everything that Moses wrote was about him.

    And of course we can make the same statements about the other quotations. that Matthew cites in that Matthew 2 passage. Indeed, the exile, the restoration through the remnant are about Jesus Christ as well. And again, to confirm this from the lips of Jesus himself, once more in John 5, Jesus will make this comprehensive and sweeping claim. Verse 39 of that fifth chapter in John, Jesus says this to his Jewish distractors.

    You search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life. It is these that testify of me. All scripture is about Jesus Christ. Every story, every prophecy, every piece of teaching and wisdom, every biblical hymn or psalm must finally be related to Jesus Christ if you are to appreciate it fully and properly. That, my friends, is the passion of this pulpit.

    Now the reason why you are disinterested here this morning, and a million miles away, is a condition that you have to scrutinize very carefully. The death of Alan Yeager is very real to me right now. I do not want to be orating at your funeral with a suspicion that you never did understand.

    But now, looking again, at Matthew 2, verses 13-24. And this once more, in terms of the open mind that I have been preaching to you, that is, in terms of this principle of letting your mind go properly when you approach your Bibles. Let us focus on the figure of Herod. Now, before we get into this, let me warn you. You think that river out there is deep. We are all about to go in over our heads. So hold on. I’m confident we can come through, but I’m just warning you at the outset. Let’s consider the figure of Herod.

    Of whom does he remind you? Think about it. Let your mind go. Of whom does he remind you? In verse 13, the angel tells Joseph that Herod will search for the child to destroy them. In verse 16, Matthew relates Herod’s rage at the betrayal of the wise men, so that now he sends his henchmen to Bethlehem to slay the male babies. Again, I ask you, of whom does Herod remind you? Let your mind go. Does he not remind you of Pharaoh? Does not Exodus 1 come to your mind? You remember that opening chapter in Exodus, the story of Pharaoh’s edict.

    The male children of the Hebrew slaves were to be executed. In fact, they were. In that story, a child was rescued who would prove to be a savior to his people. In the story in Matthew 2, the same line is followed, is it not? And to what end? Is it not to tell you that in the story about the rescued child of Matthew 2, a new exodus for the people of God is unfolding? Even the ultimate, the final exodus, the exodus about which even the first exodus was about. Do you not see in the rescued child of Matthew 2 a Savior of whom Moses was but a faint glimpse, this Savior being God’s unique and very own Son? But you must also observe the difference between the opening chapter of Exodus and Matthew 2. the pharaoh of Matthew 2 does not live in Egypt. He lives in Israel. Now we’re getting to it. And the deliverance in Matthew 2 doesn’t come by leaving Egypt for Israel, but by leaving Israel for Egypt. What’s the point? The point is this.

    Although the people of Israel had escaped the bondage of Egypt and entered the promised land, they are in bondage still, and subject to a cruel taskmaster. The people of God, despite the past exodus and liberation, despite now their dwelling within the promised land, are in need of a liberation, a further liberation. In the old exodus, God’s people must escape bondage and be brought to the land of Israel by way of Sinai and by way of the giving of the law. In the new exodus, they must be freed from the land of Israel, where the law itself, because of their sin, has become bondage to them. And they must be brought into the liberty of the sons of God by the Son of God Himself, who is caused to fulfill their life by reliving their history with them and for them.

    The Apostle Paul in Galatians 4—if the waters aren’t deep enough yet for you—the Apostle Paul in Galatians 4 builds upon this truth. For here, in this fourth chapter of Galatians, he relates being under the tyranny of Pharaoh with being under the law. And in verse 25, he connects slavery to the Egyptian Hagar. to Mount Sinai, to the law, and to the city of Jerusalem, and says that those who want to live under the law are giving themselves over to bondage.

    Paul, therefore, equates Jerusalem and the land of Israel with Egypt. Jerusalem and Israel become the Egypt. from which the people of God themselves must be delivered. John, the apostle, in his great book, the Revelation, chapter 11, verse 8, does the same thing that Paul did in Galatians 4. In describing the place of death for the two Christlike witnesses, John calls the city where the two witnesses were slain that great city, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. But then he goes on to say that this place, Egypt, is the place where the Lord was crucified. In other words, Jerusalem and the land of Israel with it equals Egypt, from which the people now—the people of God—must be delivered.

    They must be delivered from the bondage to land and law, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Matthew, therefore, tells the story. of the Christ child, inspired by the Holy Spirit as he is. In order that we might understand that the real meaning of the exodus, the Old Testament exodus, is found in Jesus and in the redemption accomplished in and through him. That we cannot stop at the land of Palestine or the city of Jerusalem, we cannot stop, even with the provisions of the law. For if we do, they become bondage and oppression to us, just as they did to the Jews of Jesus’ day. The liberation, then, that is being proclaimed for us even in this new exodus, telegraphed for us here as we open our minds to what is transpiring in Matthew 2. The liberation that is being set before us takes us out of the deadly and improper attachment to land and law, whatever that land and law may be. I don’t care if it’s the good old U.S. of A. and the American Constitution. and into the glories of the kingdom of heaven.

    With the principle of the open mind, by letting your mind go, even by faith, worked in you by the Holy Spirit. Despite the fact that you may not see all of this yet, you appreciate it, and you believe it, don’t you? Your hope isn’t a house in the suburbs, Your hope is not living under the legal securities of a nation of this world, or even the legal securities of a religious system. Your hope is heaven and glory. And Christ himself is it not.

    Bless us, O God, that we may not only understand that we are the children of the free woman, and that for freedom we have been set free. But oh father let us understand. That such freedom binds us. To live in keeping. With the kingdom. Of which we have been made apart.

    We pray therefore oh God that we would live wonderfully and powerfully as the children of the King, having been made free through the greater, liberating work of Jesus Christ, our Savior. And Father, we ask that we would do nothing that would contradict that we are in fact the children of God. We pray it in Jesus’ name, Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Two Josephs, One Sovereign God

    Two Josephs, One Sovereign God

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Matthew 2:13-23” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 14, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Matthew deliberately ties Joseph of Nazareth to Joseph of Genesis, both moved by dreams under a sovereign hand, and that link answers liberal theology’s rejection of the supernatural. Biblical-theological preaching traces such connections, and it serves the text better than systematic or moralistic preaching. The two Josephs are no coincidence.

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    Sermon transcript

    We are reading this morning from Matthew 2 once more, and we are beginning at verse 13. This is Matthew 2, verse 13, to give you attention to God’s inspired word. And when the wise men were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

    When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt. and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of a white man, was exceeding wrath and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof. from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And Ramah, was there a voice heard lamentation and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child’s life. And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither. Notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee, and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene.”

    O Lord, send out thy light and thy truth. Let them lead me to thy holy hill. May my pilgrim’s heart gladly receive my gifts meant for me in my journey, and may I receive them as blessings that proceed from thy holy hill, thy truth, thine impeccable faithfulness, thy light, the glory that radiates from thy throne. Now may Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the ones by whom by right and truth have been secured for me and made effectual, minister to my soul in thy word. Amen.

    We have taken the opportunity of our past Christmas messages on Matthew’s story about Jesus’ miraculous birth to engage in some practical exercises in the use and interpretation of our Bibles. The passage we have been working from is the one that we have just read.

    This morning, our first sermon on this text dove directly into this passage’s very difficult use of Old Testament prophecy, use of the difficulty of which was made abundantly clear when we reached verse 23, the last verse in this chapter, and realized that Matthew’s quotation here was seemingly spurious. He was citing a non-existent prophecy. We noted that we could read our Old Testaments and the Prophets from now to the end of our lives, and we would never find that text that says he shall be called a Nazarene.

    But we also notice that the quotations from the prophets Hosea and Jeremiah, in verses 15 and 18 respectively, were actually references to Old Testament events, namely the Exodus and the Exile, and seemed to have no thought in their original context of the distant future events in the history of God’s people, let alone find their fulfillment in the Messiah’s early life. It was here, however, that we were schooled in God’s manner and method of revelation, and we noted the very deliberate chronological progression in Jesus’ early life as set forth here by Matthew, matched as it is by the very deliberate progression in the Old Testament references.

    Those references, then, building up to that twenty-third verse, Verse 15, verse 18, and then verse 23, those references move through the successive stages of Israel’s Old Testament experience. Verse 15, as we have already indicated, reflects upon the exodus out of Egypt, have I called myself. The sun, in Hosea’s prophecy, was Israel. So verse 15, the Exodus, verse 18, the exile, as the children of Rachel are destroyed, particularly now by the invasion from the Babylonians in this some 800 years after the Exodus.

    But then verse 23, the intention here is to call to mind the restoration and the remnant. This statement meant to carry us to the time of the nasir, that is, the sprout or the branch, or the Lord’s righteous branch, the Messiah. The word Nazarene, a play upon the Hebrew word for branch or sprout, remnant within the context of restoration.

    The Holy Spirit’s point in all of this is actually to force you to His true purpose in the text. That is, that you, the faithful of God, the elect of the Lord, the saints and the church of the living Christ, might understand something of the magnitude of divine love. You see, the baby Jesus That is, the Messiah, the Son of God incarnate, is given over in his young life to live through the life of God’s people in its early formative stage. The baby Jesus is given over in his young life to live through the early life, or the formative life, of the people of God. So complete is his identification with them.

    We engaged in a little exercise filled with practical pointers for our own Bible study and reading. At the end of that message, we said a great deal about getting a grip on the overall purpose of a book from the Bible. And I suggested to you that you pay particular attention to the way in which a book in the Bible begins and the way in which it ends. Here in Matthew, we notice the way in which this gospel began and ended on the Emmanuel theme, that is, on the identity of Jesus Christ as Emmanuel, being translated God with us. You can see this emphasis by comparing chapter 1, verse 23, with chapter 28, verse 20. But when we relate this theme of Emmanuel to our passage, Matthew 2, 13-23, the result is overwhelming.

    The Messiah, the Christ, as God with us, so identifies himself with his people that he takes to himself the entirety of their history. even the totality of their past, with all of its anguish, difficulty, and sin. The blazing glory of this is, of course, the fact that Christ, as your Savior, does not only in his young life take to himself the entirety of Israel’s past, but in his mature He takes to himself the entirety of your life.

    Therefore, there is no experience for you, the people of God. There is no crisis through which you must pass, no sin which you must face or to which you have succumbed. and from which you have to be delivered, there is no joy to which you are brought, but that Christ knows it fully. And as God with us in these very things, He, our Christ, sanctifies them to us and secures you by His divine presence. See what manner of love the Father hath bestirred upon us. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, through which you must go, even death itself, in which God in Christ is not with you. Actually, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, through which you must go, in which God in Christ has not already gone through for you. Thus, the comprehensiveness, the completeness, the perfection, the finality of Christ’s life lived on your behalf. Truly, Christ is all in all.

    Now you can see thus far in these messages we have moved from being profound at the start of these messages as we considered the mystery of the prophecies their citations in chapter two, to the simple last week as we gave some pointers as to how we might read our Bibles. Now we are back to the profound, it seems. But before we conclude this morning, I want to move once more back to the simple. I want to return to the list of suggestions I gave last week for Bible reading. One suggestion I had was keeping a notebook close by for the purpose of jotting down patterns and parallels observed, for the purpose of writing down thoughts and even questions you might have about the text.

    This is what you might call the principle of the open mind. Now, by this I do not mean what liberalism has meant by the open mind. To the liberal, the open mind is actually a closed mind. A closed mind against all and any genuine biblical supernaturalism. The closed mind of liberals is consistent, you see, with the closed universe to which they subscribe, a universe closed against the entrance of the God the Bible declares. Open-minded liberals tell us no such God as the Bible declares exists or can exist. It is impossible.

    That’s what commends him to me. Of course, we who believe the Bible to be the divinely inspired self-revelation of God, who stands beyond and apart from his universe, are the ones in the liberal’s estimations with the closed minds. According to the liberals, we, fools that we are, have refused to open our minds to the sovereignty of modern science, the sovereignty of the modern age, and the supreme authority of human reason. In actual fact, it is biblical Christianity over against religious liberalism that has the open mind. that its mind has been opened by the sovereign activity of God through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, that we might, as the psalmist says, be full of wondrous things in thy law.

    But the open mind of the born-again Christian always freely acknowledges, does it not, its limitations. It is never independent of God and His Word. But further, and this is the point to which I have been pressing, it is never independent of the content and the intent of the Word. To put the matter in distinctly Presbyterian and Reformed, even Calvinist terms, The open mind, for us, is never independent of the covenantal structure and organization of God’s holy word. Put another way, it is never independent of the story of salvation, which is, at its essence, what the Bible is. In other words, our open minds are closed up to the Bible’s structure, self-declared structure and chief message, and to the way in which that message is delivered to us in the comprehensive story of salvation.

    Now, here’s with your open minds. Filled with these truths that I want you to dive into the scriptures with pen and notebook at hand. I want you to let your mind go and begin to see and appreciate the incredible wealth and riches in the Bible. Look at our text this morning. Move through this passage, remembering the whole of the Bible’s story of salvation. But the whole of this story of salvation is the field over which our minds may roam as we read and understand what is said. For example, look at verse 13.

    It mentions the dreaming Joseph. There are all kinds of possibilities here, friends. Can you think of another dreaming Joseph in the story of salvation? Of course, the dreaming Joseph of Genesis, the one-time hero with the coat of many colors, the son of Jacob, the dreamer. the boy sold into slavery by his brothers, the one who went down into Egypt.

