This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Pattern of N.T. Authority” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 19, 1993.

We begin our reading this evening in Deuteronomy chapter 6. We begin at verse 20. I give you attention to the word of God. When your son asks you, in time to come, saying, What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord commanded you?

Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand. Moreover, the Lord showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household. And he brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which he had sworn to our fathers. So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival as it is today. And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as he commanded us. Then turning to Mark chapter 2, beginning at verse 1. And when he had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that he was at home.

And many were gathered together so that there was no longer room even near the door. And he was speaking the word to them. And they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And being unable to get to him on account of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, My son, your sins are forgiven. But there were some of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts.

Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, Why are you reasoning about these things in your heart?

Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, arise and take up your pallet and walk? But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home. And he arose and immediately took up the pallet and went out in the sight of all, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, we have never seen anything like this.

We do beseech you, Lord, that you would help us with our faith, that it may in fact be an obedient faith, as we are instructed most directly by your word. Therefore, our God As you have blessed us, may we be a source of blessing to others, and especially a source of blessing to those who are of the household of faith. We ask you, God, that you would give us pause, lest we overlook the obvious. May we see those things that need to be done. May we give ourselves to those who are in fact in need. And Father, may we be gracious in receiving such help as might be extended to us in your name.

In these things, O God, may we prove to be your children. Always alert to Jesus Christ, your Son, in whom these very things were perfected. We live in him and from him. And Lord, we delight in that position which you have given us with respect to yourself in Him. Hear us now as we would be instructed by you. Indeed, for Jesus’ sake and to your glory. Amen.

Tonight we are bringing to a conclusion our study of Mark 2, verses 1-12. Having studied this passage along the lines of the theme, the pattern of New Testament authority. Now our point has not been what you might have expected. Our point has been that the issue of New Testament authority is no mere matter of isolating principles for application in our Christian experience. And I might add, nor is it a mere matter of taking something as revered, something as holy, just, and good as the commandments of God, and applying them to our Christian lives. No. Much more, the matter of the pattern of New Testament authority has in view this specific matter, that of participation.

Underscore that. That of participation. So that we then are drawn into the biblical text our lives then being molded and shaped by the very atmosphere declared in that text. Specifically, we have tried to insist on this point. Our approach is covenantal, and as such, it is an extension of the dynamic energy at work in the covenant and throughout the Word of God. As I have said many times, The Bible’s intention is that we might not be left at a distance from the biblical drama, but rather be drawn into that biblical drama, that we might see ourselves as participants in it. Now, I want you to notice how this is inherent to the covenant itself. This means that we are observing here something that is true not just of the New Testament, but of the Old Testament as well.

That is why I read to you tonight from Deuteronomy chapter six. But that Deuteronomy six passage is merely an extension of something we find earlier in the book of Exodus. And I want you to look at the book of Exodus chapter 13. Here in this 13th chapter of Exodus, we have provision made for some of the particulars in the celebration of the Passover. But I want you to note especially verse 8 and the instruction that is given there.

Fathers are here instructed in what they are to say to their children when asked about the significance of the various practices in keeping the Passover. The father is to tell the inquiring child, this is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. Can I suggest to you that this is probably one of the most important texts in the Old Testament? Now, it may not sound like it at first reading, but let me suggest to you that this is one of the most important texts in the Old Testament. The Father is to tell the inquiring child, in response to the question the child brings to him with respect to the practices attached to the Passover, This is what we do because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.”

Now, I want you to drop down to verse 14. Observe there that the same pattern of question and response recurs. But there is a difference, where in verse 8 there is used the first person singular pronoun, In verse fourteen, there is the use of the objective case of the first person plural pronoun. With a powerful hand, the father responds, the Lord brought us, plural, us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. It seems now that the child himself is included in what the father has to say. Now, it may well be argued that, yes, indeed, there is more in view here, that the plural pronoun in verse 14 brings into view all of Israel, and that is certainly true.

At the same time, the passage is speaking about the dedication of the firstborn of Israel who were spared in the Passover, and it seems to indicate that there might be special reference here with regard to the child himself, the child who is making inquiries so that the father’s responses, including the child, Indeed, with a powerful hand, the Lord brought up,” yes, you and me, your father, you, the child, out of Egypt from the house of slavery. But next we might ask, what if the father and the son in view here live not in the fifteenth century B.C., when the first Passover occurred? but say in the seventh century during the great Josian reform when the Passover was reinstituted? Would that father say the same things to his son in that seventh century context? Would he speak to his son the same way in that seventh century B.C. context as the father of that fifteenth century B.C. did to his son?

Would he say specifically the very same words? The answer to that is yes. He would speak with the same directness. He would speak with the very same pronouns. He would speak with the same immediacy. He would speak as though he, with his son, were as much present in those events of the first Passover, as were that father and son who witnessed those events.

In other words, it doesn’t matter how far removed that Jewish father and son are from the saving events of the Exodus and that first Passover. By this exchange between father and son, these Jews, these Israelites, are trained to think of themselves as present and as participants in the events.

This is what the dynamic then, the dynamic that is at work in the covenant, does. It actually overcomes space and time. It brings those who are blessed in it and by it into direct contact with the redemptive realities of the history of revelation. And it is specifically within this covenantal frame that God’s authority then rests upon His covenantal people and subsequently disciplines them. Now, as I said, we are dealing here with the dynamics at work in the covenantal frame.

