This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Name of Jesus Christ” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 15, 1987.

This morning from John chapter 1, verses 1-14. Then we’ll be looking at some verses in Colossians and finally in Hebrews. This is John chapter 1, verses 1-14. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which lighted every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world And the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Then from Colossians chapter one, beginning with verse thirteen and reading through verse twenty.

God hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.

For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible whether they be thrones, or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in him, that in all things, he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.” And finally from Hebrews, chapter one, first three verses.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past under the fathers, by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. Who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the back of the on.

Today, our God, is the day of salvation. Your word goes out to the ends of the earth, especially in this day as it is proclaimed throughout the earth by your servants. And Father, they being laborers for the harvest raised up in keeping with the prayer of your people, We ask that you, the Lord of the Harvest, would bless them mightily. Father, we ask that our prayer, that our labors of love may be viewed by you as a participation in their ministry, and that we would see this harvest as that in which we have been privileged to partake.

We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. Jesus. We have been considering this theme for some time now. We’re getting close to the end. But this series has offered us a bit of a repeat free. In a belief beleaguered treatment of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus then before us his person, who he is. The name he bears signifies that health, salvation, is found nowhere else. For Jesus means salvation is of Jehovah. That salvation is pointed, it is particular. You remember what is said of Jesus before he came into the world. You shall call his name, Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. This one, Jesus, then also called Christ.

He is the anointed one, that one to whom all other anointed ones pointed. He is the one who bears the anointing of God in the spirit beyond measure. He is extraordinary. He is the king. He is the priest for the people of God. He is the Lord’s final prophet and spokesman.

But Jesus is also the Lord himself. He is given that title, and the sweep of the Old Testament use of that name comes now to reside in this one, Jesus. And what is he as Lord? What does it mean for you to say, Jesus is Lord? It means that he is your owner, and that you are his possession. and therefore you are to glorify him in all that you do, all that you are. Jesus, the salvation of God, the anointed one, the Lord, our owner.

But this one is also the son of God. And as son, he is heir. He is the inheritor of God, and all things that belong to God. As son, however, he is unique, for just acknowledging him as heir, as inheritor, falls short of the fullness of New Testament confession. That New Testament confession measured by the statement of Thomas before the risen Christ my Lord and my God.

Therefore, beyond all sons of God spoken of in Scripture, in the Old Testament, beyond all of these that are so described, this one is the Son of God, the Son of God who is God. And as the son of God who is God, his presence in the world is overwhelmingly significant.

His presence means that the very realities of heaven have come into our world. The very realities of the future have become present to our experience. He brings heaven into our presence and our presence into heaven. He brings the future into the present and the present into the future. In response to this one, we are face-to-face then with that overwhelming decision For you see, it’s as if this One who is the Son, the Son who is God, bringing heaven into our present, the future into our present.

It’s as if we are being robbed of the world by Him. We are being robbed of this present evil age, and we are liable to cling to it even though we have been confronted with the cost of our clinging. That being one response, a clinging to this world in light of who he is and what he has done and what he has come to reveal, at the same time we might completely misunderstand what he has come to do, what he has come to reveal.

For opposite those who would cling to the world are those who would run from it, renounce any responsibility in it and for it. But a look at the sun teaches us differently. For while we cannot cling to the world, we can’t run from it either. For the sun did not run from it, but gave himself in it.

And we must do the same. Well, we’ve said all this before. You’ve been through this exercise with me. This morning, we have another word, a somewhat concluding word concerning Jesus as the son of God. Let me introduce this word to you by asking you a question. And it’s a question that is not unrelated to the remarks that we’ve just made concerning our clinging to the world and then possibly through misunderstanding our running from it. The question then. How do you view creation. How do you. Create. Whose work is it. When you think of the creation of the world how do you do it. Who is at work there. You draw a blank. Drawing back from imagining the form of God, somehow operative at the creation? What is your habit of mind when you reflect upon the creation of the world?

Is God absent, possibly, so utterly distant that if there is any contact between Him and the world, it is only at the end of his fingertips, and that with his eye, with his face turned away. Now, I know that we’ve all seen Michelangelo’s painting from the Sistine Chapel, and to be sure, the eye of God is not turned away, but the fingertips is there at least. God touching things only with his fingertips. Somehow, let me be contaminated.