    Now, we need ask ourselves, is there any connection between that earlier Joseph and this later Joseph? If there is, then we must ask, how are they alike? Then we must ask, how are they different? But most importantly, we must ask, what things might we learn about God and about his story of salvation by studying the relationship between these two Josephs?

    It’s only then that you get the point, that you’re home. For example, is the salvation effected through the first dreaming Joseph in his descent into Egypt, a salvation which was then provided for Jacob and his family? You remember this story. Is this salvation replaced by, displaced by, the salvation effected through the second dreaming Joseph and his descent into Egypt. But even given the comparison between the two scenarios, these two stories, these two dreaming Josephs, even given the comparisons and contrasts between their descents into Egypt, we must further is either one of them the main character in the story in which they are found?

    You want to know why I am biblical theological in my teaching and teaching? You want to know why I will not settle for a mere systematic theological presentation of the truth of God’s Word. You want to know why I am so impassioned by the history of salvation, which, in my judgment, the Bible is. because it is the only route into such wonderful things. I ask you again, is either of the Dreaming Josephs the main character of the stories in which they appear?

    Neither of them is. Instead, the child, the seed of promise, the Christ of God, He is the main character in both stories. And because this is true, don’t you see, Because the child, the seed of promise, the Christ of God, is the main character in each of the stories about the two Josephs. are not truly understood until they set forth and proclaim the unrivaled importance of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, the one who stands center stage in God’s great grand story of salvation.

    There is even the danger that if you do not see this, You have not seen the truth as it is from God’s perspective. And if a preacher does not preach this, or a teacher does not teach this, he is not teaching you the truth. This begins to be weighty stuff. This means, then, that the moral example of either of these two Josephs cannot be the point of their stories. And I might suggest, if you take this route, you most definitely get yourself into deep trouble, at least in the case of the first Joseph.

    But neither can the point of the story be how they felt about what was happening to them. The point of the story could not be, well, what was Joseph thinking about? What was going through his mind? What was the psychological process at work in the man’s mind? The point of the story cannot be what these men personally experienced, feeling-wise, psychological-wise. Rather, the main point is Jesus Christ, who he is, what he has done, and what he has become to us. If you want psychology, read Skinner. We can jack that up a level. Read Adams. If you want morality, read Kant. We can jack that up a level. Redress duty. If you want Jesus Christ, read the Bible. This is only one example of the richness and the depth of this passage.

    There are amazing things here for you. These things opening up to you as you approach your Bible with the open mind. But of course, the really open mind must reveal the open heart that receives the word of God not even as some beautiful work of art, wonderful piece of literature, intricate in design, dazzling to behold, but rather the open heart that receives this word as the infinitely valued treasure. more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold, that receives it as the food of angels, more wonderfully sweet than honey and the honeycomb. Particularly such treasure, such fine food, because it sets forth the incomparable Christ, whom although you do not see, you love with all of your heart. Let your open mind reveal your open heart to Him. Father, impress us again with the nature of your word and the beauty and the marvel of the story of salvation and the Christ, your son, given for us, who stands so magnificently at the center of it all.

    With our open minds, O God, we then would approach your Word so as to confirm the open hearts that you have given us. That with those open hearts, we have been bound to Christ, our Beloved. And Lord, we are determined with his word to serve him, and that faithfully, until the last day. Help us, our God, as individuals and as your church, to do nothing less. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Reading for God With Us

    Reading for God With Us

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Matthew 2:13-23” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 7, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Practical suggestions for reading Scripture better, other translations, taking notes, reading a whole book in one sitting, frame a return to four passages unique to Matthew’s Gospel, each expounding ‘God with us’ in its own way. Matthew’s Immanuel theme is not confined to the birth narrative; it recurs by design. Learning to read well is itself part of learning to see it.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Matthew 2, and we are reading from verse 11. I’m sorry, that will be verse 13. Give your attention to the reading of God’s word. And when the wise men were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

    When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of a wise man, was exceeding wrath, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the cursts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Ramah there was a voice heard lamentation and weeping, and great Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not. But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child’s life. And he arose and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither. Notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee, and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene.

    Our Father, you comfort us even as we consider our iniquities and transgressions, and you comfort us with the sure mercies that are opened up for us in the gospel. You are also a comforter to us in our mourning and in our loss. So Lord, we pray that as we go through these times of sorrow, we would live in the full benefit of your gospel, taking delight in the promises that we find there. Also, our Father, we pray that we may be helped that when the time comes for us to depart this life, we might depart well, having our confidence certain in the resurrection of Christ and in the life in the world to come. Father, you are also a comfort to those who go through any kind of distress and agony And we thank Lord of the present distress of the Maconian family. May it please you to grant them health, strength, full recovery. And Lord, we pray that they may continue to be useful in your kingdom. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

    There are a couple of things that I would recommend to you when it comes to personal Bible reading. Now, I say these things not for the purpose of upstaging any method or approach that you personally have devised. not for the purpose of discouraging you in your own approach to reading your Bible, but in order to suggest to you some possibilities that I have found helpful and I trust may be helpful to you.

    The first thing that I propose is that you have an alternative translation of the Bible close at hand. Now, I realize that you have your favorite version, but I would suggest that you have another translation close by, so that when you are having difficulties understanding what your favorite version is saying, you can make appeal to the alternate translation. Often a simple comparison of translations can clear up a problem. So, have for yourself at least one other translation of the Bible, and when you’re making a choice of Bibles, let me also raise this point in connection with this matter. Get for yourself a translation that has a good cross-reference system in it.

    Now, more and more, Bibles are going to this kind of a format. It’s a relatively modern invention. I would say that of the Bibles that have cross-reference systems to them, that possibly the original American Standard Version of 1901 had the best. Now, the New American Standard worked off of that, and many translations and versions of the Bible have followed suit since.

    But have a good cross-reference Bible at hand, and I would further recommend that you get one that has the cross-references in the margin. I know that there are some that have them in the center column. Those aren’t as useful, they’re not as helpful, they’re not as easily accessible. one that has the cross references in the margin.

    The second thing that I would suggest to you for your personal Bible reading is that you keep a notebook close by. Jot down citations that you want to keep in front of you, or a thought that comes to your mind as you are reading through the scripture. These will help you sort out a passage as you reflect upon it. It will also have the advantage of setting these citations or these thoughts in your memories.

    Thirdly, try as often as you can to read a biblical book through from beginning to end. We were just warming up there before. Now we’re getting into the more difficult part. Try as often as you can to read a biblical book through from beginning to end in one sitting. I’m serious.

    Sometime when you’re well rested, Take up your Bible by design and say, read a gospel. Just read through a gospel, an entire gospel. Now, remember that the original manuscript for the Bible did not have chapter and verse divisions. You all know that, right? It was written not piecemeal, but as a whole. as a document to be appropriated as a whole.

    Instead of a gospel, if a gospel is a bit too ambitious to start off with, take a shorter book of the Bible. But I encourage you to take one of those books that is more than a single chapter, something other than Jude or Philemon or Obadiah. I know the habit.

    When we get inspired, occasionally we say, well, we’re going to start this new Bible reading program. And we say, well, we’ll start out with something simple. And we always start with those single-chapter books of the Bible, and then we sort of run out of steam. We never get on to the longer stuff.

    But anyway, try something a little longer than a single chapter. single-chapter book of the Bible. It doesn’t have to be, then, the Gospels with their sixteen or twenty-one or twenty-four or twenty-eight chapters. Take something manageable like the book of Ruth, or the prophecy of Jonah, or the epistle to the Galatians, or Colossians. Just read it through in a single sitting.

    Well, I have a suggestion for you when you do this, so I have a few suggestions for you when you do this. For one thing, keep your notebook by your side. Jot down patterns and parallels that you observe. This is a habit that will be greatly helpful to you.

    Now, here, I don’t want you to become wild interpreters. that I have been charged with being a wild interpreter. I have people who have greeted me at the door with comments like, where in the world did you get that interpretation? But I ask you to think about what you’re reading in terms of patterns you observe, parallels you observe, and thoughts that are jolted or jogged in your mind. You’re reading through a passage, and something that is said there reminds you of something else that was said somewhere else. Make note of that connection. You might run into something in a gospel that reminds you of the Exodus, back in the Old Testament. Make note of those things.

    Also, I would suggest that you write down your questions when you have questions. If you don’t, you’ll forget your question, or you’ll forget the way in which you posed the question. And that’s even more difficult for you, trying to reconstruct the question that you had, or the thoughts that went into that question when you had it. Write down your question so that you can remember.

    Promise yourself that you will look for an answer to your question, and in this regard, Use the resources that God has given you in the church to find answers. Take advantage of your pastor. Bring your questions to me. Or, take advantage of others in the church who can be of help to you. We have a growing library in our church. Take advantage of the library that is here if you don’t happen to have the books available to yourself. Now, it may well be that I or others in the Church do not have a ready-made answer to your question, but we may be able to point you in a good and profitable direction.

    One more thing in this regard, or another thing, let me suggest that when you read A book of the Bible from beginning to end, that is, at one sitting, that you read it out loud. That you read it out loud. Did you know that Augustine, and so the story goes, always read out loud? He believed that sight and sound reinforced one another to the advantage of our cognitive ability and to the advantage of our memories.

    Now, I realize that you might feel a little self-conscious about this suggestion. If you can’t find a private little corner in your house to read aloud, Don’t be embarrassed about doing it right there in the living room. I’m sure the sound waves coming from you will be just as edifying as those coming from Seinfeld, ER, the NFL, Whitney Houston, and Nine Inch Nails. One other thing I want you to do when you read through a book at one sitting. Pay particular attention to the way the book begins and the way in which it ends. If you will take this advice, you will find that you have the prospect of understanding better the purpose, the intention of the book that you are reading.

    Now, it goes without saying that pieces of literature have themes. At one time, our educational system with regard to language arts was built upon that supposition. And that’s why in junior high school and in high school, our teachers made us write themes. The development of a thought through an essay form from beginning to end, carrying that thought to its conclusion. Pieces of literature, therefore, have a certain message to communicate. But we need help sometimes, opening our eyes and our minds to the theme of a particular piece of writing. So it is with the books of the Bible. They have themes, they have intentions, and that, by design of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is operative in that, of course.

    Now, we must not allow ourselves to be too general, however, when it comes to the themes of a book in the Bible. For instance, in reading through a gospel, we must not content ourselves to say simply that the theme of this gospel is the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We need to develop our sensitivities, we need to develop our abilities to perceive things much more deeply than that, to be much more specific.

    In what light, from what angle, does this particular gospel wish us to see Jesus’ ministry, His death, and His resurrection? Let’s look at Matthew’s gospel in this regard. The special angle of vision which Matthew has been given by the Holy Spirit is suggested to us by the way he begins his gospel and by the way he concludes it. I’ve been over this ground with many of you before, but I will point it out once more. And what we find true with respect to Matthew, we find true generally with regard to all biblical literature. You will notice in the first chapter, that key text.

    I point out Matthew 1.23, the quotation from Isaiah 7.14. Here Jesus, yet in the womb, is described under the name Immanuel, which as Matthew goes on to tell us, because he doesn’t want us to miss it, Being translated means God with us. He takes pain to point it out to us. This is the meaning of this word, Immanuel.

    But now I want you to turn to the very last verse of Matthew’s Gospel. And I think that this is a verse that you know very well. And what do we find here in the last verse of Matthew’s Gospel, 28-20? We find the risen Christ, and here he is playing off the name read over him when he was yet a child in the womb.

    I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” You see how he’s played off of the name Immanuel, at the beginning, at the conclusion. Matthew’s angle of vision on the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus is that Jesus is none other than God, who not only came to us while he lived and suffered in this world, but continues with us while we live and suffer in this world. And just as Jesus’ glory, while hidden, radiated in his humility, so that glory radiates in our humility, because Jesus is God with us, Immanuel.

    I might say that this is also the entrance into Matthew’s understanding of the covenant. The covenant is very prominent in Matthew’s gospel. For instance, if you back up to the very first verse of Matthew’s gospel, you find there The statement, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Matthew here is calling our attention to the two great covenantal heads in the Old Testament, to David and to Abraham.

    The fulfillment of the covenants to David and to Abraham is found specifically in the identity of Jesus as God with us. The blessing of the covenant is God with us, and now that has been realized. It has come. It shall yet be perfected, but it is also a present reality. a little fruit of my own notebook in hand, reading through Matthew at one sitting, kind of Bible study.

    This fruit, hopefully to reinforce the observation that we have made here about Matthew’s theme. Now, in order to do this, I want you to take note of certain famous Matthew passages. That is, passages that appear only in Matthew. And because they appear only in Matthew, they will serve to reinforce the theme of his gospel, the angle of vision that he has as he writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

    The first passage is Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30. Now, I know that As we go through these passages, they will be very familiar to you. I’ve already stated to you that they’re famous passages, and a number of you have already committed these passages to memory. But the passage that we’re looking at first is Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30. This is the famous Come Unto Me passage, a passage that most of our children have memorized in their memory workbook. But aren’t you struck here? By the way, this statement by Jesus in 1128 plays on the theme that we have already pinpointed for Matthew.

