This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philemon” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 20, 1998.

We begin our scripture reading this morning in the book of Daniel, chapter 7. This is the book of Daniel, chapter 7. We begin with verse 1. Give your attention to God’s word. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed. And he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it. Daniel said, I was looking in my vision by night, and behold, the four wings of heaven were stirring up the great sea.

The four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion, had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked. And it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man.

A human mind also was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second beast, resembling a bear. And it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth. And thus they said to it, Arise, devour much meat. After this I kept looking, and behold, another one, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast had also four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this, I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong.

It had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet, and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up from among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it, and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, now uttering great boasts. I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

His vesture was like white snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. The court sat and the books were opened.

Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, by an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time.

I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom. that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me, and the visions in my mind kept alarming me. I approached one of those who were standing by and began asking him the exact meaning of all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things. These great beasts, which are four in number, are four kings who will rise from the earth, but the saints of the highest one will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, for all ages to come.”

And then turning over to Philemon, verses 1-3, Philemon 1-3, “…call a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved brother and fellow worker, And to Appiah, the sister, and to Artebus, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your home, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray together now. We thank you, our God, for your mercies. We thank you, Lord, for the blessing of your word. Encourage us in our service to you, even as we receive that blessing according to your grace. Lord, hear us as we would receive your word for the benefit of our souls and the good of those around us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Some of you are aware that the benediction in a worship service is reserved for the minister, that not every Tom, Dick, or Harry can pronounce the benediction. That is why, if you have attended an ordination service, that service inevitably ends with the man just ordained pronouncing the benediction as the first official act of his ministry. But while you may know that benedictions are to be pronounced only by ordained ministers, You may not know that historically the apostolic salutation is to be extended to a congregation of God’s people also only by the ordained minister. The apostolic salutation, if you did not know it, is that familiar line we find in Philemon verse 3. which appears in almost identical words in all of Paul’s letters.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Worship services then have been understood as those services that begin and end with official ministry extended to the congregation by those who have been set apart for that ministry, in salutation and in benediction. Now, I point this out to you this morning not in order to elaborate on the reason why the salutation and the benediction are to be pronounced by an ordained minister alone. Rather, I call your attention to this practice so that you might gain a sense of the importance which the Church, even within the Scriptures, has historically assigned to these activities. The salutation welcomes God’s faithful in His name, into His presence, as if God Himself were giving the salutation. The benediction pronounces, rather, better, places the blessing of God upon his people, as if he were doing it himself, as his people depart out from the sanctuary, from the service, into the world, going about their business.

Specifically this morning we want to concentrate upon the salutation. And it is important for you to know that the salutation, the apostolic salutation, has been approached by others at other times in the history of the Church with greatest reverence and with the deepest spiritual concentration. In our time, however, the Church tends not to think much about the salutation, or even about other aspects important to the life and worship of the Church. In fact, the general impression we might get from some quarters in the Church is that Not only does the Church care little about the salutation, it doesn’t care at all about who would give it.

For now, not only can every Tom, Dick, and Harry pronounce the apostolic salutation, every Mary, Sue, and Sally can do the same. My next few messages on Philemon will focus upon the apostolic salutation found in verse 3, my hope being that there may be here an opening up for you of the importance of the salutation. Paul’s salutation properly, verse 3, as part of his greeting to Philemon and those within, verses 1 through 3.

Now if we think about greetings generically, we soon realize that they are filled with limitations. For instance, we often struggle with sincerity in greetings. Our own sincerity, and that of those whose greetings we are receiving. At times we argue within ourselves about the investment demanded by a proper greeting.

Do I have time for this? It was just an innocent statement. All I did was ask, how are you? A half hour later, I’m still standing here. Do we have the time? Or in some cases, do we have the money? Greetings may cost us. There may be an outlaying of funds involved.

And we who are a bit more philosophical, or should I say a bit more cynical, might reflect on the powerlessness of greeting. concluding that, you know, at the end of the day, they’re actually useless. Can they, after all, confer to those we greet the sentiment expressed by our greeting? Can our get-well cards actually confer good health? It would be well that they could, But on top of all these dark and cynical thoughts, there is the matter of the built-in obsolescence to our greetings. It is as if they have an expiration date bar-coded to them. Soon the time passes, and they are no longer appropriate. In fact, we throw them out. The cards are discarded. The greetings are forgotten.