Yes, we observe it in the Old Testament, but this pattern finds its culmination in the New Testament. Before we then look at Mark 2, 1 through 12 one last time, and specifically along these lines, we might do well to look to the Apostle Paul, that New Testament Jew who was very conscious of the very things that we have seen in Exodus 13 and also Deuteronomy 6. I have in mind what Paul says in his letter to the Galatians. First of all, I direct your attention to the twentieth verse of the second chapter, and those famous words I am crucified with Christ.”

Can you see how these words by Paul in Galatians 2.20 parallel what we found in Exodus 13, mirrored in the last part of Deuteronomy 6?

Is it not obvious to us that Paul cannot speak as if he were present at Christ’s crucifixion. He was not there. And in light of that historical truth, it seems as if his words are foolish. Since not only was he not at Calvary, he obviously has never died. Yet he says, I am crucified with Christ. He speaks, therefore, as if he were included in the event. He speaks as if he were present at the crucifixion, and not only present in the crucifixion, but present in Christ when Christ died. It’s the dynamics of the covenant at work, what we saw with respect to that Old Testament revelation, seeing its culmination here in the New.

Now we match what we find in Galatians 2.20 with what we find in Galatians 6.14, where Paul speaks of his boast in the cross, through which the world was crucified to him and he to the world. Paul will draw all believers into this dynamic understanding of the covenant in many places throughout his writing. but none more dramatically as he does in Romans 6 and in Colossians 3, where he speaks of us who are believers as dying with Christ, but also rising with him in his resurrection, so that we might walk in newness of life.

The pattern of biblical authority is such that it sees us living in vital connection to God’s great saving acts, and disciplined by those acts and by the atmosphere which those acts create. We are living in a new world, in a new environment, which has, in effect, been constituted through the saving works of God.

We are dynamically related to those events as participants in them, and these events define our existence. They determine what we are, who we are, what we are all about. but as it is with the definitive acts to which the biblical drama moves, such as the exodus in the Old Testament, such as the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the new, so also with the constitutive acts that serve as exposition of the drama as a whole.

The story of the paralytic is expository. It is expository of the drama. and it is to be appreciated within the covenantal frame with a deep sense of our own participation in what is transpiring. We become participants in the story, in the drama. That is what the covenant does. We are drawn within the text for an exposition of our life as the people of God. Here, in this specific text, we are brought face-to-face with the Christ who presides in his house through his word, into which he gathers a great multitude.” Verses 1 and 2.

Through this house, the Church, in its various capacities, brings those incapable and unfit in themselves, like the paralytic, that they might be confronted with the Christ. This the Church does, giving evidence of its faith in Jesus Christ the One who has the power to transform. This faith, specifically being trained to look beyond the earthly administration, or that earthly administration that could never do to the house where God meets man what these men do to this house. This faith which the Church is to express is further disciplined by the gift bestowed upon it, namely the forgiveness of sins. A gift which is preeminent, foremost. A gift which is preeminent and foremost specifically because it can only be perceived and appropriated by faith. It’s the only way. The man is lying there. Is there any change in the man? obvious to the eye, there’s none. He doesn’t look any different. He’s still lying there on his bed.

If the gift has been received, it is a gift that is received by faith, and by faith only. It is a gift that is perceived by faith, and by faith only. But note that this gift is granted by one whose true identity can only be grasped by faith. The scribes don’t see it, the scribes don’t understand it. It is only faith that is perceived to receive the full revelation of this one who is revealing himself.

He looks like another man. but he declares himself to be the glorious Son of Man, who has power on earth to forgive sins. Such faith then looks away from appearances, and is brought to see in the identity of the one who forgives sins, that one who has gloriously condescended, namely God Himself, to make Himself the Savior of sinners who must be lowered themselves to meet Him. who must come down in order to meet Him at the level to which He has descended to meet them. The Church, therefore, lives by faith, and as the story concludes itself, lives by faith waiting for the full disclosure of our glorious God in that healing, mainly in that resurrection of the body. to the wonder and the praise of a great host. A resurrection and a healing, I might add, that is as certain as the rising of that paralytic from his bed.

Our life is in the text. Our life, not just individually, but corporately as the people of God. In fact, our entire history is in this text. running the gamut from the conception of the Church to the consummation of the age and the resurrection of the body. Here, in these verses, we find the pattern of New Testament authority played out for us, with us then addressed in the most direct fashion. No, it is not a mere matter of the text to which we must then supply our application. Rather, it is a matter of our participation covenantally in the text, that text that has a sufficiency and an application in and of itself.

Our God, we realize that there are things that may in fact be hard for us to understand. There are things set before us in your word that we are slow to grasp, but we pray, Father, that we might indeed treat your word as we should, trained by you through your Spirit to that end. Father, may we not misappropriate than your Word, but may we grab hold of it as you would have us to do. More and more, O God, may we see our lives defined by what we find in the Word.

May we submit ourselves to it as we are drawn to it and drawn in it. As we see our identity, yes, with those who are described in the word, but also, and this most importantly, in the Christ who is exalted by that word. May our relationship to Jesus be so direct, so wonderfully intimate, as was his contact with those to whom he ministered while he was here in flesh. May we never think of ourselves as those who have been robbed, because we do not live in the days in which Jesus walked this earth. Instead, our God, may we see ourselves wonderfully blessed, denied nothing, because we are drawn, even at this distance, into those events, so as to be blessed wonderfully by them, to be trained, in fact, with respect to our faith that is called forth by them, Help us, our God, as your people, yes, individually, as we see our lives there set before us, but also as a church, as we would stand as that people that spans the extent of time from the Savior’s first coming to his second, from his resurrection, in fact, to our own in the body. We pray it.

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.