    You see, Jesus speaks here as if it is always possible for the weak and the heavy laden to come unto him. It’s always possible. as if it is still possible to take his yoke upon ourselves and learn from him, as if it were possible always, as if he were always present to ensure his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

    In other words, the power of the passage rises from the sense of Christ’s continuing presence A presence that persists beyond his death and because of his resurrection. A presence perfect in its service to us because it is the presence of God himself.

    Amen. God with us. I’ll reinforce this a bit by backing up to that conclusion of Matthew’s gospel, you note that the final words of the gospel are of Christ’s continuing presence. There is no ascension recorded by Matthew. He doesn’t leave. He’s still here with us. And thus, we can still come to him. Now, I want you to turn to Matthew 16, verse 18, as the next passage.

    This, again, is a chapter that is unique to Matthew. Only Matthew has these words. And in this famous passage, Jesus promises to build his Church, and to build it upon the foundation of Peter and his Confession. I say Peter and his Confession. Both elements are here, please. Peter and his Confession, since Peter in verse 18 and his Confession is a foundation stone, but Peter in verse 23, in his obstruction, is a stumbling stone. So, Peter and his confession, please, as you look at this text.

    But at any rate, Jesus’ promise here in the 18th verse is to build his Church, and this statement building itself upon the certainty of his continuing presence. He says he’s going to build his Church. Is the Church continuing to be built today? It is Jesus who is present, who is doing that. He tells us the gates of hell, or actually the gates of Hades, or the gates of death, cannot prevail against the Church because the one who is present with the Church has conquered death in the resurrection. But I want you also to note something else here, because Jesus here specifically speaks about the Church as His Church.

    He calls it My Church. And he does so because this church stands as specifically belonging to him. It is his property. He is claiming this right as none other than God himself, in the same way in which Jehovah claimed the right over the assembly of Israel in the Old Testament.

    Indeed, Jesus is God with us. And as such, continues as God with us, gathering and establishing his assembly, even constructing us into a holy temple of living stones, a thought upon which Peter later reflects in his first letter of the second chapter. Another text famous and unique to Matthew is chapter 18, verse 20. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst.” Only Matthew records that.

    As to what Jesus is specifically talking about here, there has been some dispute. Some have thought that this refers to any kind of meeting that is taking place where people invoke the name of Jesus. But the context has to do with a specific kind of church gathering. a church gathering that is specifically a courtroom type of gathering, a gathering in which there is the deciding of cases and the execution of discipline. I believe that that approach to the text is appropriate. But regardless of which direction we go, it powerfully confirms what I have been saying to you.

    The living Christ continues to superintend the affairs of his church. As God with us, he presides in this Church and over this Church, and according to the latter interpretation that I’ve shared with you this morning, he presides specifically over the courts of the Church. He is present, monitoring the affairs of his Church’s activities. The final passage, again a passage unique to Matthew and confirming of his angle of vision on Christ and his work, is found in Matthew 25, and the parable there of the sheep and the goats. Only Matthew has this text.

    Here I want you to take note of verses 40 and 45. These two verses form the famous double conclusion to this memorable parable. To the sheep, in verse 40, Jesus will say, “‘Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you gave food and drink, shelter and clothing, comfort and encouragement to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you gave it to me.’” Well, you can see it, can’t you? “‘You gave it to me.’” In verse 45, he’ll reverse the statement. He’ll make it a negative in speaking about the goats. to the extent that you did not extend these blessings or these comforts to these brethren of mine, you did not do it unto me,” says Jesus. Verse 45. Now, there is a debate as to whom Jesus is specifically speaking of here. There is a debate as to who is in view when Jesus says, these brothers of mine, even the least of them.

    There are those who suggest to us that Jesus’ statement here is indiscriminate. It has in mind the mass of humanity. Some others have suggested, yes, it’s the Church generally conceived. There are others who say, no, the focus of the text is specifically upon those who are identified as servants of the Word of God. who suffer privation because they are proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. I happen to agree with that latter interpretation of the text, for a number of reasons, but we won’t go into that this morning.

    At any rate, the force of the statement which Jesus makes, or the force of the statements which he makes, is that Christ continues with his servants. And specifically, according to the interpretation that I favor, he continues with his servants, who so minister the word, so that those who care for these servants of Christ in their need are actually offering care to Christ himself.

    Christ is present with them. Jesus, as God with us, continues with, abides with his church, bringing glory to his Church in its humility, in its persecution, in its suffering, in its state short of the Second Coming. Thus the Church need not despair, but rather rejoice in its difficulties, confident that he who lived, died, and rose again is glory though hidden always shining is with them in their life, death, and resurrection. His glory, though hidden, always shining in them. Indeed, you are the light of the world.”

    Matthew 5.14, another text which only Matthew records.

    Now, with this exercise this morning in Bible reading, You will note that we haven’t gotten into our text. We will save our thoughts on that text for the future, but you have some idea as to how I’m going to approach that text, don’t you? While we anticipate our dealing with it, we can busy ourselves with God’s word. and our proficiency with it. I trust, maybe it isn’t all that apparent, but I trust that you realize that the general principles that I have suggested for you this morning for Bible reading and Bible study are useful to readers of any age, even from a young age. Even our children can read their Bibles keeping in mind the things that I’ve said this morning.

    May we, young and old, be in the Word that we might truly be a people of the Word of God. Father, we pray for your blessing upon us as we are gathered together to hear your word, and we ask also that you will bless us as we read and meditate upon your word personally. Lord, help us that we might be those who are in your word, meditating upon that word, Help us also, O God, that we would be obedient, even showing our love for you by our attitude toward the word and our use of it. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who is full of your word and is described as being the Word made flesh. Truly, your communication to us of who we are, of what we are to be. We pray these things through him and his mediation. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Exodus, Exile, Restoration

    Exodus, Exile, Restoration

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Matthew 2:13-23” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 31, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Matthew 2:13-23 compresses three episodes into one flight into Egypt, and each one deliberately echoes a stage of Israel’s own history: exodus, exile, restoration. Christ enters into his people’s actual experience of these patterns rather than merely fulfilling them from a distance. The infancy narrative amounts to a summary of the whole Old Testament in miniature.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Matthew chapter 2, and we are beginning at verse 13. Matthew 2, verse 13, to the end of the chapter. Give your attention to God’s holy word. And when the wise men were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt. and be thou there until I bring thee word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.’

    When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under according to the time which he diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying in Ramah, Was there a voice heard? lamentation and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they were not. But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child’s life. and he arose and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel.

    But when he heard that Achelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither, notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene.”

    Let’s pray together. Lord, how your word sustains your people, giving them nourishment, encouragement, and comfort. Lord, we ask that your word may do just this, even as your people are made to stand before the governments of this world. And Father, we ask that it would please you to grant grace and mercy by way of your people to those governments, even to this point, O Lord, that peace may prevail, that your children may worship unhindered. Father, we pray for our land. We pray for those in authority over us. We pray, Lord, that there would be that form of righteousness in our authorities that are appropriate to their position. We ask, Lord, that we might give them the appropriate reverence and homage that is due them. We ask, Father, in this way we might please you, and that we also may prove to be peaceful citizens in this world. as we are the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    The scripture is in some ways like the kingdom declared in it. As the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is hidden in and from the world, So the meaning of Scripture, in all its richness and multifaceted beauty, is hidden away from the casual and even purely strictly devotional hearing and reading of the text. It is in the interest of Scripture’s richness and multifaceted beauty, that our shorter catechism encourages us to approach the Scripture with diligence, preparation, and prayer. It is in the service of that richness and multifaceted beauty that is found within the that the risen Christ opens the minds of his disciples so that they understand how the law, the prophets, and the Psalms are fulfilled in him, his death and resurrection.” And it is in the service of that richness and multifaceted beauty, hidden away in the divine self-revelation of the Scriptures, that Jesus declares that every scribe of the kingdom of heaven will bring forth out of his treasure things new and old.

    Matthew 13, verse 52. Matthew chapter 2, verses 13 through 23, is a passage in which the hidden richness and multi-faceted beauty of the biblical revelation should be carefully investigated by God’s people. For such investigation carries with it the promise of opening up this story’s magnificent power for God’s people as a whole.

    The first thing we observe about this passage is that it is a unit, deliberately constructed to be such. There are three episodes, verses 13-15, verses 16-18, and verses 19-23. These three episodes belong together and hang together in their similar structure. Did you notice anything characteristic of these episodes as we read through them this morning? Look again at these verses. at them in the division that I’ve given you, and particularly now, look at the last verse of each section of each episode.

    For each section or episode will end with a quotation from the Old Testament, deliberately set there to mark out the unitary character of this portion of Scripture. And this quotation introduced to you by a formula, an appropriate accompanying word concerning the fulfillment of this particular Old Testament quotation with respect to the distinct gospel event in view. For example, the statement in verse 15 is this, that what was spoken by the Lord to the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, out of Egypt did I call my son.” You find similar statements then in verse 18 and in verse 23. But I want you also to take note of the power that these similarly structured episodes create for us. The first.

    13-15, tells us about Joseph’s dream and the angel’s warning to him that he must flee to Egypt with Jesus and his mother because of Herod’s murderous intent. To this episode, Matthew Nair, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, applies an Old Testament an Old Testament prophecy, Hosea chapter 11 verse 1, Out of Egypt did I call my son. But you might be taken aback by this quotation, for in reading that text in context, in Hosea, you discover there that it is not referring to some future event, anticipated by the Prophet, but rather is reflective of a past event, that Hosea is actually speaking there of Israel’s escape from Egypt in the Exodus.

    So as you read through this first episode and you’re noticing the patterning going on, you’re also noticing a certain tension, a certain strain in the text, because it seems as if Matthew has grabbed an Old Testament text to suit his purpose and wrenched it out of context and applied it to a situation to which it doesn’t apply at all. The second episode, verses 16-18, tells us about Herod’s realization that he has been betrayed by the wise men. It tells us about his rage. It then tells us about his consequent assent upon the families of Bethlehem and the destruction of the children there. Here, once more, Matthew quotes an Old Testament prophecy, an Old Testament text.

    In this case, Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 15. A text that speaks about Rachel weeping for her children because they are no more, but you will note the same kind of tension developing here that we observed in the previous episode. This passage from Jeremiah? is one that is filled with highly poetical language, but it speaks, again, not of some future anguish and grief, but of a present anguish and grief upon the background of that anguish and grief which Rachel herself experienced at the loss of her children all the way back in Genesis. The specific devastation in view here in this Jeremiah passage is not some event taking place in Bethlehem when Herod wreaked his wrath upon the children of Bethlehem, but rather it pertains to the time of the Babylonian invasion and the subsequent exile of the Israelites from their land.

    Is Matthew just running through his Old Testament and grabbing texts that he thinks are appropriate, and pushing them into his circumstance to suit his purpose? It is with the third episode that things begin to come to light, even though this third episode is the most difficult of all. verses 19 through 23. These verses relate to us the death of Herod, the return of Joseph with Mary and the Christ child to the land of Israel, and their eventual settlement in the town of Nazareth. Matthew now tells us the settlement in Nazareth is to fulfill what the prophets declared. that he, that is, the Messiah, shall be called a Nazarene.” It’s at this point that Matthew applies the breaks in the most definite fashion.

    If you’re straining with him thus far, you knowing your Old Testament, you knowing your prophecy of Hosea, you knowing Jeremiah, you wondering what he’s doing with these texts as he brings them into these contexts in his gospel, if that raised for you The question, now you are faced with the other incongruity of this statement at the end of verse 23. He shall be called a Nazarene. I ask you, can you find that in your Old Testament? It isn’t there. There is no Old Testament text that says, he shall be called a Nazarene. Well, if I was in a quandary before, I’m absolutely beside myself now.

    Indeed, the quotations here creates severe difficulties for us, because in searching our Old Testaments we find no passage that matches what Matthew writes. Now, many proposals have been made to resolve the difficulty. Chrysostom, the great father of the early Church, believe that Matthew was quoting from a lost prophecy. We don’t have all the prophecies in the Bible, and Matthew was aware of one that we don’t have, one that had been lost. This is a very, shall we say, convenient suggestion, but hardly believable. Calvin was a little bit more imaginative.

    He believed that Matthew was combining the town of Nazareth, the name Nazareth of that town and what it might suggest, with the Old Testament order of the Nazarites. Those who took special vows about not drinking any strong drink and not cutting their hair It was along this line, then, that Calvin concluded that behind the Matthew quotation in chapter 2, verse 23, is Judges chapter 13, verse 5, a text that speaks about Samson, who was to be a Nazarite from his birth. But this exegesis fell down because no subsequent exegesis, even in the Reformed Church, could not match up Nazarite lifestyle with Jesus’ lifestyle. They might do so with John the Baptist, but they couldn’t do it with Jesus.

    So, subsequent interpreters have moved in a different direction. They have noticed, for instance, that at this point Matthew’s reference is not to a single prophet, but to prophets plural, that what was spoken through the prophets. In other words, Matthew’s quotation here is not of a single prophet. solitary prophet, or as a single verse from the prophets.

    It is rather a reference to a general thought from the prophets, and an expectation that is voiced by them repeatedly. And what might that thought and that expectation be? The New American Standard Version, in the margin, has the key across reference. Directing our attention to Isaiah 11, verse 1. You see, the key is found in a play on words engaged by Matthew. Matthew picks up on the similarity between the place-name Nazareth, which means the guarded one or the protected one, the similarity between the place-name Nazareth and the Hebrew word Mevier, which means branch or shoot. Branch or shoot. This Old Testament word, however, introduces us to a common thought that we find running through the prophets, a pervasive thought. That thought is that through the judgment that overtakes Israel, there comes then into sight, there is revealed before our eyes, the branch and the shoot from the stem of David, miraculously raised up and preserved according to the saving purposes of God, through whom righteousness and security would be bestowed upon the elect of God.