I dare say that in our ruminations about creation, we are quite, quite indiscriminate, and our thoughts of God with regard to creation are also oftentimes quite indiscriminate. We are constrained by Scripture. to acknowledge that creation is a manifestation of his power, that his divinity is there revealed, and his goodness, to be sure. But in our reflections upon creation, we are liable to emphasize things so common and so nondescript that after we are done thinking about creation and the God of creation, we have nothing else but a common God. One who himself is nondescript and quite indiscriminate.

Is that what happens to us when we venture into the public sphere? We take step outside the door of the church, and all the particularities of God disappear. Somehow God becomes a general figure. I don’t know. Sort of a cross between a grandfather and a cosmic and land. who looks like George Burns. But this is the God that is called upon at public function. The God prayed to. When it’s in the interest of those present that he be anything but specific. specifically delineated and confessed. So, our habit of mind with regard to our thoughts of God at creation. Who was there? Did he appear? Did he make himself known? Was there a revelation of theophonic glory? Was God involved somehow more than just touching things with the ends of his fingers? Was God creating around him that which was made? Well, even the Old Testament will not allow us to confess out of creation our God indiscriminately, as if he were simply a common God, without any specificity whatsoever.

That there is more involved is plain. If you were to turn to Proverbs, for instance, the eighth chapter, oh, that’s a mighty chapter. Read it through this afternoon. verses twenty two through thirty, a hymn of wisdom, wisdom himself personified, speaking as if God, accompanying God, present, so says wisdom, was I at creation before I am from everlasting to everlasting. What a magnificent statement that is.

You can take stock, too, realizing that the Old Testament itself is suggesting that there is more than just what we commonly might imagine to this whole matter of creation and the presence of God at creation. Take account of the creation story itself, the mention of the presence of the Spirit, the Spirit of God, hovered above the water. Should we think specifically of the spirit somehow present like a dove hovering over the face of the waters? Some kind of visible manifestation of God present then That there is more in view is brought out by what God Himself says later on at the creation of man.

Let us make the enigmatic us in our… What is the us, the our? There have been many suggestions made. There is the matter of God’s condescension, some would say hidden. hidden beneath the surface of what is being said in Genesis 1 and 2. I don’t think it’s hidden as much as some say. God himself, subjecting himself to the succession of days, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, on the 7th he rested. Was God tired? Yes. Yes. Why? Because he subjected himself to the conditions of the world that he was making. Did God pass from day one to day two? Yes. Why? Because he subjected himself to the conditions of the creation he was making.

God’s condescension, the humbling of God in creation, But there is more than meets the eye, or more than we often confess or acknowledge. In the Old Testament, with regard to creation, is made plain by how the Old Testament uses the story of creation.

We’ve read Psalm 148 this morning, and the praise that is coming forth from every quarter of the universe, the praise of our God. But you see how that psalm ends. It ends with a statement with regard to the redemption of God’s people, His people Israel, so that you have creation and redemption brought together. It is exactly the same in all of the other Psalms that emphasize the creating work of God. Think of Psalm 8 and the words concerning the humility of the child. Think of Psalm 19.

The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth its handiwork, and it ends with a hymn of praise to the law of God, and a request of God that God Himself might search out the heart of His servant. Psalm 24, “…the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof, the world in David’s.” Well, there is, but it ends in that magnificent picture of the One who ascends the hill of the Lord.

All of these taking the theme of creation, yes, and then utilizing that theme in relationship to the matter, the subject of redemption. They being brought together so that, yes, when we consider the subject of creation in the Old Testament, even there we are being pushed by the Old Testament itself to see more there than ordinarily meets the eye, those things that drive us beyond a simple, bare consideration of God in His power, His divinity, or His goodness. We are driven in the direction of the specificity of God in His person. All that God is, even there, not completely clear to us yet, but there nonetheless.

Well, it is the New Testament that brings to light what the more of the Old Testament was all about. It is the New Testament that brings to light that more from the Old Testament testimony. The Lord floods in upon you as you read John 1. What’s in upon you as you read Colossians 1, as you read Hebrews 1, and you realize, no, it wasn’t some common God, some nondescript God.

It was the God who is known in His Son, in the Son of God, for the Son of God was there present in the activity of God when God made the world. The fullness of God’s person, at work in creation. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Specifically, pointedly, the Son. Right smack dab in the midst of God’s creating work. By, through, and for. Those are the prepositions that are used with regard to the sun and his activity in regard to creation. Now, your response may well be sitting where you do.