But turning to the Apostle Paul, and to his greeting and the salutation it contains. Here is a greeting with no expiration date for as long as this world lasts. Here is a greeting with no expiration date for as long as this world lasts. A greeting powerful to conserve its content. A greeting invested with the deep love of God, the blood of Christ, the expenditure of the Apostle’s own life.

A greeting free to you. and freely offered, a greeting that reveals the absolute sincerity of the Apostle’s heart, but more importantly still, the absolute sincerity of the heart of the Father in Heaven and the heart of His Son at His right hand. To begin with then, Paul, the envoy of God, the ambassador of Christ, extends a greeting fit for this age. Now, I know that some of you were wondering when I would get around to explain the title that has been appearing in the bulletin for the last two months. Paul, as the envoy of God, the ambassador of Jesus Christ, extends a greeting fit for this age.

Here is no seasonal greeting. that one suited for the entirety of the age in which he lived. And what age might that be? Well, precisely that age since Jesus Christ was manifest in the flesh, since he completed his ministry, since he gave himself on the cross for our sins, that age since Jesus Christ rose from the dead, was exalted into heaven through his Father’s right hand. That age which will end at his return from heaven to judge the world.

In other words, the age in which the appropriateness of Paul’s greetings prevails is the age in which not only the apostle originally extended the greeting, but the age in which you and I presently live. In a certain sense, the calendar hasn’t moved. Whether you were part of the Colossian congregation in A.D. 60, where Philemon was a member, or you were a part of the Church in Calvin’s Geneva in the 1540s, or you’re a member of Christ’s Church here in the United States in the latter part of the 20th century, Paul’s apostolic reading is for you.

In terms of the salutation now that is laid out before you in verse 3, specifically, the age of which you are a part, together with Calvin, together with the Apostle Paul, has been marked out by the revelation of the fatherhood of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ. Grace you and peace from God our Father and the Word of Jesus Christ, marked out by the revelation of the Fatherhood of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But we must be very careful here as we take in what the Apostle intends as he writes these words and extends them to the saints. For actually, we misunderstand this revelation. of the Fatherhood of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, if we merely think of this revelation as a coming to light in more radiant brilliance of that which was always there, what has always been. You might be responding even as you think of the verse, even as you think of the terminology in it. Well, God the Father has always been the Father. God the Son has always been the Lord.

What more is there to be said? What other angle can we possibly take to these words? But I suggest to you this morning that The line of approach that I’ve just suggested to these words is not exactly what Paul has in mind. You see, Paul has in mind what God and the Son have become for their people. He has in mind what God and the Son have become to their people, that they might now, in the great work of redemption, extend the grace and the peace newly come, of which Paul speaks in his greeting.

Therefore, this age in which we now live, is the most extraordinary age. For in it, God has become the Father in a new sense, as if in some way He had not been the Father previously. Yes, God the Father is from all eternity, but he becomes the Father in relationship to his Son, Jesus Christ, specifically in relationship to his Son’s work for an unprecedented expression of his loving care to his people, which now explodes in the benefits of adoption for those who were not formerly children, but now have been made the children of God. Along the same lines, similarly, Jesus Christ becomes the Lord. The process in view is that which is necessitated because Jesus is made like unto one of us, and as Adam was meant to be a Lord, so now Jesus becomes the Lord. He becomes Lord as second Adam, and he exercises that Lordship now, even specifically in relationship to his humanity.

Paul is not here then thinking, first of all, about what the Son of God has been from all eternity with the Father. I know this is a difficult thing, for to be sure of the name Lord must bring, in some sense, the eternal dignity and divinity of God’s Son into view. This is, after all, the special covenantal name, Lord, the special covenantal name of God, so precious and so exalted in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, without denying the eternality of the Son, Paul means especially to set before us what the Son of God has become by virtue of his work.