    And as I have already indicated, making reference here to the marginal notes In the New American Standard Version, the fundamental text in view for Matthew is Isaiah 11.1, where that Hebrew word may hear as used, “…and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of his roots.” And this thought, although with a different word, a synonym, appears in Isaiah 53 verse 2, “…he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, or as a shoot, and as a root out of dry ground.”

    A passage that refers specifically to the suffering servant and the Messiah of the Lord. And most particularly and impressively are these other texts, Jeremiah chapter 23 verses 5 and 6. behold, the days come, said the Lord, that I will raise up to David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.” Jeremiah once more, chapter 33, verse 15, “…in those days, and at that time, I will cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David, and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.” And what about Zechariah, chapter 3, verse 8? Here now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for there are men wondered at, for behold, I bring forth my servant, the branch, the shoot.

    All these verses give thought to the common prophetic hope, then, that the kingdom of would, in fact, arise despite the devastation and even the exile that had overtaken the people of God in the time of Jeremiah. And this would happen by the raising up of David’s line, through whom a remnant would be rescued. Matthew, in chapter 2, verse 23, is declaring that Jesus This one, of the family of Joseph and Mary, living in Nazareth of Galilee, is the fulfillment of Israel’s hope concerning the Son of David, the one by whom the salvation of the remnant, himself being his person, the embodiment of that remnant, shall be realized.” that now the richness and the multifaceted beauty of Matthew 2 verses 13 through 23 begins to open up to us, and an explanation for us of the other citations that Matthew makes of those texts. It’s not, you see, that Matthew is here simply concerned to attach texts from the Old Testament in order to prove his case, in order to build his case for Jesus being the fulfillment of these texts in isolation cited from the Old Testament.

    It is more complex, it is deeper than that, it is richer than that. Look at these episodes then once more, and the intention of Matthew coming out by the Holy Spirit as you do so. Do you see something more here, holding these episodes together as you move through these verses, besides the common outline that we have already commented upon? Think about the progression as you move through them in the first episode. You have the descent of Jesus into Egypt, and a quotation from Hosea about the Exodus. Hold on to that. Move to the second episode. Here you have the slaughter of the children by Herod and the quotation from Jeremiah about the devastation, particularly the devastation that is accompanying the exile. We have moved from exodus to exile, the third episode.

    You have here the return of Jesus to the land of Israel. reference to the collective mind of the prophets, particularly generated from Isaiah 11.1, and the message that we find there about the restoration and the salvation of God’s holy remnant. Now, put them together. Exodus, exile, restoration. What do you have? even chronologically exact. Exodus, exile, restoration. You have a summary of Old Testament history. You have a summary of the Old Testament, and the experience of the people of God in the prior dispensation.

    But what’s the purpose of it? Why? Why this neat, compressed, compact summation of Israel’s history and experience. Is it not for the purpose of declaring to the hearer and the reader that the Son of God, in his humiliation, motivated as he is by his love for his people, has thoroughly identified himself with his people and with their history?

    It is not a matter of him standing at a distance from their experience, it is a matter of him entering into it. It is as if now Jesus is reliving Israel’s history in its entirety, and so it must be for him in order that he might be the covenantal head of the people. But consider this also. Having taken the history of Israel to himself, he is the one now who comes through that history—Exodus, Exile, Restoration—as that one specifically who bears Israel’s sins and judgments, but also is constitutive of the content of their righteousness.

    Israel failed at every point. Read the account of the Exodus. Read the account of the exile. Read about the restoration. Israel failed. But now Jesus takes the history and the experience to himself, and he is perfect. So Jesus relives Israel’s history and becomes the fulfillment of that history, clearly identifying with Israel.

    So what? I’m not a Jew. So what? Well you see, Matthew 2 verses 13 through 23 is prelude in Matthew’s Gospel. Just like Israel’s history is prelude to the history of the Church, and the Christ who so graciously enters Israel’s history graciously envelops our history, his church’s history. All of it, its past, its present, its future.

    And you will note in this regard that Matthew has already tipped us off concerning his intention, for he has told us In chapter 1, verse 23, inciting another Old Testament text, Isaiah 7.14, that this one Jesus, virgin-born, shall be specifically identified as Immanuel, God with us. And as Jesus has been present with Israel in its exodus, exile, and restoration, so he has also been present God with us in His Church through its ancient and medieval and Reformation and modern situation.

    There is no circumstance and situation which the Church can encounter that Jesus has not already encountered. Our success, our strength, our perseverance, our endurance is only because we are related to the One who has taken our history to himself. He has taken the most grand, eloquent aspects of our existence, the most sublime, the high-level matters of the Church, and having taken the highest, you can be assured he has also taken the lowest. Is there any detail of your existence? that Jesus is not familiar with.

    He, in sustaining his church, is sustaining you as an individual. The Emmanuel, God with us, is specifically the Savior of his church, but he is also the Savior of the individuals who make up that church. Matthew declares even to Israel the hidden presence of the Son of God throughout Israel’s past history. He also declares to us the Son of God’s hidden presence for the sake of his hidden kingdom for the present time, even to the end of the age.

    Do you know that he is near, that he is in our midst, that he is with you? O Lord, is there anything left out in your consideration of us? No, rather, there is whole sufficiency in your plan and purpose and in the execution of it, even as all this comes to center in Christ. And in him, O God, we find nothing lacking. Therefore, Lord, we will not despair, nor will we give in to discouragement, because you are with us, even as it has been declared to us by your servant Matthew, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We praise you for our Savior, Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Hidden Glory at Bethlehem

    Hidden Glory at Bethlehem

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Matthew 2:13-23” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 24, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Christ’s birth preaches a hidden glory that only Gentile magi and those who know Micah’s Bethlehem prophecy can see. Herod sees in this child only a political threat to eliminate. Emmanuel, God with us, is present from the first verse, whether or not anyone in the story recognizes him.

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    Sermon transcript

    We are reading this morning from Matthew chapter 1, beginning our reading with the first chapter of Matthew. We are starting at verse 18. Matthew 1, verse 18. I give you attention now to God’s holy word. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wine. when, as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

    Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make a public example of her, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son. and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. And Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife. And he knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.

    Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the King had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, He demanded of them where Christ should be born, and they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written, By the prophet and thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel.

    Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child. And when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

    And when they heard the king, they departed. And lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

    Let’s pray together. Father, we pray for your church through the world and that Lord, the message that his sounding forth from the pulpits of your church would reverberate with the truth of your gospel. Father, may your people, even at this time of year, when our thoughts are somewhat filled with other things besides the truth of your word and gospel. May it be that your servants are powerful and effective through the Holy Spirit in proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. We pray, Father, therefore, that in this season there would be many who are rescued from darkness and brought into the light. And Father, we pray that we would look expectantly to that day in which your assembly will be filled and there will not be one seat left. We ask, Lord, that you would prepare us for that day, we ourselves here, through the proclamation of your word. For surely, Lord, we would give our attention to what you have to say. These things we ask in the name of Jesus, the Living Word. Amen.

    The birth of Jesus, our Savior, proclaimed to us by Matthew, preaches a hidden glory, a hidden glory. The birth is glorious to be sure, beyond what we can take in, in its totality. It is luminous, it is radiant, It is as luminous and radiant as the star in the heavens of which Matthew 2 speaks. Yet at the same time, the glory is hidden and obscure, as hidden and as obscure as that star itself, seemingly seen, or at least noticed, only by the wise men, the Magi from the East. But strangely, the message of Christ’s birth, although wrapped in secrecy, will, as if it were the most public of events, generate suspicion and even murderous hostility. But it is particularly with this consideration that the hidden glory begins to appear all the more wonderful. For it shines forth even in and despite the child’s threatened situation. It shines forth even in and despite the sufferings to which the child and his family and those connected with them are subject.

    I trust by this simple introduction that you notice the pattern of the gospel in the things that I have said. That pattern in which the marvels of eternal glory are discerned, yes, throughout the entirety of Jesus’ life, from the cradle, through his ministry, and then at the cross, specifically there as he gives up his life for our sins. But I trust further that you noticed, hidden though the glory be the pattern for your own life, due to and because of the gospel, specifically that your own sufferings and those of the true Christian community, the true assembly of the Lord, have laid over them as if superimposed the most remarkable glory, even the glory of the kingdom of heaven, that has come to you and abides with you in Jesus Christ. The message, then, is eloquent and profound.

    As Matthew communicates to us the message of the gospel, He is pressing home the fact that it is not just exaltation after humiliation, it is exaltation in humiliation. It is specifically in the condition of suffering and persecution and distress that the saints perceive the glory that is given to them. And it is this which sustains us.

    In all of this, we are standing then at the very epicenter of what Matthew is telling us about Jesus and about ourselves. For Matthew’s gospel is not approached as some have suggested by assuming it to be the Jewish gospel par excellence written to Jewish Christians in first century Palestine. No, Matthew’s gospel is above all else the Immanuel gospel, the God-with-us gospel in which we are presented, the one whose glory lies hidden in obscurity and in suffering. even in the sacrificial service that he performs for us, who by his resurrection confers upon us a glory that similarly lies hidden in obscurity, suffering, and is worked out and seen in our sacrificial service. Matthew’s gospel, therefore, as I have already said, is not written contrary to what many have taught to Jewish Christians in the first century, but to all Christians in every century, whose lives conceal the hidden glory of Him who is Emmanuel, God with us even to the close of the age to the ends of the earth. The story of the Magi in Matthew 2 serves to introduce us to all of this. Now, it could have been that the news about the secret event in Bethlehem had reached Jerusalem and Herod’s court because of the tales borne by Judean shepherds previously, or those who had come in contact with those shepherds.

    But those tales or rumors as they undoubtedly were treated, were not enough to stop the mills of government or interrupt business as usual. It wasn’t until the magicians or magi from the East showed up at Perrott’s front door that the mills of the government grounded to a halt.

    They had seen a star, they said, which for them was a sign announcing the birth of Jewish royalty, one no less described as the King of the Jews. And they had come now to pay him homage.” They had Herod’s attention now. Amidst all of the normal, or we might say abnormal, intrigues of Herod’s court, He hesitated. He lost a step or two, if not a day or two, from his usual political prattling. His concentration had been broken, and now his thoughts were filled with reflections on these strangers, the star of which they spoke and the child. He had reason to worry, for was not the child called by these strangers the King of the Jews?

    He had reason to worry because he felt he was threatened. He was threatened because, as you probably know, Herod was no Jew himself. The Jews were descendants of Jacob. The Herod was of the line of Esau. He was, in actual fact, an Edomite, from the line described in Jesus’ time as the Idumean line. But you might step back in amazement or you might ponder that particular truth. For as Matthew tells the story, there is no hint that Herod is anything less than a purebred Jew.

    Is this because Matthew didn’t know any better? If he knew it, why would he not reveal it? Why would he not tell it? In revealing it, certainly he would place Herod in an even more damaging light. The reason why Matthew does not tell us that Herod is of Edomite descent is because Matthew wants his readers to think of Herod as a Jew. He wants them even to think of him as the king of the Jews. He is the appropriate king of these people. The Jews, in their corruption, deserve Herod in his. And why? Because they are of the same order. They are committed to the same things. For them, political and religious ambitions serve the same common goal.

    They prize the world of assertive self-importance, the world of the obvious. the world of the practically expedient and religiously opportune. There is nothing hidden about the glory that they seek and serve, nothing whatsoever. how appropriately then Herod and the Jews scratch each other’s back and gush over their respective expansionist fantasies. Herod always securing for himself a place, he polishes up the Jews, making sure they’re in his corner, but he’s also a revered and respected visitor in the courts of Caesar. He knows how to play the game. The chief priests and the scribes have their own aspirations, subtle territories, and in keeping with the prophecies given to them in ancient times, assured as they are in the interpretation of those prophecies, worldwide dominion at some time in the future. The chief priests and scribes are flattered, or taking the opportunity of Herod’s need of them when he makes requests concerning the birthplace of the King of the Jews.

    The chief priests and the scribes rush to him, and together in this mutual admiration society, in this conspiracy overseen by and baptized with the water of civil religion, These serve the kingdom of this world, and as they do, they remain blind to God’s true purposes and the hidden glory of the heavenly kingdom and the heavenly child.

    They haven’t a clue. And how thorough the blindness. It’s as if not even a flicker of light can penetrate. Consider the chief priests and the scribes. These are the ones who are presiding over the law and with the law in hand. Thus the irony of the chief priest and scribe’s audience before Herod. They know the Scriptures very well. They know the Scriptures well enough to quote the passage from Micah’s prophecy concerning Bethlehem. That’s the text, Micah 5, 2. You find it at the top of your bulletin this morning as our call to worship. who know the law and the prophecies, the scriptures so well, fail to comprehend the prophecy’s magnificent intention.

    For its focus, you see, is obviously and deliberately upon the unpretentious, the hidden, the obscure character of the Messiah’s origin. He comes out of nowhere, as it were. The Micah prophecy and the little town of Bethlehem, in actual fact, stand so utterly contrary to everything Herod, the priests, and the scribes, and even the people of Jerusalem hold dear. We, after all, are not in the business of giving up our lives. We are in the business of saving our lives. The Messiah, like David before him, whose son the Messiah is, comes from a nowhere place.