Of course, after all, I have believed that the son of God is God, that he is from all And therefore, if God is present at creation, the Son is present there, too. And truly, I am prepared to confess that this Son of God, who is God, allows for no rivals. No more than God Himself signified repeatedly in the Old Testament allowed for any rivals among His people. the establishment of idols for God. So, yes, I know in my confession is God from all eternity. Therefore, he is at work in creation and even more than that. Providing myself and my ability to see things much more clearly now, going and maturing in my faith, I am prepared on the background of Proverbs chapter eight, and what is said of Christ in 1 Corinthians chapter one, verses twenty-four and thirty, Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. He is the embodiment of the wisdom of God.

As the Old Testament was able to affirm the presence of wisdom there, at the creation of the world, I now am able to see that the Son of God is the wisdom of God, and he is the one who is actually present. Now, having said all of that, have you said enough in grasping the significance of the New Testament affirmation of the presence of the Son at and in creation?

The fact is that the more into that in the Old Testament is even more down yet. You see, it’s not just a matter of you. That Jesus, the son of God, is God, and that as son of God, he is from all eternity, and that he is in his person the wisdom of God, that one by whom God has made the world, through whom and for whom he has made them. It is not enough for that fall short of the New Testament perspective, as glorious as that confession is.

You see, the pressure that weighs upon John, and the pressure that weighs upon Paul, and the pressure that weighs upon the writer to the Hebrews, is precisely the same. They have observed, under the pressures of God’s redemptive work, the similarities between that work of redemption and the work of creation.

As I have said, we are not to imagine the creation as a work of God indiscriminate. No! God, by His condescension, God, by a deliberate act of humbling Himself, creates the world. And now, as it was in creation, so in re-creation. As it was in the original creation, so in the new creation.

At the center of both works is the love of God and parallel condescensions on the part of God, and at the heart of both is the Son. That’s the expression of that love. In both, the great God becomes the servant. in both. The great God. He comes to serve. That is not therefore a new idea reserved for the New Testament.

You see. If what I am saying to you is true. It is the very meaning of existence. and all reality. That is the heart of it right there. It’s possible to be at war with yourself and to consider your life in the church and then out in the world. Talk of servanthood is fine here. It’s appropriate in church. When I step out the door. It’s a whole nother ballgame. The rule out there. He’s power. Power. Not service. Power. Now how far do you have to get outside the door? To your car? Sunday lunch? your children, your wife, your job the next day, school, how far do you have to get?

Well, you see, the strange It’s not just with regard to matters of redemption, that the message of servanthood pertains. It is with regard to the entirety of existence, all of life and all that you are. Give me a few more minutes. Beyond the application that I’ve already made. I’m sure that you can put it firstly, compactly. Our posture with regard to the world, our disposition within the world, no less than in the church, is that of servanthood. For we are like God. We are to be Christ. Giving of ourselves, humbling ourselves, surely as he has.

So I don’t use this pulpit as a soapbox for my. Personal love. And I haven’t spoken to you. Directly. About the Christian school. But let me say something. Do you see how significant this whole thing is becoming? You can have your battles out there in the world with regard to the public sector and whether God’s going to be admitted to the classroom or not. But what kind of God is going to be admitted? I ask you that. I’ll tell you what kind of God. A God that’s not worth having. He’s completely indiscriminate and nondescript. There’s nothing unique about him. So let them have their God and their gods.

But do you understand now what is at the heart of Christian education, what must be at the heart of a Christian school? Not some sort of general notion about God, but the specificity of God in Christ. Education, then, is not simply to be God-centered. not God indiscriminately considered, but Christ sent. For Christ is at the center of God’s creating work. It was through by and for God in Christ created. An education then that does not honor Christ is not a God honoring education.

Period. Now some of us are liable to find ourselves in impossible circumstances. But if we find ourselves in those impossible circumstances with our children, it behooves us to in every effort extend all energy to encourage them in the things that we know to be true in the face of what they’re getting hit with every day. One last thing. You can’t see the meaning and the significance of the original creation without having entered the new creation. You can’t understand the meaning and significance of creation without being recreated yourself.

And it is only with the spectacles that God can supply that you are enabled to see things as they really are and are to be I hope and trust that that is very clear to you. Let’s pray. Our Father, we would bless you that you have opened our eyes And the more that the Old Testament hinted at. We thank you. But that more has been made plain to us now. That had worked in the creation. Was your eternal son? So that all of reality bears the mark. Of the great God. Who made himself servant? In the midst of all the things he was Lord, may our life in this world be similarly marked. Now, Lord, may that mark be understood supremely in light of the cross of Christ, our great Savior, by whom we have been reconciled to you, enabled to see, so that now truly we understand the world around us.

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.