As Peter, that other apostle, said in Acts 2.36, God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Acts 2.36. Jesus then becomes the Lord by his triumph, a triumph capped by his taking his seat at his Father’s right hand in glory. From his exalted position, now Christ oversees the kingdom which has come into his possession, and as Lord, he in kingly fashion distributes the blessings of the Father. and mediates his father’s love and care to all of his children.

This means, then, that Paul’s greetings—I’ve already used the language of envoy and ambassador to describe Paul—this means that Paul’s greetings are kingdom greetings. They are royal greetings. Expressing as they do, the administration of the kingdom which is now common has been established in this age in which you and I presently live.

But this being the case, we must also recognize that Paul’s greetings have little or nothing to do, contrary to what so many have said, have little or nothing to do with the common Greek and Roman greetings of the first century. Paul is not here merely picking up a form, but now filling his soul with Christian vocabulary. There is nothing ordinary or pedestrian here, nothing lifted from the greetings typically traded by first century citizens with one another. If we are looking for the background to Paul’s greetings, to his salutations, we would do better to look to the Old Testament. in the context of that wildly prophetic period of the exile.

God, as we read this morning, granted Daniel a vision of Christ’s coming kingdom. One like the Son of Man came up to the Ancient of Days, Daniel writes, and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom. And all the peoples and nations and men of every language were to serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.” Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14.

Interestingly, this prophecy given to Daniel was given in the midst of one of the most chaotic periods in the history of the world, when a series of kingdoms, mighty and apparently indomitable, successively exerted their power through great kings, but gave way successively to one another.

Kingdoms rising in silence. You needed a scorecard. We can’t even keep the kings straight today when we read the literature. These lords, these kings of the earth, also sent out their royal greetings, back up in Chapter 4, you find Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian, in chapter 4, verse 1, sending out his communite.

You hear the greeting, May your peace abound, he writes. A little later on, chapter 6, verse 25, Darius the Persian, he sends out his message, and attached to it, again, the same greeting, May your peace abound. Now it can be said that there is something of a vain boast heard in these greetings from these kings of the earth, that these kings would actually believe that they could deliver and maintain the peace of which their greetings speak. But you might note as well that these greetings appear in letters that are sent out by kings who have been confronted by the marvelous, wonderful supremacy of God. These things are compelled to acknowledge that thing.

When the Son of God comes and finishes His work, the kingdom only faintly reflected by Nebuchadnezzar and Elias Here is the true and eternal kingdom, the kingdom in which the Lord Jesus Christ reigns. And from his throne now, he issues his royal greeting, communicated by his envoy and his ambassador. he issues his royal greeting, and such is the nature of this greeting, that it not only guarantees the substance of the greeting pronounced, but is actually capable of communicating the substance. Can Nebuchadnezzar guarantee that his subjects would have peace abounding to them? Can Darius guarantee that the citizens of his kingdom would have peace abounding to them?

The Lord Jesus Christ, exalted to the right hand of the Father sends out his royal greeting by his envoy and his ambassador, and such is the nature of this greeting. But not only does it guarantee the substance of the greeting, it actually confers the substance. Greetings fit for this age. Let me tell you, dear friends, you want to be greeted by the King. to be absolutely clear with you and to use the language of the salutation itself.

The Lord Jesus Christ, presently from his throne, by his life, guarantees to you grace and peace. By His life He guarantees to you grace and peace. Do you hear what I’m saying? He is alive, and because He is alive, because He is risen from the dead, He in His person has become the guarantee for your grace and peace. But not only is He the guarantee in Himself, but He is communicating that grace and peace to you presently, right now.

Do you find yourself ready to receive the greeting from the Living Lord? Have you received the grace and the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ and our Father? And are you profiting presently from that grace and peace today? Am I asking you if you are saved? I am. Are you saved? I trust that you are.

O Lord, lead us by the words, the words you have placed in the heart of your apostle, words that have been written out by the pen. And Lord, lead us by those words that we might consider the grand and excellent blessings that are ours In this greeting that is extended to us, a greeting meant for the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, a greeting fit for this age in which we live. Lord, may we be confident, according to the pattern of the Gospel and the commands of Scripture, may we be confident that we belong to you. and that even presently will die. We are blessed by the grace and peace of your eternal kingdom. This through Christ, who died for our sins and was raised for our justification. 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.