    Confounding everyone who thinks that somewhere places in the world are so important. to those for whom the somewhere places of this world have become all-important. The ultimate glowing place in the heavens, the unseen glory, the hidden glory of the heavens and of eternity, has lost all attraction.

    You couldn’t care less. It’s a comforting thought for death. It’s helpful. You do go to the funeral. You listen to the rhetoric. But the hidden glory of heaven and eternity has lost all It is uncompelling. It doesn’t even move you. So it is. Ironically, strangely, these leaders in Israel are scandalized, nothing less than scandalized, by the nowhere places of this world. And that’s specifically by the little town of Bethlehem, and by the obscure star that stands over the place where the child, yes, the child, the obscure, hidden child, lays. That star itself drawing attention heavenward, and to the even more inscrutable nowhere, than the lowliness of even little Bethlehem can preach. But the amazing ironies in Matthew’s account continue to proclaim the hidden glory of Christ’s birth. The Magi’s journey to the nowhere town of Bethlehem ends in the unparalleled joy of Consider this.

    Have you ever thought deeply or long about the presence of these Gentiles at Christ’s birth? And that in deference to the absence of the well-informed, theologically schooled Jews from Jerusalem. Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever considered? Have you reflected on it and its significance? Would the Jews have been there? That is, the well-informed and theologically astute Jews.

    Would they have come and would they have performed such service as you see these Magi performing? Consider the irony. would never have fallen down before a child to worship that child, for in their judgment that would have been a breach of, a violation of, their law. They would be worshiping a mere creature. But these Gentiles, who come out of a corrupt background, who have been used to worshiping human beings, babies and otherwise, are now brought by the sovereign intention of God, the plan of God, as if this plan has been in place for eons, as if the entirety of the corruption of pagan worship is now being brought captive to the obedience of that sovereignty, and these Gentiles are now come to an end in the worship of this day of Bethlehem.

    Even this prepares for God’s purposes. Even their paganism and their corrupt practices prepares for what God is doing. He will have his praise, and he will have his worship, even if that worship comes from Gentiles. And thus we are prepared for the gospel proclamation and also the affirmation of the church. Here is true God and true man and truly Emmanuel Godness.

    But note also that in this homage which these pagans pay, they themselves are, as it were, transformed. That is, you are seeing something in them that takes them far beyond themselves. For, you see, they are the servants of God’s sovereignty, and he is the one who is assigning meaning and destiny. I say this because of what is hidden in them and with respect to them.

    For it is difficult, it is difficult to listen to the marvelous story about the Magi and not think about Psalm 72, which we have read together this morning. And particularly the passage in it that speaks about the king’s coming, bearing gifts. But you say to me, these magi are no kings. They’re magicians.

    It’s the hidden glory, once more, that asserts itself, that is preached. For in them is hidden the splendor of kings. the splendor of those who are greatest in the earth. Hidden in the Magi through their act of worship is a glory given by the kings of the earth to one greater than them all.

    As the psalm says, the kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring presents. The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him. All nations shall serve him.” Do you see it? Where are the kings? Where are the nations? They are in the man. It’s hidden.

    And the only way you can see it is if you have faith. The worship, therefore, of the Magi is prophetic. It anticipates Jesus Christ’s universal acknowledgment. But now, as then, such acknowledgment does not discount the secret journey that many must take because of the opposition of this world. It is true.

    Those who love this world, those who belong to it, those who can see no further, those who want to see no further, conspire against God, His Christ, and His reign. They hate Christ’s lowliness, they hate His world-denying posture, They hate those who would fall down before Him and worship Him in complete devotion and adoration. And if you do not know that and you do not understand it, you are a fool. And I do not hesitate to say that.

    It seems that the very offering up of their treasures is a means by which to incite this hostility and hatred. And as it is for them so also for us, the sacrifice of ourselves, the offering up of our treasures with exceeding great joy, oh, in the world’s estimation, the absurdity of all The absolute stupidity of it all, that you would offer up these treasures, even yourself, with exceeding great joy, knowing all the time that it’s going to cost you your life, is specifically this, that is a threat to all that would absent themselves from the house of Bethlehem and the service rendered to the child.

    We who, for the sake of the hidden glory, forsake the obvious glory of this world, do, by revelation, make our way home by another way. A way not sanctioned by the world. A way that the world itself does not comprehend, does not understand. And before this gospel, the gospel of Matthew, reaches its end, we will be made very much aware of just what that other way is. It is the way that Jesus traveled. It is the way of the cross. It is precisely here at the cross that the commitment of all who would worship Jesus, of their ability to perceive the hidden glory in Him, is put to the test.

    And in this regard, what about you? What about yourself? Do you see and love the hidden glory in the Babe of Bethlehem? Do you see and accept the hidden glory resident in the form of a broken body on a cross? Are you then those who come and worship, depositing your all before this Christ, preparing as you do to go home to your true destination by the way of the cross? It is my hope and prayer that you are among those who do just this. And this being true, I assure you, yes, this being true for you, I assure you that when the hidden glory is hidden no more, you will be neither disappointed nor ashamed. And won’t that be wonderful?

    Father, left of ourselves, we would never see it. If we were to put ourselves in the primary seat, we most definitely will not see it. For even our exegesis and interpretation of Scripture will become a sign of our judgment. Therefore, O God, we pray that we might live by the illumination of your Spirit, who works by your word. that we, perceiving the hidden glory, would live faithfully by the way of the cross until the day when that glory is no longer hidden. And in that day, O God, our Savior shall stand forth radiant and glorious, and all the nations and all the kings whether they want to or not. We’ll bow. Prepare us, O God. We ask you in his name. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • What Is the Gospel?

    What Is the Gospel?

    This recording is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison archive, part of the “Lectures” series, delivered November 1, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Matthew 11’s account of John the Baptist’s own question, sent to Christ from prison, becomes the occasion for asking what the gospel actually is, and for arguing that liberal theology has largely abandoned the mighty acts of God in history in favor of timeless ideas. Luther and Calvin’s own gospel is set against Rome’s tendency to institutionalize it. Eschatology, once again, proves inseparable from the answer.

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    Sermon transcript

    I’d like to begin this evening by saying I’m happy to see as many as are here tonight. I should perhaps say a little bit about the occasion so that we understand what we hope to accomplish tonight and how this fits in with what has become at the seminary something of a tradition. Perhaps some of you have been before in the fall of the year to one of these presentations by someone we’ve invited to Mid-America Reform Seminary to deliver what we call the faculty lectures. I won’t bother you with all the details of how that is arranged and so on, but in the course of having someone speak to our students on a subject in the area of their study, we also invite him to speak to the general public, and that’s the purpose for our meeting tonight. I’d just like to say I’m very happy to see you, as I said before, here tonight. I trust the Lord’s blessing will rest upon us as we meet together.

    Before I open with prayer and say a little bit more about our speaker and the subject that he’s going to address, I’d like to begin by reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 11, verses 2 through 15. It’s a passage that Rev. Denison has asked me to read with you at the beginning tonight, Matthew 11, verses 2 through 15.

    When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else? Jesus replied, Go back and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John.

    What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in king’s palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you. I tell you the truth.

    Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist. Yet he who is leased in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it. for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who was to come. He who has ears, let him hear.”

    Let’s seek the Lord’s blessing in prayer. Our Father in Heaven, we thank you, Father, that you have called us together this evening, that we may come together as your people to be instructed by one of your servants that we may be taught through your word and through his words of instruction to understand the gospel, to understand something of the riches of your work of grace and the history of your people, both in the Old Covenant and in the New Covenant.

    May all of your promises find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, whose way was prepared by the prophets of old and by John the Baptist. We pray, Father, that as we come tonight we may truly receive your blessing. We ask for your strength, your wisdom, that you would provide for the needs of Reverend Dennison as he speaks to us. We pray that we may be properly instructed in the truth of your word, in the understanding of the gospel, so that we might be more faithful as living members of your Church, so that we might also be those who bear testimony to the world about us of the gospel as it is in Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, for your blessing upon each one who is here tonight, upon the work of Mid-America Reform Seminary as she seeks to train young men for the ministry of your word among the Churches. We thank you for those who have supported the school and for those also who have come to join us this evening.

    We pray, Father, that in all things we may look to you and to your word, and we may experience together the fellowship that we have in Christ Jesus. and that nothing that is said or done may be displeasing in your sight, but that it may all redound to your praise and to your glory, and to the greater extension and advancement of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hear our prayer and grant us your blessing, for we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    Perhaps before introducing our speaker, I should say just a word about the faculty lectures at the seminary. For several years now, as I indicated or suggested earlier, we have invited someone to speak to the students on a particular subject. This year, Rev. Charles Denison, who is with us, is addressing the students in three consecutive lectures on the history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, of which Rev. Denison is a minister. is addressed this evening to us is on the subject, What is the gospel? The question he’s going to ask with us is, What is the gospel? Now, to introduce Reverend Dennison, I’m sure there are those who could say a great deal about him.

    I only just met him today. I don’t know him that well, but I believe the important things that I do know about him are these. He is a minister of the gospel. He’s a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He serves a congregation. in a place called Sewickley, Pennsylvania. You’ve probably never heard of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, but you may know the city that it’s close to, and that’s Pittsburgh. He’s a minister there in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and he’s a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he also has the distinction of being the official historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

    So we’re very privileged and happy to have him with us tonight. At this time I would welcome him to address us on the topic, What is the Gospel? be wired up with these things. These haven’t come to Pittsburgh yet. I will say, this is a better looking audience than the one I faced this morning. I hope you’ll bear with me. Christian Reform audiences are very erudite when it comes to matters of theology, so they don’t have to be embarrassed about using big words. So it’s different than the way it is in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

    I’m a little nervous about this, that’s why I’m hesitating. is quite directly the definition of the gospel. This won’t be an effort at something of an exhaustive treatment of that subject, but I’m especially interested in relating this matter to the heavenly truth aimed at in the gospel. So the definition of the gospel and the heavenly truth aimed at in the gospel. Am I getting a feedback from this? Most especially, I’m interested in what is so good about the Good News. My thesis is this.

    The message preached by Jesus and the Apostles was good news because it announced the fulfillment of Old Testament expectation in the coming of God himself from heaven. And in the arrival of the Messianic Kingdom, And in this, the restoration of God’s intention for his creation unto its heavenly goal. Further, and in the second place, Jesus and the apostles preach a message which is good news, because it announced the presence of an antidote through grace, an antidote to divine judgment in the forgiveness of sins, in preparation for the coming of the kingdom’s consummation. And third and finally, the message was good news because it announced present participation. for believers, through Christ and by the Spirit, in the blessed realities that belong to the kingdom in its consummate state.

    One thing I want to do is review this definition that I’ve given you tonight. of the difficulties the Church has had in doing justice to it, but particularly I want to build on this definition in the interests of concentrating on the particular aspect with which the Church has had problems, namely the heavenly dimension of the definition that I’ve given you. In fact, it is this one dimension that in large measure has created difficulties through the Church, but no less for those who were around Jesus at the time of his ministry, and even for Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist. To the extent the Church continues to be confused about this essential gospel component, she remains more proximate to John than to Jesus, more Jewish than especially Christian. You will observe right at the beginning that Our definition has a threefold focus, something of a Trinitarian formulation.

    This is convenient because the gospel is, after all, the good news about what God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, has done. We can see especially the Father’s role in the history of redemption. His sovereignty at work as the era of promise ends and the era of fulfillment commences. The role of the Father’s sovereignty is at the center of what the Apostle Paul has in mind when he says, when the fullness of time has come, God sent forth his Son, Galatians 4. and most definitely at the center of things when Jesus himself said, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel. The second dimension of the definition that I give here of the gospel sets before us the work of the Son.

    The Son has that one who has come to earth from glory, who is himself the fully sufficient antidote for divine wrath, the answer to our sin. Of course, there are any number of texts that we can point to in this regard. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. The writer to the Hebrews says, So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of the many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

    And the Holy Spirit is clearly in view in the third part of the definition that we gave The Spirit communicates to us the benefits of redemption which are nothing less than lasting, that is, eternal, that is, heavenly blessings. After all, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, that is, it is not things that perish, but rather righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now, we have in this setting out for us threefold reflex to the definition relating each of the aspects to one of the persons of the Trinity, a systematic structure that in its full exposition gives us a great range of matters to consider and think about. Lest we think these matters, as they begin to develop, are meant for esoteric reflection, abstract reflection, we should realize, of course, that these statements and these formulations are clearly derived from and subordinated to the historical category. For after all, the gospel announces not an idea, not a concept, not a great new religious thought, but an event. Something has happened. Before the event, such and such was not the case. But now it is.

    The subject of the gospel, then, is properly the mighty act of God. And this act must be kept central to the explication of the gospel at every point. So that even when we’re talking about ideas and thoughts and concepts, we keep that act central and foundational. Now, about this historical grounding for the gospel, Joe Besson Murchin has this to say. Christian doctrine depends on history, he writes. But, of course, it must depend upon history, if it is to be a gospel. For gospel means good news, and news means an account of something that has happened.

    I must add at this point, Voss wasn’t known for being succinct. His paragraphs go on for pages, as do his sentences, but on this occasion he was brief. That’s good news for you, isn’t it? I don’t know whether I will be, but Voss was. Voss said the historical was first. than the theological. The historical was first, then the theological. I want to say something else at this point about the definition that we’ve given of the gospel, recognizing threefold formulation, relating that to the Trinity, systematic structure, and so on and so forth. the fact that we understand that beneath it all is this historical reality, foundation.

    We want to say also, as we reflect upon the definition, that the gospel is, and with Christian Reformed people tonight I can use this big word, The gospel is eschatological at every point. Where I am when I use that word out there in western Pennsylvania, people immediately get up out of their seats and they walk out the door. I’m glad to see that no one has done that this evening. Eschatology relates to the last things, of course.

    The message of what God has done puts before us the conclusive matters with regard to God’s plan and purpose. God has acted climactically. The end times have commenced with the action of God in Christ. The time of waiting is over, for God in Christ has come. He has entered into history and time. The kingdom has arrived.

    But God’s appearance and his kingdom’s appearance presently are preliminary and veiled, and as such they are preparatory for a greater day still, the day of judgment, the day of glory. And currently we live in the kingdom, to be sure, but short of its fullness, its consummate glory. While that is true, and in keeping with the definition that we have given, we do partake of the blessings and power of that kingdom in its consummate state. This gospel which we have embraced is particularly defined by the good news that we already have in our possession, the very realities of glory.

    Eternal life is ours by faith. It does not begin on the day we die or on the day that Christ returns. It has begun already. There is a crisis that has overtaken the Church. I’m sure you are aware of that fact. And that crisis has necessitated discussions about the historical dimension of the gospel specifically, because you see, that’s being challenged. There are those who have endeavored to separate fact from faith, who have contended that we can do away with the facts and yet retain the faith.

    That is, in fact, the heart of liberalism. What need have we of a virgin birth? What need have we of a bodily resurrection? Faith remains the same if we believe that God is the one who is offered to achieve purposes of his own and to grant us a spiritual life The meaning of resurrection then reduces itself to a positive outlook on existence. That’s what liberalism said.

    And the specialized discussion about eschatology, that big word, it also has been necessitated because of the crisis that has overtaken the Church. because people are not willing to admit anymore that anything substantive had occurred in the first century in the personal work of Jesus Christ.

    And they’re certainly not willing to relate that to anything that is beyond the boundaries of this creation in another world. The specialized discussion has then developed, and through that specialized discussion there have been some advantages in pinpointing various aspects of the gospel, helping us understand a little bit more fully its intention. But even though we have been helped by the specialized discussion, that does not mean that the Church in its strength has not from the beginning spoken accurately about the gospel and about its truth.

    There has been confusion. There have been periods of decline. In the ancient Church, for instance, the historical dimension is kept alive by the great interest in the Incarnation. God had come in the flesh, and everything is different. was kept alive also because of an apologetical interest, the interest that many of the early apologists had in defending the faith in an appeal to Old Testament prophecy. The prophecies had been fulfilled. The historical interest kept alive that way, too.

    But of course in the early Church there was the threat of moralism. there was the threat of mysticism, there was the threat of institutionalism, all of which were working against the conviction with regard to the historical dimension of the gospel. And these threats also affected conviction with regard to hope, eschatology.

    But there are the bright spots, appearing in various I think of one sermon by Melito of Sardis, for instance. I think also of certain statements of origin, although he was a man who slipped off into his own world in many respects. But he identified Christ as the kingdom in himself. And of course I think of Augustine and his classic work, The City of God. became the loss of urgency with regard to the gospel, as moralism rose, as mysticism took over, as institutionalism grew.

    It was the rise of millennialism, so that any contact with the realities of glory was delayed. Red out of the current experience of the people of God. It was the postponement of all blessings seemingly into a future world. And this wound of weakness in the Church was a harbinger of dark days to come. It could be argued that in the Middle Ages There was a near loss of historical consciousness altogether.

    Do you like those big coffee table books of art? Very interesting. I’ve always been fascinated with books of art from the Middle Ages, but do you know what I used to think? You ever notice those pictures? In those medieval collections where the artist is portraying what you know to be an ancient scene, say a scene from scripture, and everybody is dressed in medieval attire, and you were saying to yourself, like I did, you were saying to yourself, Boy, that’s an interesting way to make this whole thing relevant. Let’s put them in current dress so it looks like a current event.” Then I found out that people in the Middle Ages thought that the way they dressed was the way people always dressed. They never dressed any differently.

    The historical consciousness, you see, had been short-circuited. They couldn’t see back beyond their own time. They had no clear sense of history, and they most certainly had no clear sense of the history of redemption. Think of the death of Christ. There may be some vague grasp after the fact that Christ lived long ago and that he died outside a city in the Middle East. But by and large, the thought that overwhelmed the middle of the Church was this, Christ’s death was as current as this morning’s Mass. It’s a current event.

    And as it was with regard to the historical dimension, so it was with the matter of hope. or the eschatological nature of the gospel, it too being eclipsed. By this I mean the gospel no longer carried any sense of an intrusion of heavenly reality and blessing into the lives of believers. Eternal blessing was removed from their experience They had no sense of belonging to God, really or truly, they had no confidence with regard to it. You can see how this would throw the Christian populace into confusion and into crisis. It is precisely here that the issues at stake in our definition of the gospel begin most definitely to come into view. We might well ask of the medieval Church what remained of the gospel.

    There was no real appreciation that the turning point in history had arrived, that the end times had commenced in God’s gift of his Son, There existed no sense of the definite intrusion in God’s Son of an antidote to divine wrath. And specifically, there was no grasp of the fact that the work of Christ meant present participation for believers in heavenly blessing.

    It’s gone. To be sure, the Reformation would evidence its own weaknesses. We cannot be blind to that. As much as we love our Reformed heritage, our Reformation heritage, the Reformation itself would evidence its own weaknesses, even with respect to the historical categories in relationship to the gospel, and even the eschatological categories in relationship to the gospel. There is, in fact, in the Reformers, something of a lack, an immaturity when it comes to a full-blown history of salvation consciousness. There is even an ambiguity about the gospel’s relationship to heavenly blessing presently. The Reformers did think about eschatology.

    They didn’t speak of it in that term. But they did think about eschatology, but they thought about it exclusively in terms of the return of Christ and what lay beyond. And there is some evidence that they viewed the gift by which glory is gained as not of the heavenly realm, but unto it. Not a piece with it, but unto it.

    But even having said that and recognizing some of the criticisms that do rise. With the Reformers, undoubtedly, the gospel resurfaces in its power. It resurfaces in its historical particularity, even in its eschatological definiteness. Think about Luther. Luther’s rediscovery of the finality of Christ’s sacrifice, accessible by faith. This is nothing short of a revolution to the medieval world. A greater revolution even than the discovery by Columbus. Luther’s rediscovery of the finality of Christ’s sacrifice, accessible by faith.

    His awakening to the certainty of the gospel. Since by it he has grasped hold of glory itself. This heralds a new day, a new day for the Church. So however naively Luther is feeling after the lost dimensions of the gospel’s definition, he is indeed asserting with power the truth about that gospel and laying the foundation for a better definition to come.

    And Calvin himself likewise contributes to the same end. What about Rome now? Sixteenth-century Rome, heir of the medieval system, view of the world, view of God in his relationship to the world. For Rome now, in this circumstance, the gospel has been thoroughly, completely institutionalized. and formalized.

    The Church is inundated by moralism, and where it’s not inundated by moralism, it’s overwhelmed by mysticism. Moralism and mysticism don’t need history, they just need principles and methods. The gospel is known to the people in the Roman Church only as a reading from one of the four Gospels in the Liturgy of the Mass.

    With respect to the salvation which the Scripture is attached to the gospel, Rome taught that But God’s work in Christ was to supply supernatural sanctifying grace to fallen humanity through cooperation in the rite of baptism, thus restoring humanity from its corruption through original sin to its original state.

    Do you see what God is doing in the institutionalized form of their view of salvation? At its best, all that Rome can claim is that it is placing man back in the garden, and that even prior to the Fall. Furthermore, Rome taught that humanity so renewed is able through the means of grace, which are found in the Church, to restrain its natural concupiscence and capitalize on its restored right to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Do you understand the force of that?

    Rome’s message, then, is not that in the gospel you might find salvation, but in what we call the gospel, the mere possibility of salvation is answered. Hope is found in the sacramental ministry of the Church by which humanity is informed that it might once more, as Adam in his innocence had previously, avail itself of the opportunity of glory, the prospect of glory. What kind of a gospel is that? I mean, does that sound like good news? What has been procured for us? What has been given for us? What has been done for us? The best that you can say is that you are back in the position where you have the prospect of salvation, the opportunity for glory.

    The Reformers went and saw that Rome’s gospel was not good news at all. Not only did it not save, but consistent with that fact, it offered no comfort of assurance. You had no assurance at all. The Roman Catholic, therefore, could not claim salvation as his own, only the hope to it through his own merits by root of his own works in the Church. Such a position left the Church wallowing in despair, and to the extent that assurance of salvation was expressed within the Roman system, it was built upon human device and presumption.

    And Luther went after that in his Ninety-Five Theses. Further, against this travesty and attack upon the gospel, Luther would write, To him that believeth in Christ, sin is pardoned, and righteousness imputed. This trust and this confidence maketh him the child of God and heir of the kingdom. For in hope he possesseth already everlasting life, assured unto him by promise. Through faith in Christ, therefore, all things are given unto us—grace, peace, forgiveness of sins, salvation, and everlasting life.

    Present possessions, not just the hope of such things, but within one’s graft. Calvin was nonetheless assured He argued against the Council of Trent and its contention that assurance of the forgiveness of sins and the certainty of eternal life are sure signs of heresy. That’s what the Council of Trent said. If you have the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and the certainty of eternal life, identifies you, unmistakably, as a heretic. Calvin writes, Paul makes full assurance, the perpetual attendant of faith. What is faith asks Calvin, but that which appropriates the salvation which Christ procured.”

    There is then this instinct for the gospel in its full definition that is obviously pressing its impact upon the Reformers, their thinking, their consciousness. Many have suggested that Luther’s instinct for these things was much better than Calvin’s. Still, Calvin and his followers, better than Luther and his, saw the implications of the gospel in their widest application. and most specifically for the doctrines of God’s eternal election and the preservation of the saints.

    And this meant the door was open for the development by Calvinism of the conviction that gospel faith brought the leaders into direct contact with the permanent eschatological state. Do you see what it means for us? who are Calvinists, to believe in the perseverance of the saints, and the eternal election that undergirds that. In the perseverance of the saints, we are in effect being brought into direct contact with the permanent state of glory. We can’t lose it. the gospel. And I judge that from the tone of those definitions, some of them purporting to be Calvinist, others openly Arminian, there is a similar emphasis that is found in these definitions.

    That similar emphasis is that the gospel makes The Gospel makes a view of what, in fact, Christ has procured, but it doesn’t actually confer what Christ has procured. Terms like salvation and new life become limiting notions, quite nebulous, without any specific content. The Gospel, therefore, focuses on a preparatory stage for entrance into salvation and new life. It doesn’t actually confer it.

    Listen to this definition from Edmund’s Handbook of Christian Belief, a book edited by Adam Hewitt. Here is the definition of the gospel. The gospel is the good news of what God has done through Jesus, and especially his death and resurrection. He has made available to us forgiveness on new birth. He has made available to us forgiveness and rebirth in the Holy Spirit. It is through hearing the gospel that people can come to receive Jesus and find new life.

    In this definition of the gospel, we are not here concentrating on what then is actually conferred, what is actually given. We are dealing with what is offered. The gospel, therefore, focuses on a preparatory stage for entrance into salvation and into life, not the experience of salvation and new life. Negatively, the gospel insulates against the judgment and the unsavory nature of the old life.

    But we should be clear that these definitions signal the weakening, if not the demise, of Protestantism. Not only are we moving back towards a medievalism, but we are even moving towards a pre-Christian state if we understand things redemptively historically.

    John the Baptist knew about the futurity of the kingdom. He knew that the kingdom was coming. He was looking for the fulfillment of all of God’s promises, that was certain within his mind. He knew that when God acted, that would mean the end of the Age of Promise, the commencement of the Age of Fulfillment. He also knew that his ministry was preparatory. The prepared people for the eventuality of the coming of that King, for his ministry of baptism for repentance of sins. It was preparatory for the coming wrath and the impending judgment.

    He knew that as well. What John had trouble with was the fact that in the coming of the kingdom, future heavenly blessing should precede judgment. That is what he could not understand. How could that happen? How could heavenly blessings precede the judgment itself?

    Rather, there are both formal and material similarities between John’s position and that of contemporary Protestantism. They both believe God’s message prepares them to enter another condition and protects them from harm. The difficulty is that there seems to be an ignorance of, if not a denial of, the present reality of glory and its blessings. Actually, given the choice between John and contemporary Protestants, I would choose John. At least he has asked him the question, and presumably understanding the answer, it is returned to him in his prison cell. At least for John, the issue clearly centers in the certainty of the coming wrath and questions about eternal blessing.

    One gets the impression, however, that contemporary Protestantism’s talk about salvation and rebirth has more to do with productive, positive, moral, reconstructed, restored, renewed, revived, balanced, socially, politically alert lives in this world and for its sake, rather than anything that has anything to do with the world to come.

    We want to express our thanks to you, Rev. Dennison, for giving to us a very challenging message on how to think about elements of the gospel that are so often covered over in contemporary church life and ministry today. As I was thinking about your address when you were talking about history, it seems to me every time we say the Apostles’ Creed, were simply reciting the facts of history. The Father created, the Son came into this world, suffered, died, was buried, rose again and is coming again to judge, and all the blessings that are not simply in the future but also that accrue to us now, the forgiveness of sins and the new life, which is not set before us with the possibility of us taking it. are actually given to us, and that’s something that we can already enjoy now.

    Thank you again. You’ve given us much to think about and to reflect on. Let’s close in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for the fact that you have loved this world so much that you gave your only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

    We thank you, Father, that we have a message which is news, that there are certain life and death facts in it, that it is good news. It is a news that has the quality of being good and wonderful and amazing. We sing of that amazing grace, the sweet sound of the message that Jesus actually forgives us our sins. that the Lord Jesus actually gives us his Holy Spirit, and that the Spirit does turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, and that you, through the proclamation of the gospel, continue to build your church wherever that gospel goes. For in the gospel, of which we are not ashamed, your righteousness, O Lord, is revealed from faith to faith, so that the just shall live by faith. We thank you, Father, for giving to us this wonderful deposit that you have entrusted to the Church, the message which we must proclaim.

    And we pray, Father, that you will help us as churches that stand in the Reformed heritage will be faithful, be found faithful with that heritage that has come to us, and that that message may not receive any dilution. or pollution from our schemes or from our ways of thinking, that the gospel in all of its purity, but also in all of its power, will continue to be proclaimed and to be received by us with grateful hearts. We ask, Heavenly Father, that all of the churches that are represented here and all of the churches of Jesus Christ around the world will also continue to love the gospel, that they will love your word that they will not seek to reduce the message of good news to some small message, but that from the opening pages of Genesis to the close of Revelation, that all of that together is bound up as that most wonderful story in which we see how you, the God and Creator of all things, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, have worked in our history, have sent your Son into our flesh in order that we will be and might be able to experience life in your presence forever. And already now we taste of that age to come. So, Heavenly Father, we pray that you will bless us as we return to our homes and continue to bless us as we are involved in the life of the Church. Help us, Heavenly Father, to hold high that gospel for the sake and the honor and the glory of Christ.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Spirit Behind the Great Commission

    The Spirit Behind the Great Commission

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Holy Spirit” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 1, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Tracing every place the Holy Spirit surfaces across the synoptic Gospels leads directly to the Great Commission of Matthew 28, which finally carries out John the Baptist’s own prophecy in 3:11. The church’s unity and the Spirit’s presence are bound together in that same command. Baptism, at the commission’s center, is where all of this converges.

    More sermons from Matthew · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    This afternoon we are reading from Matthew 28, and we are reading from verse 11 to the end of the chapter. Give your attention to God’s holy, infallible Word. Now, while the women were on their way, Behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened.

    When they had assembled with the elders and the council together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers and said, You are to say his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep, and if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble. They took the money and did as they had been instructed, and this story was widely spread among the Jews as it is to this day. But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, that some were doubtful.

    And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

    Father, we bless you that we have been made, by your grace, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are asking you that we, with all humility, might also recognize our place in this creation. We pray that we might be responsible in our jobs, but we also ask you, Lord, that we might be responsible in the various relationships that we have to those in this world. We do think of our teachers and our employers. But we also think, Lord, of the government that is over us, and we have been commanded by you to pray for those who have authority over us in this world. We do ask, Lord, for them, that their rule would reflect your righteousness and your justice, that we as citizens might be respectful as is right. We pray your blessing upon our nation, but we ask, Lord, that we might be mindful of such service as we might perform throughout the world as a nation for the good of other nations. And we are praying, our Father, that we would see more and more governments that are kindly disposed to the ministry of the gospel so that the gospel might go forth unhindered.

    To defend our God, we pray for our various missionary endeavors. May our missionaries be respectful of government authority, even as that is an outworking of their respect for the authority that belongs to Christ and to him alone. We pray these things through Christ.

    Amen. Now I realize what I’m up against this afternoon. I’ve been in this position before, and I’ve watched the toothpicks come out. as they’ve been used to hold up drooping eyelids. So I’m not promising this won’t be painful, but we’ll try to make it as little painful as necessary.

    We have been dealing with the Holy Spirit in the gospel accounts, we have been considering the Holy Spirit, specifically in the synoptic accounts, that’s Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And we have been looking at, specifically, passages in Matthew’s Gospel, using his Gospel as a stepping stone for our considerations. Let me list to you, as we begin tonight, major places in the synoptic Gospels where the Holy Spirit is mentioned. So we start, of course, in Matthew’s Gospel, and this is paralleled in Luke, with the account of Christ’s birth.

    Of course, the Spirit is operative there. Christ is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin. That’s number one. You understand, then, that the New Age dawns in a work of the Spirit. God works afresh for his people, and that in the power of the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is making its appearance, and this is conceived in the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s birth. No human generation here, supernaturally conceived by the power of God, indeed through the Holy Spirit. by John the Baptist, you recall, Matthew 3, verse 11.

    He’s talking about the fact that he baptizes with water, but he’s preparing the way for one who will baptize in the Holy Spirit, or with the Holy Spirit and with power. John the Baptist, in this prophecy with regard to the ministry of the coming Messiah, is anticipating the Holy Spirit’s activities in relationship to the conclusion of all things. Holy Spirit there matched with fire. Don’t miss that point in John’s prophecy. Next, of course, just a few verses later, the baptism of Jesus. You remember the account. Jesus has come to John, and he has submitted himself to baptism.

    And the heavens open, you recall, and the Spirit of God descends dead-like upon Christ, and then there is the voice out of heaven declaring that this one is in fact the Son of God, and that the Father is indeed well pleased with him. So you have Jesus’ baptism, and not very much longer, a few verses further, you have the Matthew 4, verse 1, the fact that Jesus is then driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit, the intention of the Spirit to drive Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted, a text that is well worth considering when you’re thinking of your own position with regard to God and the temptations that come upon you. But Spirit’s will here expressed in driving Jesus out into the wilderness, Matthew 4, Next, we have spent some time on Jesus’ mention of the Spirit explicitly, Matthew 12, verses 28-32, placing things very dramatically in relationship to the Spirit and the Spirit’s ministry.

    He says that if he casts out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Later in that same section, he speaks about sins that can be forgiven and sins that will not be forgiven. And he says that while sins against the Son of Man will be forgiven, sins or blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. The Holy Spirit in connection again with the presence of the Kingdom of God, personhood of the Spirit in you as well as the Holy Spirit now is looked upon as a personage against whom blasphemy can be directed.

    And as well, the Holy Spirit brought into relationship with judgment, even final judgment. We come to the last text of great importance here with regard to the Holy Spirit at the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel. unique to Matthew’s Gospel, the Great Commission, so called, verse 19, as Jesus, now the risen Christ, speaks to his disciples as he is sending them out, and he tells them that they are to go to the nations and that they are to baptize the nations into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. looking at these six instances. We can say that the point to which Matthew’s gospel has been pressing is that Great Commission and the mention of the Holy Spirit in connection with it. The point to which the gospel has been pressing is that Great Commission and the mention of the Holy Spirit in it. we can go back through the various references to the Holy Spirit in Matthew’s Gospel and see what is said at the conclusion of the Gospel as the culmination point with regard to those references. The point at issue as Christ is conceived in the power of the Holy Spirit is unto the end that the nations might be reborn, might be generated And that by the agency of God, and not by the agency of men.

    The prophecy of John the Baptist. Maybe in ways that he didn’t quite imagine as he spoke those words, but nonetheless, here now is the baptism of the Holy Spirit placed in connection with these words that Jesus utters at the conclusion of the Gospel. Jesus’ baptism itself, as he is endowed by the Spirit for the carrying out of his ministry, the Church also endowed by the Spirit, commissioned in the Spirit, commissioned with the name of the Spirit for the carrying out of its ministry. Baptism is an initiatory rite for the Church.

    You don’t end there. At that time, you move on. You must live. Is there some parallel between your baptism and what follows in the trials and difficulties of your life, and Jesus’ baptism and what followed for him, the trials and difficulties that he faced?

    So we are pressing forward from these references throughout Matthew to see their culmination in the Great Commission as if that is the point to which the gospel had been pressing with regard to the Holy Spirit. In the ministry of Jesus declaring that if he by the power of the Holy Spirit casts out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon the people. Now the kingdom of God is manifest in earnest as the disciples are commissioned to disciple the nations.” So we see that as you move through the Gospel, this final reference with regard to the person of the Holy Spirit is the point to which the Gospel has been present, but it also brings into view A very interesting phenomenon, and that particularly in Matthew’s account, because you see what is in view here in the commissioning at the end is not just the Holy Spirit but also the Church. The Spirit is united to the Church.

    Jesus’ mention of baptism assumes that. It assumes the Church and its order. Now, why do I say that? I say that because you, sitting here today, don’t have the right to baptize the person sitting next to you. You don’t have the right to go home and baptize your kids in the bathtub or your swimming pool. The comments of Christ here at the end of the gospel assume the Church and its order.

    His commissioning here functions as something of an ordination for the eleven. They are ordained, they have a responsibility and an obligation, they have a duty, they have a calling, they have an office. And now there are to be about fulfilling that office, particularly in the way in which Jesus has spoken of it. to them, namely they are to baptize. They’re not just to go, they’re not just to evangelize, they are to baptize, and that going, that baptizing, and even the instruction that Jesus speaks about in conclusion in the Great Commission, affirms the Church and its order, the Church and its offices.

    So if I’m correct, if the mentions of the Spirit previously in Matthew’s Gospel are pressing towards the Great Commission, and when you come to the Great Commission at the conclusion, and at the center of the Great Commission is the doctrine of the Church, has then Matthew been pressing us along with the Spirit to the conclusion that the Spirit is inseparably united to the Church?

    To ask the question, I hope is to answer it. Now, this is as we might expect from Matthew, because Matthew is the one who does speak of the Church a couple of times during the course of his gospel. You recall the account of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus, and the Great Compression from Peter. Jesus, in response to that compression, says, Upon this rock I will build my church. That statement is unique to Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is talking to his disciples about how they are to handle sins amongst the brotherhood, and he brings up specifically the matter of the Church, chapter 18, verse 17, where he mentions the Church explicitly in regard to the discipline.

    Now, this connection between the Holy Spirit and the Church should be nothing new to us, although it may be something that we lose sight of too often. You understand the order of the Apostles’ Creed? It’s Trinitarian. The first part is dealing with God the Father, the second part with God the Son, the third part with God the Holy Spirit. So I ask you, what’s the phrase that appears right after the mention of the Holy Spirit?

    The Holy Catholic Church, as he heard it, is the same in the Nicene Creed. The Holy Spirit and the Church are bound together in our confession, not just in Scripture, but we, in our confessions, taking our cue from Scripture, saying the same thing. Now, why is that important? Because somehow, it has come to be believed among many that the Holy Spirit can be separated from the Church. That somehow the Holy Spirit operates apart from his Church. That somehow the Holy Spirit is detached from the sacraments, even particularly the sacrament of baptism. The operations of the Spirit have the Church in view, and yes, they have baptism that takes place in the Church in view as well. Now, that’s not to say that they are synonymous, that being baptized by water in the Church means that you’re baptized by the Holy Spirit automatically, and that you’re in, you’re automatically saved and regenerated and all that business. But it is to say that there is this inseparable bond between the operations of the Spirit and the operations of the Church.

    Having established this, Matthew 28.19, in the mention of the Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian formulation for baptism, becomes a light in which the other references that we have Matthew’s gospel concerning the Holy Spirit are to be appreciated. And that is particularly the case for Matthew 3, verse 11, and the prophecy of John the Baptist. There is one coming greater than I who shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. John the Baptist may well expect in that statement and from that statement that the appearance of the Christ, who was baptized with the Holy Spirit, brings immediate conflagration.

    The judgment arrives. There is that sense in which the scrutinizing of God appears in the world as never before, with his ministry, even with his ministry through the Church, is made effectual. But you see, the wonderful thing is that that prophecy by John the Baptist ends up being exegeted by what we find at the conclusion of the Gospel and what Jesus says in the Great Commission. Jesus indeed comes to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and yes, there is a judgment coming, but preparatory unto that judgment is the ministry that you have described in the Great Commission by Christ to his disciples. Preparatory for the coming judgment is the baptism into the name of the Father, into the name of the Son, into the name of the Holy Spirit.

    And this, then, becomes that which preserves unto the judgment and through judgment. throughout the Gospel of Matthew, and even in relationship to the Holy Spirit. But now understand, as the judgment itself is delayed, and you are the beneficiaries of that, the ministry of the Holy Spirit comes to you with blessings upon blessings. As you look at those blessings and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to you in your circumstance, it is to prepare you for that which comes, and to preserve you lest you be overtaken, lest you succumb to the judgment.

    But where do we find the ministry of the Spirit to that end? Well, you find it in the local Christian bookstore. You find it in, you know, ad hoc conferences that are held here and there across the United States or around the world. You find it in religious meetings. No, you don’t. you find it where the baptisms take place, in the Church. That is where the Holy Spirit is operative, in and from the Church, for the transformation of the peoples from the nations, that they might be gathered together as God elect, as a holy assembly for him.

    So, that’s all I have to say this afternoon. We’re done. I hope that too many of you don’t have to wake up now in order to go home. But, if you get nothing else from this message, please, hear me. the Holy Spirit is bound to the ministry of the Church.

    Our Father, we would be appreciative of what you have done for us, even as it is communicated to us in the sacrament of baptism We would not look away from that sacrament to find the operations of the Holy Spirit insofar as you have bound yourself to that sacrament and the blessings of your covenant to that sacrament. We are praying, Our Father, that we would not be deceived in this age in which there are so many invented and contrived ministries. We ask, Lord, that our hearts may be set upon you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and particularly now in light of this message, that we might be focused well with regard to the operations of the Spirit in connection with the Church. O Lord, may your Church around the world be of the same mind. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Sin That Will Not Be Forgiven

    The Sin That Will Not Be Forgiven

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Holy Spirit” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 24, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Popular speculation about the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit gets set aside in favor of a more specific reading: blasphemy against the Spirit is, at root, rejection of God’s own historical plan as it unfolds in Christ. What it refuses, not its emotional weight, is what makes it the most serious sin. Matthew 12:31-32 functions here as diagnosis more than warning.

    More sermons from Matthew · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we are reading once more from Matthew 12, and again we are beginning at verse 14. I’ll give you attention to the infallible Word of God. that the Pharisees went out and counseled together against him as to how they might destroy him. But Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there, and then he followed him, and he healed them all, and warned them not to make him known, in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, Behold my servant whom I have chosen, in whom my soul is well pleased.

    I will put my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A battered greed he will not break out, and a smoldering whip he will not put out until he leads justice to victory, and in his name Then there was brought to him a demon-possessed man who was both blind and dumb, and he healed him so that the dumb man spoke and saw.

    And all the multitudes were amazed and began to say, This man cannot be the son of David, can he? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This man cast out demons only by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and any city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.

    How then shall his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come upon you. For how can anyone enter the strongman’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strongman, and then he will plunder his house?

    He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven then. that blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

    Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, How can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil. And I say to you that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.

    Our Father, we are giving you thanks for the means of grace today. This morning we were thankful in your presence for prayer, and for your word, and especially, Lord, we are thankful, yes, for its recitation in our presence and for its proclamation. We are also thankful, O God, that you bless us with the sacraments, and we ask, Lord, that as we think about the sacraments in relationship to the other means of grace, that we would be encouraged with respect to the full identity of your Church and its proper marks. Lord, we would not balk, therefore, at that mark which is ignored by and large in your Church today, the mark of discipline. Surely the sacraments in a special way set before us that mark. We ask, Lord, that you would encourage your church throughout the world with respect to the sacraments and with respect also to this mark, this distinguishing mark of your people.

    To this end, our God, grant us good rule, that we might have those who rule well over us. Help your church with good preachers. Help your church, Lord, with a strong administration of your word, as it is most helpful in correcting and encouraging your children. And be pleased as well, Lord, to grant to your church good rulers, good elders.

    We ask, Father, for the elders that serve here, that your grace would abide on them mightily. and that they would do well in their office, and that we of this congregation would be a support to them. We pray these things now as we approach your word, as we think and reflect upon the great blessings you have given us in the means of grace, and also the responsibility that is ours under the discipline that you have established for your church, in and through Jesus Christ. by the Spirit. Amen.

    Finally, at long last, Matthew 12, verses 31 and 32. Therefore I say unto you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” Now, how are we to understand what Jesus is saying here? There is, of course, no question about the weightiness of these words. to read them has made many shudder. But what do they mean?

    Over the years, because of the seriousness of them, the Church has strained to identify the unforgivable sin. It has also strained to identify those who have committed the unforgivable sin. The early Church Father, Irenaeus, saw the unforgivable sin in the most general way as the rejection of the gospel.

    His interpretation of the unforgivable sin had special application in his own time to the attack upon the gospel by the Gnostics. Now, if you don’t know who the Gnostics are, I direct your attention to the most recent issue of New Horizons and to the article by Peter Jones. Athanasius thought that the unpardonable sin was the denial of Christ’s deity. This makes sense to those of you who know something about Athanasius’s great battle for Christ’s deity against Arius in the fourth century.

    A century before, Origen made himself famous by contending that the unpardonable sin was the committing of any mortal sin after baptism. Is it any wonder that some in the ancient church then delayed their baptisms until immediately before their deaths, in order to keep their records clean from damning mortal sin? And Augustine, in the 5th century, he was especially jealous for the authority of the church and that every individual who at death was impenitent in the eyes of the Church was guilty of the unforgivable sin.

    But the trouble with these approaches, regardless of how coarsely they may touch the central concern of Jesus’ way he works, as is especially the case in the approaches of Erroneous and Athanasius, all these approaches seem to be, in the end, somewhat arbitrary, motivated too much by immediate, pressing controversies, and not sufficiently grounded in the text itself.

    Now, from the late Middle Ages to the modern era, closer scrutiny has been paid to the interior logic of Jesus’ words. But even this has been done with questionable success, for example. A popular approach has been to zero in on the specific sin of the Pharisees. by cataloging Jesus with Beelzebub and not with the Spirit of God, the Pharisees have been guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So it is stated.

    But Calvin, as Robert Rollins of the 16th century very doubtfully pointed out, that the Pharisees as yet seem more guilty of the sin against the Son of Man, for which there is forgiveness, than the sin against the Holy Spirit, for which there is no forgiveness. And since the rise of the charismatic movement from the last century, The habit has been by some interpreters from that movement to identify the unforgivable sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as that insistence that is found within the Church that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly the casting out of demons and the ministry of healing, have ceased. In other words, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, in the judgment of many from within the charismatic movement, has been committed by all who oppose the charismatic movement. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has been committed by all who believe that the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased with the cessation of the New Testament period.

    How this approach relates to our text is never made very clear by the Charismatics, since in the text the Pharisees who oppose Jesus and the Holy Spirit are themselves firm believers in miracles. In fact, according to Jesus, some of the Pharisees’ disciples, if not the Pharisees themselves, were actively engaged in miracle ministries.

    So you see, even though we move away from the overt arbitrariness of the early Church, and more towards the text itself, or the identification of the unpardonable sin, The returns, many of the returns that we have received, have not been much more favorable.

    So what are we to do? Where are we to turn? How are we to understand better the meaning of Jesus’ words? we do well to keep in mind that central to Jesus’ message is the fact that the critical time has come in God’s dealings with the world. I cannot stress this enough for you. and maybe you become weary with me stressing it as much as I do.

    But central to Jesus’ message is this truth and reality. The critical time in God’s dealings with this world has arrived. And it has arrived specifically in Christ, in his ministry, in what he has come to do. Now it is this that is at work at the most fundamental level in what Jesus has to say in the text that we have read this evening. It is even at work, you see, as Matthew makes his assessment of things and turns our attention in the long quotation of Isaiah 42. We find his quotation there in verses 18 through 20. Moving through that quotation, it becomes apparent that Matthew’s assessment of things follows.

    It is the time for the unveiling of the servant of the Lord. the servant of the Lord who is so important to the prophecies of Isaiah, the most solid figure of those prophecies. It is the time of fulfillment for God’s promise to give his Spirit to his great servant. It is the time for the triumph of neatness through the Spirit in God’s servant. Ironically, such meekness being powerful to subdue nations and to create hope worldwide.

    The critical time that is central to Jesus’ message and central to Matthew’s message, as he quotes from Isaiah 42, the critical time and its arrival. is in view in Jesus’ exchange with the Pharisees that follows. In verse 28, Jesus reflects on this critical time which has arrived when he says, If I, by the Spirit of God, cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is come upon me. The critical time has arrived. Now, you will note in this that Jesus does not identify the critical time’s arrival with the casting out of demons per se, since the sons of the Pharisees, verse 27, have been casting out demons all along.

    Jesus’ point is that now that He, He personally, is casting out demons, then, because that is true, the critical time has arrived. It is not miracles generally conceived. It is not wonders performed. It is not amazing feats by religious personalities. It is the fact that Jesus himself now casts out demons.

    That marks the arrival of the critical period in God’s dealings with this world. That demarcates the arrival of the kingdom of God. But further, as Jesus progresses in his words, verse 29, this verse explains the arrival of the critical time in terms of the binding of Satan. The man who enters the strong man’s house in this verse, in verse 29, is none other than the Spirit-endowed servant of the Lord. And it is he who binds that strong man in order that he might despoil his house, take off his property, take off those who have been bound by him.

    And that is exactly what Jesus is doing. Jesus’ activity means the binding of Satan. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, as I review my life, as I look over my life and think about my struggles with sin, it doesn’t seem to me as if Satan has been bound. But that’s the truth of it. Jesus’ ministry means. that Satan is bound. How so? In the language of the book of Revelation, Satan is bound in that he no more, no longer, universally, uniformly, deceives the nations.

    And that individuals, yes, groups even, of people from those nations are being saved out of Satan’s grasp. The critical time in God’s dealings with this world has arrived, and that is evident, says Jesus, because now Satan is, as the strong man, bound, and yet his property is being carried off. But the arrival of the critical time is also apparent in verse 30. Here Jesus sets that arrival of the critical time in terms first of the presence of the great division that is occurring because of Jesus Christ.

    Either you are for him or you are against him. There is no middle ground. You cannot be neutral with regard to the person of Jesus Christ. The critical time has arrived, and it is defined in terms of allegiance to Jesus Christ. But secondly, in this 30th verse, the critical time is addressed through the figure of the harvest. The harvest is the road no longer. It has commenced. And whoever doesn’t gather with Christ, So is it cooperative with Christ? It’s actually at work tearing apart.

    And finally, we come then to verses 31 and 32. And the entrance into these verses is also by way of this truth and reality. The critical time has come. We are talking not just about division, not just about harvest, but lest there be any question about it, We are talking about eternal judgment. That is what is in the balance.

    But very interestingly now, and it takes a little patience to get through the argument because of the words that Jesus used, but very interestingly now, eternal judgment is not coming into play because someone violates the third commandment with regard to the person of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the focus of Jesus’ comments is not a profanity. In other words, the focus of Jesus’ words is not a specific profanity. in which the Holy Spirit’s name is blasphemed. Now, please don’t misunderstand me here.

    Such blasphemy is reprehensible and is gross sin, as is all blasphemy. But what Jesus has in mind here is something much more sweeping and comprehensive than the breach of any one commandment. As serious as that breach may be, what Jesus is doing here is he’s actually taking that sin which would be considered the most heinous, the most reprehensible, and he’s sending that in front of the people to accent the seriousness of what he’s saying. He is using it illustratively. What is more heinous, what is more serious than the sin of blasphemy?

    Have you caught yourself? Before you knew what you were saying, it was out? It didn’t matter that there were some people around you who used that kind of language all the time. You were thoroughly embarrassed, and then ashamed, and then even internally frightened.

    Jesus here has in mind something more sweeping and comprehensive than the breach of any one commandment. Be that commandment as serious as the third, and the attack upon the person of God, or the persons of the Godhead, thy way of blasphemy. He uses the contrast between blasphemy of against the Son of Man and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, yes, but in using this contrast he means to say something about then the progress and the development of God’s entire program for His humanity and for this world. That work, in his extreme language here, is the redefinition of the most serious sin, the redefinition of the identity of the unpardonable sin. And he will do that as he works out that identification in relationship to the development and the progress of the history of redemption, as you move from the economy of the Son of Man to the economy of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the rejection of the progress and the movement in the history of redemption that centers in the arrival of the Son of Man and in the coming of the Holy Spirit is the unpardonable sin.

    Here is precisely what the Pharisees are guilty of. They fail to acknowledge what time it is. They refuse to believe that God’s critical time in dealing with this world has arrived in the coming of Jesus Christ and in the dispensing of the Spirit that shall follow. They have failed in their biblical theology and in their grasp of the redemptive historical schema that is at work in the sovereign administration of God. Here is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, here is the most serious of sins, which cannot be and is not forgiven. It is the rejection of the plan of God.

    Now, if you would claim that you are innocent of this sin, please don’t content yourself with a quiet, calm, safe religiosity that leaves you somehow detached from involvement with what God has done in history by sending his Son and dispensing his Spirit for his people’s benefit. And if you would claim that you are innocent from this sin, then show in your fruits and in your language that you believe with all of your heart that the critical time in God’s dealing with this world has arrived. in and through Jesus Christ, and that you trust Jesus Christ with all your heart. For after all, as Jesus goes on to say, by your fruits you shall be known, and by your words you shall be justified.

    Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we might well be distracted by Jesus’ identification of one sin. his comment about blasphemy. But Lord, we would understand by his comment that he is drawing into view the most serious of sin. And Lord, what might be that most serious sin? Is it not the determined rejection of what you are doing in your Son and in your Spirit who follows?

    Indeed, O God, while it is still the time of the Son of Man and Jesus ministers in his flesh in the world, Though the critical time has been announced, the period in which there is this grace abounds. But once the Holy Spirit appears, O Lord, then the critical time has been sealed. We pray, our Father, that we would not be guilty of the sin of rejecting your plan, even in our hearts, and that we would apply ourselves as we are aware that the critical time has arrived, that Jesus Christ is Lord, that the Holy Spirit has come, and that the Kingdom of God has made its appearance in this world. We pray this through Christ. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.